Robert Coover - John's Wife

Where were those two scamps? They were up in the air with Bruce and Nevada, not quite in outer space, but, as Clarissa put it: “Far out!” It had started as an ordinary highspeed joyride, but Clarissa had insisted Bruce put his sports jet through all its tricks, and so they’d climbed and rolled and looped and dived and then skimmed the whole next county in about ten seconds flat! It was unreal! Uncle Bruce and Nevada sat together up front, and it was easy to see how much in love they were, the way they couldn’t stop touching each other, Nevada especially — Bruce, who was dressed in silky soft army clothes, acted cool like he always did, but Nevada seemed crazy in love, and she and Jen were getting excited, just watching them. Uncle Bruce said you had to be careful, speed was a kind of addiction, “an escape from meat,” as a woman he once knew liked to say, she was so hooked on it, she came all apart each time she put her feet back on the ground again, she seemed constantly to be fluttering and spinning then like those little plastic whirligigs until she could get back up in motion again, just watching her in a closed room made you dizzy. “Was that Marie-Claire?” Clarissa asked, and Uncle Bruce smiled (sadly, she thought) and said: “Well, yes, I guess it was.” “But if you do get addicted,” Jen asked, “how do you stop?” “You learn its opposite,” said Bruce, almost as though he’d expected her question. “A sort of counter-addiction.” “Woo, sounds real Zen,” Jennifer said, making Bruce and Nevada laugh, though Clarissa knew it was just something she’d got from her mother. Bruce took them on a series of rolls then that made the earth whip round and round about them like he had it on a string. “Wowee! This is awesome!” shrieked Clarissa, and Jen agreed but said she was a little woozy. “Oh Jen!” Clarissa complained. “Don’t grinch us out! This is fun! More, Uncle Bruce!” “Well, if Jennifer’s not feeling well,” said Nevada, suddenly very concerned, and Uncle Bruce eased up. “How are you doing, kid?” “I’m all right,” said Jen, though she didn’t sound like it. Was this a trick? They seemed to pay her a lot more attention now. “Maybe you’d like to work the controls,” Bruce suggested, and Clarissa jumped up and said “Oh yes!” and beat her to it; from the greenish look on Jen’s face, she was probably doing her a favor. “Daddy always lets me fly his plane, sitting on his lap,” she lied — her father was pretty strict about the rules, though he did promise to teach her someday — and she popped herself on Bruce’s silky lap as though she knew exactly what to do, and, more or less, she did, she’d been watching closely and she was a fast learner. She felt very cool and, though she didn’t attempt anything crazy, she didn’t just fly in a straight line either. Meanwhile, she was very much aware of where her bottom was and, though she had never thought of it as a tactile organ before, she used it now as a kind of fat clumsy cartoon hand, very thinly gloved, and as she put the plane through its swoops and turns, she squeezed and pinched and scooted back and forth, until Uncle Bruce said he thought that was enough, they’d better get Jennifer back on the ground again, and he seemed a little ticked off, but he did give her a friendly smack and then left his hand there as he lifted her off his silky lap, she pretending she was having too much fun flying to stop, almost like she was already getting an addiction, so as to keep his hand pressed there as long as possible, but then she made a mistake and turned them upside-down when she didn’t mean to and that ended it. But her bottom was still tingling with the dreamy memory of what it had been holding on to when Nevada dropped them off at the mall and they found Granny Opal all alone at a table inside, looking like she was not having the best time of her life. So she and Jen bought her a cherry mush and diet colas with lemon slices for themselves and explained that Uncle Bruce came by and gave them a drive in a super new rig he was trying out, it was really neat, and they elaborated on that to make it sound real, but they didn’t really have to, she didn’t even seem to notice they’d been gone, and then she told them about the photographer getting arrested and, though she didn’t tell it very well, she and Jen laughed at everything Granny Opal said and that seemed to cheer her up and she even ate some of her cherry mush.

