Fools die

Chapter 41

On my next trip back a month later I called Janelle, and we decided to have dinner and go to the movies together. There was something a little cold in her voice, so I was wary, which prepared me for the shock of seeing her when I picked her up at her apartment.

Alice opened the door and I kissed her and I asked Mice how Janelle was and Alice rolled her eyes up in her head, which meant I could expect Janelle to be a little crazy. Well, it wasn’t crazy, but it was a little funny. When Janelle came out of the bedroom, she was dressed as I had never seen her before.

She had on a white fedora with a red ribbon in it. The brim snapped over her dark brown gold-flecked eyes. She was wearing a perfectly tailored man’s suit of white silk, or what looked like silk. The trouser legs were strictly tailored straight as any man’s. She had on a white silk shirt and the most beautiful red-and-blue-striped tie, and to top it off, she was carrying a delicately slender cream-colored Gucci cane, which she proceeded to stab me in the stomach with. It was a direct challenge, I knew what she was doing; she was coming out of the closet and without words she was telling the world of her bisexuality.

She said, “How do you like it?”

I smiled and said, “Great.” The most dapper dyke I ever met. “Where do you want to eat?”

She leaned on her cane and watched me very coolly. “I think,” she said, “we should eat at Scandia and that for once in our relationship you might take me to a nightclub.”

We had never eaten at the fancy places. We had never gone to a nightclub. But I said OK. I understood, I think, what she was doing. She was forcing me to acknowledge to the world that I loved her despite her bisexuality, testing me to see if I could bear the dyke jokes and snickers. Since I had already accepted the fact myself, I didn’t care what anybody else thought.

We had a great evening. Everybody stared at us in the restaurant, and I must admit that Janelle looked absolutely smashing. In fact, she looked like a blonder and fairer version of Marlene Dietrich, Southern belle style, of course. Because, no matter what she did, that overwhelming femininity came off her. But I knew that if I told her that, she would hate it. She was out to punish me.

I really enjoyed her playing the dyke role simply because I knew how feminine she was in bed. So it was a sort of double joke on whoever was watching us. I also enjoyed it because Janelle thought she was making me angry and was watching my every move and was disappointed and then pleased that I obviously didn’t mind.

I drew the line at going to a nightclub, but we went and had drinks at the Polo Lounge, where for her satisfaction I submitted our relationship to the stares of her friends and mine. I saw Doran at one table and Jeff Wagon at another, and they both grinned at me. Janelle waved to them gaily and then turned to me and said, “Isn’t it wonderful to go somewhere for a drink and see all your old dear friends?”

I grinned back at her and I said, “Great.”

I got her home before midnight and she tapped me on the shoulder with her cane and she said, “You did very well.”

And I said, “Thank you.”

She said, “Will you call me?”

And I said, “Yes.” It had been a nice night anyway. I had enjoyed the double takes of the maitre d’, the doorman, even the guys who did the valet parking, and at least now Janelle was out of the closet.

– -

There came a time soon after this when I loved Janelle as a person. That is, it wasn’t that I just wanted to fuck her brains out; or look into her dark brown eyes and faint; or eat up her pink mouth. And all the rest of it, the staying up all night telling her stories, Jesus, telling her my whole life, and her telling me all her life. In short, there came a time when I realized it was her sole function to make me happy, to make me delight in her. I saw that it was my job to make her a little happier than she was and not to get pissed off when she didn’t make me happy.

I don’t mean I became one of those guys who are in love with a girl because it makes them unhappy. I never understood that really. I always believed in getting my share of any bargain, in life, in literature, in marriage, in love, even as a father.

And I don’t mean I learned to make her happy by giving her a gift, that was my pleasure. Or to cheer her when she was down, which was just clearing obstacles out of the way so that she could get on with the job of making me happy.

Now what was curious was that after she had “betrayed” me, after we started to hate each other a little, after we had the goods on each other, I came to love her as a person.

She was really such a good guy. She used to say like a child sometimes, “I’m a good person,” and she really was. She was really so straight in all the important things. Sure she fucked other guys and women too, but what the hell, nobody’s perfect. She still loved the same books I did, the same movies, the same people. When she lied to me, it was to keep from hurting me. And when she told me the truth, it was partly to hurt me (she had a nice vengeful streak and I even loved that too), but also because she was terrified I’d learn the truth in a way that would hurt me more.

And of course, as time went on, I had to understand that she led a hurtful life in many ways. A complicated life. As who indeed does not.

So finally all the falseness and illusion had gone out of our relationship. We were true friends and I loved her as a person. I admired her courage, her indestructibility with all the disappointments of her professional life, all the treacheries of her personal life. I understood it all. I was for her all the way.

