Sputterpub's Blog

They settled in Terra Vista, where Bill grew up. Mary came from a little town fifty miles inland, but she got to know Terra Vista in the three years she and Bill dated, and she liked it well enough. They could afford a house there, one of the pastel ranch homes close to the newer schools, and Bill’s family was around to help with the kids.

The twins came in 1974. Tiny things with full heads of dark hair. They were born thirty-three minutes apart but they had different birthdays. Emily emerged at 11:40 p.m. on January 11^th, and Edward made his appearance shortly after midnight on January 12^th.

Mary insisted that both names start with E. She liked the EE initials and pouted that twins should have some similarities. Bill went along with her then, and he didn’t argue when she told him she wanted to continue the EE tradition with all of their offspring. In fact, each name was okay with him, and the nicknames queered Mary’s idea anyway, for Edward was known as Ned, and his younger siblings Elizabeth, Elaine and Eric went by Liz, Laney, and Rick, respectively. Only firstborn Emily, also called Em, used the EE.

The twins were born early in 1974, but Bill connected them to events later that year. It was the summer of Nixon’s resignation, when Gerald Ford took the White House without winning an election. And on October 10^th the word “Internet” was first used.

Liz came in 1977, blonde as sunlight. “Star Wars” was released that year. And Laney was born on May 31, 1979, which was the day Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe. Bill wanted to call the baby Rhoda but Mary wasn’t having any of it. 1979 already had the accident at Three Mile Island and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s ouster of the Shah, so Bill knew it would be memorable, but he was tickled to have a world event occur on the actual birthday of one of his kids.

Their family was completed on June 14, 1982, with the birth of little Eric. Argentina conceded to England in the Falkland Islands war.

That was the summer Bill first knew discontent. He had time to be introspective because he took the 2 a.m. feedings; when he didn’t doze off with little Eric in his arms (the nipple of the bottle often migrating to the ear of the sleeping boy), he found himself contemplating his life. He was thirty-five and the father of five. He made a decent living but he did it by selling cars, and he’d always known he was capable of more. He’d meant to get around to it; the car dealership was just something his father went into after retiring from the Navy – went into and then bought and somehow was in the process of passing on to Bill, and how was Bill, really, going to switch to something else? With kids aged eight, five, three and new, what could he find that would pay anything like his current job?

Mary didn’t work. That was the agreement they made when she got pregnant with the twins and the doctor advised her to quit her job: she’d mind the babies and the house while he earned the money. At first the arrangement was fine with Bill. Mary was beautifully rounded then, carrying her pregnancy proud-forward, her ankles still slim, her neck long, her hair sleek. Her face glowed with blushing fertility, and Bill felt virile, protective, attracted.

But that was the past, before Bill felt trapped. And Mary had put on weight with each baby. Her face was still lovely, but her neck hid beneath folds of fat, her belly was soft, her thighs were lumpy. Her ankles were still good, but they would have been better if they had been peasant-thick; the contrast between the race-horse elegance and the load of leg was to Bill’s mind ugly.

(to be concluded tomorrow)

Bill Essex is a news junkie. From birth he was interested in his surroundings and attentive to even his mother’s friends’ gossip, but he was bitten by the news bug in fifth grade. He had a good teacher then: one of the too few each student remembers. Mr. Bingham came up with unusual ideas for motivating kids, and the current events quiz was one of his best. Each morning, right after the required pledge-allegiance (this was a few years before the phrase “under God” was temporarily removed from the oath), the class listened to a five-minute, top-o’-the-hour newscast on the radio (AM radio, powered by tubes instead of transistors). Then sometime in the next hour Mr. Bingham would call, “Okay: quiz time! Grab your pencils!” and he’d fire off a few questions about the broadcast they’d just heard. Bill was good at the quiz and got better. Within a couple of weeks no one in the class could beat him. He retained the facility as he grew. He paid attention to the news and he marked the memorable moments in his own life with the current events headlines of the day or season or year.

