A Drive Together: Niagara Falls Chapter from 1968 Changed Everything

                                              A Drive Together: Niagara Falls


Jeremy's flirtation is stirring her up. They get in the car. It’s been a while since he’s driven it. With his fingers still on the key in the ignition, Jeremy cranks up the engine until he hears the sweet sound of the motor turning over. It soon becomes a purr. Then like a teenager, he revs the engine up again. Finally, settled down, he backs out of the driveway, and is soon driving quietly, effortlessly shifting gears like a pro. CC is delighted to discover this side of him, to be by his side as he handles the road.

After a mile or two, CC’s voice is cheerful. “You’re definitely not a typical faculty member.”

Jeremy smiles. “Actually, people in my department go out of their way to break stereotypes. No Volvos. Dr. Franklin drives a Camaro. He was bowled over when I took this to the faculty picnic. His son works on cars, so I wasn’t surprised that he bought a Galaxie just like this one. That suits me fine. Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” He hesitates briefly. “His car is even nicer than Betsy.” It’s this green color. Very unusual. He got someone to finish it. Jeremy continues to smile as he speaks. “When he got it, I told him I didn’t mind as long as he called it Betsy Jr.”

“So, did he?”

“Nope. He called it Franklin Junior. That car is something.”

“Nicer than Betsy?”

“Just as nice.” He smiles. “Nicer,” he admits.

“You’re so different from the other teachers. Not just your car. You’re not like a faculty member. Professors usually come across as professors. Stuffy.”

“What do you mean, ‘stuffy’?” he asks.

“Some of them have English accents. A lot of them. Like Dr. Maisel, and I heard he grew up in the Bronx.”

“He did. Benjamin Maisel. I knew him years ago in school. He didn’t have an English accent then. You’re right. Pure Grand Concourse, the Bronx.”

“Is there an English-accent school that teachers go to, like Arthur Murray for dancing?”

He smiles. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe 10, 20 percent of the faculty have English accents, and half of those went to Oxford.”

“Most of the English department. History too.  I haven’t heard so many English accents before. Certainly not on Long Island. Not anywhere. In the Village, when Mark would take me there, I heard it sometimes. I think they were gay. But other than that—”

“You have to understand that a professor can’t just sound like one of the guys on the block. He isn’t. Would you go to a doctor if he sounded like that, or hire a lawyer? Professionals need a public image. You know how everyone rises when the judge enters the courtroom. Imagine him in Bermuda shorts. He couldn’t rule the court without his black robe, without an aura surrounding him.”

“Well, I like that you are not like that.”

“I try to keep it real. Actually, a lot of the time I feel like a student more than a professor.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m not there yet, not where I want to be. I’m hungry. There’s a lot I don’t understand. Too much. I’m more student than teacher.”

“Like Wittgenstein?

“Exactly.”

“That one class where you were carrying on about Vietnam. You were so passionate.  That’s the part of you that I like. How much you care. Maybe not. I don’t know about Vietnam. There’s so much nonsense, so many lies. I don’t get what politics does to people’s brain.”

“Mark gets like that?”

“Particularly with my father. He thinks he knows a thousand times more than my father. Which he does about Vietnam. He and his buddies in Berkeley.

But lately my father’s done some reading. He catches Mark claiming things that aren’t true. They really go at it. Mark believes that he and his buddies are going to remake the world.”

“And you think that is bullshit?”

“I don’t know.”

“We will.”

“Yeah, right.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see.” Jeremy sums up, sounding confident with his prediction.

“You are a know-it-all like Mark?

“About the war?  I’m sure about that.”

“Maybe, but you know what I like about you is your uncertainty. I think it’s what everyone likes about you. Your informality. You’re real. Your honesty. Your excitement when you realize something. Just like Wittgenstein, your hero.”

“But the Viet Cong are indigenous. It’s their country.”

“Can we change the subject?  I’m interested in the Wittgenstein you, not your politics.”

“You like that?

“A lot. Sometimes you wear your emotions on your sleeve, which none of my other teachers do. I’ve had four years of professors and you’re the only one. They’re a thousand miles away in books. You’re in the room with us. It makes what you are talking about alive. That’s what makes you cool.”

“That’s nice to know… Very nice.” 

