A FBOW excerpt in sequence: “Eleven Days”
…At an illusory coordinate on Lake Michigan, at approximately halfway between the ninety-five miles, as the crow flies, that separated the house in Skokie, Illinois and the cottage in Lakeside, Michigan, on June 23, 1958, at sometime about 11:38 PM, at roughly Longitude North 41 Degrees, 42 Minutes, 18 seconds, Latitude West 86 Degrees 53 Minutes, 27 seconds, Marsha and Mitchell Lipensky unknowingly, on this night did, once again, make love.
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Chicago, Illinois
June 25, 1958
“So you’re going to see them this summer after all, eh, Lippy?”
“Yeah, Earl...” carrying opposite ends of two sheets of unwieldy 4x8 concrete splattered 3/4" plywood, “...guess I am,” he said over his shoulder.
A thought coming to mind, his mood darkening, “Unless I get a letter telling me not to.”
“Hey, pal, don’t worry! If she didn’t want to see you, she wouldn’t have written.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Dropping the plywood onto a growing stack alongside the curb.
Turning back to the structure to retrieve another plywood sheet. “Bet you can’t wait to see your kid.”
“Yeah. But it’s going to be an awful long eight days till I do.”
Asked enviously. “You think you’re gonna get laid then, Lippy?”
“Don’t know if it’s any of your business, Earl. But, Jesus, I sure hope so!”
Reaching the stack of plywood concrete forms. “Oh, by the way...” Earl, now in the lead, said over his shoulder, “...my dad told me they’re going to be looking for sales trainees at the place he works.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So? You wanting to do this shit forever?”
“Haven’t given it a hell of a lot of thought.”
“ ‘Bullshit’! It’s not too bad now ‘cause it’s summer and you’re working on your tan and getting paid for it. But just try doing this in winter!
“Besides, knowing something about Jewish broads your wife’ll probably have something to say about her husband doing this kind’a Dago, Polack, Shvartzer work.”
“First off, I don’t even know if we’re getting back together! And secondly, so long as I’m bringing money home, and I’m making more now than ever, if I know Marsha, I don’t think she’ll care.”
Dropping the sheet of lumber, they turned back again.
“Oh, yeah! ‘All’ Jewish broads just love telling their friends, ‘No, my husband isn’t a doctor or a lawyer or a C.P.A.… My husband’s a common labourer’! Yeah! ‘Sure’!”
Recalling the dream of Marsha snubbing him because he was a shlepper. “Yeah...” he said begrudgingly, “...okay. Maybe you’re right. Who’s your dad work for?”
“He’s a salesman; works for a company called ‘Transco’.”
“Transco?” Pulling his T-shirt from his pants, wiping sweat from his face with the bottom, “Never heard of ’em.”
“I’d say there’s probably a couple’a companies you never heard of.”
Hoisting his end of two more sheets of plywood, “Yeah, that’s for sure. The company? What’s…?”
“ ‘Transco’.”
“Yeah. What’s Transco make?”
“Envelopes.”
“Envelopes? That’s what your dad does? Sells envelopes?”
“Yeah, envelopes! And he makes a damn good living doing it!”
“Who’s he sell envelopes to? Stationary stores?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so, but my dad sells mostly to businesses. Any company that sends a letter or a bill has got to put it in an envelope, don’t they? Have you ever…” dropping the plywood, “gotten a bill that wasn’t in an envelope?”
“Never thought about it, but, no, guess not.”
“Well, that’s what my dad does, and they’re looking for trainees.”
He’s right. Summer’s one thing, Mitchell thought, but doing this work in zero weather with the wind blowing? “Okay,” Mitchell said, “maybe I’ll look into it.”
Skokie, Illinois/Lakeside, Michigan
July 4, 5 and 6, 1958
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Skokie
July 4, 1958
Awaking earlier than he’d wanted and much too early to begin moving about. Unable to sleep again, thinking, Mitchell lay awake staring at the brightening shadows that stippled the bedroom ceiling in the home of his parents.
In just a few hours he’d see his son again and the thought filled him with anticipation. But the thought of seeing his wife again filled him with apprehension because, thinking, somewhat rationally, for the thousandth time: What if I misunderstood the letter? What if she didn’t say ‘love’ because she really doesn’t love me and really doesn’t care and didn’t say it because really she doesn’t want me to think she does!
Thinking somewhat irrationally also: What if she didn’t get my letter? What if it got lost somewhere and she doesn’t know I’m coming? What if she went back to Chicago and I get there and they're not even there? Or what if her whole family’s there and she told them some kind’a bullshit story and they tell me to go back where I came from?
