The earth is darker when it’s wet. Perhaps wet things look heavy because I’ve worn wet clothes a time or two. Sticky. More. You, know?
I hear her say she can’t have children. She says that: ‘children’—not ‘the kids’ or ‘little ones’ (when she is being soft) or ‘rug-rats’ (when she is angry) like usual.
How she manages it I don’t know: there is no accusation in the tone, no fear. It (everything: the moment, the truth, us, how we relate it all to everything else) is simplicity awful in its absence of needing anything else to make me understand; in its proof that we really knew that the saying of things three and four times just to hear ourselves speak in the past has always been a pretense.
Because it is clear, I know she has already gone through it; is already old in it.
Hours? Days? She has no place to put it.
We had been talking about her new diet. I had said it was silly that she would actually say the sentence: “It’s not my week to have a sweet potato.” I had wondered how many times I would hear it again as if her proof she was sticking to the new diet; had found what she calls courage.
So now I’m wet. I know her moves, her moods. She didn’t say it to get even. It was just the right opening to get it out. Sweet potatoes.
I’ve been wet before. It’s heavy but it dries out.
Don’t turn left or right when you ought to go straight on.
“They said they can …try some things.” She closes the refrigerator door and stands there with her back to me.
I don’t say anything. Just stand here.
My Betty. She’s tough—got a hard mouth on her. She expects a lot and ‘ll tell you so in a minute. Her humor can be mean. But she doesn’t really mean anything by it. Everybody is a sinner from before, right? Everybody’s got history.
I always thought maybe….
Okay. I thought for sure. One day.
All those years I saved here and there, tucked a few things I heard away for my boy. Not be overbearing, just a nudge here and there; not raise him to be a fool like I was.
I just stand here.
The clock ticks off the seconds. I feel. She feels. We feel. It’s already too late but there seems something we ought to do. The air is still.
I know her. Beyond the emptiness and what we can’t hear through our child’s voice, she’s listening in advance to her mother; to her family talking to her; to my family talking to me.
Her sister’s got four kids. I come from a family of six. I’m the oldest. When she tells her mother, I know and she knows good and well her mother won’t even skip a beat and go right on with her stupid routine. Her saying nothing will be a loud and clear ‘I told you so’.
Her parents are of those that move quickly past bad news. “No point dwelling on what can’t be helped.” My family is the same. Betty is counting all the silences at Christmas and Easter and birthdays; how they will wonder why she stays away. They don’t understand the effect of what they say. She always tried to be happy for other people’s blessings and share in the joy. She just naturally assumed..
The preacher says what goes around comes around. If you give good, you get good. Everybody thinks that.
So did I. I think I misled her thinking that for myself.
Do the right thing.
Beyond the emotion is reality. She had an abortion years ago. She doesn’t know I know. She didn’t know what she was doing—it was way before we ever met. It wasn’t her fault. They talked her into being politically hip and killed a child to further their own agenda. She knows I’m against that kind of thing. As soon as I heard I decided to forget it right there. But it’s sticky. It is more than it first appears to be and it came right back. I don’t know how to get rid of it again. I love her more than I hate what happened, but I know she is afraid I’ll find out.
I guess I always thought, because of how she is, that if she knew I knew, she’d think I was stupid for loving her. What good is that whole conversation? To get tangled up in words no matter what is said –and with no resolution? We’ll just both try to keep what little bit of wisdom we had even if it was stupid and it’ll all be for nothing. It’ll never stop moments like this.
I haven’t thought of it in ages. I’m a shield against some invisibles. But I want to be a spear too. I want to protect her and kill the thing that hurts. She leans on me like I can stop it.
I purse my lips and rotate my watch around my wrist. It’s trimmed in shiny brass and leather. It’s a big gob of heavy duty she gave me last Christmas for the job. It’s got everything. Time. Date. Stop Watch. Some other stuff too I never use.
“My womb is dead.” She holds her hand over her stomach. “ I thought…” She starts to shake. I catch her before she falls.
We just sit down right here.
