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Chicago, Illinois

January 22, 1958

The degree of her disgust showing in the tone of her voice: “You are so wrong! I am your wife! Nobody should ever be allowed to say anything bad about me in front of you! And if you let them—for any reason—it tells me that you’re a coward and don’t care enough about me to defend me!”

“Oh? And you? You always defend me to your mother?”

“Yes, Mitchell, I do!”

This was true . After they’d pulled their marriage together last June, Marsha had told Rhea that she refused to hear a bad word about her husband and that if she had anything negative to say about Mitchell she’d better keep it to herself.

Mitchell, of course, had no way of knowing this, and not wanting to admit that Marsha had the nerve to do what he hadn’t, “Yeah, I’m sure you defend me!” he said facetiously, then, “Okay,” ticking Marsha’s complaints off on his fingers, “so I can’t provide a decent living! I’m a lousy lover! I hate you and I’m a fuckin’ coward! Tell you what, Marsha,” his anger apparent, “next time someone looks at you cross-eyed, to prove I love you I’ll kick the shit out of them, or die trying! Okay? Anything else, Marsha?”

“I don’t want you to kick the shit out of anyone, Mitchell!”—although she’d love to see physical proof of his love for her, and if it called for him to get into a fight, even if he did get hurt… well… “And I certainly don’t want to you to die trying! I just want you to defend me!”

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Elysium Fields 24: Morals

Topanga Canyon, California

 Saturday, May 17, 1986

 5:09 PM

Remembering their ‘heart to heart’: What should I have done? Mitchell thought, What did Marsha expect me to do, hit him?

“Goodnight, Irene, good night Irene,

 I’ll see you in my dreams…”

Approaching the blankets…

A small group of people from neighboring blankets, sitting on the grass, along with Sandy and Ken, who were sitting cross legged on their blanket, as Evie, lying with her head resting on the outside of Morgan’s thigh – all nursing what wine was left in their glasses – were, more or less, singing along as Morgan strummed, “Goodnight, Irene” on his guitar.

Sitting up, “Hey!” seeing Marsha and Mitchell approaching, “There was some kind of a ruckus at the pool.” Evie asked, “What happened?”

 “Some damned asshole and his butt-ugly wife invited Marcie and me to join them and another, I’m sure, slimy couple to a ‘swap party’ at their house in Reseda.”

Laying the guitar down, his eyes on Marsha, sounding a bit disappointed, “Not your kind of ‘party’, huh?” Morgan asked.

Noting Morgan’s eyes on her breasts, her cocked arm automatically coming up to cover them, “No,” sitting alongside Sandy, “I’m a ‘one man’ woman.”  Grabbing Mitchell’s hand, pulling him onto the blanket next to her, “an’ this here’s my man… Any wine left?”

 “Really, Morgan,” Mitchell replied.  “Not our kind of party at all!” Adding under his breath, “Especially with a shit-ugly broad like that.”

Reaching for the half-full plastic glass handed her by Ken, “Huh?” Marsha asked.

Thinking it best to just say… “Nothing.”

“Want some wine, Mitch?”

“Nah,” looking at his watch, “I’m driving and guess we’ll be heading home soon, so I’d better not.”

“Probably one’a those ‘ ten buck a day people’.” One of the newcomers said.

“Yeah,” a fat woman with huge pendulous breasts sitting at his side added, “them assholes come in here thinkin’ they can just do anything, say anything or proposition anyone an’,  ‘cause we’re’all nudists, they think we got no morals.”

“No scruples, neither,” a skinny man with a dangling, uncircumcised penis added.

So, you got propositioned and you turned ‘em down, so what caused the problem at the pool?” Sandy asked.

“Actually this guy…” taking a gulp of wine, “Clyde, became really obnoxious and really persistent and, oh, my God! His wife has the ugliest boob job I’ve ever seen!”

“You’ve seen many boob jobs?”

“No, not really, Ken.” Taking a smaller gulp. “Actually this was our first…”

“I want to tell you something.” Mitchell’s eyes touching on Ken and Sandy, Evie and Morgan. “Those tits looked like basketballs and, no shit, felt like ‘em, too.”

“You felt her up?” Evie asked.

 “You kidding?” Grimacing, “I didn’t want to touch her! I didn’t even want to look at them! wouldn’t touch those…”

“Yeah,” Marsha cut in, “but she kept rubbing up against Mitchie and he kept pushing her away…”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said, “she kind of reminded me… When we were kids… you ever ride the ‘bumper cars’?”

“Yeah.”

“Every time I pushed her away, she’d bounce right back.”

Marsha added, “One time he shoved her so hard she dunked in the pool.”

“This was the ruckus?” Sandy asked.

“No, this asshole, ‘Clyde’, jacked himself into a boner and then…” his mind searching for a word, “‘Obscenely’ wrapped his hand around his goddamned dick and shoved it at Marsha.”

There are limits even in a nudist park, especially in this family oriented nudist park.

“What an asshole!” The man with the dangling penis said.

“Yeah, an ‘asshole’, you bet. Then Marsha laid into the asshole and scared the shit out of him and when they heard her yelling, the bouncers came and threw both of ‘em out of here.”

“What were you doing when this happened?” Evie asked.

“Clyde… The guy looked like a kind’a biker…”

“Or a ‘hippie’.” Marsha interjected.

“And by this time.” Mitchell said, “he had his fuckin’ boner…”

“A big boner?” Sandy asked.

“ ‘Yeah, ‘big’is right!” Feeling the wine, “What’a big prick.”

“When he made that… uh, motion with his dick  I was really pissed off but didn’t know what I was going to do when Marsha jumped down his throat, then ‘Basketball Boobs’ bounced off me again.”

Coming to her husband’s defense, “Then the Elysium guys came… You should have seen this one guy; he grabbed Clyde by his pony tail and, literally, dragged him out of the pool…

What should I have done? The nagging thought back: What did Marsha expect me to do? Feeling cowardly: Did she want me to hit him?

 ©September 9, 2011 / Mark M. Lichterman