Sputterpub's Blog

They were taking a walk, as usual. William and Angie walked whenever they were together. Often they had her dog with them, pulling on the leash even though the retriever was seven now and old enough to behave, but on this evening they were alone.

It’s easy to walk in Berkeley. And it’s obnoxious to drive. So a perambulation is a sensible choice. And while a conversation over a good meal is one of the best shared experiences ever, William and Angie were disagreeing a lot lately, and disagreeing dialogue is best conducted while walking. It sure doesn’t go with digestion. And when you’re walking it’s natural not to look in your companion’s face, which makes it easier to speak your mind.

Their path was mostly level, shaded, and quiet. The environment created a calm noncombative atmosphere. But emotions were rising like columns of mercury in old thermometers. Neither would remember this walk fondly.

William is tall, thin, and ungainly. He’d remind you of Ichabod Crane except that he has a handsome face and a thick head of naturally compliant silver hair. Angie is 5’4″ to his 6’5″ and sturdy. She has ballet and horseback riding and a posture-obsessed father in her background, as well as no car, so she walks with purpose and grace. Her hair is also silver, but with unruly curls and a readiness to frizz in the ambient humidity.

They made a comical pair as they paced the small-squared, root-canted sidewalk, William lagging a little when searching for words and then darting forward as Angie paced ahead. The man had always been impulsive and sometimes reminded Angie of her dog except William was bipedal and longer-limbed than a giraffe. Angie had no trouble finding words to express herself, but the older she got, the more she realized that only she was listening to her.

The subject was William’s older boy. He had two sons named Nathaniel and Jeremiah, aged 13 and 7, whom he loved to distraction. He was into attachment parenting without ever knowing the term, so the boys had gotten used to cuddling and wrestling with him. They’d never had a bedtime. William allowed them to eat what they wanted, when they wanted. He rarely disciplined them. He never noted when his kids bothered other people, like when they climbed furniture at a neighbor’s house, or rampaged in the front yard after dark. He believed in letting them loose their natures freely. If someone complained about his boys, they were uptight assholes. If someone didn’t voice a complaint, then William assumed they had none.

William’s ex-wife was almost as lenient, but not quite. He met and married Susannah while they were both involved in a cult/commune, lived in a tent with Susannah’s 8 year old daughter while pregnant with Nathaniel and in a trailer while gestating Jeremiah, split up when each progressed to a different cult, and continued untraditional after divorce.

William was between cults when he met Angie. He presented himself as done with them, but that turned out to be an inaccurate self-description. He’d been introduced to rock-climbing shortly after Susannah kicked him out, and he got into big walls like (what else?) a religion. Angie even learned to belay him. She didn’t get into climbing partly because of her lifelong fear of heights, but mostly because she valued her fingernails and already had a troublesome neck (you can’t climb, at least as a beginner, without craning your head upward).

Neither was speaking as they walked the block they were then on. Angie was gathering her words and William must have sensed the seriousness coming on, because he was silent like a kid about to be lectured. On a pleasant walk he would regularly inject nonsequiturs into the air. He’d usually begin with “Right…” like he was resuming a topic, and then plunge into whatever factoid was floating in his head, about the Masai, or geology, or black hole astronomy. There were no “Right’s” coming out of him just then.

“William,” Angie began as they turned a corner and stepped over the treeroot-thrust slabs of sidewalk before them, “I have something to say about Nathaniel.”

He was silent.

“David tells me he’s been dropping acid most days, even on the few when he attends school.” David was Angie’s son, six months older than Nathaniel and with the perspective of a peer.

“I know.”

Angie stopped and goggled at him. “You know? What are you doing about it?”

“He told me. We talked. He said he was done with those drugs.”

“William. He’s 13.” This was not the first time Angie had tried to make William take Nathaniel’s age seriously.

“So?”

“You act like he’s 23. Or even 33!”

“He told me he was done with the drugs. Nathaniel doesn’t lie to me.”

“Oh give me a break.” Angie knew Nathaniel pretty well. The boy was into Goth culture. He was hanging around on the fringes of an older crowd, scrabbling every which way for acceptance. He smoked, had enough sex to acquire crabs, and told tall stories to adults and peers. Nathaniel was undersized and fine-featured; the mascara and black nail polish made him a poster child for pedophiliacs.

