Chapter 19A

Monday. Monday of my last week in New York.

I awoke with Martha and her alarm. While she was in the bathroom I was in the kitchen with a big towel wrapped around my waist, getting the coffee started and filling a sink with soapy water to clean up last night's coffee and cake dishes. While I stood waiting for the sink to fill, I thought: What the hell should I do today, find something interesting or just go crazy waiting for the week to pass?

While I had my forearms sunk into the soapsuds, Martha drifted toward the kitchen with half-closed eyes, wearing her thin bathrobe. She set her handful of cosmetics on the dining table, floated drowsily across the kitchen to me at the sink, put her arms around me from behind and leaned limply against me for a moment.

I said, up to my elbows in the suds, "Good morning."

She said, "Umph." She gave me a kiss on the neck then stepped to the shower stall and started the water going. I heard water for a long moment and twisted my head around to look behind me. Martha stood outside the shower stall, looking sleepily down at herself as she struggled with the tangled cloth rope of her bathrobe.

I offered, "Need help getting into the shower?"

She shook her head no, her blonde and auburn curls wagging over her eyes. She smiled. She joked primly, "No. And no watching. We're not married." She opened the robe and eyed me seductively while she dropped it to the floor, then she slipped naked into the shower and drew the plastic shower cloth closed, deliberately slow, peeking at me with a teasing smirk.

I returned to dishwashing. I thought: she's beautiful, she's smart, she's funny, she's... she's going to be a thousand miles away in seven days.

After finishing the dishes I donned my running shorts and shoes in the bedroom. I had taken to not wearing my glasses on my run; they kept sliding downward on my sweaty face. On my way out Martha was drying in the kitchen, so I detoured to her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Going for my run. Be right back."

"Okay."

Outside, I broke into a trot that became faster with my rising anger and frustration. By the time I hit Central Park I was running faster and harder. I dashed across the meadow beside the Metropolitan and then across the clearing behind it, and into a meadow, and I ran harder and harder, getting out of breath but still running. And when my lungs and ankles and legs began to burn, I slowed gradually. In a small clearing I stopped moving and got onto my hands and knees, hanging my head down and letting blood flow back into my head, panting and coughing.

It was a greater distance and faster pace than I'd yet attained. But I was truly tired and overheated. Sweat poured from me, my lungs hurt. I grunted and wheezed. Finally, I sat in the grass. I had to talk to myself aloud. I chanted, "Take it easy. Take it easy, goddammit. Take it easy."

Once rested, I got to my feet and kept up a moderate pace on my way out of the park. Nearing Martha's street again, I felt the uplifting effect of the controlled run kicking in; I was still anxious, but now I felt like doing something more constructive about it. By the time I returned to Martha's I recovered, at least physically, but I dripped sweat. Martha stood by the dining table drinking her coffee and buttoning up. She looked trim and fresh and dangerously pretty in a starched white blouse and a charcoal gray, straight, calf-length skirt with a glossy black belt. Her hair was pinned back neatly. She was radiant, from her sexy head to her sexy toes.

She gave me a sympathetic look as I closed the front door and walked toward her. She said, "Oh, you look so hot and tired!"

"Who, me?"

She picked up her coffee cup and sipped. "Ran too hard again, hm?"

I stepped to the shower stall and yanked my sweaty t-shirt over my head. "Nope. Just ran longer."

She finished her coffee and looked down to step into her glossy black heels. "Let's not overdo anything, now."

"Who, me?" I breathed hard, continuing to undress for my shower.

She gave me a wry smile as she walked across the kitchen to me. "You have plans for yourself today? I want you to keep yourself busy, don't just sit around and get into a bad mood." She kissed me on the cheek. "Hear me?"

I nodded and gave her a little smile.

"All right," she said, looking at me with sisterly concern. Then she headed for her briefcase by the door. "Call me today. Let me know how you're doing."

"Okay."

She stopped at the front door and beamed at me. "I can hardly wait for winter, just so I can wear that beautiful coat." She blew me a kiss on her way out.

I showered quickly, stayed wrapped in a bath towel while I made my super protein drink, quickly, and drank it while I put the leftover birthday cakes in their paper boxes. I knew I should avoid coffee, but I wanted more of a lift; I poured myself a cup and sipped at it while I searched through yesterday's Sunday Times.

An article about a new book on parent-child relationships in the Book Review caught my eye. Then there was a minimum-charge lecture series on the Beat movement at the CCNY Center near Times Square.

For weeks I'd been exploring New York's bookstores and lecture series. But now, for my last week, I'd spend less time shopping around and more time getting into the details of all the new thought and information that I could get my hands on. I didn't have much cash for toys or gadgets that I could take home with me, but I was determined to bring back to Memphis all of the new information I could get my hands on. In my spiral notebook I jotted down places to go, books to look for, bookstores to visit.

