A FBOW excerpt in sequence: Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

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Her voice waking Michael, he began to cry.

Not knowing what to say in the face of this hysteria. Afraid to say anything because he knew that anything he might say would only further inflame the situation.

Looking from his wife’s breasts to her anger distorted face. Sighing, standing, going to the crib he felt the baby’s wet diaper and changed it.

Lifting Michael from the crib. Going to the window and holding back tears Mitchell stood with his back to his wife holding his son’s warm head in the crook of his neck and shoulder looking out the window.

Looking out the window he saw nothing.

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Boiling and Bubbling

May 21, 1957

Okay, yes, maybe he had been wrong!

And then, as always…

He’d always been a light sleeper, much lighter than his wife, and whenever Michael would wake and cry Mitchell would awaken instantly but pretend to be asleep, and—after all, he was the one that left the apartment before eight every morning six days a week to go to work. He was the one that held down two jobs! So why shouldn’t he lay in bed and let his wife attend their baby’s needs?

So then. As always…

The first weak cries woke him. Acclimating himself he lay still a moment remembering his thoughts of the night before and his vow to do ‘whatever’ it took to end this thing with Marsha and himself as soon as possible—Today: ‘now’!

Though completely attuned to her baby, she had taken a pain pill earlier in the evening and it took Marsha a bit longer than usual to wake up, and her waking sound was that of a resigned sigh, and her weary movements were those of a simultaneous throwing off of the blanket and the lifting of her body, but…

Holding her shoulder, “Marcie, I’ll do it.”

“Huh?” Taking a second for the words to sink in. “ ‘You’ll do it’?” Adding sarcastically. “Mitchell is going to take a night feeding?”

Truly not sure if he had been right or wrong for not helping Marsha with Michael more than he had. But truly did feel by working two jobs he ‘was’ doing his share and, after all, if Marsha did get tired during the day or didn’t feel well all she had to do was lie down.

“Yeah...” he said as, applying gentle pressure, he tried to force her back onto the pillow. “...go back to sleep, honey. I’ll take car of Mikey this time.”

Oh, yes! The thought of missing the two o’clock feeding, of being allowed the luxury of sleeping through the entire night was so tempting! However, as much as she would ‘love’ to lay back and close her eyes again, Marsha’s obstinate nature would not allow her to accept her husband’s help because if she allowed him to do a nice thing for her, she might be obligated to do something nice in return and accepting this offer of help—so, she figured and Mitchell hoped—could be the wedge that might begin the process of putting an ever widening kink in the armour of her inexorable anger.

And what Marsha wanted…

In addition to her weakness and weariness due to the combination of the over extended delivery, emergency appendectomy and subsequent uterine haemorrhage, all was further exacerbated by the task of taking care of a newborn and her — a syndrome which as of yet had no name— depression, and money and, ‘of course’, the utterly malicious conversations with her mother had caused Marsha to lose faith in her husband and in so doing felt that her love of Mitchell had eroded.

And what Marsha wanted…

What Marsha wanted—no matter the cost—was to teach her husband a lesson!

To be ‘sure’ her husband had learned that lesson!

To be ‘sure’ her husband would ‘never again’ allow his parents—his mother in particular—to tell him what to do nor how he should react to his wife’s behaviour…

Meaning to never question her motivation for ‘whatever’ she did…

So in order to teach her husband those lessons— so Marsha thought. She ‘must’ make him suffer!

In her present frame of mind—her love of Mitchell presently non-existent anyway. Thinking, I really don’t give a damn how he feels!

“No, Mitchell...” she said, forcefully shrugging his hand off her shoulder. “...don’t bother! I’ll do it!!”

“Marcie, ‘please.!” Coming off the bed, going to the other side, holding her by the arms—just as Michael began a full lunged wail—“I want to!”

Speaking through her teeth, “ ‘Let go of me’!” Twisting from his grasp, she turned the lamp on. “I told you, Mitchell, I don’t want you to do ‘anything’ for me!”

Becoming angry. “Enough’s ‘enough’, already!” Following Marsha to the crib, moving in front of her and lowering his voice. “Go, on!” Taking her by the arms again, attempting to steer her back to bed. “Marcie, ‘please’ go back to sleep! Let me take care of Mikey!”

“ ‘Don’t do me any flavors’!” Pulling from his hands, she slapped him. “ ‘I don’t want your help’!”

Shocked! She hit me! Holding his temper. Not wanting to become physical. “Yeah, okay, Marsha...” rubbing his cheek, “...but it’s not ‘only’ for you! He’s my son, too, you know!”

Lowering his voice, bending over the crib he felt the diaper. “Hi, Mikey.”

As he began to unpin the urine drenched diaper…

Grabbing Mitchell’s arm, pulling him around. “How come suddenly tonight, ‘now’ he’s your son?”

“He’s ‘always’ my son!”

“Oh? He’s ‘never’ been your son at…” glancing at the clock on the wall, “...two-fifteen before!”

“Yeah, that’s true , and I’m sorry! But I ‘want’ to help now!”

