Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [124]
“Do they write stuff like that in women’s rest rooms?”
“No,” she said. “I always use the men’s room.”
“We’re lucky,” he said abruptly. “We have a sense of humor. That saves us. A lot of times.”
“Saves us from what?”
“Oh, you know. Arguing.”
“I think argument is good for a marriage,” she said. “It cleans out the dirty little places; the stuff you might bury away.”
Jack agreed, and they had a long talk about marriage, and how difficult it was, and how lucky they were that each of them was such a fine example of a generous, warm, and loving human being. They went to bed feeling smug, satisfied that theirs was a perfect marriage. It was a feeling they often had, and sometimes it lasted for days. But more and more they found themselves arguing about things outside the marriage, things that did not really matter at all, like art, literature, music, or politics. While both of them admitted that taste was a very personal matter, they argued as if each had the proper taste and the other had to be kidding or was being defensive. Jack could not finish Ulysses, but read From Here to Eternity with rapt attention, and at the end hugged the book to his chest and said, “This son of a bitch has really been around! Man, what a book!” But Sally merely sneered and said, “Illiterate,” leaving Jack in the dark as to whether she meant him or James Jones.
“At least when he wants to say something, he says it,” Jack insisted. He began to illustrate from the text, and realized from the way Sally looked evasive that she had not actually read From Here to Eternity but knew what it was about from the movie and from book reviews. She admitted this, and did not see why it mattered.
She took him to a production of Waiting for Godot, perhaps rather cattishly hoping it would snow him and make him feel inadequate; but when they left the theater and she began talking about Beckett’s use of language, Jack interrupted her and said, “Hell, it seems simple enough to me. They’re waiting, that’s all. It don’t matter what for.”
“Doesn’t,” she said automatically.
“Doesn’t. They’re just waiting. What did you want?”
“It’s not that simple,” she said, but she was not sure why it was not that simple.
“I’ve done a lot of that waiting jazz,” Jack said. “I know what it’s like.”
“So have I,” Sally said. “What do you think I do all day?”
And it was true. Sally was waiting for—she did not know what. Waiting day after day, perhaps for the nerve to walk out. It was not really the marriage she had hoped for, and she often wondered sickly if any marriage could be. She felt chained by the marriage, trapped, her freedom gone. It was so maddening. She would sometimes just sit around the house all day, anticipating Jack’s return, allowing most of the housework to go undone, and when Jack did arrive, she would experience a sharp sense of disappointment. She did not know why. Often she would awaken with a feeling of resolve—to give the apartment a thorough cleaning, or to get a job so that they would have enough money to do more things; but the dullness of the morning routine of breakfast, toilet, dishes, and daily newspaper would take the edge from her resolve, and she would just sit. Looking through the classified ads for work was depressing, too. Women were always wanted for jobs, but no one seemed willing to pay a decent salary. With a twinge of guilt Sally realized that if she got a job, she would want to surprise Jack with it, not mentioning until he asked that she would be making more money than he was. And the plain fact was that such jobs required training, and she had none. She was getting older, and they were not having any fun, and she was becoming a housewife.
The afternoons were the worst times. Even if she had been busy, even if she had been a good housewife, there was nothing to do in the afternoon. She almost always wanted to take a nap by then, and Jack was up and around the apartment. If he left early, she was angry with him for deserting her in the apartment, and if he hung around,