“I’ll bet when you do get there, you’ll develop a nice little paunch. You’ll be as self-satisfied as all the other professors, English accent and all.”

“Maybe, but—”

“I hope you never get there. I like the way you are now, especially how you talk.”

“Don’t worry. No way I’ll change the way I talk. Couldn’t if I wanted to.”

“We’ll see,” she says challengingly.

“What does that mean?”

She thinks a bit. “Truthfully, you already don’t sound like you come from Brooklyn. When you got going on Wittgenstein, you had a rhythm, like you were singing a song. It definitely wasn’t Brooklyn.”

 He’s thrilled with her description. “Occasionally, I get carried away. How I sounded when I spoke about Wittgenstein . . . losing my Brooklyn accent . . . I didn’t become a big-shot professor. I mean, I didn’t practice the lecture without a Brooklyn accent. I just get carried away. Wittgenstein’s story takes me somewhere… I don’t know. Maybe that affects how I talk.”

She has a broad smile. “You swooned. I swear. You swooned. Everyone in the class went there with you. It was wonderful.”

 “Well, he turns me on. The fact that he could just give up being a Cambridge professor and become a gardener, then ten years later stroll right in again to Cambridge. Ideas mattered more than anything else. Not being a professor at Cambridge. Ideas! That’s all that mattered. He wanted to get it right. Figure out what was true and not. Share that.”

“I’ll bet he gave a good show. Like you.”

“I don’t know if it was a show for him.  He didn’t write, so his lectures were the only way he could get his ideas out. But it wasn’t a show. Not deliberately. I assume he had this charm that kept people mesmerized. But it was expecting some new brilliant thought to suddenly emerge that kept people listening. The way he would curse himself out when he couldn’t figure something out. I think that embarrassed him, but not because he had an audience. His brain was very alive, figuring things out. And when he couldn’t, he couldn’t go on teaching. He had to walk away. Quit being a professor. You know, there is an interesting story about Socrates. Don’t know if you have heard it.”

“Probably not.”

“When he was told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that he was the wisest man in Athens, Socrates responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.

“He went to one learned person after another, assuming they were smarter than he was. They all had the same characteristic. They claimed to know things that they didn’t know. So, in the end, Socrates decided that he was the wisest, because he was able to acknowledge when he didn’t know something.”

Jeremy smiles broadly as he enunciates the famous quote. “‘I know one thing… that I know nothing.’”

He continues in his pedagogical tone. “I love how much Wittgenstein was like Socrates.”

CC is a bit irritated. “Actually, you mentioned that story in your Wittgenstein lecture.”

Her criticism flies right by him. Jeremy is not embarrassed at all to have repeated himself. His attention momentarily returns to the road, but only momentarily. He’s lost in their conversation. “It isn’t even that Wittgenstein was so brilliant,” he goes on. “Who knows what his IQ was? It was his honesty. That’s the secret of greatness. Honesty. There is so much bullshit flying around everywhere. Lies and lies and more lies. People trying to cover their nakedness with things they may or may not believe.”

“You think so?”

Jeremy continues. “I don’t know why that is. I guess it’s just the way people are. Covering up.  They’ll find a way to fool themselves and others about what they know. I guess that’s the English accent thing you were talking about. Sounding polished, smart. Not uncertain. Pretending to know what they don’t. Not just out and out bullshit. It’s packaging, like clothes. It’s as important.  People don’t want to be thought of as stupid. So if they have sound like they know something when they don’t it’s necessary

“And it’s the lies that are really ugly,” CC interjects, pleased by where they are going. “But politics. The smartest people. I just don’t get what politics does to people’s brain.”

Jeremy ignores her last comment. “What I like the best is that the Cambridge faculty had such respect for him. Simple honesty. People think of that as brilliant, as genius, because it’s so rare.”

“You have that quality. Not about politics. Everything else.”

He’s pleased. Being compared to his hero. He would like to think he is scrupulously honest. Carol often warns him he’s too honest, ridiculous. CC’s admiration flatters him. Thinking of himself as brave is how he likes to see himself. But the truth is he can’t help himself. He doesn’t decide what he has to say. His thoughts just spill out of him. Whatever comes into his brain comes out of his mouth. He isn’t thinking about consequences, hurt feelings, his own or anyone else’s. Out it comes. Carol is the opposite. She’s very thoughtful, weighing each thing she says. She doesn’t want to sound like a fool. She also doesn’t want anyone else to feel foolish.

