Part 9 (1/2)

She took a deep breath, and it was all s.h.i.+very when she let it out, staggered and stuttery. ”Are you sure about this?”

”Yes, absolutely. I'm sorry. I should have just come out and said it, instead of behaving like an a.s.s tonight.”

Now at last came the tears. A nearby church bell gonged once, just once. It was one o'clock in the morning on a dark, desolate Sunday. Anybody in their right mind would have been home in bed, under the covers, but Doris and I stood there as if we meant to stay put until the sun rose. We should have had gloves and hats. We should have had scarves. We should have never met.

Doris held her arms out toward me, this complicated, tortured person with private pains of her own. What did I know about her? Her broken-English parents died when she'd begun her college studies, never appreciating her pa.s.sion for higher education. She w.a.n.gled a grant here, a scholars.h.i.+p there to make her way through with the rich kids. She coc.o.o.ned herself within a fortress of books that would protect her from the cruel, ignorant world outside.

And I'd sneaked inside that fortress, not in a Trojan horse but in a Trojan condom. Now, at last, we had reached the final conflict. She took a step closer, arms still outstretched.

”Please hold me, Samuel.”

I did as I was told. We held on to each other tightly, in what felt like the last embrace we would ever share. A crosstown bus stopped at the corner where we stood. The driver opened the doors for us, but I waved him off, and he seemed disappointed. He was all alone in that big double bus as he made his way emptily toward Central Park West.

Doris clung to me like a barnacle. I'd have to figure out my next move when she broke the embrace. Would we part forever right there, at the corner of Seventy-ninth and Broadway? Was I carrying the keys to my own apartment, or were they back at Doris's place, hanging on the hook beside the refrigerator? It would be awkward, going back with her now to get my keys, but then I realized that I'd have to go back there anyway to pick up my stuff-toothbrush, underwear, books. Maybe it would be better to do it this way, in one fell swoop. Everything I had would fit into a plastic supermarket shopping bag, no problem. By the time the sun rose, the break would be complete, with no need to see each other ever again.

I wanted to get moving toward whatever bleak and empty future awaited me, but I couldn't do that until Doris broke the embrace, and that wasn't happening. The snow was acc.u.mulating by this time, more than just a dusting. My hands hurt and my ears throbbed from the cold, but still Doris hung on, and then I felt her face move toward my ear in what I thought would be a farewell kiss on the cheek.

”Samuel,” she breathed.

”Yeah, Doris?”

”I'm pregnant.”

She said it flatly, matter-of-factly, like a government worker announcing the results of a lab test. I stared at her face and thought it seemed a little puffier than usual, a hormonal change brought about by developing life, the wiggle of the minnow within.

What could I say? I wasn't even sure I knew how to use language anymore. My entire vocabulary had been blown away by this news. Gradually the words reached my mouth, struggling like s.h.i.+pwreck survivors wading toward a beach. ”How...far along are you?”

”About three months.”

”Doris...”

I pa.s.sed out right there on the corner. I don't know how she did it, but Doris hailed a cab, loaded me like luggage, and brought me to her place, where a couple of gallons of coffee brought me around to the reality of a scenario I'd never even imagined.

How could this have happened? A hole in the condom? A hole in the diaphragm? A hole in my head that got me into this fix in the first place?

”I'm keeping it,” Doris announced. ”No matter what you say, I'm keeping it.”

”I didn't say anything!”

”But you're hoping I miscarry, aren't you?”

”Doris, for Christ's sake.”

”I don't expect you to marry me.”

This was something I hadn't even considered.

”Do you want want to get married?” I ventured. to get married?” I ventured.

”Oh yes. I'm just dying dying to spend the rest of my life with a man who wants to be alone.” to spend the rest of my life with a man who wants to be alone.”

”Hey, Doris, come on. You like being alone, too.”

”Do you have any feelings for me at all? all?”

”Of course I do!” I replied, not daring to ask her the same question.

She stared at me long and hard before saying, ”Your medical plan is better than mine. It'd fill in the gaps mine doesn't cover.”

It was a wedding proposal, admittedly a tough one to put to music, but there it was. I swallowed, nodded, sighed. ”Let's do it, then, Doris.”

”All right, we'll do it.”

No rings, no getting down on one knee, no proclamations of love. There's more emotion at a driver's license renewal than there was on the night Doris and I decided to make it legal.