Then why the hell didn’t we have those deliriously good times we had before? Why wasn’t the sex as good as it had been, though still better than anyone else? Why weren’t we as ecstatic with each other as we used to be?

Magic-magic, black or white. Sorcery, spells, witches and alchemy. Could it really be true that spinning stars decide our destiny and moon blood makes lives wax and wane? Could it be true that the innumerable galaxies decide our fate day by day on earth? Is it quite simply true that we cannot be happy without false illusions?

There comes a point in every love affair when, so it seems, the woman gets pissed off at her lover’s being too happy. Sure she knows it’s her making him happy. Sure she knows that it’s her pleasure, even her job. But finally she comes to the conclusion that in some way, the son of a bitch is getting away with murder. Especially with the man married and the woman not. For then the relationship is an answer to his problem but does not solve hers.

And there comes a time when one of the partners needs a fight before making love. Janelle had come to that stage. I usually managed to sidetrack her, but sometimes I felt like fighting too. Usually when she was pissed off that I stayed married and didn’t make any promises for a permanent commitment.

We were in her house in Malibu after the movies. It was late. From our bedroom we could look over the ocean, which wore a long streak of moonlight like a lock of blond hair.

“Let’s go to bed,” I said. I was dying to make love to her. I was always dying to make love to her.

“Oh, Christ,” she said, “you always want to fuck.”

“No,” I said. “I want to make love to you.” I had become that sentimental.

She looked at me coldly, but her liquid brown eyes were flashing with anger. “You and your fucking innocence,” she said. “You’re like a leper without his bell.”

“Graham Greene,” I said.

“Oh, fuck you,” she said, but she laughed.

And what had led to all this was that I never lied. And she wanted me to lie. She wanted me to give her all the bullshit married men give to girls they screw. Like “My wife and I are getting a divorce.” Like “My wife and I haven’t screwed in years.” Like “My wife and I don’t share the same bedroom.” Like “My wife and I have an understanding.” Like “My wife and I are unhappy together.” Since none of this was true for me, I wouldn’t say it. I loved my wife, we shared the same bedroom, we had sex, we were happy. I had the best of two worlds and I wasn’t going to give it up. So much the worse for me.

Once Janelle laughed she was OK for a while. So now she went and drew a tub full of hot water. We always took a bath together before we went to bed. She would wash me and I would wash her and we’d fool around a little and then jump out and dry each other, with big towels. Then we’d wind ourselves around each other, naked under the covers.

But now she lit a cigarette before getting into bed. That was a danger signal. She wanted to fight. A bottle of energy pills had spilled out of her purse and that had pissed me off, so I was a little ready too. I was no longer in so loving a mood. Seeing that bottle of energy pills had set off a whole train of fantasies. Now that I knew she had a woman lover, now that I knew she slept with other men when I was away back with my family in New York, I no longer loved her as much, and the energy pills made me think that she needed them to make love to me because she was fucking other people. So now I didn’t feel like it. She sensed this.

“I didn’t know you read Graham Greene,” I said. “That crack about the leper without his bell, that’s very pretty. You saved that one up just for me.”

She squinted her brown eyes over the cigarette smoke. The blond hair was loose down over her delicately beautiful face. “It’s true, you know,” she said. “You can go home and screw your wife and that’s OK. But because I have other lovers, you think I’m just a cunt. You don’t even love me anymore.”

“I still love you,” I said.

“You don’t love me as much,” she said.

“I love you enough to want to make love to you and not just fuck you,” I said.

“You’re really sly,” she said. “You’re innocent sly. You just admitted you love me less as if I tricked you into it. But you wanted me to know that. But why? Why can’t women have other lovers and still love other men? You always tell me you still love your wife and you just love me more. That it’s different. Why can’t it be different for me? Why can’t it be different for all women? Why can’t we have the same sexual freedom and men still love us?”

“Because you know for sure whether it’s your kid and men don’t,” I said. I was kidding, I think.

She threw back the covers dramatically and sprang up so that she was standing in bed. “I don’t believe you said that,” she said incredulously. “I can’t believe that you said such an incredibly male chauvinistic thing.”

“I was kidding,” I said. “Really. But you know, you’re not realistic. You want me to adore you, to be really in love with you, to treat you like a virginal queen. As they did in the old days. But you reject those values that surrendering love is built on. You want us to love you like the Holy Grail, but you want to live like a liberated woman. You won’t accept that if your values change, so must mine. I can’t love you as you want me to. As I used to.”

She started to cry. “I know,” she said. “God, we loved each other so much. You know I used to fuck you when I had blinding headaches, I didn’t care, I just took Percodan. And I loved it. I loved it. And now sex isn’t as good, is it, now that we’re honest?”

“No, it isn’t,” I said.

That made her angry again. She started to yell and her voice sounded like a duck quacking.

