Sputterpub's Blog

Bill feels normal. Bill feels sad. Bill doesn’t usually pay much attention to what he feels, but he’s full of himself tonight.

Like a high school senior, he is cruising his girlfriend’s neighborhood. Except Linda’s not his girlfriend any more. She lives in a hill-top condominium development that’s a decade ahead of a retirement community or assisted living; there are no kids, and the average age seems to be 60.

Their relationship ran into an ultimatum. Like a water balloon hitting a wall, it splattered for a moment and then dissipated, leaving only moisture as its mark. Salt water. Both of them had leaky eyes that night, and sometimes since.

He makes a right turn at the top of the hill, and then coasts slowly down the side street. He looks up at her balcony of course, but Linda is never out there. The 72 square feet of concrete (with an impressive bay view) belongs to her aging cat; it’s Maisie’s reward for making the transition from outside feline to house cat, from freedom (and bullets) to the litter box that Linda doesn’t tend often enough, which has littered the balcony concrete beyond what power-washing can remove.

Linda isn’t a housekeeper, Bill knows. She never has been. He knows that too. Partly he knows it because they’ve been close. They’ve talked. Mostly he knows it because he has been in, out, and then in again with her, so they’ve been acquainted for almost 40 years.

Bill and Linda are old.

He is 75. She is 66. He has been married to Corliss for 48 years. When Bill and Linda first met, they were 37 and 28. He’s thinking about that now.

They all worked in downtown Oakland. Near what would become City Center. The guys were approaching 40, married, with offices in Oakland and homes over the hill, where each moved as the kids arrived. They were work colleagues and/or friends. The women (called “girls” during the day and “talent” at night) were ten years younger, all single. Many were employees of the men.

Drinking happened. Drugs happened. Affairs happened. Sometimes messy in-office relationships but mostly encounters that developed in the bar they all frequented after work.

The guys were more collegial than the girls. Sometimes the females appeared in the Tavern as friends, but mostly they were solo acts. Whereas the men knew one another. Worked together, worked out together, played golf or pickup basketball together, and saw one another at weekend functions, with their wives. It was like all the guys were in a cheat-conspiracy and covered for each other. Collegial almost to the extent of feeling like a frat.

Linda wasn’t Bill’s first affair, but she was the important one. The other time it had been his young secretary Vickie, and that never went far. It was interrupted when Vickie got engaged, and completely severed when she got married.

His feelings for Linda went deeper. At least that’s how he remembers it now. He can’t recall that he ever thought of leaving Corliss for her, but he wonders for a moment, as he completes the block loop and makes the right around her corner again, what his life might have been like if he and Linda had stuck together back then.

Bill is honest enough that he can’t stay there long. Alone in his dark car, he blushes to recall the way he and the other men used to disparage the girls. They were hounds. Pigs. But the fact is he remembers when Linda became a bit of a joke among them (she had done most of the circuit before she took up with Bill), and then the joking started to tarnish her in his eyes, and he let things just peter out.

He’s a bit ashamed at how susceptible he was to the opinions of the other guys, but then he flashes back further, and he understands that he was even more sensitive when he was young. He almost winces remembering junior high jibes. Bill got his height early and only in old age was he thickening. Lanky was an understatement about him. Knifelike might be more appropriate.

The bike riding date, when he was in 10th grade and Jill was in 9th, and he showed up in shorts of course, and how she wouldn’t stop looking at his white stick legs.

Or the Junior Prom, dancing with Janice and her head just below his chin, which felt perfect, except when they wrapped their arms around one another it was clear he was narrower than she. And Jan wasn’t fat.

No, Bill wasn’t a social success then. He thought he was on-track when he made the baseball team. Not that it had the glamour of football or basketball. But he was an impressive pitcher. Until stricken with shoulder arthritis. Unheard of in someone so young. But nothing that would kill him. Just kill his pitching future. And eliminate any chance of golfing well.