I have never heard sounds like this before. I never heard her say ‘womb’ before. The spirits in her aren’t the kind to say that. I knew there was more to her than just what she said. I knew it. I think that’s even like a rule and I’m the only one who knows: people are always more than what they say or show. I never heard anybody else say it and I never read it anywhere. It’s new knowledge shown to me.
My Betty. She’s beautiful when she cries—more so than at other times. Weird. I mean really real and beautiful. She’ll make a great mother. A perfect mother. She’ll worry and fuss like nobody’s business. I don’t care what other people say: I know she is moral. She stands for something good. She is good. –and she’d pass that on.
The wet with the nose and eyes and lips and hair thing. She looks at me and lets it all go. She knows I’m not leaving. She sees it in my eyes. I have the look of shields ( I hope) but I want to have the look of a successful kill. It is years too late. So she sees confusion too. I guess she takes it for lack of resolve and wonders if I know. Her voice changes as she sniffs.
“The Lowery’s are movin’ off—back to South Florida I think.”
I start to say something related to the Lowery’s or moving.
“The tomatoes are getting ripe. I heard they opened up the fields. We could pick our own for five dollars a five gallon bucket. I was thinking of canning some.”
She’s never canned anything in her life. She buys everything from a store. It’s a point of pride with her.
I say: Okay.
“Did you see my antler?”
I don’t know what to say: No.
She climbs up, pushes off me, goes to the closet and pulls out one deer antler. She points to the marks on the edges that are obvious chew marks of other animals. “A guy down at the library said the squirrels and possum’s, the little animals chew on the antlers deer drop off at the end of every year to get the minerals. See?”
There’s a place where the marrow is exposed with teeth marks around it. The exposed marrow looks like an empty network of small spaces that once would have held something the same color. One end of a point is chewed off and another is pretty chewed as well. The whole thing is heavy in my hand. Real.
“I found it while I was walking down by the bridge. It was just laying there just like this covered up in some leaves. It just seemed like something you would keep, you know?” She lays it on the coffee table. It rocks back and forth a bit. The curves are a good foundation for it to lie on its side, but the proportions are off balance enough so that it rocks for a while when you touch the top point. “I just thought people would feel smart looking at it. Like inside? The chew marks and all? There’s something very basic about it. Knobby, the color and streaks of bone, the chew marks—all that. It’s a kind of discarded holy thing little creatures were eating in secret.”
I smile and feel the edges of the teeth marks with my finger. You see how she is? No children–the Lowery’s—tomatoes—antler—holy secrets. It’s a strange kind of circle that goes around and around and always borders on spirituality.
It seems like we can’t get away from it.
******
She was going on about something. It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention. But it was the same old stuff in a circle and I saw it coming.
“Damn what a liar that spirit in you is!”
I had said it to myself so often about her speech I got used to it and forgot to be on guard against it. I didn’t even think about it. Then it was too late.
I know it’s true. Christ is in me and in my wife. We’re both born again and we both know words are spirit. But we grew up in the world like everybody else and they get us too with that blindness that comes from hearing them and having a history being deceived by them. It’s such a rare thing to say the truth of what is happening that when God does it through us, we’re almost deceived it’s us that wants to stop and speak the other way immediately; like something is Watching and we need permission. They make you think for a minute that it’s you who are leaving home and nobody will be able to understand you when you get back and that there is no where to go but back. They make you think it’s dangerous to even hear the truth much less say it yourself. And then when you do hear Truth again, you see what they’ve done to you all along.
But I didn’t know her back there or even now. In all those words and all those moves we never knew each other. I don’t want to go back at all. Somewhere, beyond the sex we know I’ll Know her. And that’s really the thing. That’s my part of things; how we’ll fix the whole situation.
She looks at me but doesn’t say anything. The moment passes.
Her mom calls again. This time I don’t care what her Mom says. Betty isn’t defending herself anymore. She just says “We’re really trying.” with that edge in her voice. Short conversation.
******
We turn our bed to watch the aurora at night when it comes. She brings wine sometimes. Sometimes I bring flowers.
