The Clarinet Polka (60 page)

The longer I stood there and watched them, the madder I got. It was all fitting together in my mind—what had really gone down instead of all the lies Connie had been feeding me—and I was seriously thinking about walking up to the door, and kicking it in, and giving that rat-faced little doctor some interesting medical problems of his own. I was, you know, about three times his size. I was also thinking how much fun it might be to take Connie's head and ram it through the wall. It's scary how clear it was in my mind. But then I hit the point where I knew I just wasn't the kind of guy who could do something like that. I was almost sorry I wasn't.

I must have stood there for ten or fifteen minutes. I had time to smoke a couple cigarettes. I don't think I've ever been so mad in my life. Feeling this—this gigantic, unbelievable icy rage. And it wasn't just that she'd lied to me—I mean, she'd lied to her husband, so why shouldn't she lie to me?—but I kept asking myself, just who the hell
are
these people?

People like that, marriage obviously doesn't mean dickshit. Well, she'd told me over and over again it didn't mean dickshit to her, so why hadn't I believed her? And rat face in there, he's got a young wife at home, but she's a little on the plump side, so of course he's got to find somebody else to screw. Only stands to reason, right? And if that somebody else is married, well, who the hell cares? It's getting your rocks off that counts, right?

The way I'd always been taught, your kids come first, but they sure as hell didn't come first with these people. Connie's kids were probably back in Baltimore living with Connie's mother-in-law, or maybe her husband hired somebody to look after them, who knows, but is Connie in Baltimore making some effort at being a mom? No, here she is in St. Stevens screwing some pathetic drunken asshole who used to be a TV repairman, and screwing the doctor who gives her all the nice little pills she can choke down. Yeah, and rat face in there, the guy pumping the pills out, well, he's got a kid at home too. Would these people ever sacrifice anything for their kids? Oh, hell, no. They can't even sacrifice the next drink.

I mean, just who the hell
are
these people? It's been handed to them on a platter their whole lives, and so that's the way they think life is. It's not what they can do for somebody else, it's what they've got coming to them—and what they've got coming to them is anything they want, right when they want it. You have a few kids, well, shit, you can always hire somebody else to look after them for you. Yeah, trained professionals.

So who the hell
are
these people anyway? I don't understand these people. I'll never understand these people. I don't want to understand these people. And when it comes down to the crunch, I hate their guts.

And then I thought, yeah? So who the hell are
you
, Koprowski? You hypocritical piece of shit. You were taught to believe that marriage is a sacrament.

TWENTY-ONE

I went back to the Floss and naturally I got good and loaded, and the next day when I was scraping myself back together, I was still mad—like totally furious—and not just mad at Connie but mad at myself, and I kept thinking, okay, buddy, this is it. So I pawned my stereo. That gave me just enough for gas and smokes and booze and a hamburger or two. I'd have to sleep in my car, but there's a lot worse things than that, and I'd have to do a lot of praying that I wouldn't run into a snowstorm or two, but maybe luck would be with me. I'd hit Austin dead broke, but I knew Jeff would always lend me something until I got on my feet.

What I should have done was started driving west, but no, that was way too simple for me. I'd left a few things at Connie's, and I had to go back and get them. That's what I told myself anyway. But you want to know the real reason? I wanted to get one up on her. I just had to be sure that
she
knew that
I
knew.

I walk in and she's giving me shit because I didn't call first. Don't sweat it, I say, I'm just picking up my things and then I'm gone. “What the hell's the matter with you?” she says. I go, “When'd you start fucking that rat-faced little doctor?”

For a second she looked like I'd slapped her, and she just stands there looking at me. And she just keeps on looking at me. And I'm thinking, hey, she's not going to answer me; she's just going to stand there till I leave or something. And then she says in this absolutely flat, dead voice, “Last spring. It must have been late April, early May.”