He was sixteen and a half, for example, and had just kissed the first love of his life, when JFK was shot in Dallas. He forever mixed the memory of Gwen’s warm tongue with the bleakness of that funeral weekend, when all normal TV and talk was pre-empted, when shock and suspicion and amorphous worry prevailed.

He turned twenty-one the spring King and Kennedy were killed, but that was also the year he met Mary. She was a smooth-haired blonde with deep blue eyes and a lyrical laugh. She had long shapely legs and full deep breasts. She was the prettiest girl he ever dated, and she became his wife and the mother of his five children. For awhile Bill thought meeting Mary was the luckiest event of his life.

They were married in 1971. He remembered it as the year of the catalytic converter. The state of California began requiring one in the engine of each new car, cutting down on fuel economy and making home tuneups elusive, for the sake of the environment. Bill and Mary had grown up in the car culture of southern California and, frankly, they resented the state telling them what had to go under the hood of their new Chevy. It made a difference; their honeymoon was a road trip, and Bill’s business was cars.

(to be continued on Wednesday)

The Hyge

The thing of it was, they each thought they hugged too well to quit. It was as if they had an aesthetic obligation to continue, like a talented artist or a brilliant mind.

Sometimes Robert put his arms around Jill’s waist and she wrapped hers about his neck. Sometimes they crossed arms, each placing one over a shoulder and one around ribs. Occasionally they did it all wrong, he up she down, like slow dancing on the opposite sides.

No matter how their arms went, their bodies fit together. They liked one another. Each lived alone and the warmth and pressure felt good.

The thing of it was, though, they did quit. They got in a tussle.

We can imagine them having sex if we wish. There’s a pungent Anglo Saxon word for that. We can picture another night, in Robert’s car, when they park and talk about Deborah’s death, when Robert tells Jill about the tumor emerging through Deborah’s skin, and the last time they tried, unsuccessfully, to make love, while Robert and Jill hold hands lightly, and both their tears fall on them. We can even picture those emotions leading them to form the two-backed beast, but there wouldn’t be much to write about. Jill wanted a stronger mate and Robert was not highly sexed.

Or we can imagine them refraining. Hugging with firmness and attempts at comfort after Robert’s narration of his wife’s last days, but with neither the timing nor the inertia-conquering impulse to advance beyond the boundaries of that hug. Jill just didn’t feel motivated to make the first move. Another description of Robert is sexually retarded.

Either way, it was only three months later that they had the little skirmish that led to estrangement. Robert was into his new phone and became so frustrated when he tried to demonstrate its features to Jill that he spoke carelessly to her, four times. Jill advised him to screw himself, and he took umbrage. She didn’t apologize.

A short time later, Jill heard that Robert was suffering from some cognitive infirmities. Memory and mood disorders beyond his years. She had noticed he was misplacing nouns when he forgot the word “usher” in her presence, but she attributed that to normal aging. She didn’t appreciate the extent of his failure till a mutual friend reported the diagnosis: acute progressive aphasia. Eloquent Robert was losing language. She heard that his mood was always confused or frustrated now, so she sensed it was worse than words. Surely his condition accounted for the way they had clashed. And it just as surely barred any reconciliation.

The Feortan

Jill’s stomach can tolerate just about anything. It’s her lower GI tract that punishes her when she overdoes. Her whole family was like that, and she’d grown up with so many references to flatulence that she used to think all humor was fart jokes.

Her brother sang “Beans, beans, the musical fruit.” Her father instructed them (for the future) about holding the sheet tight against their necks after letting one rip in bed, to send the effluvium to their mates.

When Jill was 18 she developed odd pains. Suddenly it hurt when she inhaled, between her neck and shoulder or below her ribs. The family doctor guessed it was her gall bladder and put her on a fat-free diet. She lost 20 pounds but not the pains. She was referred to an internist, who ran tests and pronounced her gall bladder perfect. He told her she had a tendency to a spastic colon – when nervous or stressed she was likely to gulp air by yawning or eating too fast, which made for pockets of air in her large intestine, which is another way to describe gas. Extreme enough, the air moved to other parts of her torso, pressing on places that then gave her pain.