It wasn’t till college that he felt accepted. He smiled as some of those scenes played like flip animation in his head. Lucking into Jim as a roommate. Angling away from history and toward law. Meeting Corliss.

He didn’t fall in love with her. But they got along. They meshed well with each other’s friends. And the sex was the best he’d had. They dated, and screwed, and naturally got engaged when they graduated. Most of their friends did. There was a year and a half of weddings almost every month.

Then people found jobs or went to grad school. Corliss worked while Bill got his law degree, and stayed in her field, PR, on and off while raising the kids. Bill started earning a respectable sum by the time their older daughter went to kindergarten.

Whatever passion he felt for his wife had dissipated by the time their third child, finally a son, arrived. But there was no reason to leave her. Both of them adored their kids and she kept up her end of the deal. He spent long hours in the office, at a job it turned out he loved, and he had social opportunities, mostly with men friends but sometimes with young women, that supplied the stimulation he never found at home.

It was a little different when he hooked up with Linda, again, five years ago. Neither was as good to look at as they had been when young, but each was more appreciative. Both had mellowed. The sex was not explosive, but it was sweet and warm. They spent much more time talking than they had in the past. Bill would make the (increasingly obnoxious) drive from his Lafayette office to Linda’s Oakland condo, cuddle on the couch with lover in one arm and cocktail in his other hand, and find himself telling her stories about his clients, his health, his anxieties, that he never mentioned to Corliss. Linda was a diligent girlfriend – not quite slipper-fetching or curling at his knees in fascination, but always well-garbed, made up, gracious and attentive. She talked too, and he paid close attention and made comments, gave advice even, that she received with gratitude.

They connected on the phone most workdays (including Saturday of course – Bill had never broken the get-away-from-home habit of Saturday in the office that he established in his prime, when there was actual work to be done). He made the drive from work to Linda’s condo and back home to Contra Costa County at least one evening a week. It had gotten to the point where Linda was almost as habitual as Corliss (but in a good way).

So when she gently lowered the boom on him, Bill felt it. Linda had never acted scheming or manipulative. She’d always said that she wanted more of Bill, but she’d made do with what she got. Until her father died. Then she was open and clear about the subject. Bill understood. Linda’s dad had taken up a lot of her time those last years. She visited him almost daily, fetched things for him from stores, took him to doctors, played hours of dominos. His death wasn’t unexpected, but it left holes in her days. It made her realize she needed more than Bill was giving.

He missed her. At first he checked in with her at least once a week. He didn’t know what he was after; he told himself it was because he cared, but he must have been hoping she’d summon him back. Then she sent the email. She wrote that as much as she longed for him, she didn’t want to hear from him till he had something to say. He knew what that meant…

He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Sure he’d thought about it. Had a few very nice fantasies before likelihood intruded. Corliss would be beyond angry. She’d take everything she could. Including most of their friends. Maybe their kids. Their only grandchild. And it wasn’t like Bill was some young thing, worthy of happiness or more than he had. Shit, he’d done better than either of his brothers. He out-earned his father. Life could be worse. He wasn’t sure he deserved what he had.

At that moment, Bill came to himself. Not that he’d left, but suddenly his car started braking and he saw what was ahead of his windshield. Whoa. Wow.

His foot added pressure to the car’s automatic braking. He slowed to a stop behind a sea of taillights. He hadn’t even realized till that moment that he was halfway home. Trance-like he must have been driving.

It was more than a normal traffic-pulse, he noted as he fed gas to his engine and moved ahead, slowly, with the stuttering traffic. He heard sirens and looked in his rearview mirror at the first-responder light bars heading his way. He saw his own ridged brow and faded thinning hair under the flashing lights in his mirror. Felt an unwelcome frisson of adrenaline.

He crawled by the accident. Three cars spun the wrong way near the shoulder, passengers out, one flat on the asphalt not moving.

He paid attention to his driving then. Made it in fifteen minutes. Stretched in his seat while looking at his home of 40 years. Bill picked up his briefcase and jacket and headed for his front door.