At the Oceana Apartments, he watches from his window the origami forms of sailing boats upon the water. He had a boat once: forty-six feet, thirty-five knots, mahogany on cedar, a beauty. He named it the Ruth L. He had a boat, and a big car, and a driver.
He had a son.
He had Babe.
All gone.
129
Occasionally Babe joins him on fishing trips, although Babe does not immerse himself in the experience in quite the same way as he. For Babe, fishing is just another leisure activity. Babe collects hobbies the way other men collect stamps.
Babe hunts, but gives up the gun after staring into the dying eyes of a gut-shot deer.
Babe buys horses cursed from birth never to win a race, then Babe continues to bet on these horses out of loyalty, even when Babe can no longer afford the losses.
Babe raises chickens and turkeys and pigs for food on a farm in the San Fernando Valley, but Babe cannot bring himself to have the animals slaughtered, and so keeps them as pets.
Babe grows fruit and vegetables.
Babe is a carpenter.
Babe cooks.
But he is not like Babe. He does not accumulate pursuits. For him, fishing is an escape from himself.
I don’t understand, Babe says. I’ve seen you sit there for hours and finish up empty-handed.
– It’s not about catching anything. It’s about the anticipation. Or perhaps it allows me to pretend to be doing something when, in fact, I’m doing nothing at all.
Babe considers this.
– The anticipation I give you. I guess it’s like being at the track. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about being suspended in the space between.
Sometimes, he thinks, Babe speaks like a poet.
When I’m there, Babe continues, in that moment, I forget everything. I forget Myrtle. I forget Viola. I even forget myself. I become weightless.
He understands. They are not so different, after all.
Well, there you have it, he says.
– But when I win, I win money. When you win, you win a fish.
– On the other hand, he replies, I can’t really lose anything at all.
– Only time.
Yes, he says, only time.
130
At the Oceana Apartments, he again summons to mind Vera, his third wife: a rare moment of connection, even tenderness, amid the misery of that marriage, for Vera continues to haunt him.
They are lying in bed together. Vera turns to him. Vera asks: – What will you do when Babe is gone?
He takes a drag on his cigarette.
– I try not to think about that. Who knows, Babe may outlive me.
Vera reaches for him. Vera touches his cheek with her hand.
No, Vera says, and there is an unfamiliar compassion to her voice. These big men, they do not live long.
Her hand withdraws. She takes the cigarette from his mouth and draws deeply upon it.
I know what will happen when Babe goes, Vera says.
– What will happen?
– Life will stop, but time will go on.
Vera is wrong.
The clock ticks, and life goes on.
That is what makes it all so unbearable.
131
Babe is forgetful.
Birthdays pass unacknowledged. Christmas gifts are accepted with surprise, as though the season has somehow crept up unexpectedly, like February 29th in a leap year, forcing Babe to search hurriedly for some token to offer in return.
He does not mind. This is Babe’s way.
Babe does not like to write, and so avoids long missives. Babe’s spelling, grammar, and punctuation are poor. It is a source of embarrassment to Babe. Babe writes at length only to Myrtle. This may be why Babe finds it so hard to leave her. Babe has seen Myrtle at her lowest, and so only before her can Babe present himself in all his flawed glory.
No – before her, and before him.
And perhaps only with him is there no judgment.
He and Babe can sit together for hours in silence, side by side, Babe with a newspaper or book, he with a script or notepad, as sets are replaced, as clouds alter light, as rain falls, as sun shines, until all is ready for them once again, and then Babe will turn to him, and Babe will smile.
What will you do when Babe is gone?
He will keep Babe with him. He will cleave tightly to his memory. He will speak to Babe in the darkness, and from the darkness Babe’s silence will answer him, just as it did as the end approached, when speech failed and words were anyway rendered inadequate.
Shall we get started? Babe asks.
He sets aside his notepad. He closes his script.
– Yes, I should like that very much.
And they walk on in unison.
132
He believes it might have been Mark Twain who said that history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. This is how he and Babe are. They rhyme. They form couplets from their experiences. They make discordant verse from the women in their lives.
His is the old dance, with new steps. He marries Ruth – no Mexican wedding this time, but proper nuptials. He marries Ruth because it is still better than being alone. It pains him to see Lois, and it pains him not to see Lois, but he does not know if what he is experiencing is truly love or simply regret, or to what extent his acumen is clouded by his desire to see more of his daughter. To be separated from the wife is to be separated from the child; he cannot have one without the other.
He has stopped trying to convince Lois to take him back. Lois tells him that he has hurt her too much, and she fears any reconciliation would only be temporary.
You have not changed, Lois says. I don’t believe that you can.
– I don’t know what you mean.
Lois laughs.
– Go back to Mexico. Have someone translate the drivel that passes for your marriage license.
So he marries Ruth for the second time – he hears Jimmy Finlayson joke that just because you repeat something doesn’t make it true; he is annoyed at first, but less at Jimmy Finlayson than at the bite of truth – and names his boat after her.
Yet if he cannot fathom the true nature of his feelings for Lois, he can identify his feelings for Ruth. He recognizes that he does not love her as he loved – or continues to love – Lois, and Ruth is too clever not to perceive this. Even his own essence appears to be rebelling against the relationship; he has been ill since the wedding.
Babe also sees it. He has always struggled to hide his unhappiness from Babe.
But Babe keeps his distance. Babe is too sensitive to intrude.
Babe, meanwhile, performs the old dance, with the old partners and the old steps.
Myrtle in, Myrtle out.
Viola Morse out, Viola Morse in.