“So, you like my honesty?”

“Before your head gets all swollen,” CC replies. “There’s a big problem with being like that. My mother warned me.”

“What’s that?”

“I noticed it before. You have grease stains on your shirts. ‘

“Your mother warned you about that?”

“I was in the laundry room as she was working on the stains on one of Mark’s shirts. As she rubbed and rubbed she told me: ‘It isn’t just Mark. People like him always have grease stains on their shirts.’”  

Jeremy is amused.  “Diarrhea mouth Carol calls it. Not caring what comes out. That’s what she accuses me of having when I curse.”

“Mark would love that. He’s a big Freudian. When you curse, shit is coming out of your mouth?”

 “Carol would agree. When I have used a curse word in public. Carol tells me I might as well have farted.”

My mom’s called Mark a slob to his face, but when she said  it, somehow it sounded affectionate. He gets away with everything. If she saw one of us wearing clothes with stains she’d go nuts.”

“Mark’s a slob?”

“I guess so. But I don’t know if I’d call him that.. His jeans are dirty. But he wouldn’t wear clean jeans. I mean he is living in Berkeley. He’s got to have that look. I saw him rub mud on a pair of white sneakers when he finally had to replace his old sneakers. It’s a look. Like you with your army and navy store. He doesn’t eat carefully, but that’s not who he is. Well maybe that one is. He shovels it in. But mostly it’s image. He starts everyday showering. Brushes his teeth carefully.  He’s not a slob. Yes, grease stains on his shirts, but my mother knows it’s his Berkeley thing. It’s not her idea of style, but she knows Mark takes it seriously.    Whatever he’s trying pull off he’s doing it successfully. Now her cousin Manny. He’s really a bum--- the Bowery, the whole thing. He sleeps in the streets. My mother said Manny’s father was the richest uncle in the family. During the depression everyone came to him. But they were the only family to get divorced

Jeremy stares at her with a smile.

“What?”

“Your family. They’re something.”

 Apropos of the conversation they were having ten minutes ago she returns to it. “So, it’s agreed. No accents.”

He laughs to himself.  He thought the subject of accents was long gone.  He quickly moves back there.

 “Not getting an English accent. Okay. Carol and me agree. But she tells me it’s not that hard to lose a Brooklyn accent. She’s 90 percent there. No make I’d make her a promise. I’m Brooklyn forever.” He says that less triumphantly than usual. “She thinks I’m stubborn.”

“You wouldn’t lose it if it meant something to Carol?”

“No, this is my thing. I understand what she is saying. She’d like it if I seemed a little older, like a professor. She says I’m a baby. Out of control.” He laughs.  “She wants me to buy a suit and wear it sometimes. At her cousin’s wedding. I wore my jeans and sneakers. Since that one she’s turned down all invitations. Not that I care.”

“So your thing about not having a phony persona, Socrates and all, worshipping the truth is the same as someone at a nudist camp.”

“You are going a little far CC, a little far. Did you sneak an extra reefer?”

CC is silent. Looks at the floor but then looks at Jeremy,

“Sorry I did. I found it in your draw.”

“CC tries to sum up where they were going. So, Carol finds absolutely nothing charming about your refusing to lose your Brooklyn accident. Your 60’s do your own thing–thing.”

“No sometimes she gets stoned and she likes it. But the rest of it?  Seeing me as a baby? I  understand. She’s known me for ten years, since we were both babies. She’s moved on. She says I’m stuck.

“Half the class swooned right along with you when you got into your Wittgenstein lecture. Truthfully I don’t know if you spoke Brooklynese or sounded refined. It was your enthusiasm, that you were lost in it, that pulled me in.”

“Exactly, it wouldn’t be possible if I put on airs. Carol says I wouldn’t lose anything. Dignity’s nothing to sneeze at. She’s not wrong. Sometimes I’ve been a real asshole. Was humiliated  I don’t like that. She’s not wrong. The accent thing is small part of it.  When I lecture, I’m too out there—my emotions are tangled with my ideas. Sometimes private  information pops out when we’re with other people. Carol gives me hell later. I don’t blame her. The only thing is that’s where the real juices are.”