I dressed hurriedly, ready for the fray. I put one of the birthday cakes in a shopping bag, and on my way downstairs I stopped to knock at Ronnie's door. She answered, looking fresh and edible in her blue-gray business suit.

I said, "Here's your cake."

"Wow, I'll never eat that whole thing. I'll bring it to the office. It'll disappear in five minutes."

I left her with the bag and started to leave.

"Hey," she said. "Didn't you forget something?"

I dashed back to give her a kiss on the cheek.

She said, "Wanna meet for lunch?"

"Well, I'm -- I have so much I was going to do."

"That's okay. Tomorrow then, our regular Tuesday."

I insisted, jumpy and ready to go. "Ronnie, I hate to turn you down, but -- "

"Hey, hey! Stop all that, it's okay. I can see you're ready for the big race, or whatever. God, you're so apologetic. Just gimme one more..." She stuck out her head for another kiss, and I gave her one. She grinned at me. "Tomorrow, hot stuff. Get goin'."

As I hurried down the stairs she called to me, "And slow down. You're already breaking out in a sweat!"

The lecture on Albert Camus was at ten at CCNY. For three bucks I sat in on a fascinating ninety minute presentation of the man whose ideas were completely new to me. But they were a revelation. I hung onto the speaker's every word, taking copious notes in the binder I'd bought in the center's book store.

I left the lecture in a state of shock. Camus wasn't the happiest thinker around in those days, but he made a lot more sense than the heroic optimism being forced down my throat by parents and the likes of Boy's Life magazine. The speaker frequently referred to existentialism as "depressing", but I found it energizing because it made sense, it addressed what I was rapidly coming to recognize as my own loss of innocence, my own inability (refusal?) to accept snake oil from the pulpits of Memphis.

I dashed from CCNY to the subway and then to a row of psychology bookstores in the West Village. I had little money for the books I found there, and I was dismayed to find that the cost of the books I found listed in the Times would have wrecked my budget. But I saw that browsing was allowed, so I browsed for more than two hours, skimming tables of contents rapidly and racing over the pages as fast as I could, soaking it up. My head raced from one revelation to another, gulping down paragraphs at a glance. I found references to child-parent bonding, child-parent separation anxieties, and on and on and on. Something I'd never crossed in Memphis libraries were brief references to incest. For some reason I found myself scouring this material hungrily and searching for more. The subject was both arousing and disturbing. But instead of images of my mother, I kept associating the subject with Martha and Ronnie and myself. In all the books, one subject that was always missing: how guys grew up without a father. Apparently, no kid in 1957 had lost a dad during a war; all families had two kids, two parents in 1957 -- according to the literature.

In the late afternoon I was so lost in thought that I found myself at my subway stop at East 86th Street without remembering how I got there. In Martha's apartment I somehow fixed a salad for dinner and set it up on the dining room table while remaining oblivious to what I was doing.

When I heard Martha trudging up the stairs, I was amazed that the day had passed so quickly. It seemed that my brain had absorbed years of startling, energizing, explosive revelations in only five minutes!

Martha entered looking dispirited as usual after a day at work, but she gave me a little smile. She set her briefcase down by the door. "Hello. You didn't call. What happened?"

I walked to her. "Sorry, I -- I got all wrapped up in a couple of bookstores, and had to hurry home at the last minute." I gave her a little kiss.

"Well, you shouldn't promise you'll call and then not do it. You know I get worried."

"It won't happen again."

She gave me a mild frown. "Uh-huh." She unbuttoned her blouse and headed for the bedroom. "I guess you'll never stop doing it."

"Yes, ma'am."

She stopped near the bedroom door, unbuttoning her blouse. "And Howard called me. I'm going out there Wednesday. But only for a little while." She looked at me. "A little while, understand? I made him promise, I told him I can't just leave you here alone until two A.M. again. But once the school year starts in a few days, I probably won't see him again for months. He keeps three teaching jobs to afford that house in Kew Gardens."

"Okay," I said.

She glanced at me, frowning. "Is that all right?"

"Yes, ma'am," I lied. Then I clamped my mouth and my brain shut about the matter.

I sat at the dining table waiting for her. I'd said "Yes ma'am," "Yes, ma'am," as if I were talking to my put-upon mother in Memphis, or an aunt. The patterns were becoming clearer in my mind. As Martha sat across from me and ate her salad I found myself staring at her, at Martha, at mother, father, teacher, staring less as Steven but more as Speedy the dependent, obedient boy. At Martha, the anima, at Carl Jung's Terrible Mother; at her devastating erotic power. At...

She said, "Why are you staring at me like that?"

I blinked. "Sorry."

"You have such a look on your face." She chewed and then wiped her lips. "So what kept you busy today? Bookstores?"

"Yeah. Down in the Village."