Angie had already described to William her conversation with her son, the summer before, when David thought he got to decide which parent he’d live with. “No you don’t,” she told her boy then. “Your shoulders aren’t big enough for that decision.” She’d explained to David then (and William later) that no matter which parent David picked, he’d feel bad for the other one. And he wasn’t old enough to handle that bad feeling. Angie was. She’d pick, and David could just park his negative judgment on her, instead of on himself.

“You don’t seem to understand the value of rules for children,” she stated as they continued walking. “You think giving your kids complete freedom equals love, but it actually produces chaos and confusion. Kids need something to push against, to test, to ultimately grow through.”

William said nothing for a minute. His pace picked up a little stridency. Then he uttered “If you love me, you’ll support me.”

Angie was stunned. She nearly sputtered. Beside the fact that she didn’t love William the way he meant the word, she didn’t understand how to acquire the condition he described. She and William had fundamental disagreements about how to raise kids. She’d have to agree with him, to support him, while he permitted his child to skip school and run with older kids, sleep under bridges or wherever, refuse to get in his father’s truck when William came to pick him up after the Saturday midnight movie. How can you make yourself agree with someone when you disagree? Isn’t that like trying to will yourself to believe in something?

As far as Angie is concerned, there’s no subject more serious than raising David. He didn’t ask to be born – he owes her nothing. But she owes him the ability to have a flourishing existence of his own.

Angie and William are members of the baby boom. There was an epidemic of narcissism among the parents of their cohort. The greatest generation felt ripped off by WWII. The veterans of that war, whether in the armed services or on the home front, all thought their youth was stolen, all were determined to get payback, and formed the first communities of suburban, alcohol- and pill-abusing, divorcing and adulterous provisional adults.

Angie noticed. She was female and a first-born. She watched parents abnegate their responsibilities. But William was a middle child and a boy. Such ideas never occurred to him. He disliked school and so he supported Nathaniel’s disdain for it. He concluded that all his kids needed was love.

Their conversation closed with William’s declaration about love and support, and their walk ended soon after. They were approaching Angie’s front door when the wheedling began.

“Can I come in?”

“Oh. Uh, I’d really rather have some time alone.” William didn’t speak, so Angie padded her statement. “I have some office work to do.”

“I won’t bother you. I’ll read or play a video game till you’re done.”

This happened often. It sometimes seemed to Angie that she was into this relationship in order to learn how to say no. Both William and Angie were introverts, but where Angie required a certain quantity of solitary time, daily, William had developed an ability to be alone in a crowd. Maybe it was the cult/commune experience, but he was expert at being not-present in a room that contained other people.

“Really, William. I need some time by myself tonight.”

He mumbled something.

“What?”

“You’re always so controlling…”

“What?!” Angie was genuinely boggled. William normally wasn’t confrontational.

“I said you’re a controlling person. Too controlling.”

“Oh goodnight,” Angie said. She turned her key, pushed the door open, and went inside without a backward look.

Controlling, she thought. Fuck him! Angie didn’t tell William what to do. She didn’t forbid him anything. She’d been married twice, and hadn’t flourished. She was finally single, with a room of her own, into self-control, yes, and vigilant about guarding the boundaries of her sanctuary. Are moats and drawbridges controlling?

At that moment she understood that she had to end the relationship. She wasn’t the person he wanted, but that didn’t matter to her. She understood then how stupid it is to tell yourself that you’ll continue in an inauspicious relationship as a form of “practice.” That’s not how love works. And as for friendship, she knew that William was headed for disaster. She’d tried to help him see childcare more broadly, but he was recalcitrant. She didn’t want to be around to witness the consequences.

Most of the time we’re in sync with our friends and family and acquaintances, enough so that we can converse and communicate. But now and then we have a surreal encounter, where our assessment of the situation turns out to be utterly incorrect. Those are remarkable experiences.

Like the conversation Joe and I had, in the small eucalyptus grove outside the kibbutz. We’d been a couple for about a month, and I was trying to break up with him, but my words weren’t working.

We’d met in Jerusalem and our initial chemistry was fierce. We disagreed about every subject for most of our first evening. Then we started conversing privately, at the back of the group of us who were walking to get midnight coffee, and something clicked. We shifted from argument to enticement and neither of us (discussing the miracle afterward) knew who started it.

We became a couple. He was adorable but way too much trouble. He had a flexible compact body, fine-pored olive skin, thick shining wavy chocolate hair, and eyes to match. He told stories about his past that couldn’t have been true. They made good narrative, but didn’t advance our intimacy. Which at first was satisfying and somewhat kinky, physically, but began to wither in the fable-full environment (I wanted to type “fabulous,” which would be precisely correct but misleading).

