Oliver's Story

 

It was Wednesday evening by the time we reached New York. Marcie'd set her Denver house in order by that morning and we even toyed with going for another snowball fight. But superego triumphed. It was time to work again. And I could even give some help to Barry Pollack in the homestretch (we had kept in touch by phone).

The line for cabs was endless and we froze our heels. At last our turn arrived. And right before us stood a crumpled piece of yellow tin. In other words, a New York taxi.

'I won't go to Queens,' the driver growled in greeting.

'I won't either,' I replied, while yanking at his mutilated door, 'so let's try twenty-three East Sixty- fourth.'

We both were in now. He was legally enjoined to take us to our stated destination.

'Let's try five-oh-four East Eighty-sixth.'

What?

This was Marcie's startling suggestion.

'Who the hell lives there?' I asked.

'We do.' She smiled.

'We do?'

'What are you, buddy,' said the cabby, 'an amnesiac?'

'What are you, cabby,' I retorted, 'Woody Allen?'

'At least I can remember where I live,' he said in self-defense.

By now the cabby's fellow cabbies were encouraging his swift departure with a loud cacophony of horns and curses.

'Okay — where?' he now demanded.

'East Eighty-sixth,' said Marcie. And then whispered to me she'd explain en route. To say the least, it took me by surprise.'

In military terms it's called a DMZ — the area where neither army can deploy its forces. This was Marcie's notion in selecting an apartment that would be not hers, not mine, not even ours, but rather neutral territory.

Okay. That made sense. My rat house was a bit too much. And she had stood the test of grime.

'Well?' said Marcie.

Unequivocally, the place was great. I mean it looked exactly like those perfect layouts on the upper floors of Binnendale's. I'd watched young couples gazing at those model rooms, and dreaming, 'Gee, if we could live like this.'

Marcie took me through the living room, the gadget-laden kitchen ('I'll take cooking lessons, Oliver'), her future office, then the king-size bedroom and, at last, the big surprise: my office.

Yes. We had separate rooms for His and Her professions. Mine was furnished in a herd of leather. Shelves of glass and chrome to hold my legal books. Sophisticated lighting. Everything.

'Well?' said Marcie, clearly wanting me to burst into a song.

'It's unreal,' I said.

And wondered why I felt like we were on a stage set reading from a script. By her.

And why that should make any difference.

'What are your feelings?'

Dr London hadn't changed his methods in my absence.

'Look, we share the rent.'

Come on, I told myself, who pays is not a feeling. And it wasn't even what was really on my mind.

'It isn't ego, Doctor. But the way she likes to … manage both our lives.

A pause.

'Look, I don't need a decorator. Or romantic lighting. Can't she understand all that is bullshit?

Jenny bought us beat-up furniture, a creaking bed and a crummy table, all for ninety-seven bucks!

The only dinner guests we ever had were roaches. It was windy in the winter. We could smell what all our neighbors had for dinner. It was utter grunge!'

Another pause.

'But we were happy and I never really noticed. Yeah, I noticed when the bed leg broke — 'cause we were in it. And we laughed.'

Another pause. Oliver, what is it that you're saying?

I think I'm saying that I don't like Marcie's new apartment.

Yes, my brand-new office is a showplace. But when I have to think, I go back to my old basement. Where the books still are. And where the bills still come. And where, when Marcie's out of town, I still bunk out.

And inasmuch as we are in a Christmas countdown situation, Marcie is conspicuously absent. In Chicago at the moment.

And I'm feeling bad.

Because I have to work tonight. And I can't do so in the dream house there on Eighty-sixth Street. Because New York is decked with boughs of holly. And I'm feeling lousy even though I now have two apartments to be lonely in. And I'm ashamed to call Phil just to talk. For fear of having to admit that I'm alone.

So here it is December 12, Barrett working in his subterranean retreat in search of precedents in musty volumes. And longing for a time he can't retrieve.

When work could palliate, benumb, indeed preoccupy. But thanks to new-acquired powers of psychic intro spection, I can't extro spect. I mean I just can't concentrate. I'm wallowing in me instead of Meister v. Georgia.

And because the Muzak in my office elevator daily cannonades my ears with carols, I have a Yuletide schizophrenia.

Here's the problem, Doctor. (I am talking to myself, but since I value my opinion, I refer to me as Doctor.)

God — in his capacity as judge of the Celestial Court — has reaffirmed the following as law: Thou shall be home for Christmas.

I may be easy on some other of the good Lord's legislation, but I bend to this one.

Barrett, thou art homesick, ergo thou hadst better — dammit — make some plans.

But, Doctor, there's the problem.

Where is home?

'Where the heart is, naturally. That will be fifty dollars, please.') Thank you, Doctor. For another fifty, may I ask:

Where is my goddamn heart?

It isn't that I didn't sometimes know.

I was a little kid once. I liked getting gifts and trimming trees.

I was a husband and though Jenny was agnostic ('Oliver, I wouldn't hurt His feelings and say 'atheist' '), she'd come home from her two jobs and we would have a party with each other. Singing bawdy variations of the Yuletide lyrics.

Which still says a lot for Christmas. 'Cause together is together and that's what the evening always made us.

Meanwhile it is half past nine, some dozen shopping days to Christmas and I'm out of it already.

For, as I said, I have this problem.

Christmas can't be spent in Cranston as of late. My friend there says he's joined an over-forties cruise