“Do you ever think about Jesus when we make love?” It’s a new question for us.
“Sometimes.”
“Hmm. I never do.”
“What do you see?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“I see you naked, on top of me and I know that you really love me. But I get confused about what to think next. I think about what I think I’m supposed to think about—and I don’t know where to go or how to get there from here. It’s not the same thing as …climaxing. You know? It’s almost like a destination that’s not really related to the pleasure. I mean I guess it isn’t—maybe it should be? I don’t know about the other women. I just know me.”
“What other women?” That’s the thing about being married to one woman: all the other women think they are an authority on my marriage and they are always trying to squeeze in somehow through my wife.
“Oh, you know. Whatever the other women are feeling or doing when they conceive. I just don’t think about them. I want my own conception with you. As long as its real. I want to do what I’m supposed to do.”
See how my Betty is? She’s a beauty.
*********
So she says her womb is dead. They say her womb is dead. No way. She just needs some help knowing what her womb is. It isn’t the rub or the smooches or the rest. It’s beyond the sex we know, that’s all. It’s just me and her. The bible says Adam knew his wife. She only conceived when he knew her. It says too that God closes up some wombs and opens others. (The wombs that He opens always come with mouths that act like they did it on their own. And the wombs He closes always get kicked even more.) I just have to know her. That’s all there is to it.
*********
“The Lowery’s are movin’ off—back to South Florida I think.”
I start to say something related to what she said.
“The tomatoes are getting ripe. They’re opening up the fields. We can pick our own for five dollars a five gallon bucket. I was thinking of canning. With my new canner?”
She’s never canned anything in her life. She buys everything from a store. It’s a point of pride with her. I bought her a new canner since she mentioned it the first time. “Okay.”
“Did you see my antler?” She’s got it on the mantle now.
I don’t know what to say. “No.” Who can really say they’ve seen anything when they’ve seen it only once?
She points to the marks on the edges that are obvious chew marks of other animals. “The guy, down at the library? He said the squirrels and possum’s chew on the antlers deer drop off at the end of every year to get the minerals. They can’t get them anywhere else. See?”
The marrow is exposed with teeth marks around it. One end of the point is chewed off and another knob is pretty chewed as well. I pick it up. It is heavy in my hand. Real. Bone has its own feel and weight like nothing else.
“I found it while I was walking down by the bridge. It was just laying there covered up in some leaves. It seemed like something you would keep. Or that you should keep I guess.”
I put it down. She picks it up and holds it up to the light.
She lays it on the coffee table. “I just thought people would feel wise looking at it. The chew marks. There’s something very basic about it. Humble –the teeth marks and the marrow exposed and all. Knobby, the color and streaks of bone—all that. It’s a kind of discarded …holy.”
I smile and feel the edges of the teeth marks with my finger. You see how she is? The Lowery’s—tomatoes—antler—holy. It’s a strange kind of circle that goes around and around and always borders on ..something we can’t see.
**********
Something has gotten between us. I know what it is but I don’t want to say. Once I say it I can’t go back from it. I don’t know how she’s going to take it.
She speaks on in her circle. I speak on in mine. We take journeys in front of each other and go nowhere.
To say, “That spirit in you is a liar.” is a kind of catastrophe. But that’s where it is. The things she says aren’t her. Sweet potatoes? I’ve heard them and know all their moves and I still don’t know her. They can’t help us. So what good are they? They speak in themes, an abecedary of lies even in the middle of sex. And I still don’t know her. They say the things you’d expect to hear in the middle of pleasure given that you heard what other people do and say. They take stuff off the TV and the radio, mix them up and feed them back to me in unique ways through her like a goo. Honey, this. Baby, that. oh. yeah. I hear them. But I don’t believe them.
She doesn’t either. But she can’t stop saying them. If she heard what I thought and stayed the way she is, she just think I gave up my chances to get a better life in the heart she has in common with all the rest. She’d think it was beautiful, like she got lucky in the love she knows. She’d be hurt and confused when if I told her thoughts of what I do are lies. I love her. But not the love she knows.
