Between Rage and Despair

        The phone rings, she doesn't answer. Is he to think she is murdered, or dead by her own hand? She stomped out of the restaurant on the words "I never want to see you again." She said it, not him. Surely she went straight home. Then why doesn't she answer her phone? He wants to know if she meant it, or if he is to go back to that apartment to see if she is all right?

        The wine tastes good; maybe he should have started drinking sooner. He asks the waiter for the check.

        He decides to try calling her again as he passes a payphone on the street. Perhaps she is crying on the pillow and is refusing to answer the phone. In an hour maybe she will feel ready. Meanwhile, he reminds himself, all one can do is carry on. It is his day off. His face, the nose, and especially the inside of his mouth are sore from the pummeling she gave him the night before. He wanders to the Mersey, where he goes every night he doesn't have to be with her.

        There was a time when Albert Sorhagen loved his wife. Maybe he loves her still, in a way. Whatever he feels it is no longer the love for which one stays married. After four years of marriage, he told Wendy he wanted to call it quits. He told her it wasn't working. He unwittingly unleashed that violent temper of hers and still he stayed with her another six months, thinking he would stay around until she could get on her feet, allowing her to collect herself in preparation for their separation. First he kept to his side of the bed, but eventually he insisted on the living room couch. He wanted no chance of a pregnancy altering his plans.

        As the months progressed, she grew increasingly belligerent. There were endless bouts of her crying, frequent nights without sleep, and finally she was missing days of work. Since matters were growing worse, after six months of it he had finally moved into a separate apartment. He should have moved into another borough, instead of trying to stay close in case she needed him.

        During those intolerable days Albert sought the sanctuary of his job as a cameraman for NBC. It was an intermission to that ongoing turmoil at home. And when, after midnight, he rode the subway home, he could feel tears looming behind the skin of his face. Careful with his breathing, he felt he could begin to cry through every pore, yet he would not allow himself. The many nights riding the subway home, he thought about never getting off. He wanted to ride to the end of the line and then disappear.

        Even after he moved into his own apartment she wouldn't let go. She called him frequently in the middle of the night to rehash all the old fights. He began avoiding his new apartment and taking up nightly residence in the Mersey. Here he could get his Guinness Stout or Bass Ale on tap, his choice depending on how warm the night. She began calling him before he left the studio for home to demand his visits. As hard as he would try to decline, he always surrendered to her demands. He felt it was inescapably his fault that the marriage was being broken apart. Still, despite her suspicions, there was never anyone else. He simply fell out of love.

        This then is the fate of a still young film maker, Albert mumbles to himself, who tried his best to do the right thing by his wife without giving up his soul. He drinks from his pint of Bass and sits in a bar watching a game of eightball.

        He once hated his job. It made him feel he was missing his life. He wanted to make movies. He had stayed in the United States to study film at New York University after his parents returned to Sweden. "Albert, you're too damned tall to be a cameraman," he had advised himself. And now separated from his wife, even if he had the money, he was too damned distracted to begin a film.

        How strange, he now ponders at the Mersey, to be so close to contentment, yet have one problem stand in the way, and so completely does it shadow everything. He wonders if he wouldn't sacrifice almost everything to be rid of his one trouble, Wendy. He puts a quarter on the pool table to play whoever is the winner of the ongoing game.

        The next night he returns to work. When it is only a few minutes before midnight and he is about to leave the studio, she calls. At least she didn't kill herself after their Sunday night dinner together. It is her dangerous little girl voice: it means she is probably half drunk and half crazy, looking for trouble. It begins with her teasing him aboout a letter from the I.R.S. She implies they are in some kind of trouble and asks if he can guess how much money they owe. He guesses a thousand. She doesn't think he is being serious. To his surprise, he and Wendy had made some kind of an error and the I.R.S. is refunding money. The news makes him utter a little laugh of joy. She does not approve of his joy and reroutes the conversation into an argument. It is past midnight. He could have left work.

        Suddenly there is a reprieve. In a fit she hangs up on him.