“Why can’t you understand...” scornfully. “... I ‘don’t’ want your help!” Her nails digging into his arm, she yanked him from the crib. “I don’t want…”

“ ‘Marsha’…” Pulling from her hand, her nails leaving bloody scratches. “….what the ‘hell’s’ the matter with you? You ‘crazy’?”

“Yeah, I ‘am’! I ‘am’ crazy… For ‘marrying’ you!”

Glancing at his arm, her words cutting deeper than the blood oozing scratches. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he repeated sadly. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“ ‘Why’? How’s about, for starters…” scornfully, in her mother’s words, “because you can’t even earn a decent living!”

Defensively, “I’m doing everything I can! You ‘know’ I’m doing everything I can!”

“And I thought I married a man!” Marsha said, curling her lip in disgust. “Not a…” again, her mother’s words, “...god-damned mama’s boy! And that’s what you are, Mitchell, a god-damned mama’s boy!”

Hearing the raised voices of the two people standing alongside his crib, no longer crying, Michael’s eyes followed the individual sounds of the two voices.

He did…

He knew he more often than not did act on his mother’s or father’s words. And most times Mitchell did feel cowardly for not coming to the defence of his wife more than he did… But so often, in his opinion his wife’s actions were indefensible and at those times it seemed the logical choice to side with his parents rather than his wife because he ‘really’ could not understand why Marsha would always take as strong a stance as she did over what he considered to be a trivial matter. But, at those times—every time he took his parents’ side—when the argument between Marsha and himself did begin, he did eel guilt for not coming to her defence more than he did…

But a ‘mama’s boy’? No!

“A ‘mama’s boy’, Marsha? Uh...”— as usual, his rising anger causing him to lose track of what he wanted to say, “...why am I a ‘mama’s boy’, Marsha?”

Loosing interest in the two irritating people standing alongside his crib, the wet diaper irritating him, Michael began to cry again.

“Could it be because, uh, I happen to think my parents deserve even the barest courtesy from my wife, eh? The same courtesy, by the way, that I, uh, show your mother and father… To be called by a name!”

“Oh, that’s what you want me to do, to call your parents a name, do you?” Marsha said sarcastically sweetly. “Okay, how’s about ‘ass-holes’? They’re both a couple of ‘ass-holes’!”

“ ‘Ass-holes’? My parents are ass-holes? It sure as hell wasn’t my mother that stole our money and lost it! It was, uh, your fuckin’ mother!” His face but an inch from hers. “But it’s my parents that are ass-holes, huh? And what’s your mother but a, uh, god-damned whore, and…”—he knew he was treading on mighty thin ice, but ‘she’ started this whole thing, didn’t she! And she was the one perpetuating it, wasn’t she!—“…your father’s too, uh, fuckin’ stupid to know it!”

Balling her fist, Marsha swung at his face, but instinctively turning away, the blow glanced off the side of his head, hurting her hand far more than she hurt him. And, in a spontaneous movement, Mitchell slapped her across the face.

Her cheek stinging. “ ‘Get the hell out of here, Mitchell’,” she screamed. “Get out of my house and go live with those ass-holes!”

Attempting to hit him again but grabbing both wrists he backed her onto the bed and holding her down with his left hand, bringing his open right hand back…

“Go on, Mitchell! ‘Do it’!” Daring him. “Hit me ‘again’!”

Remembering, well remembering their physical argument in Seagate.

“No!”

Instead, squirming forward, laying flat atop her—her fists harmlessly pounding onto his back. “I am ‘not’ going to hit you,” he said emphatically, as…

Trying to squirm from beneath him, attempting to pound a knee into his groin, “ ‘Get off me’!” But, his thighs together, she could not do it. “ ‘Let go of me’!”

“Marcie, you’re hysterical!”

“ ‘Get off me’!”

“Calm down first!”

“Get off of me Mitchell!” she said through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, I will, soon as you calm down.”

Doing all in her power to shake him off, she’d bite him except the weight of his chest was on the side of her face and, with the exception of her no longer flailing arms, Marsha was held fully immobile until…

“Mitchell...” she said in some semblance of calm, “...the baby’s crying! god-damn-it, let me up. ‘Please’!”

Rolling to the side he followed with his eyes as, standing, rubbing the knuckles she’d hurt when her fist had come in contact with his head, going to the crib. “Shhh, baby, shhh.” Soothing her baby, Marsha removed the dirty diaper, as…

Coming off the bed, Mitchell took a per-measured bottle of formula from the refrigerator, put it in the sauce pan of water on the stove and lit the fire beneath it.

Blotting the blood from his scratched arm on a paper napkin “Marcie, please, ‘please’, let’s not let this thing go on!”

Ignoring him, she cleaned and changed the baby. Then cradling him in her arms, going to the stove she watched the slight jiggling motion of the bottle in the now boiling water.

“Okay...” he asked softly, “...what do you want?” Putting his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll do ‘anything’ to stop this.”

Shaking his hand off as though a loathsome bug. Turning to him with a withering look of hatred. “I want you out of here!”

The look of her face. The tone of her voice. The words spoken with such vehemence taking him back a moment. Looking at his wife sadly, having no idea what to say, Mitchell went back to the bed.