It was going to be a long night. I sighed and reached over to the table for a cigarette. It’s very hard to light a cigarette when a beautiful girl is standing so that her cunt is right over your mouth. But I managed it and the tableau was so funny that she collapsed back onto the bed, laughing.

“You’re right,” I said. “But you know the practical arguments for women being faithful. I told you women most of the time don’t know that they have venereal disease. And remember, the more guys you screw, the more chance you have of getting cervical cancer.”

Janelle laughed. “You liaaarr,” she drawled out.

“No kidding,” I said. “All the old taboos have a practical basis.”

“You bastards,” Janelle said. “Men are lucky bastards.”

“That’s the way it is,” I said smugly. “And when you start yelling, you sound just like Donald Duck.”

I got hit with a pillow and had the excuse to grab and hug her and we wound up making love.

Afterward, when we were smoking a cigarette together, she said, “But I’m right, you know. Men are not fair. Women have every right to have as many sexual partners as they want. Now be serious. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” I said just as seriously as she and more. I meant it. Intellectually I knew she was right.

She snuggled up to me. “That’s why I love you,” she said. “You really do understand. Even at your male chauvinistic pig worst. When the revolution comes, I’m going to save your life. I’m going to say you were a good male, just misguided.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

She put out the light and then her cigarette. Very thoughtfully she said, “You really don’t love me less because I sleep with others, do you?”

“No,” I said.

“You know I love you really and truly,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you don’t think I’m a cunt for doing that, do you?” Janelle said.

“Nope,” I said. “Let’s go to sleep.” I reached out to hold her. She moved away a little.

“Why don’t you leave your wife and marry me? Tell me the truth.”

“Because I have it both ways,” I said.

“You bastard,” She poked me in the balls with her finger.

It hurt. “Jesus,” I said. “Just because I’m madly in love with you, just because I like to talk to you better than anybody, just because I like fucking you better than anybody, what gives you the balls to think I’d leave my wife for you?”

She didn’t know whether I was serious or not. She decided I was kidding. It was a dangerous assumption to make.

“Very seriously,” she said. “Honestly I just want to know. Why do you still stay married to your wife? Give me just one good reason.”

I rolled up into a protective ball before I answered. “Because she’s not a cunt,” I said.

– -

One morning I drove Janelle to the Paramount lot, where she had a day’s work shooting a tiny part in one of its big pictures.

We were early, so we took a walk around what was to me an amazingly lifelike replica of a small town. It even had a false horizon, a sheet of metal rising to the sky that fooled me momentarily. The fake fronts were so real that as we walked past them, I couldn’t resist opening the door of a bookstore, almost expecting to see the familiar tables and shelves covered with bright-jacketed books for sale. When I opened the door, there was nothing but grass and sand beyond the doorsill.

Janelle laughed as we kept walking. There was a window filled with medicine bottles and drugs of the nineteenth century. We opened that door and again saw the grass and sand beyond. As we kept walking, I kept opening doors and Janelle didn’t laugh anymore. She only smiled. And finally we came to a restaurant with a canopy leading to the street and beneath the canopy a man in work clothes sweeping. And for some reason the man sweeping really faked me out. I thought that we had left the sets and come into the Paramount commissary area. I saw a menu pasted in the window and I asked the workman if the restaurant was open yet. He had an old actor’s rubbery face. He squinted at me. Gave a huge grin then almost closed his eyes and winked.

“Are you serious?” he said.

I went to the restaurant door and opened it, and I was really astonished. Really surprised to see again the sand and grass beyond. I closed the door and looked at the workman’s face. It was almost maniacal with glee as if he had arranged this trip for me. As if he were some sort of God and I had asked him “Is life serious?” and that’s why he had answered me, “Are you serious?”

I walked Janelle to the sound stage where she was shooting and she said to me, “They’re so obviously fake. How could they fool you?”

“They didn’t fool me,” I said.

“But you so obviously expected them to be real,” Janelle said. “I watched your face as you opened the doors. And I know that the restaurant fooled you.”

She gave my arm a playful tug.

“You really shouldn’t be let out alone,” she said. “You’re so dumb.”

And I had to agree. But it wasn’t so much that I believed. It wasn’t that really.‘ What bothered me was that I had wanted to believe that there was something beyond those doors. That I could not accept the obvious fact that behind those painted sets was nothing. That I really thought I was a magician. When I opened those doors, real rooms would appear and real people. Even the restaurant. Just before I opened the door, I saw in my mind red tablecloths and dark wine bottles and people standing silently waiting to be seated. I was really surprised when there was nothing there.

I realized it had been some kind of aberration that had made me open those doors, and yet I was glad I had done so.

I didn’t mind Janelle laughing at me and I didn’t mind working with that crazy actor. God, I had just wanted to be sure; and if I had not opened those doors, I would have always wondered.