        Albert arrives home. He is not home more than two minutes when the phone begins ringing. It has to be Wendy at that hour. He should have disconnected the phone. He answers the phone and it is still her little girl's voice. It has a slur from having been marinated too long. She wants him to come visit. Why, he asks, to have a fight? Yes, is her response. So he refuses. She screams at him until the volume of her voice is distorting the phone signal and he cannot comprehend a word she says. What is he to do, what is the best thing for her? For him too, of course. Wendy bitterly curses him because he should break off their relationship completely and she wants nothing of this namby-pambiness. She curses him for trying to be a saint, then tells him if he intends to be a martyr he has to come see her and tolerate her attacks. It is the old argument she continually repeats. He is not being given a real choice. Still, he refuses to come. His argument is, if he did, it would only explode into a torment that would destroy her more than him, as usual. She misunderstands him and thinks he is saying he won't come because he is afraid of destroying himself as well. He tries to correct this subtle mistake on her part, but she doesn't let him finish a sentence, will not listen, and the subject moves on so he gives up.

        Wendy begins crying hysterically again. No, he reinforces, he isn't about to visit her under these circumstances. He is upset with her. She tells him how she has been calling the Mersey every few minutes trying to reach him before she found him at home. It embarrasses him to think that the faithful Leon, bartender at the Mersey, has been disturbed on his account.

        She begins administering threats. He says he will come tomorrow. "Well then, if you won't come here, I'll just have to go there. Do you want me to disturb your neighbors? I'll scream your fucking name in the street until you come down to let me in. How do you like that? Well are you going to come here, or do I have to go out and come there. Maybe you'll be lucky and I'll be raped and murdered. You'd better come - and buy me cigarettes!" She hangs up the phone. He decides to go, but decides to first use the bathroom to shit.
        The phone rings and he is forced to leave the toilet mid purpose. "What, so you haven't left," she growls. He tries to explain, but she keeps interrupting him. When he says he is leaving, she says, "you better come right now!" He explains the circumstances. "I don't give a damn, don't even bother wiping your ass; you come right now! And you better hurry."

        He does hurry, stopping for her cigarettes on the way at the all-night stand by the foot of the stairs to the el. He meets her coming from the other direction. She was already half way to his apartment. She is wearing a black skirt that sharply traces the curve of her hips, the hem high above the knees of her long legs. She also wears a tight fitting gray turtleneck that reveals her pear-shaped breasts, even the nipples are apparent. Her thick black hair has been bound into a single ponytail. At the office she would wear it braided and up. He longs for her, even now, but he does not permit his face to give a clue. He also notices the gift-wrapped package beneath her arm.

        "Did you get my cigarettes?" is her first question. "Good. Come on, I want to go to the Mersey bar."
        "I don't want to go."
        "Why?"
        "You're in a terrible state. I'm afraid you'll make a scene." Nevertheless she commands him and walks off to the bar. He stays where he is, indecisive. What was the correct thing to do? She is two blocks away when he decides to follow. He is worried about her. She seems out to hurt herself. As he closes the space between them, he admires the way her hips roll as she walks. It causes a brief spurt of memories, the explosive passion at the beginning of their romance. He catches up with her at the Mersey.
        "Here. This is for you." She takes the gift wrapped package from her lap and places it on the bar. "Merry Christmas," she says flatly. The paper is decorated with gold andsilver bells and poinsettias. Albert slides it closer to his glass and can feel there is a book inside the paper.
        "Do you want me to open this now?"
        "Do what you want. Open it now, or you can wait 'til Christmas. I don't give a fuck." She finishes her first gin and tonic and calls out to the bartender, Leon, for another. She doesn't know the bartender's name.
        "I'll wait then."
        "No! Open it now," she snaps with new found enthusiasm, and presents a smile that suggests he is in trouble.

        He carefully pulls the tape away from the paper, so as to not tear it, and begins to neatly unfold the wrapping paper.

