CHAPTER XI. THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Your hero finds romance.

Jess will obsess? That might be, but Anselm is no neurotic, a-gnaw over character flaw. The wounds have healed. I mentioned a supposed nervous breakdown only for an unreliable exception to prove a stable rule. I may be revisiting the episode, but please suppose no fixation. I just need to set the record straight, for your benefit.

I have a law degree. The ambition died; the confidence suffered no injury, trust me. I no longer possess a suit, which spares tiresome trips to the dry cleaner. The world imposes its trappings of success; I defy the definition. I have a dame, for goodness’ sake! Women turn when we pass; men ogle her in envy. Your soldier marches in full stride, his bearing impressive, his head held high. I have touched on a marriage, as you might recall. Christine is no longer my wife. I accept the legal truth, understand no lasting trouble. For all you know, the years we spent under the same roof were a necessary stage on a road to fulfillment. A girl might be shy, suffer a bad complexion, enjoy no boy’s attention, but why pity the dull duckling who blossoms to a bird of beauty? And if I tell of another woman, the tale stirs no distress. The desertion was no real loss, her betrayal for the best. There have been plenty more, I can assure you. In any case, I rarely remember the affair, revisit the evidence, replay the crackling record. Fading photographs, torn letters, gifted garments, what are you talking about?

The Park Ranger worked into the night. I left a band but not the calling, and my guitar closed campfire gatherings with distinction—God made rock ’n’ roll and saw that it was good. Park visitors heard my own compositions, but I leavened the mix with familiar fare: A blackbird sang in the dead of the night; I took them by the hand and led them through the streets of London, then beat their lonely hearts against the sky. My playlist had no sing-along intent, though a chorus might sputter into life, visibly stoned couples shedding their inhibition in the warm anonymity of the forest darkness. I had gone well beyond the call of duty, for which they shared their thanks. At least they should have. Rebecca plopped her welcome mat down at the front. Her eyes locked onto mine. And she remained behind after fellow campers dispersed through the starlit pines. I perhaps quickened at her arrival, couldn’t help but notice two fine legs on the walk I led earlier that day, overhearing a story of a park visit taken with no company. My evening talk was animated, but that was always the case, I’m no panting poodle! She was now squatting against a log, hands clasped around her knees, her face glowing in the dying light of the fire. Baggy shorts, sandals, bandana complemented her freckled good looks like high fashion. My campfire entertainment respected no rule; her tie-dyed T-shirt covered no restriction. The free spirit said I cut a fine figure in my ranger green, and she was far from the first, if you really need to know. The latest admirer found the wilderness night enchanting, had been moved by my songs, and invited me back to her tent.

“I, wanna rock ’n’ roll all night!” The information arrived from my rear. I still needed the support of a lamppost, suffered the chill night air. Your shivering scribe was falling asleep on his feet, a bleary fog occasionally lifting to reveal the departing Grace, distance smoothing out the irregularity. The raucous attempt at song had no such leagues to travel.

Her wishes came true. She had the white wedding. He promised to love her, till death do them part. They had a solid marriage, two kids, good friends, a nice house. But like a brick building in an earthquake, a solid structure may not last—he was seeing someone else. He told her what happened, any further lie unbecoming. He made a terrible mistake, never felt so low, implored her to stay. They talked to a counselor, friends rallied, her mother visited often, and long. He stopped drinking, joined her church, redoubled his attentions. She gave him another chance, would forgive, if not forget. A chastened man came home from work, with roses and affectionate greeting. But eyes serve as reminder.

“And party ev.er.ree day!” He had never left. I would not risk my balance and so he had to make the circuit, surer of his footing. Squirt’s crime has long passed the statute. I never read an indictment; he never entered a plea. My lids were drooping, I could only faintly fix his features. But when his errant gaze finds my center, a guilty party is back in the dock.

“Bub, I just thought of somethin.”

“I already told you, I’m not giving you any advance.”

“That lady—”

“Grace.”

“Amazin Grace. A.maz.in!”

 The cackles discovered my headache. He wheeled and disappeared around the corner of Dolorosa. I checked for my wallet, but with no suspicion, trust me; a Boy Scout is always prepared. The fire hydrant and I celebrated with a two-step. I lost my watch, found another, to the face of eleven o’clock. The neighborhood abed, the street was all mine until a raccoon coalesced out of the night air to sniff at the row of garbage cans awaiting early morning collection. The forager recorded the obstacle, describing a semicircle around my center. My bed beckoned, twenty minutes’ drive at this hour. Fortunately, I had parked out front. Plopping behind the wheel, I caught my foot behind the pedal, fumbled the ignition, stalled the reverse. Sleeping bag, inflatable mattress, foam pillow—my camping gear was stowed in the trunk.

Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca! The following day we exchanged the unforgiving ground sheet of her tent floor for the single bed of my cabin, tree-hidden behind the park village. She spent another, unplanned, week in the park, constant company as I discharged my duties. A matronly park visitor inquired—on a rare occasion when my affectionate companion wandered out of earshot—if my wife was also a park ranger. My fingers forgot the typewriter, and my foundations fell to the wrecking ball of female frolic. She clung to me at night, petting a pliant puppy. I could do little wrong. Anselm, how come you never talk about any girlfriends, you’re really quite the charmer. As if there were any doubt! I’ve never met anyone like you before. Isn’t that the truth? We squabbled; she was easily hurt, just as ready to forgive. I had made a best friend, in less than a week. As my eyes followed her dusty red VW Bug receding toward the park exit, they were far from sad. She was driving all the way back to Manhattan, a graduate student at Columbia. City life would resuscitate my writing.

 Another floor was hard. No mercy tended my headache, no padding my bones. I had woken in the middle of the night, the air mattress deflated and a rolled-up sleeping bag supporting the crick in my neck. The streetlight in the bare window traced a puzzle: I must have bedded down in the new apartment. The cause of waking pressed, and I despaired of timely release. Nauseous, sightless, his neck stiff as a rusty bolt, his bladder fit to burst, a mole groped for the tunnel. No light penetrated the hall, neither was memory able to provide a lamp. The blind must feel the way. I might be weaving in the wrong direction, why not just pee right here, no one would know? I am not usually afraid of the dark, but the pitch was total black. Have you ever seen The Cave? I will not recount the horrors. I could keep going on and on, deeper and deeper into the tar pit. I was lost, I was alone, I could not turn around. An abandoned dog begins to whimper. Time slowed with fumbling progress. What was this? I brushed against a doorframe. My fingers located the knob, my shoulder pushed the door. My eyes met a blaze of light.

 Rebecca found pay phones on the road. The car seat was her bed; gas stations, convenience stores, small-town diners her only break. She missed me terribly. I passed the evenings lying on my bunk, wearing her socks, flipping through her postcards, waiting her call. A keen geographer followed her trajectory on a highway map, purchased at the village store for the purpose, anticipating the next area code. The old VW broke down, but she made it back to New York in less than a week. I was biding my time. Rebecca, I’m ready when you are, just give me a date. I would have talked for hours but she was preparing for seminars, meeting advisors, grading undergraduate tests, and had to end the call with an apology. You do understand? She had rented a tiny studio, but put her name down for one bedroom. City living means close quarters.

Sight returned with revulsion. No decent, law-abiding, tax-paying American should face such an abomination. The grunting had registered; the warning came too late. Missy was naked. With large ornaments asway, paws pressing the carpet, blank eyes fixed on high, the figure I had last seen working behind a benighted bar was now frolicking over a familiar face. Pants gathered around his ankles, hands behind his head, Squirt need expend no energy, a spectator to her rut.

“We meet again.” She extended a smirk. I was barely conscious, but the vision sadly no dream. The uninvited houseguests showed no inclination to curb their industry. I knew he was fully capable, having already felt the lash. That previous offense was yet more galling, but at least I had no visual evidence.

“Bub, can’t a boy and gal have a lil privacy?”

We were all agreed then. I was in the wrong.

A dissertation chapter arrived in the mail. Her advisor was enthused, her presentation well received at a national conference. I diligently read each page, hailing the ideas, if not the affectation. The studied detachment of her prose was the more pronounced next to the handwritten love letters that arrived in the same envelope. She left for Central America, a field trip with a group of fellow graduate students, to observe a religious festival central to her research. The arduous journey would impose unreliable layovers and end with a five-hour bus trip over primitive mountain roads. She would be gone for a few weeks, the first time we had been out of touch since the campfire.

I was fully awake. Hours spent on the hardwood had fused my neck and shoulders into a plank of pain. Three thirty, I was now sober enough to drive. Rudyard heard the key in the front door, greeted me in near panic. The light on my answering machine was blinking. The father had called from the condominium development in Arizona, his normal, decent, dependable tones offering a measure of reassurance. Merrywood Sr. has an aversion to the phone, Mother’s health might have taken a turn, but I could hardly call back at this hour. I washed off my disgust in the shower, gobbled a surfeit of analgesic relief, and woke to full daylight, the bedside clock reading eleven o’clock. But I enjoyed some clavicle liberation, and my unwitting voyeurism faded like a fever.

One week stretched into two, then three. Any threat to a group of well-connected Americans in Guatemala would make the news, but I scoured the papers in vain. The silence underscored my place on her periphery; I could contact neither family nor friends. A secretary, fortified with the Brooklyn accent that I remember with dismay to this day, answered the phone in the department office. She little trusted my story, would only take a message. I was hurting for information, but will never abjectly beg, trust me. I tried again the next day, hoping to hear a human, but the harridan as good as hurled the accusation—stalker! Over a month passed and a small printed envelope arrived in the mail, postmarked Amherst MA, her hometown. The letter inside was penned in a familiar script. Her field trip had been aborted. Ongoing hostilities between government forces and guerrillas had flared up, and the consulate issued a strong advisory. She had other news. Her ex-boyfriend had been a member of the group that had to pass time waiting for the return flight. The two of them had signed up months in advance, when they were still together. She had too much respect for me to lie about this development, keep me in the dark. She was so very sorry, hadn’t mentioned him before, really thought it was over. She had driven across country in the summer to get away, think things over, never expected to meet someone like me. I crumpled the letter on the tiny table we had dined off together. We shared nothing else again.