Word for word Mitchell had thought about what he would say when he saw Marsha and how she might respond and what he would say when she did respond.
Indeed, he’d always—word for word—thought about what he would say to Marsha, then, when it was time to say what he wanted to say he either forgot what he wanted to say, or changed his mind, or ‘did’ say it, and because his words either came out wrong or—in Marsha’s feminine logic—what he said was misconstrue d to mean something altogether different than what he’d meant to say and, as so often happened, Mitchell would be sorry he said it.
“ ‘Shit’!” Getting out of bed and dressing quietly, he went downstairs and, for the second time since coming home yesterday, washed the car.
Lakeside
July 4, 1958
Awakening early, even before her son, Marsha remained in bed watching the shadows of trees and raspberry bushes as, darkening, they stippled the walls and ceiling in the cottage of her parents.
Since receiving her husband’s letter seven days ago she’d been a nervous wreck because, as noncommittal as her letter, Mitchell’s was, at the very least, just as noncommittal and maybe even more so because…
First of all, she thought for minimally the millionth time since receiving it, I would have come as quickly as possible, not almost two weeks later!
And she further thought, I said I missed him and he didn’t! Well, he did say ‘Mikey, I can’t wait to see you’, so maybe I wouldn’t get the idea that he ‘even’ wants to see me. And he also said he’s not going to sleep here! Well, that’s not ‘exactly’ what he said, but how he said it puts it on ‘me’ to make the choice whether or not he is going to sleep here… with me.
What if, really, he doesn’t want to sleep here… with me anymore? What if he found a girlfriend?
What if he really doesn’t love me anymore and he gets here and asks for a divorce?
What if he can’t forgive me for what I did?
Oh, God!
Having lots of time to think, Marsha had spent lots of time thinking of the day she’d moved from the apartment, and of the two movers with guns and, with fear, what might have happened if Mitchell had come home then.
And with embarrassment. Because ‘outside of spite’, having absolutely no idea why…
Why in the hell did I go back upstairs and dump the rubbers all over the floor?
“Shit!”
Anxious to get this day started no matter what it might bring.
But also because, awake now, Michael was standing in his crib with a sopping diaper so…
Throwing the blanket off, Marsha got out of bed.
Skokie, Illinois
After showering, Which should I wear? Because he didn’t want to appear to be ‘too’ obvious, this was the third time he’d changed shirts.
Going back to his original thought— because he didn’t want to appear too obvious by wearing a yellow shirt that he knew she knew was his favourite colour, ‘especially’ as darkly tanned as he was.
And also because he didn’t want to appear to be anxious to please her because he knew she liked the way he looked when he was as darkly tanned as he was, and wore a yellow shirt.
Deciding. Dressing, Mitchell wore a pair of his most washed-out appearing new Levi’s and, for the second time, put on the short- sleeved powder blue shirt that accentuated his tan almost as well as yellow— and his eyes even more so—and his old deck shoes, without socks.
Rather than folding and wrinkling the two other shirts he planned on taking—including the yellow shirt—he hung both on cardboard-covered pants hangers along with a fresh pair of Levi’s on one hanger and chino slacks on the other.
Into his old canvas bag went two pairs of ‘Jockey’ shorts, two T-shirts, two pairs of socks, one pair of denim shorts and his bathing suit. But no pyjamas because— if things went right he wouldn’t need pyjamas , and if they didn’t, he’d sleep in his underwear.
****
Having heard her son moving about, Myra had remained in bed until he finished with the car then; when he went upstairs to shower, shave, dress and pack, she got out of bed to make breakfast.
****
Hoping to be on his way before his parents got up to give him another lecture, Mitchell planned on stopping some-where for breakfast and to kill some time. But the odour of brewing coffee wafting up the stairs informed that he would not be able to just leave.
Putting his shaving kit—containing a bottle of ‘Old Spice’ after shave lotion that he knew Marsha liked into the canvas bag. Glancing at Morton who was still asleep, zipping the bag and laying a light weight poplin jacket over his arm, then lifting the two hangers from the doorknob. About to go downstairs when remembering, thinking, God willing, went to his box of things that was shoved against the closet wall. Rummaging about he came up with three… No, he thought. Maybe, hopefully, God willing I’ll need at least six!
Remembering, a slight flush of anger covering him, digging deeply into the box again he took another three of the sixty-eight redi-wet, foil-pac prophylactics that Marsha had scattered about the floor on day she moved out.
“Hi, Mom, be right back!”
A beautiful morning, he’d lowered the top after washing the car.
