Gilbert Sorrentino - A Strange Commonplace

And at the meeting, Lawless had given him most of Nassau County, a goddamn gold mine, Thermo-Fax couldn’t ship the machines fast enough to keep up with the orders, not to mention the copy paper. He wanted to surprise Anna with the news, something fresh and good for a change, but now it was all spoiled. She locked the kid out? And in her fur coat, what the hell is that about? She was probably at her sister’s, what a piece of work she was with her dumb cop of a husband. He could see Anna now, sitting at the kitchen table, pissing and moaning about what a son of a bitch he was and swilling beer.

Anna went into the first saloon she saw, a place called the Melody Room, and sat at the bar. It looked like a decent enough place, and there was another woman at the bar with her husband probably. Just the three of them on this Monday night. She ordered a Seven and Seven and bought a pack of Chesterfields from the machine near the phone booth. She staggered a little, and after she finished the drink, knew that she was pretty well gone. “He doesn’t love me any more,” she said to the bartender. “Take it easy, sweetheart,” the bartender said, “just take it easy.” She nodded and ordered another drink and then another in what seemed like a minute. The couple at the end of the bar was looking at her, and then the man walked over and picked her fur coat up from the floor. “The floor’s not exactly clean, Miss,” he said. “He won’t sleep with me any more,” she whispered to him. “He won’t, you know, do anything with me any more.” She was crying.

Jack called her sister, but Anna wasn’t there. The bitch was pleased to hear that she’d just left. “Maybe you’ll get home for supper now once in a while before midnight,” she said. “Mind your fucking business,” he said and hung up.

The couple at the bar lived on the same street as Jack and Anna, and the husband suggested that he take Anna home, she was really tight, he told his wife, not making any sense, and might get in trouble alone like that. “I always thought she was a drunk,” his wife said, although this was the first time that either of them had seen her anywhere near drunk, the first time, for that matter, that they’d ever seen her in a bar. “I really think I ought to take her home,” he said, “it’s a fifteen-minute walk and I’ll be back in no time.” His wife looked at him. “We’ll go together,” she said, “we’ll both go.” He laughed and shook his head.

“Christ, what the hell do you think I’m gonna do? What do you think I am?” She smiled knowingly at him, an infuriating smile, smug and aggrieved. At that moment, whatever trust that still existed in their marriage disappeared.

While Jack thanked his neighbors, Anna was telling them what a big shot salesman he was, how he could lay the law down to the branch manager, he was fearless, a hero, that’s why he had this great territory in East Flatbush and Canarsie, where there were maybe five businesses, but he was such a tough guy that he couldn’t bear to scare the boss by complaining, by quitting, God no! But he was great at meetings, oh! those meetings! He spent so much time after work at those meetings! tell them about the meetings, Jack. Jack thought of how sweet it would be to strangle her right there, watch her turn blue, the fucking cunt. The couple backed away, nodding and smiling, then turned and walked off. “Come in the house, you drunk bitch,” Jack said. “Get in the fucking house before I kill you!” He pushed her in the door and slammed it. “Joey out in the cold and dark with his shoes falling off,” he said. “Oh, really,” Anna said, “now you know what I put up with all day, every all day.” “You’re his mother!” Jack shouted.

“She must be miserable with that guy to talk that way in front of strangers,” the husband said. “And what about him?” his wife said, “married to a drunk who just walks out whenever she pleases it looks like? Don’t they have a little boy? And did you see that dress she had on? Not much left to the imagination there.” “It looked all right to me,” he said, “that green dress you have looks like that.” “It does not,” she said, “not a bit! Looks all right to you! Maybe you’d like to take her out for a drink some time.” “Oh, for the love of Jesus,” he said. But he would, indeed, like to take her out for a drink, and a lot more. There was something lost and sweet in her face that appealed to him.

Jack pulled Anna into the living room and then saw the shards of the teapot on the floor, the teapot that Mom had given them for their first anniversary. She broke the teapot! Mom had told them that she’d looked for something really lovely and found it in Chinatown, and hinted that it had been very expensive. This was a lie, and he knew it. His mother had bought it in a local hardware store.

He turned to Anna and said, “You don’t give a damn about anything, do you? Joey, me, my mother,

your

mother, not a goddamn thing,” and then hit her across the face with the back of his hand and hit her again. She fell down and sprawled against the sofa, bleeding from her nose and mouth. “You bitch!” he shouted, “you mean drunk bitch! And I

got

the Nassau County territory, not that you give a shit!” At that moment, in Jack’s righteous mind, there had been no other women he’d slept with, certainly no Jenny, who had ceased to exist: he was understanding and faithful and self-sacrificing and noble. There was only Anna, who had no faith in him, who was a bad wife and a bad mother and a drunk trying to pick up men at a gin mill. He helped her roughly up from the floor and prodded her up the stairs in front of him. “Clean your face — and take that dress off, you look like a cheap whore!” He put his hand on the small of her back and pushed her into the bedroom. She fell again and sat slumped against the footboard of the bed, whimpering, bubbles of bloody mucus at each nostril. Her legs were thrust out before her, her legs open, and her dress had slipped to her upper thighs. He looked at her, instantly aroused, got down on the floor, and raped her.

I GOT TIRED AND BORED LISTENING TO HIM TELL ME about the afternoon, a few weeks ago, that his homburg, a ridiculous mouse-gray hat that made him look like a file clerk masquerading as a lawyer, blew off his head at Rockefeller Center, and rolled across the street to stop directly in front of a woman who picked it up and waited for him to cross over and claim it. I’d be ashamed to claim it, but that’s neither here nor there. The woman turned out to be someone he’d known in high school, a lovely girl whom he’d secretly adored. That was thirty-five years ago. They recognized each other, even though his hair was graying, and she’d put on about fifty pounds. She looked prosperous and beautifully groomed, and wore a camel’s hair polo coat with what he called “a reckless swagger.” It was a phrase he must have got from a magazine on how to live and what to do to be happy. They talked, and he asked her if she had time for a drink, so they went into a bar off Sixth Avenue. It was at about this point in his story that I more or less stopped listening, so I don’t know, with any accuracy, what happened next, although it’s possible that he became hesitant and coy with me about the rest of the afternoon.

It doesn’t matter to me at all. He did say, and of this I’m fairly sure, that the woman remarked that not many men wear homburgs anymore, and that it made

him

look distinguished. Or maybe he said that she said “but” it made

him

look distinguished. I’m also sure that she told him that she’d been divorced for almost five years, her husband having left her for his twenty-six-year-old secretary. What a perfect situation for total disaster. I didn’t mention this, of course: he was stupidly seventeen again and smitten.