I'm Not Sam

my arms and then pointing to Sam and mouthing get her! which made them laugh.

And which they did.

When the segment’s over Sam and I are at Broken Bow Lake and it’s beautiful and Sam’s in her cobalt blue two-piece but I want to get through this so I fast-forward through Roy Orbison’s BLUE BAYOU and finally we’re there.

At the wedding.

And I’m wondering, does this have a chance in hell of beating out the bumper cars?

But it’s uncanny, it’s as though I knew back then when I was putting this video thing together that this was going to be important someday. Because I’ve emphasized it. I’ve left it utterly, completely silent. No scoring. Just us.

It’s a professional behind the camera so the shots are tight, focused, not jittery like my own. So there we are on this nice sunny July day in front of St. John’s Episcopal, my own limo pulling up first and me getting out in my tux with my best man McPheeters, both of us grinning, the three Johnny Walkers doing their work on us, and even my brother is smiling for a change, saying something that my groomsmen Joe Manotta and Harry Grazier seem to find actually funny.

It cuts to my mom and Sam’s mom being seated by the ushers and I look to her for some sign of recognition but there isn’t any, none at all. Next thing I’m standing at the altar with McPheeters watching my brother, Joe and Harry escort Miriam and Sam’s two pretty college roommates down the aisle, trailed by our cute little flower girl — I forget her name — very serious about the business of tossing her rose petals just so.

Then the moment I’m waiting for. Sam, arriving in front of the church and stepping out of her limo and then beaming on her father’s arm, in the dress, moving slowly down the aisle.

It’s hard to look away but I do. I need to watch Lily.

And I’m rewarded.

She leans forward, intent. She’s hardly blinking. She lifts the veil.

I remember this part from the tape. The photographer actually irritated her father slightly by focusing almost entirely on his daughter’s face. Almost nothing of him or the priest or the actual ceremony. Even I got short shrift. But I never could blame the guy. It was no wonder he was captivated. Sam was standing bathed that day in a single streak of gentle flame-red light, glowing through a stained-glass window.

This is what Lily’s seeing.

I glance at the screen. I know what’s next. The ring. The kiss.

I don’t watch the kiss but Lily does. She looks puzzled. Her eyes go to me and then back to the screen and her lips seem almost to be forming words or the beginnings of words, her eyes flicker.

They go to the gown and back to the screen again.

Come on, I’m thinking, come on.

And then the silence breaks apart into a million pieces and Kris Kristofferson and Willie are singing LOVING YOU WAS EASIER, our song back then, and I know we’re on the dance floor at the reception, our first dance together as husband and wife, and Lily leans back on the couch more relaxed now while Kris is singing coming close together with a feeling that I’ve never known before in my time and I turn to the screen in time to see that second kiss which is just as public as the first one, with everyone watching us tinkling their knives against their wine glasses but this one’s real, I remember this one all right, I can almost feel it, this one’s just for us, just between us two people so much in love and there’s nobody in the room at all but Sam and me.

I begin to sob into my hands. Can’t stop it. Can’t stop shaking. It’s like every moment of the past two weeks is flooding through me all at once, pouring out of me, all these moments away from her and it isn’t fair, it isn’t right.

“Patrick? Patrick, what’s wrong?”

And the voice is Sam’s voice.

I feel like a jolt of electricity. It’s almost the same as when I saw that snake. I’ve done it! I can’t fucking believe it!

“Sam! Jesus, Sam! Sam!”

I reach for her but she’s up and off the couch so fast I don’t even come close.

“I! Am! Not! SAM!” she screams, her face a twisted mask of frustration and anger and goddammit it’s suddenly Lily again, Lily in full-bore tantrum mode as she bats my beer bottle off the table, tears away the fireplace screen and flings it across the room, sweeps my John D. McDonald books off the mantle and as I’m standing trying to grab hold of her and talk to her saying god knows what to try to calm her down as she throws the standing lamp so hard against the wall that the light bulb explodes sending Zoey into a panic so that she leaps off the couch landing hard on her arthritic legs, skitters across the floor and races out of the room.

Lily’s screeching loud and high as she tears my framed Jack Kirby print of HULK COMICS #1 that I’ve had since I was seventeen off the wall and smashes it to the floor and she’s barefoot and glass is everywhere — I never want to hear that screech again as long as I live, it’s like an animal in pain — and then I hear another crash coming from the study.

“Stay there,” I tell her. I’m thinking about the glass. “Don’t move.”

I know what I’ve got to do. My being here’s no good. My being here’s just making it worse. She’s looking at me like she’d like to strangle me, tear my head from my shoulders so I back off and head for the study. At least I can see if my cat’s all right. So that’s what I do.

I hear the coffee table go over behind me.

In the study the first thing I see is my lightpad smashed beside the drafting table and my pages scattered all across the floor. There’s Zoey huddled in the far corner of the room beneath the window. She must have made a leap for the high ground and failed. Glass crunches underfoot as I go to her, reach down. She cringes. But I persist.

“Hey, girl. It’s all right. It’s okay. It’s all right.”

It’s not all right at all but in a moment or two she relents and lets me touch her, stroke her back, scratch her head. Her eyes soften.

I’m hearing nothing from the living room so I’m hoping the worst is over. I figure I’ll give it a little more time just to be sure.

I crouch beside the drafting table to gather up my pages and the world suddenly tilts on me, nearly sends me down to all fours.

I’m staring at the pages.

I’m looking at Doctor Gypsum and Samantha.

Only I’m not looking at Doctor Gypsum and Samantha.

I’m looking at myself. Myself and Lily.

In every frame. I’ve drawn us exactly. Our faces, our bodies. Lily’s and mine.

Battling the Abominations League. Stepping out of the rubble of an old building, wounded, taking shelter, healing. More battles, more wounds. Whirling through space. Diving deep into the safety of the sea.

I’ve been doing this every day for weeks now.

I stare at the pages and feel a weariness I’ve never known.

I gather them up and place them carefully on the table.

Then turn and leave the room.

Lily’s standing where I left her. The table overturned beside her. The living room is a shambles. There’s an acrid electric smell in the air.

She’s naked. The wedding dress lies torn and crumbled at her feet. And she’s cut herself. On the hem of her dress are three drops and one long bright smear of blood.

She’s crying softly. Her shoulders trembling.

“Lily.”

“I’m not Sam,” she says.

Only gently this time. Almost, I think, with regret.