Man Descending

“You know what I mean by personal. We’ve gone over this again and again,” Benny says impatiently. “I mean that you should get yourself a lawyer, a professional. You need someone to conduct your affairs in a civilized, businesslike way. We could put an end to this rancour and bad feeling if you’d just get a lawyer.”

“I don’t need a goddamn lawyer to tell you and my wife that I don’t want a divorce. No divorce. That’s it. As they say in your business, Benny, that’s the bottom line. No divorce.”

“What you want and what Victoria wants are two different things, Ed.”

There is an awkward pause. I jump in with both feet. “I get the feeling Victoria is being told what she ought to want by somebody else.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Benny is beginning to sound irascible, dear boy.

“Excuse me if I say his name begins with a B and I wink in your direction.”

“Oh Christ. Now I’ve heard everything.”

“Then quit acting like a goddamn harem eunuch guarding the sultan’s favourite honey-pot. Give me Victoria’s address.”

“No.”

“I ran into her today. She told me that you told her not to talk to me. Is that right?”

“Not quite.”

“Where the hell do you get off telling her not to talk to me? I thought a divorce lawyer had the responsibility to aid in a reconciliation. How the hell can we be reconciled if you keep standing in our way? It’s your duty to give me her address, for chrissake.”

“My duty is to my client. To protect Victoria and her interests. Right now that means keeping her away from you. You have this talent for making people feel guilty. How, I can’t imagine.” This seems to genuinely bewilder him. Victoria’s sympathy for me seems as bizarre to him as mourning a dead rat.

“Victoria has a conscience, what can I say?” My heart leaps at the news of her… regrets? “I wish the same could be said of you.”

“I can’t afford one. I work for a living. I don’t live your sanctified existence.”

“Benny, you have cut me to the quick.” I pause ominously. “I am a man in love, Benny. I can’t afford the luxury of a conscience either.”

I sense Benny’s ears prick up at that. “Ed?”

“Yes.” I try to sound as dangerous as ever I can.

“What does that mean?”

“Give me Victoria’s address. I’m finished being a nice guy.”

“Are you threatening me, Ed? You better not be threatening me.”

“We lived together for a long time, Benny. You know old Ed. Hell hath no fury like a roomie scorned.”

“Out with it. Just what the hell are you trying to say?”

“I have a lot of free time on my hands, Benny. I could learn to be a real nuisance. You know how I get when I’m thwarted.” The word sounded positively hell-like on my tongue. “How would you like me trailing you around town, keeping tab on your extra-curricular activities? Rumour has it you’re still a ladies’ man. I could keep track on who you’re shagging, Benny. Just like a big-league scout. With reports to the manager, Mrs. Benny, and perhaps even your owner, the father-in-law.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“It’s a possibility, Benny. Don’t push me too far, I’m near the end of my tether. God knows what might pop into my head next. You always claimed I was erratic, remember?”

None of this makes me feel as rotten as I should. But all is fair in love and war and this is a bit of both. Sometimes I feel entirely disassociated from what I do. It’s a malady of the modern age. Since Victoria left me there has been entirely too much drift in my life. Sam Waters is the only firm point, but he can’t replace a wife.

“I suppose I have no choice, do I?”

“None.”

“Victoria has moved to 719 Tenth Street East. She’s in Apartment 23.” Benny clears his throat. “Ed,” he says sinisterly, “let me tell you how much I’m looking forward to seeing you in court.”

“Benny, Benny, nothing personal.”

“Fuck you.”

“One other thing, Benny. Is there anything else I should know?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, for instance,” I inquire with feigned merriment, “does Victoria have anything large, jealous and dangerous lounging around the house? Something sporting two hairy balls? A live-in friend?”

“You’re a goddamn degenerate. You make me sick.”

“We all grow up in our own surprising ways, Benny. Look at you, a BMW socialist. We make our way in the world however we can, don’t we?”

“Victoria has told me stuff about you, Ed, that I didn’t believe until now. And I’m going to make you admit to every humiliating detail in court. Every one of your pathetic tricks. Dressing up in a suit and tie every morning, walking out of the door and pretending to go to work for two months after you’d been fired. A moral coward,” he says disgustedly.

“Okay!” I shout. “You try it! Get me on the stand! If I can’t handle a two-bit shyster lawyer whose term papers I used to write, then I resign from the human race!”

“Proofread!” he yells. “Proofread!” That got to him. Benny is very touchy about his intellectual abilities because deep down he suspects, quite correctly, that they are extremely limited. “It isn’t as easy as you think, smart-ass. You’ll find out.”

When I get Benny going I can drive him absolutely berserk. Get it in and really twist it, Ed. “Oh yeah,” I say. “That really tough lawyer stuff. Habeas corpus, juris dictionae fundandae causa, caveat emptor, annus mirabilis, hocus pocus.”

“I’m hanging up now,” says Benny. “But before I do, I have one question for you.”

“What?”

“When might we expect your novel?”

Click.

I’m not sure any more that I want to face Benny in court. He appears to have mapped my soft underbelly and knows just where to slip the thin blade into my cuts.

The novel. Driving through the dusty haze of a soft summer evening to Victoria’s apartment building I reflect on my metamorphosis into an author.

I still regard the idea of the book as a master stroke. Not, mind you, the idea for the book, but the idea of the book. After being unemployed for a full twelve months I had to invent a plausible occupation. People were always asking me what I did. I didn’t do anything. I was simply unemployed, which doesn’t qualify as an activity but is, rather more accurately, a state of being. In the animal kingdom it has its metaphorical equivalent in the hibernation of the bear or the woodchuck, or in the pupal stage of various insects. Or so most people seem to think. Particularly employers who never want to hire anyone who isn’t already working for someone else.

So one day, in answer to the inevitable question as to what I did, I replied that I was a writer. It just popped into my head. I noted a cessation of embarrassing questions. The news circulated among Victoria’s friends and my acquaintances. Nobody questioned my sincerity. It appears they regarded this profession as socially unproductive enough to appeal to me.

The strangest thing was that this public confession got me writing. Sort of. I admit I have spent more time thinking about writing than actually writing, and even more time talking about writing than actually writing. But still, if one announces one’s membership in that illustrious company of joyous spirits, living and dead, who have judged the pen mightier than the sword, one had better evince loyalty to the side and scribble.

However, from experience I can testify that authorship is a trying, taxing business. It is particularly so in my case because I can’t seem to get interested in writing about what I ought to be writing about. I mean, after all, I was once a seriously considered candidate for a Canada Council grant, a genuine, copper-bottomed A-student with a double major in English Literature and Philosophy. I was going to ship out for England and write a dissertation.

Consequently, I am capable of bandying around the names of some pretty thoughtful people: Blaise Pascal,