**** 

Having fed and settled Michael in his crib, Marsha took the sedative she had been given by her mother, and—because she had been suffering with them since yesterday afternoon—another pain pill for the cramps that always signalled the start of her period.

Back in bed, glancing at the clock—‘2:57’—without a look or another word, her back to Mitchell, Marsha soon fell into a drug induced sleep.

As lying awake...

“I want you out of here!” Her words resounding in his mind, “I’m crazy for marrying you!”

Unable to sleep, Mitchell Lipensky once again had the eerie sensation that the few inches that separated his body from the body of his wife was ‘truly’ chasm of a hundred miles.

‘I’m crazy for marrying you’! … ‘I want you out of here’!

May 21,1957

Not wanting to go through it again, thinking, If I’m gone when she gets up, maybe it’ll give her a chance to cool off and she’ll be in a better mood when I get home. Mitchell got out of bed at 5:15, took a quick shower, shaved and dressed.

Though it was still dark in the room, he stood beside the crib a few minutes listening to the sound of Michael’s breathing while looking at the white shadow of the covered lump that he knew was his baby, all the while fighting an urge to pick him up and hold him in his arms because he had an urgent need to tell him, “I love you, Mikey, my baby. I love you.” Only when he felt the constriction in his throat and burning behind his eyes did he turn away.

Going to the closet, groping for his jacket and a tie—as his clothing was all inter-matched—any tie.

The tie hanging loosely about his neck. The jacket draped across his arm, walking to the door, opening it he stepped into the hallway and closed the door silently behind him.

On this Saturday he had taken three leads, the first being at nine.

Waiting for the elevator, wondering, How in the hell am I going to get through this day feeling as shitty as I feel?

Knowing Eli usually left for work at about this time, certainly not in the mood for small talk, or really ‘any’ kind of talk, ‘especially’ with his father-in-law, Mitchell hoped Eli did not take this same elevator on his way outside.

Eli didn’t.

Outside—appropriately to his mood—the dawning day was overcast with a thick layer of dark clouds. The streets still wet from the last rainfall, no more than two minutes into the walk to his car in this congested neighbourhood the clouds ripped and it began to rain.

By the time he unlocked the door— his clothing wet, Mitchell felt just as bad physically as mentally.

Having a bit less than three hours to kill, he found an open grill on Lawrence Avenue.

Remembering Ruby’s good advise—Ruby! Oh, God! Missing Ruby! Needing a friend, ‘needing’ a good friend to talk to!—Mitchell ordered the Truckers Special: three eggs—fried in lard not doubt—with four chubby sausage links—undoubtedly stuffed with, besides other doubtful stuff, lard—hash brown potatoes, dripping with, what else but lard along with two slices of toasted rye bread oozing, what?—most probably lard as well as all the coffee he could drink.

Sitting in a booth next to a sweating, steam opaqued window that he rubbed a circular clearing on with a napkin that he looked out of every few minutes, Mitchell killed almost two hours over breakfast thinking of Marsha and…

‘I want you out of here!

...wondering if she ‘really’ meant it. And if she did, why?

‘Why’?

Because, I didn’t do anything all that bad! Searching his mind, Really, I didn’t do anything all ‘that’ bad! Bad enough for her to want a…

‘NO’! It’s not possible that she’d want a divorce! Why? Because I didn’t get up to help her with Mikey? Because I ask her to be courteous to my folks? Why?

Actually Mitchell harped on this or allied subjects more often than he realised— if not coming straight out and saying it, then continually dropping what he considered to be subtle, all but—so he thought—subliminal hints, that ‘really’, to Marsha, had the subtlety of dynamite..

Thinking, Why? Because we got bills and I’m not making lots’a money? I try, god-damn-it, I try! And if she can’t see that then ‘fuck her’!

So now…

Subliminal or not! His nagging aside! Neither Marsha nor Mitchell considered that they might be…That — for whatever reason, they ‘were’ being manipulated by their mothers!

****

In addition to the husband’s perceived non-acceptable attitude and lack of earnings. In addition to the wife's perceived non-forgivable non-understandable rage. It was possible...

That Marsha may have the as of yet undiagnosed symptoms of premenstrual and/or postpartum depression syndrome.

****

So now, his thoughts vacillating between feeling sorry for himself and indignation at Marsha…

But yet, through self pity and anger, Mitchell felt an extremely heavy weight in the pit of his stomach…

And that weight had nothing to do with three eggs, four chubby sausage links, hash brown potatoes and two slices of rye toast even if they ‘had’ been fried in, stuffed with or oozing lard.

When the five mugs of coffee began to backwash into his throat, when the manager of the place began giving him ‘will you get the fuck out of here here’ looks…

Going into the toilet, Mitchell rid himself of at least two mugs of coffee. But, of course, not the residual effects of the caffeine contained in five mugs of trucker strong coffee that kicked his kidneys into a gear that would keep him looking—desperately at times—for a toilet throughout this entire miserable day.

After paying for his perceived lard infected breakfast, hoping for a break in the rain Mitchell stood just inside the doorway for a few minutes, then ran to the car.

Next FBOW excerpt in sequence: Karen Rosenberg