        "Jesus Christ!" she huffs and reaches over to tear the wrapping away from the contents. He is greeted by the sight of one of his notebooks. He didn't know it had been missing from his shelf, that he had not included it in his move. He removes it from the remnants of its gift wrap. It is a plain black book, inside unlined, acid-free pages, the kind artists use. It contains his notes, screenplays, storyboards, and his diary. It is one of a dozen such books that he possesses, filled in like manner.
        "Thank you. Thank you very much," he says to Wendy.
        "I considered ripping it apart, you know. I thought I would shred it into tiny pieces, maybe even burn it, and then return the ashes to you in a box."
        "I'm glad you didn't. This is very kind."
        The very pronouncement of the words that she had been kind riles her. He starts to lift the book, to place it on his lap, when she slaps it back to the counter. "Maybe I shouldn't have given it back to you," she says. She takes pleasure from the concern in his eyes. "You know what, here I am nice enough to return it to you, another woman might have just as easily destroyed it or something, at least you owe me a favor in return."
        "What do you want?"
       She leans closer, now smelling of her gin, and opens the book. Rifling through the pages she comes to one of the entries that has a date. "What does this say?" She grins up at him. Because Albert wrote the text of his diary in his native language she is unable to read it. "Go on," she prods, "read it to me. You can't hurt me anymore than you have."

        Albert studies the page. He does not want to read it. Anything and everything would annoy her.

        "What are you afraid of?" she goads him. "Is it about your fucking secret love affair."

        A glance of the page reveals nothing for which he should feel ashamed. Again he decides not to conceal himself, but submit the truth for her discernment. He slowly translates the entry to her.

        "I came home and she is waiting impatiently for the cigarettes she asked me to pick up. She holds her palm out for the pack. There is no hello in reply to mine. She is watching television and drinking wine, sitting in a nightgown and a sweater to be warm. I don't know how long she has sat that way, but my impression is all day. Her fingernails are polished, are painted a bright unnamed color somewhere between red and orange. It signifies boredom. The television being on says everything. It was a variety show of comedians doing routines. We were able to laugh together. How many more laughs left?"

        She is silent. She stares at him with large brown eyes collecting tears. She lets them cascade down her high cheeks. Entrapment, he thinks.
        "You think I'm just another hysterical woman, don't you?" She speaks with unexpected calm. He decides this is just the eye of the storm.
        "No I don't," he lies. He hates the way she can often read his mind.
        "You think I'm just another hysterical woman, I know." Now she faces her gin and tonic. "The pain," then she glances at him from the corner of her eyes, "and the anger," she again stares at her glass, "how is a woman supposed to show such feelings in acceptable society?" She downs her glass and signal's Leon for another. "You see, you don't understand how much it hurts. I love you. But I hate how you have ruined my dreams. You were all that I could hope for, and with you I was going to live happily ever after." Wendy looks up at him, runs a hand through his long blond hair. "Happily ever after. You don't get it, do you? It was suppose to be for the rest of our lives. But now things can never be perfect again." She continues to stroke his hair.
        "The last thing I wanted was to hurt you," he says.
        "Then why?"
        "Fundamental differences of temperament, I suppose."
        "You used to love me because I was hot-blooded." And he did. Every act, every idea she held she was passionate about and she seemed to promise the life missing from those uneventful hours of his existence. Only it had worn him down, until, eventually, he discovered that what he really wanted was peace and accordance, stability and a degree of quietude. He couldn't follow his thoughts to completion around her. If it wasn't one thing, it was another, and he felt his own life, his own purpose, being derailed, following her into one mess after another.
        She smiles. "I know you don't intend to hurt me. God, you've got to believe me, I don't want to hurt you. I want to be able to let you go. Don't you see, you're so good, you're so kind to me, that it makes it harder. God, Al, can't you just go far away? Go someplace far away. Go back to Sweden." She withdraws her hand. "Just leave me alone." And she turns her attention back to her fresh gin and tonic.
        "We can still be friends, can't we?"
        "Do you want to make love?"
        "I can't." He almost says no, but no is not the truth. "I won't."
       She faces him and says, "no promises. No commitments. Come home with me for just one night. You won't even have to stay the night."
        "We can't."
        "Fuck you. Why do you always have to act like a saint." She focuses hers eyes deep into his. Fresh tears are tumbling unhindered down her cheeks, which are red with anger. "Fuck you," she repeats and slaps him across his face. It stings, but he tolerates it. So she slaps him again, and then again, until it grows into a steady beat. Yes, Al thinks sarcastically, look at all this erotic motivation you're providing. But he says nothing aloud. Wendy begins swinging at him with fists. "Why don't you hit me back?" she shouts. "You're not even a man, you won't hit me back, you God damn fucking saint."
        It is only for a few seconds, although to Al it feels like a few minutes, before Leon catches her arm in flight and tries to calm her with his charm. "Ma'am, I would hate to ask you to leave, you improve my décor, but I will have to ask you to refrain from hitting my customers." The bar is quiet. Most everyone is trying to avoid looking at Al and Wendy, but they are all listening. When Leon steps away on other business, Wendy returns to her curses, but under her breath. Drinking his ale, Al is almost ignoring her. Bearing his cross, he supposes, made considerably more painful by being in public.

