Halfway There (9 page)

I looked at the woman I had loved for so many years, gazed at her dear, sweet face and thought how good it would feel to smack the shit out of it. I refrained. Instead, I simply asked, “What in the fuck makes you think that? It's because you think I'm fat, isn't it?”

“Nope, but I do think that's why you're all worked up about camping. It will make you feel young again.”

“Now I'm old?”

Ellen rolled her eyes.

“I'm not fat, you know.”

“I know that.”

Good answer. I'll let you live.
I settled more deeply into the couch and turned my attention back to the television. Ellen flicked through the channels again: A car chase, news, a crying woman, bombs dropping from planes, cooking. Finally, I looked out the window to give my mind a break. The “stimulation” was killing me.

Outside, fluffy little white clouds drifted across a cool blue sky, lovely and peaceful. It was a nice day, and I was going to miss it watching—I looked back at the television—a guy eating worms.

“You're right.”

“What?” Ellen sounded surprised.

“You heard me. You're right. We ought to get outside.”

“You want to work in the yard?”

“‘Want' is a relative term. I'd like to go outside. I'd like to be with you. I guess we can do both, getting off this couch and doing the yard thing.”

“You really mean it? We're not going to get started and you'll bail on me, are you?” Ellen must have realized the longer she questioned my sincerity, the more likely it was that I would change my mind. She didn't wait for an answer.

“Stay there,” she said. She left the room. I could
hear her rummaging around in our closet.

“Good Lord. These were buried.” She came back triumphantly holding two pairs of old dirty tennis shoes.

“What did you expect? It's not like we wear them every day.”

Ellen threw the shoes on the floor at my feet.

“Come on. Let's go.”

In a few minutes, we were in the garage. I stood in the doorway and took in the smell of musty old grass and looked at the dust mites as they danced along the sunbeams from the window. I don't know what came over me at that moment, but all of a sudden, yard work didn't seem like such a bad idea after all—not that I'd tell Ellen that.

“I'll get the weeder. Why don't you get the mower?” Ellen asked.

“Why can't I do the weed whacking?”

“Because you can't ‘whack' in a straight line.”

“Fine, I'll mow,” I said, sounding like a surly teenager.

The work went quickly. To this day I can't explain how good it felt to be out there taking in the smell of the mown grass and feeling the sun on my face. There was a lot of sweat, but it was good sweat, the
kind that reminded me I was alive. It was the kind of sweat that made me remember what life was all about. It was the kind of sweat that felt like I was being cleaned from the inside out.

It was about five when we finally finished. Ellen poured us a couple of iced teas and joined me on the back porch.

“It looks pretty good, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah, it does. I think this turned out to be a good day.”

“Better than sitting on the couch?”

“I suppose.” I didn't want to give her too much credit.

“You know what would make this perfection?”

“I think we should take a walk up to that coffee shop you like so much. Maybe we could have dinner up on Grand.”

“That sounds almost as good as barbecuing the hamburger we've got in the fridge.”

“Ah, even better.”

We sat down to dinner at our own table on our own porch at sunset. The burgers were juicy, the fries were crispy, the tea was cold and sweet. I savored the moment with deep satisfaction. My body had earned it. I stretched out my sore muscles with a yawn. I
hadn't felt so relaxed and deeply tired in years.

I raised my glass. “This was a pretty good day.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was. Let's do it again sometime.”

I like my bathroom time. In the bathroom, I can read, think, relax, and basically close out the world with the simple words, “I'm going to the
bathroom
.” To pretty much everyone I know, except for my sister, these words mean
keep out
. I like it that way. It's important to have, as Virginia Woolf once wrote, a “room of one's own,” even though I'm sure she didn't have the bathroom in mind. That doesn't matter. It's my space, and I'm keeping it.

One morning while I was enjoying my private bathroom time, getting older stopped being a foreign concept, something that happened only to other people. It came home. It became real. It came in the form of a gray pubic hair which stood out proudly from among the normal black ones I was so used to
seeing when I looked down.

Oh my God.
I couldn't think. I couldn't react. I could only stare at it.
What was it doing there? Should I pluck it out? Would seven more grow back in its place? Could I dye it? What would it look like when they were all white? Maybe it would go bald like my grandmother's? Oh my God.

Ellen knocked at the door. “Hey, what are you doing in there? I've got a flight to get to. Stop hogging the bathroom!”

“Honey, I've got a gray hair.” My voice was even and flat.

“So?” She paused. “Wait, where do you have it?”

“I wasn't looking in the mirror when I found it.”

I could hear the snicker from the other side of the door. “Can I see it?”

“No! You can't see it. In fact, next time we screw around there won't even be candlelight.”

“When was the last time we screwed around to candlelight?”

“I don't know, but I'm just saying that I'm not letting anyone see it, especially you. From now on, fun time is lights-out time.”

Ellen peeked in through the door. “Is it safe in here?”

“Yes, except for the giant, scary, white hair between my legs.” I wiped quickly and pulled up my pants. The hair was still there, but it would have to wait until I figured out what to do about it.

“Hey, I wanted to see it.”

“No, no, and no. And you may never see it.”

“Good God, honey, it's only a gray hair. I've got them all over the place.”

“I haven't seen them anywhere else other than your head.”

“So?”

“This is a little more personal.”

“So?”

“Don't you have to get ready for work?”

“Yeah, as soon as you stop admiring yourself.”

I went downstairs to make some coffee and figure out what I was going to do with my day. I refused to think about the unwelcome addition to my body. I actually needed to think about getting a job. This wasn't as easy as it sounds. I was over forty. I had a history of job-hopping. I hated regular hours. I had a low tolerance for stupidity, and above all, I had a giant gray pubic hair. No one was going to hire me. They would know just from looking at me I wouldn't be right for the job. They would be able to sense it,
to see age and discontentment oozing out of every pore. Who in the hell would want to be around that? Confidence, at this point, was not my strong suit.

