The Financial Lives of the Poets (26 page)

I usually have some time to think on the bus, and in the drizzling morning after I make love to my wife, I bounce on the curb and light-step my way through sighing split doors, my mood untouchable, even by an especially potent burst of bus-funk (let’s see, I’m getting sweat, diesel fuel and off-brand tobacco, perfectly balanced, with a slight finish of unwashed ass) and I drop into a plastic seat like some grinning fool, and that’s when I happen to catch, out the bus window, a for-sale sign, a little wooden post planted on a weedy strip of sidewalk in front of a shocked bungalow
(Price Reduced!),
the plywood door of a forced repo where some other poor shit was run over, and my mind starts to race again
(how long must you spend in exile)
as I begin to calculate the down and monthly on a place like that (can’t be much…doable, no?) and like a kid irrationally looking for a specific song on an old car radio, I spin station to station—maybe get an advance…make a couple of smart investments…qualify for a loan…flip that house—I land on a breathless commercial I heard just the other day featuring my old Aussie real estate agent
(Interest rites my neevah be this low ageen. NEEVAH!)
and I suppose the devil needs only the tiniest hoof-hold because two stops later I’m actually ginning the numbers,
(ponziing myself!)
and I’m up to my ears in that peculiar bastard of American calculus, that ol’ bad math, macro-optimistic flawed formula of Keynesian interventionist Mall-of-the-Americas bliss, endless exponential derivation—
the Theory of “UP”
—big sloppy bang of perpetual growth, long-view, as the winking brokers used to say, their BMW sedans and Lexus SUVs parked with the wheels car-ad cocked, their view of
your future
always a step on an endless climb, steeper, steeper, faster and faster in the widening gyre, interim between collapses shrinking—fall…recovery…boom; fall, recovery, boom; fallrecoveryboom; fa-boom—a kids’ carrousel ride gone out-of-control
(Get on kid, gotta get on, don’t miss the ride!)
and I know better, I swear to God I know better (
It’s unsustainable
—a kind of mania, a sickness, and yet)—
you deserve this, you are a fucking American
—because all you want is one more chance—all you want is for your boys to have it better than you did—all you want is what’s there—all you want is—

Untenable. I know. It is untenable. And I feel myself blush. Reach into my bag and find TJ’s warm gloves. When I get off the bus downtown there’s an old man standing there, with a milky eye and a piece of fresh cardboard. He asks if I have a felt pen. I offer him a ballpoint, but he says people won’t be able to see the writing. I give him a dollar.

That night, Lisa says it was a mistake, sleeping together.

I don’t say a word.

But a week later, she stays again. After we make love that night, Lisa suddenly sits up in bed, gasping. She’s had a nightmare and she’s disoriented, unsure where we are. “It’s okay, Lisa,” I whisper. I touch her face lightly. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

She looks around the tiny bedroom of my crap-ass apartment. There’s a long crack in the wall where the stucco on the outside has settled. She stares at that crack, and begins to cry. “I really am trying, Matt.”

“I know you are,” I say. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” And all that night it feels like I’m holding my breath; for the first time I let myself think about her and Chuck. Imagine him holding her. For the first time in a long time, I don’t sleep.

In the morning, I get the boys off to school and take the bus. Write my happy business news (“M-Tronic Laying Off Fewer Than Feared”) and keep my eyes down on the bus. I go home to find Lisa already with the boys, making dinner. That night we sit out on the balcony. Lisa takes a deep breath and says that she feels like I should know “exactly what happened” between her and Chuck.

The past tense thrills me a little. But I say, “It’s okay, Lisa…”

She shakes her head and says, “Maybe it’s not even as bad as you’re thinking.”

I take a deep breath. Choose my words carefully. I tell her that of course she can tell me what happened. She can tell me anything she wants. But she doesn’t have to say a word. With bankruptcy, I tell her, you’re supposed to come out lean and smart and humble, free of the old obligations, the bad habits and weighty contracts that were holding you down. You get a clean break. Start from scratch. There’s a reason they call it
forgiving
debts, I say. (And the trumpets blare…celebrating the glorious freedom of freedom!) Whatever happened with Chuck, I tell Lisa, it was as much my fault as theirs…more maybe. And whatever happened, it’s okay. It’s okay. I plan to just keep saying this until it feels true: It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s…

She nods slightly, and stares out the window. For a long time, we’re quiet.

And then I lean in gently, whisper: “It was the bald spot, wasn’t it?”

