Scott Spencer: Endless Love

I know we will probably never see each other again. I look at loving you as living outside the law and I never want to do that again. I’ve lost a part of my nerve and it’s just as well because that kind of recklessness only leaves room for itself. Everything else is blown away. We could never have a life. It seems so strange to tell you, but I still believe in our love and still love you. Yet I’ve put it aside, truly and forever, and will never see you again.

I had no more mail from Jade for the next year. I didn’t write back to her, save for a pictureless postcard thanking her for writing to me. I didn’t write to Ann and I did my best not to think of any of them, which meant I tried not to think of them all day long. The only visitors I received were Arthur and Rose, but they no longer came as regularly as before. As I felt their visits becoming more infrequent, I asked them only to come once a month, and that made everything a lot easier for all of us.

I remained on Lithium, there was no talk of making me an outpatient, but my progress was good. Sometimes I thought I had merely adjusted to my situation, become so familiar with the longing and disorientation that I didn’t notice it in the same way. Other times I was absolutely sure I was getting better. But, if someone were to have asked me what that meant—my getting better—I don’t know what I could have answered. My goals were very modest: I wanted to get through the days without the crunch of emotion. In a strange and gradual way, I was adjusting to the life of a madman.

And then one day what was left of the bottom dropped out. It was February 1, 1976, and my parents had braved a blizzard to come out for their visit. Arthur wore a black Russian fur hat and when he took it off and shook out the snow, I saw he had lost nearly all of the hair in the center of his skull and the long hair on the sides had turned dull silver: he looked nicely distinguished, like a delegate at an international conference of trade unionists. He had lost bulk; his cheekbones showed now and though he wore his plaid wool shirt buttoned at the top, it hung loosely around his throat. Rose looked positively ravishing. The cold had painted her cheeks a dark raspy pink and the nervousness of the day enlarged her eyes. She wore fashionable leather boots, a gray skirt, and a turtleneck sweater; she smoked a cigarette in an Aqua-filter and exhaled the smoke in a long smooth upward stream that pierced the sunlight like a spear.

“I bet you thought we wouldn’t make it,” said Arthur, embracing me.

Rose stood at the window, looking out at the weather, probably wondering if the storm would perversely institutionalize her for the night. Now, when one of my parents spoke, the other looked away and gave no evidence of listening, the way people do when a foreign language is being spoken.

“You know what I was thinking about today?” I began, when we’d settled in. “My first day at Hyde Park High. You guys took me shopping at Polk Brothers a week before and I insisted on buying a pair of red pants. They were sort of like jeans, but not really. Like khaki, but red. No one wore red trousers; I’d never even seen a pair. I thought you were both being very easygoing, letting me buy them. And when I chose them to wear for my first day at school neither of you said a word—I remember I was a little worried, thinking you might stop me. But God, did I suffer for wearing them.” I laughed; Rose and Arthur looked uneasy, like two claustrophobes in an elevator. They’d come to speak of other things and I’m sure they thought it wasn’t a Good Sign that I was talking about my first day in high school. “I was stuck with a reputation. I was the boy with the red pants for the entire year, though I never wore those fucking pants again. And I was thinking today how a little thing like that can temper your whole life, how it can tilt the way people see you and how that influences the way you see yourself, how it circumscribes the arc of your behavior. It’s amazing you let me go to school with those pants on. Maybe you thought it was something boys my age commonly wore? Was that it?” I looked at Rose.

“I have no idea,” she said. “I don’t remember what you wore on your first day of high school.”

“Well, I do,” I said, with a small, defeated grin. “Red pants. Redder than any apple. Much, much redder than blood.”

“We have some news about Jade Butterfield,” Rose said.

“What is it?” I said. My anxiety was instant and total. I sat with my legs a few inches apart, my hands on my knees, leaning forward. I heard the wind and, from somewhere, a radio: it was the Kinks singing “Lola.”

“You have to realize it’s for the best, though I’m sure you do,” said Arthur. Had he thought my mother had already told me, or did he want to skip over the announcement and go straight to the consolation?

“What’s happened to her?” I said. I’d never felt so insubstantial; only words separated me from immeasurable sorrow. She’s been in an accident. She’s dying. She’s dead. It would end my life.

“Nothing’s happened to her,” said Rose. “Except that she’s found herself a husband.”

“We got an announcement in the mail,” Arthur said. “I don’t know who sent it. It wasn’t signed.”

“Do you have it? Give it to me.”

“I forgot it,” said Rose. “It doesn’t say anything. She’s marrying a Frenchman. We couldn’t decide if he was French or American.”

“Where is it?”

“I told you. We didn’t bring it. It was just a very simple card. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cheaper-looking wedding announcement in my whole life. Not that nice old-fashioned fancy print most people use.”

I felt the beginnings of relief that nothing had happened to Jade but the comfort was devastated as soon as it appeared.

Rose was continuing: “All it said was Mr. and Mrs. Denis Edelman blah blah blah the marriage of their son François to Jade Butterfield. Then the name of some synagogue in Paris, France.”

“When?”

“A month ago,” said Arthur. “On January fourth.”

“And you’ve known?”

“We just got the card a few days ago,” Arthur said.

“I don’t even know who sent it,” Rose said. “But I thought you should know anyhow.”

I stood up. Even the slight motion made the room race. I faced my parents; my father sat very still, absolutely erect; my mother was tapping her foot and glancing at it. I wanted to throw myself before them, to create a miraculous moment of family and comfort. I felt very weak and very ugly.

“Help me,” I said, bowing my head. I felt my knees going weak and I wanted to fall, but I wouldn’t.

“Help you?” said Rose. “I don’t understand, David. I just don’t get it. What can I do?” She looked at Arthur, her eyes at once frightened and annoyed.

“What’s past is past,” Arthur said, in a murmur. “There’s no turning back. Forgive me for this, David, but I only hope she’s happy.”

“What can I do to help you?” Rose said. “I ask you. I’ve never known. Just tell me. You ask me for help and I don’t know what to do. You’re talking about red pants from twelve years ago, you’re white as a sheet, and I don’t know what to do for you anymore, if I ever did, to be perfectly honest.”

I was sorry I’d said it. I drew myself up and tried to look masterly. It cleared my mind to take a long, deep breath. I walked to the window. I saw a boy named Howard Kerr, dressed in his unvarying black, walking with his parents toward their car in the visitors’ parking lot. The Kerrs walked with their arms around each other while Howard walked in front, his head down, jacketless and hugging himself, his long hair dancing.

“It is for the best,” I said. I watched the Kerrs getting into their LTD. Howard brushed the snow off their windshield with his forearm. “I mean it’s a relief. Otherwise, there’d probably always be a question. I feel a weight being lifted off of me, I already feel it.” I listened to my parents breathing behind me; my legs were aching from the tightness of my muscles. Mr. Kerr rolled his window down and Howard stepped back, bent at the knee to speak. The exhaust from the car darkened the snow to pale ash. Mrs. Kerr’s long red fingernails appeared at the open window, waving goodbye. The car pulled away and Howard stood and watched as the taillights disappeared into the haze of the storm.