A REAL SLAP IN THE FACE

And the story doesn't have a happy ending;

It was a real slap in the face.

SWIM

I had intended to go somewhere else today and not mention the snow or the weather again, but the permafrost has permeated me.   The good news, I suppose, is that the winter has created a sense of semi-community in our Pennsylvania neck of the woods, something I have never felt before.  Usually it’s simply the getting-and-spending dynamic (emphasis on spending) that joins us.

Last night the dark and cold, Jane’s absence and something I saw on television reminded me of my most memorable winter homecoming journey.  I was returning from Deluxe in Chicago, as I always seemed to be, on a Friday evening in a snowstorm.  After several delays at O’Hare we eventually landed in Newark sometime after midnight.  My car service had waited for me, thank heaven, and we drove north toward Tuxedo along 287 in the worst snowy weather I had ever seen on a highway.  The driver, an immigrant from Pakistan, performed splendidly and I wondered what the weather was like where he grew up.    We arrived in Tuxedo, passed through the gate, and headed up the hill toward my house.  At the bottom of Ridge Road, it was clear we’d reached the final safe place to drive and I told him I would walk the rest of the way.

  

It was probably about one-quarter to one-third of a mile only, but I was dressed in a business suit carrying a fairly heavy suitcase.  Snow was still falling fast and heavily and drifting high under the night-for-day moonlight.  It was about 2 am then, utterly silent and still, and it reminded me of an Albert Pinkham Ryder painting or one of these Alexander Calder sculptures.  I struggled up Ridge and cut through the Grosses’ to catch the downward slope of Pepperidge, our road.   I remember thinking that my health and heart must actually be pretty good to survive this.  We have a very long driveway, but eventually I reached our door and the light, warmth and palpable human and animal presence reassured me that I wasn’t dreaming, I had survived.   


Caroline and Jane were upstairs sleeping, but I’m sure various cats JOINED ME in the cat-bird seat of our glass house kitchen where I drank Scotch and viewed the maelstrom for a little while longer.  I thought to turn on the television before going to bed and for the first time saw Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” show, which was horrible.  When I heard TRUMP say “You’re fired,” I turned it off and would never consider watching it again.  He really drains life of its mystery.  I would have added a perfect link here to Peter Blegvad’s song “Swim,” but it isn’t on Youtube.  You can find it on his “King Strut and Other Stories” album, which I recommend.  It is a masterpiece worthy of Ryder, Calder, Caspar David Friedrich and other Northern masters.

On Obsession

‘Then what do you want from life, Netta?’ he asked.  ‘What are you getting at in it all?’

      When their food had come he had ordered wine, and now, if not drunk, he was careless and bold with drink.  Otherwise he would never have asked her a serious, direct question like that.  To ask Netta a serious direct question, in the ordinary way, was simply to ask for one of those hideous cuts across the soul she knew so well how to administer.  But now, because of what he had drunk, he felt he could take the cut if it came.  If it hurt, he was anaesthetized.

      They had finished their meal and were having coffee.  Eddie Carstairs was still at his table in the corner, though most of the other tables were deserted.  There were, however, three people making a good deal of noise at a table nearby, so he could speak in a normal voice without being overheard.

      ‘What do you mean?’ she said.  ‘What do I want from life?’   

      ‘Just what do you want from it? . . . ‘Do you want to be a success on the films, do you want to be married, do you want children – what?’

           ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘But you must, Netta.  You must know something about what you want.’

      ‘No, I don’t,’ she said vaguely, looking at a passing waiter, and speaking as a mother, watching the screen at a cinema might speak to her talkative child.  ‘Do you know what you want?’

      ‘Yes. Of course I do.  I know what I want.’

           ‘What?,’ she said, and looked at him.

      He paused for a moment, reluctant to start anything.  He knew it could lead nowhere, could do him no good.  But why shouldn’t he make love to her once in a way, why shouldn’t he get something back from the money he was spending, a little of the luxury of telling her he loved her, of speaking his heart.  He hadn’t opened his heart to her for months.

   

      ‘I want you, Netta,’ he said, looking into her eyes. ‘That’s all I want.’

      ‘All right,’ she said.  ‘So what?’

      ‘What do you mean,’ he said, ‘So what?’’

          ‘Just “So what”,’  said Netta, and she was again looking at the people in the room behind him.

Illustrations:

Top:  Alex Katz: Ann Lauterbach, 1978

Bottom: Alex Katz:  Pas De Deux (Red Grooms and Lizzy Ross), 1994

Music Link: On Obsession (Peter Blegvad) 

Text:  Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square (The Third Part, Chapter 4).  London, Constable, 1941.