I married her, and she married me right back. It was a City Hall lunch break ceremony, a get-your-a.s.s-on-my-superior-medical-plan-before-the-water-breaks ceremony. We didn't have a honeymoon. On our wedding night we sat in bed eating General Tso's chicken and vegetable lo mein while Doris read a biography of Octavio Paz and I watched Animal House. Animal House.

Our marriage was under way.

Having never given any thought to being a husband or a father, I found it a little jarring to suddenly become the first thing and have the second thing looming.

I gave up my place and moved into hers, pretending not to hate cats. As I said, her parents were long dead, so at least I wouldn't be dealing with in-laws. If I was spooked by the idea of being married, I don't remember it. I'd probably have felt spooked if I'd married Doris and she wasn't wasn't pregnant. I embraced the concept that I had no choice. It was as if I'd been drafted, and there was an odd n.o.bility in the fact that I wasn't dodging the draft to avoid the war of holy matrimony. pregnant. I embraced the concept that I had no choice. It was as if I'd been drafted, and there was an odd n.o.bility in the fact that I wasn't dodging the draft to avoid the war of holy matrimony.

I sold the situation to myself. You ignore the sinking sensation in your heart and tell yourself that something is meant to be, something far bigger than either of the people involved in it. You tell yourself this is G.o.d's way of putting you on the right path, even if you don't believe in G.o.d, even if you don't believe in paths. Even Doris seemed to feel this way, and she, like so many of her academic brethren, was an agnostic.

I believed in G.o.d, all right, yet there were times when He really p.i.s.sed me off.

But I liked Him fine the day my son was born. Ten fingers, ten toes, and a loud, l.u.s.ty yell to announce his arrival into this Vale of Tears. Papoosed into a soft, snug blue blanket, Jacob looked both serene and annoyed, as if he were glad to be here despite the rocky nightlong voyage through his mother's birth ca.n.a.l. The nurse handed him to me, all seven pounds and twelve ounces of him, and this, I knew, was the Weight of the World I'd been hearing about all my life, cradled right there in my arms. There was a voice in my head, and it was my own voice, speaking six words of advice, or maybe it was a command: you cannot be an a.s.shole anymore. you cannot be an a.s.shole anymore.

I did my best to heed those words. I'd like to think I still do, but I also like to think that I have a decent singing voice, despite the pained looks on people's faces on those rare drunken occasions when I break into song.

I wanted to get out of the city, or anyway, I thought I did. I had this idea of getting a house in upstate New York, with a big backyard and a rope swing for my son, and maybe a stream nearby for fis.h.i.+ng. Jake would go to the local public school, and I'd work for the local newspaper, writing about early frosts and backyard bear sightings.

Doris wouldn't hear of it. At this point she was teaching just two days a week, so she could actually have commuted from this mythological country town, but she wouldn't even discuss the idea. We were staying in the city-case closed. In hindsight, Doris was right. Divorces are easier in cities, and Doris probably knew ours was coming even before I did.

In a lot of ways parenthood was easier for Doris and me because we weren't in love, so we didn't have to keep the flame of a relations.h.i.+p burning while we attended to our parental duties. We were two adults faced with the task of raising a child, or at least keeping him alive while he was in our care. I may never have been much of a husband, but I was always an excellent soldier.

I got up in the middle of the night to feed Jake, hold him, rock him. I changed his diapers at least as often as Doris did, and I was always happy to take him around the neighborhood in his stroller. Jake had a wide-open face and a sunburst of a smile he s.h.i.+ned on anyone who looked at him. It always amazed me that two such contrary people could produce a child like that, a child who seemed to exist in a state of delight simply because he was alive. And it was amazing for me to see people smiling back at Jake as we moved up and down Broadway, hard-a.s.s New Yorkers whose days were made better by the sight of this joyous kid.

Later on I did playgrounds. At that time I was working a night s.h.i.+ft and didn't have to report to the newspaper until 2:00 p.m., so the mornings belonged to Jake and me. I'd be sitting on the bench with mothers and nannies, watching my two-year-old son navigate the incredibly perilous waters of the New York City playground.

It was a long fall from the monkey bars, there was always some semi-psychotic toddler who threw sand in kids' faces, and those swings! swings! My My G.o.d! G.o.d! How many times had Jake merrily wandered into the path of the swings only to have me yank him out of harm's way just a heartbeat before disaster? How many times had Jake merrily wandered into the path of the swings only to have me yank him out of harm's way just a heartbeat before disaster?