Opening the trunk, he put the canvas bag next to the the large teddy bear he had bought for Michael, and carefully placed the hangers on top.
Coming into the house he found a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee on the table. Four sausages sizzled in one frying pan while Myra fried two eggs in another.
“Mitchie...” scooping the sausage, she put them on a platter, then the eggs, “...we know how much you’ve missed Marsha and Michael, and know how important this is to you…”
Oh, shit, he thought, here it comes!
“…but we—your father and I—really feel it would be best if before you go to bed with her…”
“Mom! I ‘don’t’ know if she even wants to go to bed with me!”
“She has a ‘baby’! Women with babies don’t find men standing around waiting for them that are only too happy to support them! So chances are you’re right about her letter, and all I’m… All your father and I’m saying is to talk to her before the two of you jump into bed.”
“ ‘Mom’...” he said emphatically, “...I ‘have’ thought about what I want to say to Marsha and have every intention of saying it!” He had also thought about what he wanted to say to his mother. “But you know how god-damned stubborn she is, and I’m going to tell you…” Pulling his thoughts together; taking some sausage and chewing a moment, he washed it down with juice.
“What I plan on talking to Marsha about is ‘only’ going to be about her’n’me. And whether or not she ever calls you mom is going to be strictly up to her. And when-ever she’s ready to be part of this family again, she will!”
No longer being an employee of his parents, giving Mitchell a bit more courage. “And I am ‘not’ going to make those conditions for the two of us getting together again because there’s Michael to think of and he’s more important than whether or not his mother calls you ‘mom’. I really hope you don’t keep making this a big thing between you and Marsha!”
Having what might be considered ‘tunnel-vision’. “So, in other words you’re not going to discuss anything!”
“Mom, I love you, but that’s the way it’s going to be!”
Standing, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
Stalling on the toilet, his mind elsewhere, Mitchell tried to read the newspaper.
Lakeside, Michigan
Glancing at the clock: ‘6:45’. Marsha cleaned and dressed Michael.
Glancing at the clock: ‘7:05’. She fed Michael as, glancing at the clock, ‘7:12’.
As glancing at the clock she grew increasingly apprehensive over seeing her husband and what his attitude towards her might be.
Glancing at the clock: ‘7:35’.
For breakfast Marsha had a cup of tea and a slice of toast spread with peanut butter.
Glancing at the clock…
“For God’s sake!” she said aloud, thinking, He said he’d be here about eleven! “Will you relax!” she said to herself, but Michael, standing in the playpen watching television, said… “’Ucy!”
“Yes, ‘Lucy’,” Marsha said, glancing at the clock.
‘7:45’: Through Skokie. ‘7:58’: IntoChicago. ‘8:20’: Onto the Outer Drive. ‘8:37’: Onto Lake Shore Drive.
Lakeside, Michigan
‘8:53’: Marsha made and closed the sofa bed. ‘9:05’: She vacuumed the carpet, ran the dust mop over the linoleum floors and dusted the furniture. ‘9:30’: She attempted to watch television, but could not. She tried to read again, but could not.
‘9:25’: Out of Illinois, into Indiana, through Hammond and Gary.
With each moment. With each rotation of the wheels his exhalation, along with his fear, increased.
Lakeside, Michigan
‘9:58’: Marsha went into the bathroom, let the water run to get hot, removed her pyjamas and stepped into the shower.
‘9:58’: Michigan City, Indiana.
A sound from the past. Remembering, the wheels hummed going over the ‘singing bridge’, and Mitchell’s heart began to beat faster.
Lakeside, Michigan
‘10:11’: Stepping from the shower, Marsha dried herself and renaming nude cleaned the bathroom as she tried to make the monumental decision of: What should I wear?
‘10:15’: New Buffalo. Only eight miles to Union Pier.
Raising his eyes from the white-lined, black-topped highway before him to the sparkling deep blue sky above him, “Oh, God,” he said aloud, “let her still love me!”
‘10:24’: Union Pier. His head turned as the bowling alley, the ‘Old Road’ cutoff and the ‘Union Pier Business Center’ sped by.
‘10:27’: The twin water towers rushed by and suddenly, “There’s the road!” Approaching too quickly, but as there was no oncoming traffic the wheels of the Ford squealed as he made a sharp left and still coming too fast, suddenly the dirt road was to his right and making another sharp turn there’s the second cottage, and…
‘10:28’: What to wear still undecided...
wearing only shorts and a loosely hanging T-shirt of Mitchell’s that she’d taken by accident, brushing her hair, Marsha stepped into the sunshine, as…
Next FBOW excerpt in sequence: The 4th of July:1958