In the few minutes it took for me to shatter my own sense of self-worth, the coffee finished brewing. I poured myself a cup and sat down at the kitchen table. I stared down at the green tile and stained grout that was our tabletop. I liked the blankness of it. Certainly thinking about nothing was better than most of the somethings that actually needed to be thought about. Thoughts, however unwanted, still crept through the depression of my morning haze.

How did things get this way? Why didn't I end up where I had planned?
That's an easy one. You didn't plan. You just partied and screwed around through your twenties with no idea of what you wanted.
Wait, that's not true. I finished college.
But it wasn't Ivy League, so who cares?
What about my Master's?
No one wants someone with an advanced degree in English, especially from some city university.

Inner voices suck. There ought to be a pill you can take for them.

There is, stupid. You're schizophrenic, and there are drugs for people who hear voices.

I'm not schizophrenic.

Then where do these voices come from? And why are you talking back to them?
It's because I'm a forty-something loser with a gray pubic hair.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm going toe-to-toe with my inner demons. How about you?”

I was more than glad that Ellen had interrupted my thoughts. They were getting dangerously out of control. Damn them. Then, for some reason, for an instant it seemed as if Ellen was responsible for all of it. She was responsible for the lost jobs, the bad schools, the voices of reproach in my head. Hell, she was even the reason I was over forty. It was just that easy to lay it all at her feet. I was grateful that just as quickly, that thought was gone.

“What in the world are they telling you now? Do you know how many people would want your life? You've got a great house, a nice car, pets, me.”

“Was that list in order of importance?” I tried to bury my thoughts beneath an enigmatic expression.

“Unfortunately, I think it might be in the order you'd put them.”

“You're not funny. I'm very glad to have a car.” I laughed. It was a weak joke, but the best I could do under the circumstances.

“Jackass.”

“Love you too, honey. When are you coming home?” I reached up and straightened out her tie. She had to wear one as part of the flight uniform. I hate women in ties, but this one with its
Peanuts
theme was pretty cute.

“It's a quick turn. I should be home by tomorrow night, so we'll have the weekend.”

“Wow, you're getting a lot of weekends off.”

“Seniority has its advantages.”

I frowned. “Yeah, it sure does.”

Why did it bother me that my lover's career was going well? She was doing what she loved, and it was working out for her. It's not as if we were competing, and honestly, if she wasn't working as a pilot, we wouldn't have the house, the car, hell, even the pets. I should have been grateful. I wasn't.

The problem was I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted more. I wanted freedom. I wanted
out
. Out of what, though?

“Wow, where did you go?” Ellen's voice was soft, but worried.

“I was just thinking about how much I hate looking for work.”

“Then don't do it. We don't need the money right
now. Just enjoy the break. We'll do something when I get back. Honey, there's no rush.”

Easy for you to say, I thought. I tilted my head toward hers. We exchanged a light “See you soon, I've known you forever” kiss, and she was out the door.

I sat at the kitchen table for a long time. As I pondered my life, I realized I
was
in a hurry. There were things I wanted to do, places I wanted to go, things I wanted to accomplish. Instead, my career had stagnated: I was wallowing in a deep narrow ditch dug of my own devices from which there was no escape. No matter where I went or what I did, it all ended up looking the same, feeling the same. That's where the analogy broke down. It wasn't a ditch, but a giant hole, a grave.
Whoof
. That seemed a bit dramatic, but all the same—time didn't care I wasn't where I wanted to be, that things weren't going my way. The more I thought about it, time was precisely the problem. I was running out of it. I looked down at my crotch. Time wasn't going to let me forget it was a limited and valuable commodity I was just pissing away.

I went upstairs to the bathroom to have a good hard look at myself. This was going to be a “Come to Jesus” moment. I was determined not to hold back, to be honest with myself, to find some answers. I wasn't
really sure what I thought I was going to learn, but damn it, I was going to have a long talk with myself and get this shit straightened out. Surely, I could face the truth. Couldn't I?

The mirror never lies, even when you desperately want it to. I turned my face toward the glass. For several seconds I stared into my own hazel eyes seeking confidence, and then slowly looked up. I started with my hair. Of course, the first thing, or should I say things, standing out—way out—were curly white hairs. There weren't many, but the ones that were there weren't lonely outliers. There were more than you could comfortably count in one sitting. They were scattered around the top of my head, a few along the sides. I went to pluck one but stopped. There didn't seem to be any point. I looked at my forehead. I took note of a few lines here and there. Below my eyes were a few “wind wrinkles,” as my grandmother called hers. My cheeks were ruddy and the pores seemed large and deep, the result of too much drink and too little sun. Below that, my jawline sagged and my neck seemed to have grown grooves. What happened to the twenty-something? The teenager? The little girl with such big hopes?

“She got old,” my sardonic inner voice said.

“Fuck you,” I replied.

I sat down on the toilet to consider my options. I could get severely depressed and stay in bed for a couple of weeks. This option had merit. I could even muster up a convincing suicide attempt, but that seemed a bit too theatrical. Besides, Ellen would come home, and she was getting on my nerves. What I really wanted to do was pamper myself. I wanted a long bath, a massage, a facial. I wanted to be taken care of for an entire afternoon.

This all sounded really good in theory, but I had no idea where to get any of these services. I stood back up and looked again. Maybe I could dye my hair. That could work. It would be so simple, so easy. In a few simple steps, I could have new young hair, all shiny and brown again. The whole idea was invigorating. If I could get rid of the shit that was making me look old, I'd feel young. I nearly ran out of the bathroom.