CC listens quietly as Jeremy free associates.

 “Those professors with the English accents—they did what they needed to do to come across as a professor.” 

“You don’t need an English accent.” CC says forcefully. She wants to be heard.

“Agreed. But the main point– being more in control.  I don’t even know it  matters. I’m talking to a bunch of college students, half of them thinking about what they are going to have for lunch. What difference does any of it make?

“You’re wrong,” CC counters. “People know it when they hear it. A lot of students talk about your classes. When you got into Wittgenstein, it was not because you chose to put on a performance. It just took over. It’s rare and it’s wonderful.”

He’s touched. He knows it’s true. At least about that lecture. He needs that to stand up against Carol’s perspective. To him what she is asking is to put himself in chains,

 She sees him through the lens of his future, what he will be, what they will be, when he gets his act together and claims his doctorate. The future that she anticipates has substance. He knows his doesn’t. His inspirations are combustible, burned up in the moment. She preached to him over and over. It’s great while it’s happening but then it’s gone. Carol is already sentimental about when Alyosha grows up and gets married and they have grandchildren. She’s long past loving who he is in any particular moment.  In the beginning it may have charmed her.  Perhaps it lured her into loving him like she does now.  But the elusiveness of Jeremy’s “moments,” of their “moments,” has been replaced by her picturing the future, one in which she has something she can bank on. She’s sure it will make him happy, eventually. To have something rather than hoping for it. They have had discussions about who he should be a thousand times. Embrace dishonesty. He just can’t do it. Even if he wanted to he can’t. That doesn’t mean Carol’s perspective doesn’t play in his brain as a repeated refrain.

“Carol’s not wrong,” he says. “I wouldn’t mind having it under my control. She doesn’t expect an English accent, but if I lost my Brooklyn accent, Carol would see it as a sign that I was growing up. I half understand that, but to me it seems weird, selling out. I don’t want to be bossed around by what everyone expects.”

Straight ahead of them slivers of ice have formed on the skeleton of a tree’s twigs. They  brightly reflect the rising sun like sparkling diamonds. He wishes he had his camera. When he’s alone his pictures are great company. He doesn’t need it now. He assumes CC’s seeing what he’s seeing.

“Nice.” He says pointing to it. She smiles. 

A few miles later there are no more houses along the road.  They are beyond Buffalo proper.  He pulls over. He turns up the heat as high as it will go so that the blower blasts them with hot air. He lowers the convertible top. Her eyes light up with the craziness of it. She’s never ridden in a 1958 Ford convertible with its top down in the winter dawn, surrounded by snow. More enchanted by the scene than cognizant of its insanity, she looks at him with disbelief colored by wonder. He unwinds his wool scarf from his neck and puts it around her neck. They drive slowly, his craziness scaring and exhilarating her.

“You warm enough?” he asks excitedly.

She snuggles up next to him, trying to get warmer. Not immediately having to shift, he puts his arm around her. They drive silently. As they slow down for a red light, his arm comes off as he downshifts into low. Whimsy races through Jeremy’s thoughts. There’s no one on the road. He drives through the light, changes the gears from first to second and then to third steadily increasing the speed as if he is trying to get away from a crime scene. 

He is a little too excited.  Her smile is reluctant at first, but then not.  Being with a bad boy. The hoods in junior high scared her but Mark’s bad boy posturing tickles a naughty streak in her that she otherwise rarely indulges. Sometimes with Mark and right now Jeremy– she’s delighted turning something loose in Jeremy. The car’s speed is steadily increasing. Then half crazy, he hits a series of sharp turns more quickly than he should. The first time they skid, she feels her heart quicken but she remains silent. By the third skid, she sits up and shouts, “Jeremy! Slow down!”

He doesn’t. The car slides off toward the side of the road.

CC screams, “Black ice!”

He slams the brakes hard. They spin around 180 degrees, fortunately coming to a complete stop.

“I can’t believe you!” she gasps. “Can you tell me what that was?”

“You’re right. That was black ice.”

“Do you want to die?”

He ignores the question. He turns the car around. She is speechless, but he returns to driving in perfect control.  No longer frightened, she’s able to enjoy the thrill they had. Caution signals are flashing in her brain, but so is the promise of more excitement ahead.

