Gunmetal Blue Read online

  Why not turn around and go back, I wanted to say. And I could tell as she sat there across from me that she wanted to say something of the sort as well. Something along the lines of, maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. Listen, we’re both adults here. We’ve already got plenty of water that has flowed beneath our respective bridges. No need worrying about saving face, no need worrying about admitting a mistake. Can we just say that this is probably not the right time to be doing this? Can we just part ways and say: thanks for lunch; it was nice meeting you? If you ever want to meet again, don’t hesitate to call.

  Instead we just sat there. Our eyes diverted. I looked occasionally at her and felt an inexplicable sense of compassion for her. I wanted to hug her and say I was sorry for everything. If it were Adeleine, I would have said I was sorry for everything…

  I’m sorry my dear.

  Sorry for what, honey? I’m dead. I no longer care for sorry.

  Sorry for everything. I am so goddamned sorry for everything in the world that I have ever done to you.

  No need saying sorry for anything, Art. Really, you were wonderful. The light of my life. I don’t regret a thing.

  •

  So Rita and I just sat there not saying a word. And before I knew what I was doing, I walked over. I sat down next her and I put my arm around her shoulder. It was a bonier shoulder than Adeleine’s. She seemed made of bird bones by comparison—easily snappable. She sat there neither accommodating me nor disallowing me. So we sat a moment like this, and suddenly she turned her head into my shoulder and I brought her close to me in an embrace.

  I’m sorry, I said to her, not knowing what else to do or say.

  For what?

  And it was true, she had a point. What could I possibly be sorry for? We were both consenting adults. We were both here of our own volition, and so I said: For your loss.

  She said, very sweetly: I’m sorry for yours.

  Thank you.

  Now can you promise to do me a favor, Art?

  Anything.

  Whatever happens, never, don’t ever, say sorry again. Do you understand that?

  Deal. With that she lifted her face to mine and we lay down together on the bed.

  •

  The first time Adeleine and I slept together happened years earlier. It was just after she graduated from Northwestern. We had met only days earlier at a party, and then we ran into each other unexpectedly again at a grocery store. We had coffee, and afterwards she told me to call her. I waited a day or two, and when I called, she picked up the phone, and without asking me how I was doing, merely suggested I come over to her house. She was still living with her parents in Winnetka. We were only twenty-two years old at the time. As old as Meg is now.

  I was never one of those guys growing up who would bed his girlfriend at her parents’ house. I prided myself on having better options—like the car, or some place deep in the forest preserves on a blanket and a bed of leaves—but the house Adeleine grew up in was actually pretty nice. Her parents were out of town for the month, so there was no chance they would suddenly barge in on us. The house was a modernist box perched on a slight grade overlooking a precipitous ravine with woods and a little stream running along the bottom. They had modernist stuff on the walls, modernist furniture. Minimalist this and that. All clean lines. Off-white cream-colored walls, floors that disappeared into the night beyond the windows.

  Like Cal, I was a guy who grew up in a bungalow on the northwest side, which, when growing up, was paradise enough for me. So I didn't envy her wealth at the time, and that probably meant something to her.

  I enjoyed my life. I found if you liked your life it didn’t matter where you came from. Liking life was the key to success. So many people caught up in the chase for money—but it was terribly misdirected. Money never made anyone happy, but figuring out how to be happy and stay happy—this was success.

  •

  I had many conversations at the track with Cal about this.

  What’s the best thing in the world? I would ask.

  Pussy.

  After pussy?

  Tits.

  After tits?

  Beer.

  After beer?

  Money.

  After money?

  More pussy.

  And around and around we went, but one day I asked Cal a different question.

  What about the guy who is locked up in solitary confinement and he can’t get these things you’re talking about. What would be the best thing to him?

  Pornography.

  Come on, seriously.

  A bit of light…

  But if he didn’t have light?

  A bit of food…

  But if he didn’t have food?

  A piece of chalk to scratch against the wall…

  And if he didn’t have that?

  Then he’d have to learn how to be happy with what he has—because he sure ain’t got a hell of a lot. Who is this guy, anyways? Someone you know doing solitary confinement?

  It’s just a hypothetical question about happiness is all…

  You want happiness Art?

  Hypothetically, I suppose I do.

  It doesn’t have to be hypothetical, Art. I mean, look at me. Who am I? I’m your friend Cal, and most people looking on would say: What a lousy life that guy lives. Chrissakes, I’m a grown man, and I’m still living in my mom’s house. Sounds horrible, don’t it? And yet I’ve learned how to be happy under the conditions, and for this I’m grateful. I’ve certainly got it better than your hypothetical prisoner. What’s more, I love my ma. I love taking care of her. It makes me feel worthwhile. It gives me something to do, and what’s more she’s an interesting person, full of surprises.

  Such as?