Then one day, I get my biweekly check and see that Earl has padded it a little, so I hit the bank on the way home and I arrive at the apartment to find Lisa playing Yahtzee with the boys. I ask if she wants to take the boys to a movie. I can still only afford two tickets, so Lisa and I sit in the mall and share an ice cream cone while the boys are in the theater. We can hear muffled explosions coming from one of the theaters.

I reach over for the cone.

“No. You don’t get anymore.” Lisa holds it away from me. “You don’t eat it right.”

“How are you supposed to eat it?”

“You’re supposed to lick it. You gum it like an old man.”

“I’m using my lips. You can’t get enough with just your tongue. You just move the ice cream all around.”

“So I’m just supposed to settle for a dainty little lick while you get a big gummy mouthful? That’s not fair. I should get ten licks for every one of your old Abe Vigoda gums.”

“How about five licks for every Abe Vigoda?”

“Eight.”

I grab the ice cream from her, and hold it away, and she’s wrestling me for it and that’s when I look up to see my old pothead friends, Jamie and Skeet, coming out of the theater.

Skeet’s got my loafers on.

I ended up spending two nights in jail, booked on charges of possession with intent to deliver. I was arraigned, posted bond, and went home. As quickly as I could, I pled guilty; because of my cooperation, the prosecutor agreed to overlook the fact that I tried to buy two pounds and it’s only the three ounces I get credit for trying to sell. Because of my clean record, the fact that I have a job and am supporting two boys, and have a recommendation from Randy and Lt. Reese, I got into a deferral program; if I complete my drug classes and keep pissing clean urine, the charge could eventually disappear entirely from my record.

Monte has also pled guilty, to more serious charges; Lt. Reese tells me he’ll probably get a break in sentencing, too, since he is cooperating fully. Like Monte, I may be called to testify against Dave if his case goes to trial. I’m not looking forward to that, but all I can do is tell the truth. Lt. Reese tells me not to worry. He thinks Dave will eventually plead out, too, and that he and Monte will end up doing no more than a couple of years each. In the end, I ended up liking Lt. Reese a lot. He’s…I don’t know…genuine. He laughed mercilessly at my story of selling pot to my old editor, speaking into my phony glowing watch. I suppose I originally thought his bad-cop thing was an act, but the guy really is a prick. Just like Randy really is a nice guy. Unfortunately, their task force did lose its funding and they’re back at their old jobs, Randy with the city, Lt. Reese doing school drug presentations for the state patrol (I like to imagine it: “Okay, listen up you little fuck-sticks.”). One day Randy called out of the blue to see if I wanted to go to his church. I thanked him but said no. He told me that Dave was close to accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior. “That’s great, Randy!” I said. And I really was glad for him; I imagine that saving someone is an incredible feeling. But it was Dave I felt best for. I pictured his many failings going into that salvation garbage can and I was so happy for him I could barely stand it.

As for Jamie, as far as I know, he was never charged with anything. I recall what Randy said about professional CI’s and I wonder if maybe he isn’t doing that. He would be great; certainly the best I ever saw: smart, calm, quick on his feet. Funny how you fail to see people for what they really are—

In the mall now, Skeet doesn’t see me at all, but Jamie does, sees right into me, and knows. He gives a little smile, and then hesitates…I feel the same thing…but what would we say? Finally, Jamie gives me a short nod, looks down, and he and Skeet move on.

“Who was that?” Lisa grabs the ice cream back from me.

“My old weed dealer,” I say.

“Oh.”

And here we are.

Sitting in a mall where I am gently trying to win back my beautiful wife, while our boys see a movie on the twenty bucks it has taken me three months to save, and Lisa and I fight over a single ice cream cone. I think we are supposed to somehow be better off now, out from under all of those middle-class weights and obligations and debts, all the lies that we stacked above our heads like teetering lumber. As Lisa said, we’re trying.

But it’s not easy, realizing how we fucked it all up. And that turns out to be the hardest thing to live with, not the regret or the fear, but the realization that the edge is so close to where we live. We’re like children after a thunderstorm. It’s okay, I whisper to Lisa on those nights that I convince her to stay with me. It’s okay. Just keep moving forward. Don’t look back. It’s okay.

Maybe we will be happy again—maybe we’ll even come out of this happier. But I can’t help wondering if we couldn’t be happy in our big old house, with our old nice furniture, with our old second car, with enough money for
four
movie tickets.

For two ice cream cones.

No, we miss our things.

But we have pockets.

And Lisa and me—we’re okay.

Jacket design by Richard Ljoenes

Jacket photographs: Falling Man © Thomas Barwick / Getty Images; Suburban Landscape © Greg Pease / Getty Images