Jill resisted the diagnosis at first. The doctor was accusing her of nervousness, and she wouldn’t take that without debate. She told him what a rock she was. How often her friends depended on her to take care of things. “My dear,” the doctor responded with words Jill never forgot, “there’s a difference between nervous and hysterical.”

She learned then not to eat when agitated. Not to drink while eating. To chew her food thoroughly. To pay attention to her own yawns, for she was headed into discomfort when she yawned a lot, packing the long tube with unnecessary air.

Eventually she took up yoga and meditation; she even tried a little bio-feedback. She began a regular exercise program and stuck to it.

She managed her condition so well that she was rarely socially troubled. She had some emphatic nights and mornings at home, but those were known only to her and her dog. She paid attention when she was with anyone and usually she was comfortable.

Usually. Somehow pot de creme and conversation brought on a bloat like she hadn’t suffered in years. Sitting conversing and settling the tab, Jill’s waist grew an inch while her belly distended with gas. She gulped air and then noticed herself gulping, and immediately her thoughts were sardonic: “Oh fine! right! no sooner do Robert and I set ourselves up to try this again than I explode like the marshmallow man. Gad: if he hugs me I’ll release like a blown balloon!”

“I really need to walk,” she said as Robert put his card away

Whatever he intended to say was avalanched by his belch. He burped impulsively, almost passionately, and the hands that were putting his credit card in his wallet were too slow to block it.

The initial look on his face was deerlike panic. Then they both laughed. Standing to leave, guffawing, Jill couldn’t suppress her fart.

The Bealcan

Robert learned what heartburn was at 12, not long after a dinner of pancakes and orange juice. It felt like a burp coming on but it seemed to jam halfway up. His chest grew crowded and hot. He kept opening his throat and moving his lower jaw forward, which usually brought up a belch. All he got were ear pops.

That was it. After that Robert had heartburn if he drank citrus juice. If he ate uncooked tomatoes. If he snacked before bed. It was as if some digestive part of him failed, that first night when he was 12, like a valve insufficiently closed or a hinge broke, making a place of vulnerability in him.

He was protective about it. He tended to curl around his stomach no matter what he was doing. He sat with his legs crossed at the knee, his arms folded over his chest. He stood with his shoulders curved forward. Acute observers thought him inhibited. He would have said it was gas.

Deborah had understood his problem. They’d always dined well but with limited spices, and they never snacked after supper. Which took off the ten pounds that had weighed on Deborah: the bulk like butter that crowded her lap and bounced independently when she danced. Living with Robert had clothing fitness benefits for Deborah, but other than that they were like their diet: well but not spicy, successful and bland.

Things were different with Jill. She was direct like Deborah had been, but much more forceful. He had described his reflux problem but that was awhile ago and on an intellectual level. It was another matter to feel the old burn while out to dinner with her.

He hadn’t expected it. The good thing about his heart attack scare, besides the reassurance he received after the full scan, was the prescription for Protonix.

He had been able to toss his Tums. He found he could even drink orange juice again. So he hadn’t expected a dining problem. He’d thought he could treat Jill to good food and fine conversation, and maybe try another kiss, later, after they pulled out of their customary hug. Now all he could imagine was the suppression he’d have to make not to burp in her face. The effort to resist relief.

Maybe his body was trying to tell him something.

“What would you like for dessert?” he asked. It was customary for them to share one. Robert would rather skip more food, and always before he would have been comfortable saying so, but something was different between them lately. Ever since their kiss fiasco. Not awkward, exactly: just less verbal.

“Want to share the pot de creme?” It was mocha flavored, which didn’t suit Jill as much as chocolate would have, but they ordered one.

They had finished dessert and were preparing to leave as Robert’s Protonix went to work. His hand lifted but made an inadequate barrier, and with all the vigor and embarrassment of a 13-year old, he belched across the table.

(to be continued next Wednesday)