  Do you know she collects Nazi paraphernalia? I take her around to flea markets and estate sales in search of the stuff. It’s like a major thing I do for her. She owns a Third Reich flag signed by Joseph Goebbels. Her grandfather, Otto, who fought for Germany in WWI, later became a high-ranking official in the Reich. Oh, and…well I don’t have to tell you this. But she also collects all things Elvis.

  And so it went, part of the circus that paraded itself as a conversation between Cal and myself.

  Cal and I had so many conversations, so many of which were forgettable. I mean the details of the conversations we had were usually eminently forgettable, so we usually found ourselves endlessly repeating ourselves, with small variations. It was always so forgettable what we talked about, but the emotion that I was left with after the conversation, that’s what I always seemed to remember, it was like conversation was this thing that two people did. The end of conversation wasn’t to arrive at anything, but simply to make the simple music conversation had to offer. Conversation was like being a performer in a musical duet. You spoke back and forth with your instruments, but what was it you really said? Talking with my friends, what few friends I had, we always seemed to loop around in circles, or if not in circles, in long digressive tangents that led you ever further away from where you had started. The end result of such conversations was we never knew what we had accomplished, and we had forgotten what had gotten us going in the first place, but we were always filled with an emotion that we had solved the riddles of the universe.

  •

  Adeleine was always mystified by my choice in friends. For instance, she always wondered why I spent so much time hanging around with Cal.

  I think you’ve outgrown Cal years ago, haven’t you, honey?

  It wasn’t that Adeleine didn’t like Cal—she thought he was a nice enough guy. Harmless, really. She just didn’t understand why we spent so much time together.

  You’re opposites. Don’t you see? she liked to point out. He lives a lonely life with his mom, whereas you have a family and your own business.

  We’re friends from way back, I would point out. No use abandoning ship now.

  You’re too loyal.

  It’s loyalty that’s kept me with you.
<
br />   Not love?

  Love too, my love. And Cal. He feeds my need to have a friend. That’s all. Flawed as he is. I like him. I like our conversations.

  Your conversations? What is it you and he sit around and talk about?

  This and that.

  Is it that personal you can’t tell me?

  No. I just can’t really remember. It’s banter really. We banter. Back and forth like a couple of schoolkids.

  And that satisfies your need for friendship?

  I suppose it does.

  Two grown men talking like schoolkids. What does he do all day, anyways?

  I don’t know.

  How could you not know?

  I’ve never asked him.

  You’ve known him all your life and you’ve never asked him what he does all day at home with his mom?

  If he wanted to tell me, I suppose he would. Otherwise I try not to pry. We respect each other’s privacy. That’s what I like about him. I don’t need to explain anything. Just say it and leave it like it is.

  I don’t understand men, I suppose.

  You understand me.

  Do I Art? How do you know I understand you?

  Now you’re getting philosophical.

  Well, seriously. I sometimes feel I don’t understand you at all.

  What don’t you understand about me? You get everything there is to get about me. That’s why I love you.

  Getting you and understanding who you are are two different things, don’t you think?

  I don’t know, are they?

  We live with each other, sleep in the same bed night after night, and share many of the same concerns, but there are things about you I still find inscrutable.

  Nobody has ever called me inscrutable before.

  Sometimes I think you just drift without really having any direction. I don’t understand that aspect of you.

  What do you mean?

  You drift into things, Art. You sometimes don’t seem focused. I still don’t know why you became a detective. And what’s more, I don’t think you know why you became a detective. It was an idea you had out of the blue, and then you just pursued it as if it were some great career you were destined for. But as far as I can tell, you don’t particularly like the work, and judging from how little money you make from the business, and how much it’s costing our family to pay for office rent downtown on Wabash Avenue, and to pay for that woman you hired, it doesn’t seem like you’re very good at it, either. So yeah…that’s what I mean. You drift into things, but you don’t seem guided. Your friendship with Cal is another example. You’ve sustained your friendship to him because, according to you, you have known him so long that there’s ‘no use jumping ship now.’ And yet staying in a friendship just because you have always stayed in a friendship seems a little circular to me. Like drifting.

  The same could be said about any relationship that lasts. We stick with it for no other reason than because we always have.

  Are you kidding me?

  Yes. I’m kidding you.

  Another thing…

  Yes…

  Don’t think that I’m not a little irked about how much your business is costing us.

  OK. I hear you.

  So there is a real price for drifting.

  OK. I hear you.

  But it’s not just the money. I’m irked that you’re not doing something more with your life.

  I am doing something more.

  Of course you’re not. Your job as a ‘Private Detective’ is a joke, and don’t think I don’t know it.

  What brought this on all of a sudden?

  I’m just thinking about your laziness. I wish you weren’t so lazy.

  I’m not lazy. Trust me.

  Oh, you’re lazy. I love you, but you’re lazy. And that’s just the beginning of your problems.

  Where do they end?

