“But later that evening Sam had been foolish enough to do away with two other mad dogs, far more dangerous than the first. Their names were Rafe and Lucas McMurchy, and Sam, in trying to arrest them, had met with resistance. When the two brothers had hauled iron on him in Madame Louise’s knocking shop, Sam had been forced to cut them down.
“The problem was that the boys had gotten a bit too frisky with one of the upstairs girls. She had crashed naked out of a third-storey window and fell screaming into the street below. She had died several hours later, and nobody was about to thank Sam Waters for avenging a common whore. And certainly not when she had met her fate at the hands of Rafe and Lucas McMurchy, sons of Chas McMurchy, a man who owned five thousand head of cattle and every soul in Constitution. Every soul save one, and that soul Chas McMurchy had sworn he’d see in hell if he had to take apart Constitution brick by brick and board by board to do it.”
And that’s where I stopped, although my pen was primed and I knew, as sure as ever I knew anything, that there was plenty more where that came from. And I wasn’t wrong either. In the last month, in odd moments, I’ve written, without effort or reflection, sixty more pages of Sam Waters’ story. Not that I’ve admitted this to anyone else. My goodness no. If the news got around that old Ed was writing a Western, what rejoicing there would be in the camps of the Moabites! How Benny would snigger. Victoria might even brave a comment about the essential banality of my mind. And I must admit, my infatuation with leathery old Sam says something unflattering about his admirer.
You see, Sam has assumed an awesome substantiality in my mind. He has become a yardstick against which I measure my conduct. Good old Sam. Unchanging and solid as the proverbial rock of Gibraltar. Always there when I need him, as I need him now. His figure looms up before me, rangy and slackjointed. His hands are brown, of course, and also
Victoria taps softly on the bathroom door. “Ed, are you all right?”
I don’t want her in here just now so I lock the door. It seems that I have spent a good deal of my time hiding from Victoria behind locked doors.
She hears the sharp click of the lock turning. She questions me uneasily. “What are you doing in there, Ed?”
“Thinking.”
“Ed, don’t do anything crazy. Come out of the bathroom.” Because of some stupid answers I gave to a silly test Dr. Brandt gave me once, Victoria thinks I am capable of doing myself in when depressed. Little chance of that. An exhibitionist, the only way I could go out would be like Yukio Mishima, slicing through my guts with a Samurai sword. But I don’t have that kind of jam or pizzazz.
“Go away.”
“Ed, please come out.”
I ask myself at this juncture in our dialogue, what would Sam Waters do in a situation like this? Why, it is as plain as the nose on your face. He would open the door and, cloaked in the dignity of one of nature’s noblemen, walk away from the woman who could no longer love him. But Ed, well, he presses whatever advantage he has.
“I want to make a deal,” I say.
“What deal? What are you talking about?”
“I’ll come out of here on one condition.”
“What condition?”
“The condition that you give me a chance to prove to you that I can change. That I can reform myself.”
“You’re not moving in here, Ed. That’s final. I’m not taking you back.”
“Did I say anything about moving in?” I ask indignantly.
“No.”
“Well then, just listen. Just listen to me for a minute.” I continue, growing grandiloquent, carried away by my idea. “Like a knight giving proof of his valour to his lady love, I want to face the scaly green dragon of Sloth and the basilisk of Irresponsibility, and, armed only with trusty Self-Discipline, massacre the sons of bitches.”
“Ed, come out of there.”
“Listen, Victoria,” I say more earnestly, dropping my oratorical tone, “I’m only asking that if I prove to you that I can carry through with something really difficult – if I prove I can stick to something – that you’ll take me back for a trial period… say six weeks. No strings attached. But if I fall on my face you can have your divorce – uncontested.”
“Your mind is positively medieval. That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. Come out of the bathroom.”
“What have you got to lose?” I wheedle.
“My toe-hold on sanity, that’s what.”
“A test. Any test. You set it, darling.”
“Fine. Jump off my balcony. That ought to do it.”
“Victoria,” I say, “I am serious.”
“This is stupid and childish, Ed. I don’t want any part of it. It is just another one of your games. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Victoria, don’t you see,” I say seductively, “this is your way out? The easy way to get me out of your life?”
“Not to mention my bathroom.”
“I can change, Victoria. I can.”
“You want a test, do you?” she asks, and there is a touch of both malice and glee in her voice.
“Yes.”
“You had your laugh for the past six years, Ed. But he who laughs last laughs best. Okay. I want you to finish the River Run, Ed. All twelve and a half miles.”
“Good God, Victoria, you don’t want to test me. You want to kill me. What does that have to do with love and fidelity and things like that?”
“Take it or leave it.”
I have no choice. Faint hope stirs in my chivalric breast. An ordeal. I fling open the door and attempt to embrace her. I am repulsed.
“You goddamn madman,” she says, turning on her heel. “I need a drink.”
“Don’t bother pouring me one,” I call after her. “From this moment henceforward I am in training.”
Two days later and at last I am determined to sally forth on my adventure. I debated this for a long time. On Tuesday I thought I was coming down with one of those horrible summer colds. Wednesday I devoted to mental preparation. But this morning a zealous Ed awoke.
I energetically yank on a pair of cutoffs, lace up my dirty sneakers and amble out to be greeted by birdsong from the fine old elm on the boulevard. I begin to run. For two blocks I plod along feeling heavy, ponderous, doughy. I stop and walk for a bit to recover my wind. In a short time I realize that I’m not going to begin to run again. It is a stupid way to prove a point. Twelve and a half miles? She has misunderstood me. That wasn’t what I was talking about. It was love I was speaking of, and in a moment of poetic rhapsody she bound me with mundane specificities. Love is never having to run twelve and a half miles. Love is offering to. But only a piker accepts.
I sit down on the curb and watch the traffic flow by for half an hour. Victoria’s unfairness angers me. I brood. It feels like it may rain, so I go back to the apartment.
The minute I step inside the door it hits me. There are dirty dishes crusted with old goop littering the table and kitchen counter. The bedroom smells stale and the bed looks like a rat’s nest. There are long hairs in the bathroom sink and a ring in the tub so substantial that honesty compels me to describe it as a ledge.
This is my mess. The visible excreta of the life I have led in the last few months. The door to the medicine cabinet hangs carelessly open on its hinges, the way I had left it the night before. I punch it, shatter the mirror and cut my knuckles. Trailing droplets of blood, I go back to the kitchen.