I've told you we had lots of practice running the good old drunken fights—you know, your full-tilt, no-holds-barred, pacing-up-and-down-and-kicking-the-furniture fights—and that's what I was expecting, but that's not what was happening. I mean, I tried my best. Yelling at her, calling her a rotten lying slut and every other damn thing, and she just stands there. Finally she says—kind of, you know, disgusted, “Oh, come on, Jim, don't be ridiculous. Do you want a drink? Of course you want a drink.”

Well, it's like screw your mix and ice cubes, let's just get right down to business, so she pours some straight gin into a couple whiskey glasses. She sits down, so I sit down. And then it's really weird—like anything I ask her, she just answers me in that same dead voice.

“Jesus, Connie,” I say, “all this time— Why the hell were you pretending your husband and kids were still in town?”

“I don't know. It just seemed simpler, and— It was to protect myself, I guess. To protect my privacy.”

“Okay, so when did he really leave you?”

“We split up around the end of May.”

“And that trial separation business you told me was a crock?”

“Yeah. He started divorce proceedings. I couldn't believe it. How fast he did it. Instantly. He took the kids and went back to Baltimore in August.”

“Yeah, August. I figured that. Yeah, right.”

She asked me if I wanted to hear the whole story. Of course I wanted to hear it. Wouldn't you?

Remember the night when that little rat-faced Dr. Seconol came in the Night Owl with the sleazy nurse? Well, Connie and her husband saw quite a bit of Dr. Seconol and his wife—all those hot-shit young doctors and their wives had these dinner parties damn near every weekend—so the first time she sees him, Connie's whispering in his ear, “Andy”—that's what she called him—“you breathe one word about the other night, and I'll be on the phone to your wife so fast your head'll swim.”

He was kind of stunned for a second, and then he said, “Clear as a bell, Constance,” and they both pretended to get a good laugh out of it.

Whenever they saw each other after that, Connie noticed the way Dr. Andy was looking at her. She was getting next to him, and she kind of liked that, and she admitted she played him a bit. “I knew I shouldn't,” she said, “but I couldn't resist. Sometimes it's just too easy.”

So comes the spring, and Connie's husband finds out she wasn't going to The Italian Renaissance, and the shit hits the fan. “And you just abandoned me,” she said to me. “You told me to get lost, and you wouldn't answer your phone.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that's what I did all right.”

So Connie and her husband had yet another one of their award-winning seventy-two-hour, nonstop, two-person encounter groups, and they worked out another set of agreements—they even wrote them down on paper this time—and they started seeing a marriage counselor, and she wept and pleaded and begged, and she swore on a stack of Bibles three foot high she was never going to screw around again. And everything was more or less going along okay until they had a big party at their house sometime in April. About eight couples, she said.

Nice sunny spring day, hot dogs and steaks on the barbecue, lots of booze going down, kids running around, some of the younger wives there with their babies—that Dr. Andy's chubby wife was there with their baby—and Connie's wearing one of her world-famous leather miniskirts. Dr. Andy whispers in her ear, “You look great in that skirt.” She gives him a little smile—like, eat your heart out, stud—and he says, “Constance, I'd just love to fuck the living daylights out of you,” and she says, “Okay, come in the garage.”

So they go in the garage and he starts telling her how hot he is for her, and she says, “You didn't say you wanted to talk to me,” and she takes her panties off and says to him, “Come on, man, we've got a good ten minutes before anybody misses us.” That story, as you can imagine, sounded kind of familiar to me.

Well, when it comes to the moment of truth, Dr. Andy can't get it up. “Being a man, you probably don't know this, Jim,” she said, “but most men are afraid of sex. You're one of the few I've ever met who isn't.”

So she says to Andy, “You had your chance and you blew it”—or words to that effect—and puts her panties back on and walks back out to the party. After that, Dr. Andy just can't leave her alone. He's hauling her off into corners at parties to tell her how she's driving him up the wall. He's calling her up in the afternoon to say he's going to die. So she thinks, what the hell?