        She becomes silent. The silence is unexpected and feels strange. Her hand comes into his vision and it removes his pint from in front of him. Al turns his head to see what she is doing with his drink. She launches the contents of his glass into his face.

        For a moment he is painfully blind, the bubbling stinging his eyes. He tries to see where she is, to see what is happening next, but his vision is blurred. He dries his face with his sleeve and looks around to see if she has soaked anyone else. It doesn't seem so. He checks the change on the counter. The bills are wet, the quarters glistening. He takes the singles and coins and leaves the five dollar bill for Leon, against the trouble he has brought with him. Only then does he turn to face Wendy again, and by this time he is standing up.

        "You know, I think you're probably right," he says. He has in mind her statement about leaving her completely, that he should, but he likes the remark even if it refers to nothing. To whatever she wants, he will agree just to be done with it.
        All night he has been afraid to touch her. He is afraid the moment she feels the touch of his hand, she would scream bloody murder. But here he at last puts his hand firmly on her arm and says, "Goodnight, Wendy." He passes out the door of the Mersey without looking back.

       He thinks many things about what is happening now that he has left her at the Mersey? Will she stay long? Will she cause havoc? Did he do the correct thing? Maybe she has left the Mersey and is now waiting for him at the foot of his apartment building.

        He doesn't go home. Instead he climbs half way up the staircase to the el, where he is out of sight, and he sits down, concentrating on keeping himself from falling apart. Let her go and let her scream until a neighbor calls the police, just so long as he isn't there.

        Tired, he closes his eyes and thinks about requesting a transfer to Burbank. The idea becomes a dream and he visualizes himself making the phone calls and discussing it with his boss, as if he is watching a movie of his new life unfolding. Then he is startled alert, someone has twice banged the handrail against which he was leaning his head. He turns to see at the top of the stairs a transit cop slapping a beat into his palm with a night stick. "You can't stay there, fellow. Move on."

        Instead of home, Al enters the High Rollers Bar. They have nearly naked go-go dancers. He has never been in this place before. That's the beauty of it, no one who knew him would ever think to look for him in such a place.

        The music blaring, he turns his back on the women dancing on a platform, humping against poles, but he sees them again in the long mirror behind the bar. The horrible blaring music forces him to yell his choice of beer to the bartender. They have neither Bass nor Guinness, so he settles on Michelob. He twists in his stool to occasionally look for the ridiculous reason of not wanting to offend the dancers. This is not the Mersey, with its paneled walls, thick oak bar, the many decorative scrolls carved out of wood. The High Rollers Bar is black Formica and black plaster walls that have been scuffed, scratched, and stained by spills and fights. The red and blue lights are sliced by wandering white beams that causes Al's head to ache.

        He stays half an hour past closing. After leaving, he takes a short walk in the general direction of his apartment. Birds have begun singing and he discovers the night sky is turning a pale gray. Two blocks from home, and bed, and sleep, he stops to sit on the sidewalk, leaning his back against a lamppost, his legs stretching across the gutter. It is Summer, August, but the morning is cool. It is refreshing and increases his desire for sleep while the world starts to feel comfortable once again. Above the brightest part of the horizon he sees a crescent moon. He deems it beautiful, but it is not enough to quell his despair or forget Wendy's rage.

        Then, he hears an odd noise coming from the far end of the block. One of those absurd looking street cleaning trucks turns the corner and comes gargling and snorting towards him. It moves ever closer, a vehicle with a big proboscis and swirling mustaches. And Albert Sorhagen laughs aloud. He discovers he is unable to remain unhappy. The cleaning truck gets ever closer, spraying and sweeping the very gutter that passes beneath his knees, so he must lift himself from his comfortable position. And as the city maintenance vehicle passes by, he realizes he just cannot stay sad forever. This night and day between rage and despair would come to an end and be nothing but a noteworthy memory.

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