Joe attracted trouble. He was impulsive, gymnastic, and flamboyant; he’d try running up the walls of the old city and flipping back to my side, or cartwheeling along a parapet, or dashing after a rude bus driver, and then throw exaggerated words at the issue, so if we were confronted by someone with any level of authority our encounter was always prolonged by Joe’s manner of “explanation.”

The second night we spent together included a walk which landed us on the prime minister’s side lawn and led to our encounter with an armed guard. It’s the only time I’ve ever been at the target end of armament, and it didn’t help when Joe kept whispering that the gun was Russian-made and prone to misfiring. Our first Sunday included a minor traffic accident and our adoption of a flea-infested gray kitten we named Emmet (I left the cat with Joe when I went to the kibbutz, and I never did get a sensible report about what happened to him, but on the next visit I made to Jerusalem, Emmet was not around).

What started out as exciting and almost romantic, soon devolved into a form of tiresome pomposity. I’d never intended to make a permanent thing out of Joe&me (running as I was, away from the gap between college and the next step, away from an old relationship with my depressed college boyfriend and a new one with my formerly-platonic best buddy).

I was settled on the kibbutz with two travel companions, and Joe was a first-year student at the reform rabbinate in Jerusalem (Joe was the least fit of the students we met, to take on the rabbinical yarmulke, but there were several others in his dorm). It wasn’t like we were seeing each other that often. My friends and I made it to Jerusalem about one weekend a month, and Joe rode his funky scooter to visit me now and then, so we were getting together about every week and a half. The sex continued to be gratifying. The conversation not so much. And the escapades became drags.

So I set out to end it. Walking together under the peeling trees I said the words that work in most cases. Statements about needing more space. Comments about the problem being me, not him. No matter what I said, Joe responded with understanding, suggestions for how to give me what I needed while staying a couple, beseeching, pleas. He was not attractive and I was not effective.

I’m not proud of it, but I resorted to sarcasm (I wonder if couples would get anywhere, argument-wise, if they agreed to refrain from sarcasm and hyperbole). I began mimicking poor Joe.

“I don’t know how to be close to you,” I mock-whined. “I want to be there for you, but I’m not sure how. I’ve tried and tried, but I just don’t think I’m right for you. I’m not good enough for you, baby. You can do so much better. I want to free you to seek out what you truly deserve.”

I almost ducked as I made those declarations. I half-expected Joe to smack my face or sneer coldly at me. I was floored by what he did instead.

He stopped dead in his forward movement. He turned his body to face me fully. “Thank God,” he breathed at me. “I never thought you’d say it. I’m ready to work with you and for you, my darling. Now that you realize what you need to do, we’ll be even closer.”

Yeesh. And I’m usually articulate! I had to resort to mean words to get Joe to understand. I don’t like cruelty, but there have been occasions when someone’s hopes had to be dashed, and I’m sorry to report that I overdid the dashing.

I guess it happened again with Guy. I met a man, enjoyed a strong eccentric connection, and landed in a relationship where we were in such different places that communication was impossible.

It was after a backpack trip. It had been decades since I’d hit the trail with my needs on my back, but I agreed to accompany the man who had been my college lover and had become a platonic friend (he recovered from the depression but I married the other guy anyway).
Matt hiked the Sierras every summer. He no longer lived nearby but we chatted on the phone at least twice a year, on our birthdays, and we’d somehow cooked up the plan for me to explore Evolution Valley with him.

I did the walk. I endured the boot discomfort, used fly-infested outhouses when they were around, suffered the ever-bent posture of a burdened hiker. There were some beautiful mornings, alone as the sunlight swept the floor of whatever meadow we inhabited, but the best part of the trip was when it ended. We arrived at Mono Hot Springs, dumped our packs, paid for extra long showers, and separated to individual wooden water-rooms, where I (for one) used up the whole bar of soap. Best shower ever.

When I’d toweled off and donned my cleanest clothes, I sat back on the porch bench outside the shower rooms and waited for Matt. The sun bathed my clean face. I enjoyed the ecstasy of release from weight and dirt and dust and boots.

Then Matt emerged and we sauntered across the pavement, to the place that served food. I won’t call it a restaurant.

The salad reminded me of Wyoming. The mac-and-cheese probably started in a blue box. But it was a comfortable woody room and physical well-being made it all good. There were three other diners in the place with us: a fat couple who looked like they worked nearby and a solitary older guy, short and gray-bearded, at work with pen and paper and what looked like a huge mug of coffee. His table was near ours.

In the course of our meal we chatted with him. He started it, by commenting on our conversation. That wasn’t a rude act; it was typical of the routine friendliness one encounters in any camping situation (the truth is, it’s easier to be alone among the city crowds than in sparsely populated areas).

His name was Guy, and he described himself as a hiking guide poet. He was working on poetry at his table. I didn’t tell him that I wrote verse myself, but I was chatty. I was vivacious and interesting. Not because I found Guy attractive or was trying to charm Matt, but due to the simple relief of long-desired physical comfort.

When Matt and I made a move to leave, Guy beseeched me to write to him (this is history, far back enough that email wasn’t that common in the city, let alone in the mountains). I agreed. I didn’t mind agreeing, but I wasn’t excited.

My first letter to him, which I came upon recently in reviewing old papers, was a handwritten full page. I included a sonnet I’d been composing on the backpack trip. I didn’t urge him to write back, but I provided my office address (this wasn’t coyness – I preferred getting mail at the office, because my crazy retriever seemed to want to eat the postman, so sometimes my home delivery was skipped).

Well, Guy fired back with an envelope that required two stamps. He raved about my poem, warned me not to sign up for the writing class I mentioned because “if it ain’t broke it don’t need fixing,” and told me he read my sonnet to two Fresno State professors who praised it.

His letter contained photocopied enclosures from some of his celebrity friends. It appeared that Guy was a name dropper (I was reminded of an old fun phrase: “Oh, my foot! Ouch! Someone just dropped a name on it!”) He mentioned that he was only writing to two people now: me and Julie Harris. He added that he met and dated her when she came to the Bay Area the previous July, and one of the photocopies was a postcard from her to him. It was anything but a love letter (“I wish you happy days” seemed more like a warm response to fan mail.) He also included a note from a movie director, with the salutation using Guy’s first and last name (hardly a way to address a friend). It appeared that Guy had a habit of writing to famous people, enclosing his poetry, and only noting the few who replied. He said he was describing these encounters to me in order to “reaffirm my status so you’ll really hear my voice when I speak to you.” Yeah right.

I appreciated his appreciation for my sonnet, but was otherwise unimpressed. I didn’t find Guy attractive. I was willing to continue the correspondence for awhile, but I was uncomfortable with his latest beseech: that I agree to visit him in San Leandro, after he came down from the mountains in the fall. That had zero appeal for me.

I wrote to him two weeks later. One full page. The opening paragraph recited our initial conversation and reminded him that I had consented to his first plea: that I start the correspondence. I said I did so because I said I would, and by writing I had met him at least halfway. The middle paragraph (the longest) described my excitement and nervousness about showing him my poetry, followed by detailed comments about his comments on the sonnet.

My second-to-last paragraph, right before signing off, read:

“I hope you can understand my reluctance to meet just yet. I feel no need or desire for that meeting now, and I don’t see why I should do it solely to accommodate you. If this is worthwhile, and I expect it is, then it contains room for both of us.”

I thought I put that pretty well. Apparently not. His response was immediate. After a few poem comments, he penned:

“Ultimately, the penultimate paragraph in your letter makes it impossible for us ever to become friends. You are self-absorbed beyond reason. This really upsets me; but, honey, you are a ball-buster and (after three wars and loneliness and despair beyond belief) I’ve no balls left.”

He wasn’t done yet. He signed with his last name only but added this postscript:

“P.S. James Earl Jones phoned me a few days ago, 10 pm, out of the blue. We chatted for 20 minutes, met the next day at Stacey’s and got a neat friendship going. Some things are simple; some impossible.”

Huh? What did I say? Talk about “same planet – different worlds.” I never paid attention to that postscript till now; I’m chuckling as I try to figure out if Stacey’s was the old bookstore in San Francisco (and Guy dashed down from the mountains for this meeting) or if it was the name of the diner place where we met, and James Earl Jones had turned into mountain man for the occasion. Oh well.

I came across this old correspondence while gleaning through all my paper files, rescuing the editable and shredding the others. I’m writing this so I can now dump the paper.

But I also spent a little time remembering Guy. Possibly the most self-absorbed man I’ve ever met (the winning contestants before have been female). Our encounter was 22 years ago. I figured he must be dead by now, and I wondered who would have attended the funeral. So I googled him. Wow. Nothing came up. Nothing.

What must it be like, to have made so little impression on earth that you’re not even on Google?