Remember that lady Connie hired to look after her kids for her? Well, that lady likes to take the kids out in the afternoon. Nice weather, you know. Great for going to the park, to the little kids' pool, and like that. So Connie and Dr. Andy start tearing off a few quick ones at Connie's house in the afternoon.

It was only a matter of time until her old man caught them. “Christ,” she said, “it was like something out of a French farce. I've still got my skirt on, and I'm facedown on the bed, on my knees, and Andy's behind me going at it like Rover. He's so nervous it's taking him forever, and I'm thinking, oh my God, if he doesn't get finished soon, I'm going to have the world's worst yeast infection. And I hear a little click noise, and I look over and there he is standing in the doorway.

“What am I supposed to say—‘Hi, hon'? Andy doesn't see him. I say, ‘Andy? Uh, hey,
Andy!
'”

Her husband says, “Oh, for Christ's sake. Come on, get dressed and get out of my goddamn bedroom. We've got to talk.”

As you can imagine, all Andy wanted to do was motivate his sweet little ass on down the highway. Her husband says, “You've just been fucking my wife. The least you can do is have a drink with me.” So they sat down in the living room and had a drink. I told you I didn't understand these people. Do you?

Her husband asked them if they were in love with each other. He figured it had been Dr. Hamilton the whole time—you know, going all the way back to the night she'd come in stinking drunk after running around naked in the cornfield. Andy didn't have a good word to say on the topic, but Connie just laughed. “Love has nothing to do with it,” she said. As you can imagine, her husband was just delighted to hear that.

Andy asked Connie's husband please not to tell his wife. “I'm not going to tell her,” he said. “I like your wife, and I wish her all the best.” Then he told Andy that they of course were going to have to appear in public together, and when they did, he hoped they would appear perfectly cordial, and Andy allowed as how that's the way he'd like to play it too. Then Connie's husband said, “I'm not going to go out of my way looking for it, but if life ever gives me the opportunity to fuck you over, I sure as hell will do it. Now get out of my house.”

Connie's husband told her he was divorcing her and he couldn't stand to be under the same roof with her for even one more night, so who was going to leave? She said she would, but what about the kids? He said to let him worry about the kids, so she packed a suitcase and moved into a motel until she found her apartment.

Her husband called his dad back in Baltimore, and his dad pulled some strings and got him a job at some hospital or clinic or some damn thing, and he took the kids and went back to Baltimore. She was real bitter about that. “I'd been begging him and begging him for years to go back home, and he'd say, ‘Oh, it's not as easy as that, Constance,' but then when
he
wants to do it, he's gone in a flash.”

“Connie,” I said, “there's something I really don't understand. I'm not just conning you here, I really
don't
understand it. How could that goddamned doctor—you know, after what you did—how could that son of a bitch just keep giving you more of those pills?”

She shrugged. “I'm very persuasive.”

“Oh, I bet you are. Is that why you started seeing him again?”

“I never stopped seeing him.”

“Oh, terrific. What the hell were you doing with me?”

“I thought—I don't know— Well, for the longest damned time you seemed really stable. Like a rock.”

“But not lately, huh?”

“Your drinking scares the shit out of me, Jim. Mine too. It's like we're falling down a cliff together. And Andy— He's the only point of stability I have left now— Except for my therapist. But I mean in my ordinary life. The only thing I can hang on to. Can you understand that?”

I told her I could understand that. “Connie,” I said, “what about your kids?”

She said, “I feel just terrible about my kids.”

Hell, I knew she felt just terrible about her kids. That's not what I meant.

“Okay, so tell me the truth now,” I said. “I mean, what's the point of lying about it? Were you really trying to kill yourself?”

“Yes, of course I was.”

Could you think of anything to say to that? I couldn't. She asked me what I was going to do, and I told her I was going to Austin. “Jim,” she said, “stop kidding yourself. You're never going to Austin.”

“You're wrong, Connie,” I said. “I'm going to Austin right now. I got a full tank of gas, and the minute I walk out the door, I'm headed on down the road.”