I’m Outta Here

When one spouse jumps over the side of the matrimonial boat, soon enough the one that’s left jumps over the other.

For some of us – the romantics – these first moments are the best. Other, more practical people, go on to perfect technique, thereby presumably getting more and more pleasure out of their physical relationship.

For the romantics, there’s no place to go but down. But they don’t think about that when the magic begins. Clyde and Brenda are simply “not the type” and aren’t so much doing anything, as letting things happen.

Here they are, turning onto Brenda’s block. Old houses, big lawns, plenty of room for Clyde to park inconspicuously, because on the way here he’s had time to think this may be a peculiar thing he’s doing, going to her house. The part of him that is thinking of himself, rather than the generations he could procreate if he continues, still has enough control to hide his car. She is, after all, the candidate.

He walks down the block to where Brenda has parked in front of her half of the garage, and is waiting for Clyde. By now she’s convinced herself that she does, indeed, need a guiding hand. She feels weak, about to faint, or swoon, jittery inside with the knowledge that her husband is having an affair. It’s almost like hearing he’s dead. She is unmoored from her world and floating freely.

Clyde comes up to the car, opens the door, and exaggeratedly helps her out and steadies her, in case any neighbors are watching. She leans her head on his shoulder – oh, the thrill of protectiveness that goes through him – and in this configuration, they come around to the front door – everything very proper – she hands him the key, he opens the door, and they are safely inside.

The stairs are right there in the little square hallway. Wide stairs, but steep. It would be dangerous for her to reconnoiter them alone. They walk up slowly, side by side, Clyde supporting his precious burden. At the top of the stairs, Brenda slightly nudges him to the right, where she and Jason share the bedroom between the two kids. They head for the door.

Embarrassing isn’t it, watching these two? Neither one young, not even young at heart. Two deadly serious persons, brought together over a kind of sorrow – nobody’s really happy about abortion – and kept together by an errant husband.

But any emotion will do, you know. Even hatred has been known to work. Here we have compassion. Clyde feels for Brenda. Brenda appreciates Clyde. And we have anger – that way-back anger the bombshell blasted at Clyde, that turned him on – when she punched the picture of him and Brenda, with that long fingernail. Brenda’s anger at Jason, yet to surface, but coiled like a felty snake in a faux peanut brittle can, ready to spring out when the cover comes off.

But all this is way below the surface. More to the point is the poor lady who’s being led to bed. By someone who is not an expert, but suddenly finds it the most natural thing, to turn her around, sit her down, and bend down and take off her shoes – her normal shoes, since Adele is not around. To then dip down and slip an arm under her knees to lift them to the bed, and lay the lady horizontally down.

Here is the moment for withdrawal Clyde. This is when you’re supposed to leave, tell her you hope she feels better, that you’ll call her in the morning to find out.

This is not the moment to put your hand gently on her hair and begin to smooth it away from her face. It is not the moment to take the hand that seems to be lying next to her asking to be picked up, and worse, to intertwine your fingers with its (surprisingly) willing ones.

But then she did take yours in both of hers and hold it to her chest with her eyes closed, and her face going through all those changes.

Then, when she opened them, she just kept looking at you like that, didn’t she? Waiting. Wasn’t she? That’s what it was, right? Or you would have been making a terrible mistake to bend down and kiss her on the lips like a man at a Hollywood hospital bedside.

And then to lie down on that bed next to her, because you weren’t mistaken, were you? She did move over just that little tiny bit to indicate there was room.

And there you were, the two of you, pressed close together, with all your clothes on, your hands roaming each other’s backs through the layers of civilization. Your hands holding each other, rubbing each other, squeezing each other, tracing each other. Your hands on each other’s faces, looking into each other’s eyes, because you’re both thoughtful people and want to see what’s going on behind them.

No, Clyde this wasn’t the time at all. Because … what’s that? Downstairs, the door has opened and banged shut. A girl’s voice shouts, “Wait a minute. I’ll be right down.”

It’s Sheba, home from school with a friend. She stamps up the stairs and slams into the room next door. Brenda grips Clyde’s shoulders. Her hands are like claws.

Downstairs, the TV goes on. Now they won’t be able to tell when Sheba leaves her room.

But only a few breathless seconds later, above the sound of television, they hear Sheba’s door slam, and the stairs creak as she goes down.

But what difference does it make, Clyde? They’re right there in the living room, within sight of the front door. They’ll see you.

He’s trapped. What will it be? The attic? Under the bed? The closet?

Then a loud, harsh whisper in his ear orders, “Go to your right, keep going past Sheba’s room. There’s a step down to the addition. It used to be a dentist’s home office. There’s a shower there. Go past it to the stairs. Go down the stairs. You’ll get out next to your car.”

The teacher has taken control. Get Clyde out of the building. Treat it like a fire drill.

I know I said I was not going to let anyone use those back stairs for anything farcical, but you can see Clyde needs them, and he doesn’t think it’s funny.

Clyde reacts instantly to the teacher’s voice. He springs out of bed, and without a look back, follows the directions, goes down those stairs, and finds himself, as promised, at a back door across a short lawn to his car.

He gets in. He drives off. His heart is pounding hard. He’s escaped. He’ll never do anything like that again. The fright. The horror. The consequences. Dragged through the media because he had to pick a politician. His mother was right; girls are nothing but trouble. She ought to know, she’d always say, she was one herself.

He goes back to the office, the place he feels safest. But he’s forgotten that Jason is sitting in his ante-room. He wants to run when he sees him, but he walks sedately, shaking inside, to his office, and closes the door, without even nodding at him.

He can no longer pretend. Jason knows that he knows. The Dubois woman would have told him that their eyes had locked in the diner.

However, that is the way of the world. We all know, and we all pretend we don’t. It would be rude not to. Rude to confront people with what you knew about them. The result is, nobody knows their real self, which is the inner self plus its impingement on the outside world. You can think whatever you want of you. It’s the world that gives you your official grade. We’re all afraid to give anybody else a grade. They may give us one in return. So we keep our mouths shut.

But now, far beyond the problem of having to pretend that he doesn’t know about this disgustingly flagrant coupling, he has been lying on this man’s bed, holding his wife in his arms.

Yes, folks, that’s all that came of it. For any of you who feel cheated, don’t expect me to sleep with you every time you buy me a steak dinner. That would make it uninteresting. You’d always know. You could begin to take me for granted.