"Really? Well, tell me about it. What are you getting your cute little head into?"

"I don't know yet."

She looked at me and breathed a surprised, curious laugh. "Don't know? Hon, what are you up to this time?"

"Learning everything I can. A week to take everything I can back to Memphis with me. Ammunition for Memphis."

"Well... That's not a bad idea, I suppose. Learning about what?" She took a bite.

"Everything."

Her eyes widened, and she gulped quickly. "Oh, my. Good luck." She stopped to swallow again. "Hon, don't try to take on so much. You always push so hard."

"I don't have much time."

"No, not now, not this week, not *that* much time. But in general, you do. You never have time when you try to do everything at once."

I looked down at my plate. There were a least five thousand things I wanted to say, to ask, and all of them stuck in my throat. They were all too big, all too vast and incomprehensible now.

She said gently, "Look, we didn't plan anything tonight. I have some work to do, but we really need to just rest. And we can talk."

Later, she sat up in bed in her thin, light blue bathrobe with a small stack of papers in her lap, browsing and marking them. I slid into bed naked, fresh from a cooling shower.

I said, "Why are you still grading papers? Isn't this the summer recess?"

"This is one of my many extra jobs, hon. I don't earn enough from teaching during the school year to afford a summer off. But this project is almost wrapped up. Then the regular year gets under way."

I lay on my side facing her, my eyelids getting heavy.

She glanced at me. "Here, I'll get rid of these. I can't do any more tonight, anyway." She brought the papers into the living room and came back to turn off the light, and she slid into bed and sat up against the headboard. She reached out and put an arm around my head, resting her hand on my shoulder.

She said, "So what's all this you did today?"

"Went through a lot of books."

"About what?"

"Oh... went to a lecture on Camus."

"Mm," she said, impressed. "Yes, I know about Camus. And did you get anything out of it?"

I thought for a moment. "There's only us. Me. Everything's up to me."

She said quietly, "Yes." She stroked my shoulder. "You spent all day on existentialism?"

I shook my head no.

"What else, then?"

"Went to a book store."

"And?"

"Looked through a dozen books."

"On what?"

"... Growing up. Parent-child. Parent-teacher."

"Oh, my. Steven, what's all that about? Why are you -- ?" She stopped. She said softly, "Oh. I see."

I glanced up at her.

She was smiling gently. She said again, "I see."

I moved closer to her and laid my face between her breasts. Her nipples stood out against the thin fabric. I asked her, "Do you still see me as Speedy?"

"Sometimes."

I was quiet.

She said, "There will always be that Speedy in you, hon. And I'm glad it will be. I hope it never goes away."

I said, "But I'm not Speedy any more."

She whispered, "I know."

I didn't say anything. I thought. I thought and thought.

She said, "Do you still see me as Martha Jane? Martha Jane of 246-D Exchange Street, in the Lauderdale Courts?"

I thought about that, too. I said, "Sometimes. I guess."

"But I'm Martha now. I'm still Martha Jane, too. And you're Steven, and you're Speedy. It all runs together. But when it comes to whom we've grown into, whom we have to be, I have to be and act as Martha from now on. And you have to be and act as Steven." She idly stroked my shoulder again. She said, "I loved Speedy. If there hadn't been a Speedy, there wouldn't be a Steven here now. I wouldn't have a Steven to make coffee, to give me a beautiful coat. To put his mouth on my breasts. To say he loves me."

My head was swimming. I made a quiet sigh; it felt as if it were all taking my breath away. I said, "Camus said that when you lose that innocence you were born with, you never go back. We waste our lives and our minds trying to hold onto it."

"Yes. What he doesn't say is that you start all over again, and starting all over is a new innocence. It's being innocent again. And again. Over and over again." She snuggled lower, pulling me closer to her and hugging my head to her breast, and she stroked my hair. For a long moment we were both quiet. Then she said wistfully, "We've crossed many lines, you and I. Most of the time, I've led you by the hand. I brought you with me. I was frightened, you were frightened. But you came along anyway. You were always there with me, because there was something in both of us that was alike, that needed to rebel. And I've wondered, sometime, if I robbed you of that innocence along the way. I rebelled against everything, everyone, and I felt wicked, always so wicked. I still do. But we were so much alike, Steven. We could never have done anything that we've done, if we weren't so much alike. Everything we've done, and learned, and looked for, we left one state of innocence behind and looked for the next one. And the next one. And the next. I don't know where the next one will take us. I don't know what will change. But something will change. There will be a new line. We'll be as innocent as we were when we started." She hugged me again. "I have felt wicked. But not guilty. I know what you've been reading, what you've been looking at. I think I know where you're going with it. And I know it will help you understand me -- us. I can't just explain it to you, who we are. Or why. I can tell you something Camus said. He said, 'Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence.' And so we keep going back to it. Always going back, whatever we do."