  They end—‘they’ being your problems—they end, ultimately, when you stop being lazy and you start being truthful and you finally figure out who you are.

  I am truthful.

  Hmmph. I don’t know about that. As you say, you’re a man who likes his relationships built on routines, but sometimes routines can blind you to the truth of your relationships.

  They don’t blind me to the truth of our relationship, if that’s what you’re saying.

  They don’t? But that's what I am saying. We can have this relationship but you can still be inscrutable to me.

  Listen, there’s nothing wrong with relationships that are built on routines.

  As long as those routines don’t blind you to what’s really going on.

  I’m not blind, if that’s what you’re saying. I know what’s going on.

  And then if something comes along and breaks the routine…

  Like what?

  I don’t know. What about that woman you hired for a secretary?

  Wanda? What about her?

  I don’t know what you two do all day locked up in such close quarters.

  We work. What do you think we do?

  I don’t know. But anything can happen, don’t you think? If this is a relationship of routine?

  It’s our marriage.

  Our routine is what you said.

  It’s sacred to me.

  But it’s still a routine.

  Routines can be sacred.

  Can they?

  They go hand in hand, don’t you think?

  I always thought the sacred was higher.

  It doesn’t matter what we think, does it? All that matters is that I love you.

  That’s a cop out. How do I know you love me, Art?

  You’re getting too dramatic on me, Adeleine.

  Well?

  A feeling, I suppose. A gut feeling…

  There’s no such thing as gut feelings. A gut feeling is what gets you into trouble.

  Yeah, but sometimes a gut feeling is all you have to go on. And your gut should tell you by now, my wife, that I love you.

  I still don’t know how one really knows. You still seems inscrutable to me, Art.

  Please. Stop using that word. It scares me.

  Well it’s true. And if we’re going to have conversations like this, then you have to let me speak my mind.

  There is truth and then there is truth. Some truths you can think, and you can assume I already know them, but you don’t have to say them.

  How do I know what you know or don’t know?

  I think you do know what I know, and I also think I’m not—what’s that word?—what do you say I am: inscrutable? I’ve never been called that before, and I didn’t expect you, of all people, to call me that.

  Marriage teaches you that, though. Don’t you think? No matter how close you are to somebody, there are still many things you don’t know. It’s routine that keeps us together, but it’s also routine that keeps us from knowing too much of each other. That’s what I mean about being truthful.

  We know each other’s routines. Isn’t that the same as knowing somebody? We’re only inscrutable when we try to see beyond the routine—as if a person were more than their own odd little collections of routine.

  But this doesn’t sound like love to me. It sounds like a business partnership: what you and Wanda have. It doesn’t sound like what a marriage should be.

  What should a marriage be?

  Love should be at the root of it, perhaps.

  Do you love me?

  That’s a hard question.

  Please don’t say it’s a hard question. I love you.

  How do I know that, Art?

  Because I’m telling you it’s so. You just have to trust.

  Trust…

  We have to trust each other.

  A business transaction? Is that what this is?

  Sort of.

  Then I want a new partner. You’re not bringing in enough cash.

  I never thought the money mattered to you.

  That’s because I never thought the money mattered to you. But apparently it
does. And if this is a business partnership, you’re not bringing in enough cash.

  I’m doing what I can.

  You and Wanda.

  Wanda is the only thing between my business being viable and my business being doomed.

  Wanda. Wanda. Wanda. She does seem too pretty by half.

  You’re too pretty by half.

  You still find me pretty after all these years?

  You still care if I find you pretty after all these years?

  A woman always cares.

  Then I still find you pretty.

  Do you find me trustworthy, Art?

  Yes. Do you find me trustworthy, Adeleine?

  The jury’s still out.

  The jury will always be out.

  What can I say? I’m a woman. Women by nature shouldn’t trust men.

  And vice versa?

  Women are trustworthier than men.

  Do you think so?

  Yes. Women have more to lose.

  Well I trust you, even if you don’t trust me.

  I trust you too, I suppose, though I still think you’re a drifter. You have to work on that.

  •

  She was in the wrong place when she died and she was in the wrong place when we had met.

  How had we met? I almost forgot how we met.

  Did we meet?

  Or had we always known each other?

  I feel we have been together so long I don’t remember who I was before there was you.

  It’s the funniest thing, Art. I feel the same way.

  Who were you when we met?

  I was a girl who lived on the North Shore, and even then I hated being a girl who lived on the North Shore.

  What did you hate about it?

  I hated everything about it. I lived in a world of princesses and castles and beautiful kingdoms and wealth and prospects and pink dresses and girls who were always so desperate to be the central figure at the ball. But I for one never liked princesses. I’ve never cared for castles—and I certainly didn’t care for what passed for castles on the North Shore. I wanted to find a gypsy to run away with. You were my revolt, Art. You were the thing I was looking for. You were the guy to break me out of my fairy kingdom.