The difference between us is that I know the words she says aren’t her. She thinks they are and if they don’t speak those lies she is being oppressed. She is in a prison that is her own vocabulary, thinks that she must speak and it never solves anything.
Hearing them is like watching an old kung-fu movie: fighting as dance moves. Every move is an emotional punch that’s all practiced and mapped out in advance where everyone hesitates just enough to make the guy whose gonna eventually lose catch up and make him think he’s winning. “When a person does that—you do this. My kung-fu is better than yours.” They are doing the legend of Dour Master through her. No-smile style. They make her like that about herself.
But they are not her.
Her mom called. I didn’t hear what she said, only my wife’s reply of “We’re doing what we can. We’re working at it.” in self-defense. She takes up for us both in her love.
*********
She was going on about something. It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention. But it was the same old stuff in a circle and I saw it coming.
“Damn what a liar those spirit in you are!”
I had said it to myself so often about her I got used to it and forgot to be on guard against it. I didn’t even think about it. Then it was too late.
I know it’s true. Christ is in me and in my wife. We’re both born again and we both know words are spirit. But we grew up in the world like everybody else and they get us too –always trying to remind us of our history rather than now and our future. It’s such a rare thing to say the truth of what is happening that when He does it through us we’re almost deceived it’s us that wants to stop and speak the other way immediately. They make you think for a minute that it’s you who are leaving home and nobody will be able to understand you when you get back. They make you think it’s dangerous to even hear the truth much less say it yourself. It’s why people find themselves whispering to each other and don’t know why.
I didn’t know her back there –or now. Knowing a lot about her isn’t the same. Knowing what she isn’t is not the same. In all those words and all those moves we never know each other. I don’t want to go back at all. To hell with Dour Master. Somewhere, beyond the sex we know in Dour Masters domain, I’ll know her somewhere else. And that’s really the thing. That’s more important than the children — because I think the children are a result of that and it is larger than just babies. It’s what we’re really doing here. It’s why we fight against anybody who tries to stop us even though we can’t say what it is.
She looks at me but doesn’t say anything. She grins.
Her mom calls again. This time I don’t care what her Mom says. Betty isn’t defending herself anymore. She just says “We’re still trying.” with that edge I her voice. Short conversation. Again.
*********
We turn our bed to watch the aurora at night. She brings wine sometimes. I try to bring flowers.
“Do you ever think about Christ when we make love?”
“Sometimes.”
“Hmm. I never do.”
“What do you see?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah. I think it’s important.”
“I see you naked, on top of me and I know that you really love me. But I get confused about what to think next. I think about what I think I’m supposed to think about—and I don’t know where to go or how to get there from here. It’s not the same thing as …having an orgasm. You know? It’s almost like a destination that’s not really related to the pleasure. I mean I guess it isn’t—maybe it should be? I don’t know about the other women. I just know me.”
“What other women?”
“Oh, you know. Whatever the other women are feeling or doing when they conceive. I just don’t think about them. I want my own conception with you.”
See how my Betty is? She’s a beauty. She’s different that way and yet the same enough that I know she is real.
The aurora dances over the night sky in all its greens and reds. They say it’s magnetic. All I know is that it keeps coming back. I can’t remember what it was like last time other than the movement of the colors; couldn’t tell you if it was a bit to the left or right of where it appeared before. I suppose it to be the same because it has the name; we intuit and everybody else is looking at it too like its no new thing.
All the details go around and here we are again with technically perfect explanations of how and why and unable to really say anything that works. We just lay here and watch it in each others arms, caught in the repetition.
We notice everything – everything, and go around again. Sometimes we keep it to ourselves and sometimes He says it through us.
We wait outside of it; underneath it all for some.. result. We watch until something comes that has nothing to do with all we see and know, something that has nothing to do with our history.
That must be what children are: so unique, so unsayable that we can’t do it until they are here and we have already done it. We see other people doing it. They are never just more of the same.
Children are the thing we do: me and my Betty and God. We didn’t get wet for nothing. We just have to wait.
——————————————————————
John 2:1-10And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen