The End Of Love

Their blue gray Grand Torino rounds the corner to the house, middle of the block, south side, and all the lights are blazing. It's June 15th at 3:48 AM. She pulls the big quiet car to the curb and cuts the lights, the engine, and sits there listening for a minute. The engine of the Torino pings a few times, but other than that, it's silent. This is later than she usually gets home on Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, but not much. She runs the biggest restaurant, and only disco in town and has turned the dead zone of Tuesday night into big news by transforming the disco into a stage for a variety of themes, but Tuesday night is Male Strip Show with a female-only audience. There's a Jazz trio in the bar for the line of women waiting to get in when the doors open at seven, so the restaurant is packed early and the bar is doing brisk business since the place opened a couple of years ago. She's made the Evening News in Fayetteville and Paducha. So, now, getting home before 3 AM is damn near impossible. But why would all the lights be on? Oh God, she hopes he isn't waiting up for her.

The "he" she doesn't want to wake up, is her husband. He forgot her birthday, three days ago, or four, depending on how you count the days. It doesn't matter to her. On the actual day, she left for work late, giving him time to call, or come home early himself. When she got up, there was no card or gift left behind. No call during the day. So she hung around for awhile kind of loitering in her own home, until she was an hour late for work. It's not up to her to remind him. She never remembers their anniversary. They got married on Bastille Day, but she can't remember the year. So, when her little calender says, Bastille Day, she wishes him happy anniversary. Nothing more.

She walks softly across the wooden porch and tries the door. Oddly, it's locked. She runs her hand around inside the bottom of her bag and finds her keys--they are a large clump, a fistful. Carefully she finds the key by the light shining from the living room window. She hears Dinah when she opens the door. Her small gray female cat is waiting at the door meowing loudly. As Judith enters, Dinah turns and runs for the kitchen. Shit, he didn't feed her. How could he sleep through her nagging? She glances at his chair. It's empty. The ashtray is emptied. His iced tea glass is absent, so it is either in the bedroom with him, or in the kitchen sink. God he's predictable.

She quietly opens the fridge door, and gets out the can of cat food. A small dish is on the floor behind her. She bends to pick it up, turns to the counter and scoops out a couple of spoonfuls. Then, when she picks up the cat food can plastic lid, she notices a few dark leaves and blue red petals in the sink. She picks one petal out of the sink and rubs it gently between her thumb and finger. Unmistakable long stemmed red rose petal. She hates them. Such a fucking cliche. They are overpriced, never fresh, and remind her of all the men she's known who had no imagination. Shit!

She grabs her smokes and lighter, sets her bag and keys down on the kitchen table, and wanders back through the house, her heels percussive in the early morning silence.

The dining room is full of them. How had she not noticed? Selective blindness? There are tall tea glasses with three or four each, wilting high on the stem at each tightly packed bud. These are some droopy assed roses. She turns the corner into the living room and finds them everywhere. Every vase they own is crammed with the thorny stems of too-tall, dark red roses. The end of love, she thinks, but doesn't say aloud. This is what the end of love looks like.

She bends and puts her face in a huge cluster of them and smells the inside of the refrigerator truck they were shipped in. "Jesus, what a waste of money." They'll all be dead by tomorrow night. Just out of curiosity she walks around the room and counts them. Thirty-one long stemmed red roses. Fuck that! She just turned thirty. Asshole doesn't even know how old she is. Can he count? She is four years older than he is by only a month. She sits down hard in his chair and lights a cigarette.

As she smokes, she tries to figure out what that extra rose is all about. Some symbolism? Junior speaks symbolism but doesn't know it himself. It's his secret language. They have been together four years, and she has been listening to this secret language, since he has taken to actually using words less and less. He has non-verbal tells. Not a card player himself, he isn't familiar with the term, but one of his tells is the shifting of his scalp, much like William F Buckley, when Buckley used to do Firing Line. In Junior's case it means, "This makes me uncomfortable" as in, "shut the fuck up!" Another of Junior's tells is the raised left eyebrow. If they are at a faculty dinner party and he wants to go, he finds her, makes eye contact with her, and lifts his left eyebrow. She starts making excuses, claiming she has to get up early, when they all know it's a lie. She thanks the host and hostess, finds Junior and says, sweetly, "Junior, we need to go now." He looks around, smiles weakly, and turns to follow her out. How has she let it get this bad?

The first year they were in Springfield she was expected to join in all the faculty wives' functions. There were teas. There were luncheons. Then there were the dinner parties that Junior had to attend as well. It was at one such dinner party, fairly early on, that she realized she could not keep up this masquerade. Junior was seated across the table from her between two women, one of whom had just asked Junior a question about his writing. He looked up from his serious consideration of his baffling plate, loaded with things he would never eat, if given the option. There was an awkward silence. Heads were turned his direction, all eyes on Junior. He looked up at Judith, wiggled his scalp and raised his left eyebrow. Judith turned to the man next to her left shoulder and said softly, "I think Junior isn't feeling well; we better go home."

Junior had started his serious drinking in Denver. She ignored it. It didn't start until his last year, and he was home from teaching and grading papers. But one night he pissed the bed they shared. When she woke up cold in the middle of the night, she found all her paintings removed from the walls and pilled in a corner. Junior was on the floor, wrapped in a blanket and snoring softly. She woke him up and demanded, "What the fuck is up with the wet spot in the middle of the bed.?" He said, "I mushed have shmilled my ash." This cracked her up. "Well, shmarty smants, why don't you tell me what you did with my paintings while you're sober and inert." He yanked the blanket out of her hand and slammed his head back down on the hard, cold floor. She moved to the guest room, and wondered how long he'd been getting this drunk.

So now she sits in the living room of the the house they rent, in Springfield, Missouri which she pronounces Misery, and looks at this disgusting display of Junior's guilt. Maybe $150, $200 worth of guilt. Probably called in and ordered over the phone. Delivered in a very big, long box this afternoon. They are dying by the second. And so is her love.

Finally she lifts herself out of the Windsor chair and walks, still in her high heeled boots, into Juniors room. It reeks. She can see from the light of the dinning room, that his bed is empty, and there is a very large wet spot in the center. She sees his naked foot and leg extending on the other side of the room, partially hidden by the bed. She walks over, no longer careful of the sound her boots make on the hardwood floor. He is naked, no blanket or sheet clutched to his chest. Flaccid penis lolling to the left. His arms are flung outward, palms up. His black hair is wet and curly around his blue shaded face. Jesus on the cross. She nudges his leg, hard, with the pointy toe of her black, patent leather boot. "Junior." Nothing. He doesn't even flinch. She moves up his body and aims a mighty kick at his rib cage, but cannot make herself follow through. She leans down and touches his shoulder. He is warm so not dead yet . She leans over, catches the faint whiff of vomit, and shouts, "Thanks for the dying roses motherfucker."

The song, "Dance Me To The End Of Love," starts playing in her head. She can't remember who wrote it, but can hear a man's voice singing it, sadly, softly. She rummages in her closet for a couple of suitcases, and starts singing along with the vocalist in her head.

"Dance me with the beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

When she's finished packing, she picks up the phone and makes her plane reservation.

©2009 Peggy Pendleton