When from his second-floor office window in the bank building Trevor saw the rubber-kneed photographer being taken into custody down at the police station, he who had never known delight (this thought had remained with him, steady as pulse) suddenly experienced, like a brief foretaste of that which eluded him, a strange mixture of anguish and exhilaration, both emotions arising from the same realization: He had done this! He who had changed so little had, irreversibly, changed a man’s life, and maybe the lives of everyone in this town! Of course, Gordon had helped, but this scene transpiring in the street below was, in a real sense, Trevor’s own doing, his own, as it were, personal work of art. And his burden: Gordon seemed all but lifeless, as though his spirit had fled, and Trevor’s own heart sank when he saw the state the man was in. Trevor had, on returning yesterday from the spectacle at the mall, determined to end his mad clandestine pursuit of the photographer, but at the same time he had tried to understand what it was he had really been doing. He had been, in some sense, seeking after truth, yes, but of what kind? And to what end? He recalled an economics theory professor he had back at university who held that the central principle of all human interaction was simple raw power, he laced all his lectures with reminders that economics, history, life itself could not be understood without remembering that. He said it was the basis not merely of community order, but also of religious faith, science, and the search for truth, and of course of love, friendship, marriage, and family. There were jokes about the man’s home life and some pointed out he didn’t have tenure yet so no wonder his brain was a bit maggoty on the topic and it was popular to dismiss his lectures by saying that what little power those had was got by jacking directly into Machiavelli (an obscene image was often used to express this), but Trevor found the argument compelling and wondered often at his own powerlessness, which the accretion of knowledge by itself did not seem to overcome. His fascination with the professor came to an end when someone posed the question of the disinterested artist: his answer was along the same lines, but far less convincing, dismissing disinterest as though it were a silly myth, suddenly broadening his definition of power to include things other than the manipulation of other people, and refusing arbitrarily (“Let me teach you something about power,” he joked) to take any more questions on the subject. And now Gordon had, in effect, posed the question again. That question, or its answer, seemed to touch on this matter of delight, as had Gordon himself in an interview published a few years ago in The Town Crier (Trevor had clipped this interview, kept it in his office desk drawer, second down on the right, he was looking at it now): When asked why it was he had taken up the photographic profession, he’d replied, the profession to make a living, the vocation to devote himself to art. But then why not one of the fine arts, painting or sculpture? He was a poor man, his options were few; but his goal remained the same: the pursuit of beauty. But of what use, the interviewer had pressed on, playing the devil’s advocate, is beauty? None at all, the photographer had responded. Nor is there any use for the ecstasy that accompanies its contemplation … Had Gordon known such ecstasy? Trevor did not know, but he did believe that Gordon had chosen a life that made access to that sensation possible, even if it might mean you sometimes ended up running around in pink nightshirts and arousing the displeasure of the police. You could see intimations of it when Gordon worked: it was as though he were unaware of his own being in the world, transforming himself into a mere prism through which the beauty of the world might pass. This intensity: it was something Trevor felt he could never achieve, except perhaps through someone like Gordon, though he had not, when he’d begun this pursuit, foreseen his own active role in shaping its direction. At the time, he was simply fascinated with Gordon’s own covert pursuit of John’s wife — and that was another thing, John’s wife. Had anyone besides himself noticed that she seemed to be vanishing, not as when someone leaves town, but as an image might fade from a photographic print? If so, they were not mentioning it, and Trevor himself was reluctant to bring it up and risk looking the fool, but his old problem of being unable to register her features after seeing them had worsened: he could no longer register them while seeing them. He’d tried to come to some understanding of this by locating and replotting her point on his actuarial graphs, but her point had vanished, too, and he began to wonder if perhaps her disappearance might not have something to do with Gordon’s photographs of her, as though he might, so to speak, be stealing her image. Or was he, aware as Trevor was of her vanishing, trying to preserve it? His pursuit of Gordon had therefore acquired the additional motive — essentially altruistic, but not without its own links to power, beauty, delight — of watching over John’s wife, or at least of trying to understand what was happening to her, and it now occurred to him that the key to that understanding, and perhaps to his entire quest, might well lie in the photographs Gordon had taken of her. Was this the moment, with Gordon under arrest, to have a look at them? He put the interview away, checked his tie, blew on his hat and donned it. He might have accomplished more than he thought with those phone calls! Hastily, he dropped down to the police station to inquire about his friend whom he had seen in some distress, did he need any help, and was told he was only being held until the chief got back, it was no big deal, he’d be home by suppertime. He thanked them, exchanging pleasantries, and left, trying to move without undue haste, but heading straight for the studio; just as he drew near, however, the chief of police came backing out of it, his gray shirt dark with sweat, some books or albums under one arm, keys out to lock the door, so Trevor made an abrupt right turn and took a hopefully casual-seeming stroll around the block, cutting through an alley to shorten the circuit, getting lost briefly (it was as though they’d turned the block around on him — he was overexcited), his own back perspiring by the time he had finally returned. He peered into a display window (toys: perhaps he had a nephew) that reflected the street, having observed the way they did it on TV, and when he’d caught his breath and it seemed safe, he straightened his hat, dropped over (if anyone asked, he was ordering up a photo for Marge’s surprise mayoral campaign, to be announced today), and rang the bell. What would he tell Gordon’s wife? That he’d been taken on as her husband’s legal aide perhaps, she was pretty simple, probably didn’t know an accountant from an attorney, and under the circumstances she would no doubt appreciate any help at all. Just investigating the allegations, ma’am, and I thought it might be a good idea to look at a few photos. No answer. He rang again. Maybe she was down at the station, another break, he tried the door though he knew it was locked, he’d have the place to himself if he could just get in, but he’d have to hurry. There must be other doors. He’d try at the back. But whoa, inspector, walk, don’t run. And stop giggling.