*           *.            *

The colors of the sunrise are seen at the edge of the windshield. The rumble of Niagara Falls can be heard in the distance. As they get close its roar grows until it surrounds, takes over all sensation. He parks. They get out of the car.

“Close your eyes,” Jeremy tells her.

She does, but very briefly. She opens them as he leads her blindly forward.

“Close them,” he tells her more forcefully.

This time, she obeys. She has had very few adventures in her Long Island life. At the movies, yes—but taking part in one? She’s excited. He leads her to an opening in a chain-link fence.

“Put your head down.”

She opens her eyes, sees the fence opening.

“Close your eyes,” he says even more commandingly, but sweetly.

She obeys. Protecting the top of her head, he guides her through the fence. They move forward thirty or forty feet. The ground is slippery. There are some ice patches amid the trampled-down snow. She trips.  He catches her. She feels the strength in his arms. Once again she trips but this time they both go down. They are sitting side by side briefly embarrassed but then Jeremy’s mood skyrockets. 

Usually, when Jeremy pictures a scene he is disappointed.  Reality can’t match his imagination. Not this time. Sitting together in the snow. Lit by the sunrise, her eyes shine. Seeing that makes him bonkers. He jumps up. He helps her stand. He continues to hold her hand. The horseshoe falls are immediately in front of them. 650,000 gallons of waters per second pours over the wide perpendicular cliffs, unimaginable. Together they hear the mightiness of Niagara’s roar, like thunder, but far louder, more overpowering, continuing 

“A million gallons a second,” he shouts.

“A second?”

Jeremy’s psychology is the same as every other guy on a first date–wowing his true love to gain her hand.  In fairy tales the prince must accomplish an amazing feat, slay a ferocious dragon that up until the hero challenges him has killed all previous suitors. So, first date most guys say great things about themselves. That’s why the convertible top went down.  And now Niagara. He won CC with his brilliance in the classroom.  Now he is wowing and wowing and wowing her. 

“Moses climbed to the top of Mount Sinai, a spectacle suitable to receive God’s Ten Commandments. The highest moment in Jewish history. The birth of Jewish holiness. ‘Thou shall not’ times 10. Niagara Falls beats that! Here in America! Available to every tourist who takes a drive from New York City or reaches it on New York Central’s Empire Line.”

 Jeremy can’t help himself. His mind forever bursts with thoughts.  He’s totally absorbed by what comes into his mind. He could be in the middle of the London Blitz and it would be the same. Once started he’s gone to another place. He assumes she wants to hear more and more of his thoughts.

Fortunately, CC can’t hear half of what he is saying. What is before them is spectacular She doesn’t need words. She is thrilled beyond words.  So that allows leeway for  Jeremy’s lecture which continues.

“Newlyweds once made Niagara the frosting on their cake, a destination compounding the miracle of their wedding. Their years initiated together by what it deserves, the miraculous.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

When he first arrived at the university Jeremy came here with Carol.  He planned it to be an auspicious beginning to start their life in Buffalo.  Awe. Or so he wished. With CC he is now  going there again.  But with a difference. He’s all the way there. Or close enough. No matter how much he wanted it to happen with Carol the spectacular moment he imagined didn’t materialize. 

The pounding water has sent a thick mist into the air. The sunrise reflects in the haze with delicate colors.

She speaks an inch from his ear, shouting to be heard. “God!”

Jeremy tries to outshout the fall’s roar.

“You deserve this.”

“What?” She can’t hear him.

“You deserve this.”

Jeremy sees that she is perplexed. He gives her the biggest, warmest smile.

 “It just seems like something you deserve.”

“Because I am so stupendous?” she asks, in a teasing voice.

“Exactly.”

Jeremy’s been waiting for this for the longest time. He’s pictured her being enraptured. She is trying to keep it light, resisting enrapture, which could easily occur if she lets go.  He wants it that much. For her to be thrilled like he’s thrilled. Or wants to be.

Carol presence won’t go away in either of their minds.  Romance is forbidden. She can’t stop that. Nor can he

He kisses her gently. Her teeth are chattering from the cold. They both find that funny. It puts an end to the spell he so much craves.  He’s brought a blanket from his trunk, which he puts around her.  She continues to shiver. He shouts hoping he can be heard over the falls.

“I guess we gotta go.” He wants to hear “no.” They were almost there, a crescendo matching the dream of all his  dreams.

“No. I like it here.”

“Yeah, but the moment’s passed. When it passes, it passes. You can’t get it back.”

She doesn’t understand why he’s saying that. She wants him to stop talking.

“Says who?” she shoots at him, her irritation undisguised.

“D. T. Suzuki.”

“Who?” she asks, her sarcasm almost a growl.

He’s somewhere else still on the edge of dreamland. “It’s a lecture for a different time. Zen…”

She’s bothered by his desire to teach.

“I know somewhere we can drive to.”

She follows him back to the car. She’s disappointed by how complicated he is making everything, but she’s not without hope.

“I talk too much?”

“Duh.” She got that expression with that intonation from a movie. Even though it has been overused, it  still sounds clever to her ears. Less so to Jeremy, but the possibilities between them have not been totally blown away. He loves how, her  reaction to the cold, her tears run down her cheeks and join her nose dripping. He sees her tongue darting out to catch the wetness. When they get to the car, he  wipes off the wet above her lips with his finger and puts it in his mouth. She moves her mouth away. He looks at her expectantly.

The way she is looking at him says it all. The moment has passed. Disappointed, he stares at her not altogether believing it. But her face does alter.

He starts the engine, closes the top of the car. The heat is blasting away.

“How’s that? You warmer?” he asks with what sounds like genuine concern.

She holds the blanket tightly around her neck, and, starting with her shoulders, trying to warm up, she theatrically undulates down to her toes, letting out a cow boyish shout. She ends with “Oooh.” That is followed by a wonderful smile. It reminds him of how she reacted to her burnt tongue from the pizza at the football game. That had been imprinted in his memory and has returned by her undulation. 

Oh boy! Oh boy! Jeremy’s thoughts are in overdrive: If Dave were here, Jeremy would be saying that to him. Wow. Dave would see that it is real. Confirm for Jeremy it is real. He shouldn’t need that but he does. It’s always been that way: seeing the effect on others makes something real to him as it wouldn’t if he experienced it alone. Perhaps that is what drives him to give lectures. Or to take pictures with his camera. The elusiveness of his experience makes it seem unreal if he can’t confirm it some other way.

It’s only a short drive. They arrive at the other spot. It is how he remembers it. Nice. The view is not as spectacular, but they can stay in the car and be warm.

“How’s that?” Jeremy asks her. “You okay?”

She smiles.

“You’re warmer, right?”

“Yes. . . You know, you really don’t have to impress me to get a kiss. Believe me. If we had stayed at your house, and you put on Johnny Mathis, it might have done the trick. You don’t have to be Superman. We’re past the first date.”

“That’s how I am,” he tells her, not in the least apologetically, if anything uncomfortable by how rapidly she is getting to know him.

“My cousin Maury was a comedian,” CC tells him. “You remind me of him. He’d deliver jokes, one after another, until we were sore from laughing. Then he’d keep going. Past the point that we were entertained. You couldn’t stop him. Later we learned he was a manic-depressive.”

“What are you saying?”

“I guess I’m thinking more about what you said, how much you need to talk.”

His face drops.

“I’m just like you,” she adds, meaning that as encouragement.

“Like your cousin Maury?”

“No, he was manic-depressive. When we were no longer laughing, his joking kept going. It was weird. We all talk a lot, especially me and Mark. Maury’s jolliness was way beyond that. Way off.”

“And mine?”

CC grabs his arm. “I’m not talking about you. You talk an awful lot, but he was off the charts. He went off to another planet. That’s not you.”

 “Talking too much is a problem,” Jerry admits. “My friend Dave tells me that a lot. He’s like me. Not as bad, but both of us. We don’t know how to seize the moment. It’s a shortcoming.”

“Because you think too much. You don’t know how to let things happen.”

Clumsily, he puts his arms around her.

“Let’s go back,” she says, determined to prevail.

“What happened to seizing?”

“C’mon,” she insists. “Let’s go.”

“So, it will take magic.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Is it Carol?”

Again, she doesn’t answer. They both know it is, but he can’t simply stop. He doesn’t want to. He can’t take his eyes off her. He is still hoping for the right moment. He’s waited all his life. Now is pregnant with possibility, but something else is needed? Is it not the time? His urgency is nearly out of control. And so is his ineptitude. The spark isn’t missing, but finding the way, the next step is.

“You ever think about show business?” she asks.

“I would if I had talent.”

“Carol told me. You were in a band. You sang. You didn’t have any talent?”

“Sometimes I did. Sometimes I sounded great. But not often enough.  We went nowhere.”

Sensing his mounting frustration, she knows an explanation is needed. “I can’t ignore Carol. Sorry. I can’t. I’m surprised you can.”

“Truthfully?”

“Truthfully.”

“I’m not thinking about her at all. Not right now.” He finds her eyes. “Being here with you…”

She wants him to take the leap. She also doesn’t.  “I don’t get it. You love Carol. . .”

“I do.”

“Love her!” she practically shouts. “Really?”

“I do, but—”

“But what. What is this with me?”

“I’m just telling you the truth. I love her, but what I have with you is elemental. It’s a force of nature. Like metal being pulled to a magnet.” 

“But I just can’t—”

“I began picturing being here with you ten minutes after I first saw you. It was like a song playing in my head. Over and over. No, not a song.” He rolls down the window so that the roar of the falls returns. “A symphony!”

To her relief he is now at the edge of hokeyness, but Jeremy’s determination still pushes her towards him.

 As he closes the window, the roar is like a fading echo. As it ebbs, the sound is in harmony with the spell CC is casting.

“I’m thrilled,” he says except he no longer is.

“Thrilled Carol is in the hospital?”

“No.”

“So?”

“So, nothing. Right now—”

“Right now, what?”

“I don’t know how to explain what’s happening with you. I’ve never felt closer to anyone than Carol. She’s my soul mate. I’ve never had that with anyone. Not even close. No one.”

“She’s like that always?”

“No, just sometimes, but when we are really together, we’re there. I don’t know if it can happen with anyone else.”

“So, again! What’s this with me?”

“You’re going to think this strange.” He hesitates, thinking over whether to say it or not, but as usual he blurts it out. “I wish she could be here with me right now, that I could share you with her.”

“You mean a threesome?”

“I’m not into kinky… I don’t know what I mean.”

“No, I understand,” CC says. “Sometimes I get that with Mark. Something happens and I wish he was with me to share it.”

“Do you wish he could be here now?”

She laughs. “Not at this moment—you more than fill his shoes. But I’d like him to meet you.”

“Well, you’ve met Carol, and I don’t think that is working out.”

“I still don’t get it. How you can love Carol and—”

“Be blown away by you? I am. Just now, at the falls, it was how I pictured it, seeing you blown away. Your face. Your beautiful face. Your eyes, your lips, your smile. It doesn’t get better.”

“That’s because you want to fuck me. There’s a lot more to me than that.”

He is both taken aback and thrilled by her bluntness. She moves closer to him—or, at least, it seems that way to him. He again tries to kiss her. She again turns her head.

Her voice is more emphatic. As she moves away from him, she exclaims, “Really! I don’t understand!”

“Carol, Shmarol. I think you are waiting for me to do one more trick.”

“Okay, Mr. Superman. Fly to that tree and fly back.”

Again, he tries to kiss her, and again she avoids him. But at least now she is smiling. And so is he.

“You didn’t fly to the tree. . .  Friends. We should be friends,” she says. “That’s it.”

“You don’t get it. Carol’s in the hospital I have the house to myself.”

“You’re like a salesman at a convention. Going wild because they have a hotel room, and their wife is at home.”

“Carol doesn’t police me.”

She looks at him disbelievingly.

He puts the car into drive and pulls out on the road.

“You want the truth?” she asks.

“What?”

“I want to visit Carol.”

“That’s crazy.” Jeremy answers.

“Not to me. I want this to be real. Whatever I’m going to do, or not do, I have to see her. She has to be real. I can’t put her in the back of my mind. Sorry, but I can’t.”

“It’s a lousy idea.”

“I’m going to visit her. I’ll come with your cousin Jeff,” she says in a determined voice.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

1968 Changed Everything early chapter