The park is beautiful during the day, rolling hills and old oak trees, the rose garden. At night it throbbed with fear and meanness. Horrible sounds came magnified to us across the water. Angry fucking and fighting, bottles breaking. People retching and screaming. Women getting slapped. The police and grunts, blows. The now familiar sound of police flashlights. Lap lap the waves against our little wooded island, but we shivered and drank until it quieted down enough for us to dare swim for shore. The water must have been really polluted, we were both sick for days.
Ben showed up one afternoon. I was alone. Joe and Jesse had gone to play pool. Ben grabbed me by the hair and took me to the bathroom.
“Look at your drunk self! Who are you? What about my brothers? Dad and his girl are on cocaine. Maybe with you they’d die in a car wreck or you’d burn the house down, but at least they wouldn’t think drinking was glamorous. They need you. I need you. I need not to hate you.” He was sobbing.
All I could do was what I had done a million times before. Say over and over, “I’m sorry.”
But when I told Jesse we had to stop, he said ok. Why not smoking too while we were at it. We told the guys we were going backpacking near Big Sur. We drove down the hairpin Highway One above the water. There was a moon and the foam of the ocean was neon-white. Jesse drove with the lights off, which was terrifying and the start of our fighting. After we got there and up in the woods it began to rain. It rained and rained and we fought more, something about ramen noodles. It was cold but we both had bad shakes on top of that. We only lasted one night. We drove home and got drunk, tapered off before trying again.
This time was better. We went to Point Reyes. It was clear and warm. We watched the ocean for hours, quiet. We hiked in the woods, ran on the beach, told each other how great pomegranates tasted. We had been there about three days when we were awakened by weird grunts. Thrashing toward us in the foggy woods were these creatures, like aliens with oblong heads, making guttural sounds, weird laughs. They walked stiff-legged and with a rocking gait. “Good morning. Sorry to disturb you,” a man said. The group turned out to be severely retarded teenagers. Their elongated heads were actually rolled-up sleeping bags on top of their packs. “Christ, I need a smoke,” Jesse said. It was good to get home to Telegraph. We still didn’t drink.
“Amazing how much time drinking took up, no, Maggie?”
We went to movies. Saw Badlands three times. Neither of us could sleep. We made love day and night, as if we were furious at each other, sliding off the silk sheets onto the floor, sweating and spent.
One night Jesse came into the bathroom when I was reading a letter from Nathan. He said they had to come home. Jesse and I fought all night. Really fought, hitting and kicking and scratching until we ended up sobbing in a heap. We ended up getting really drunk for days, the craziest we ever got. Finally I was so poisoned with alcohol that a drink didn’t work, didn’t make me stop shaking. I was terrified, panicked. I believed that I was not capable of stopping, of ever taking care of myself, much less my children.
We were crazy, made each other crazier. We decided neither of us was fit to live. He’d never make it as a musician, had already blown it. I had failed as a mother. We were hopeless alcoholics. We couldn’t live together. Neither one of us was fit for this world. So we would just die. It is awkward to write this. It sounds so selfish and melodramatic. When we said it, it was a horrible bleak truth.
In the morning we got in the car, headed for San Clemente. I’d arrive at my parents’ house on Wednesday. On Thursday I’d go to the beach and swim out to sea. This way it would be an accident and my parents could deal with my body. Jesse would drive back and hang himself on Friday, so Jon could find him.
We had to taper off drinking just to make the trip. We called Jon, Joe and Ben, to let them know we were going away, would see them next Friday. We took a slow trip down. It was a wonderful trip. Swimming in the ocean. Carmel and Hearst’s Castle. Newport Beach.
Newport Beach was so great. The motel lady knocked on our door and said to me, “I forgot to give your husband the towels.”
We were watching “Big Valley” when Jesse said, “What do you think? Shall we get married or kill ourselves?”
We were close to my parents’ house when we got into a ridiculous fight. He wanted to see Richard Nixon’s house before he dropped me off. I said that I didn’t want one of the last acts in my lifetime to be seeing Nixon’s house.
“Well, fuck off, get out here then.”
I told myself that if he said he loved me I wouldn’t get out, but he just said, “Let me see your smile, Maggie.” I got out, got my suitcase from the back seat. I couldn’t smile. He drove off.
My mother was a witch; she knew everything. I hadn’t told them about Jesse. I had told them I had been laid off at school, the kids were in Mexico, that I was job hunting. But I had only been there for an hour when she said, “So, you planning to commit suicide, or what?”
I told them I was depressed about finding a job, that I missed my sons. I had thought a visit with them would be a good idea. But it just made me feel that I was procrastinating. I’d better go back in the morning. They were pretty sympathetic. We all were drinking a lot that evening.
The next morning my father drove me to the John Wayne Airport and bought me a ticket for Oakland. He kept saying that I should be a receptionist in a doctor’s office, where I’d get benefits.
I was on the MacArthur bus headed for Telegraph about the time I was supposed to be drowning. I ran the blocks from Fortieth Street home, terrified now that Jesse had died already.
He wasn’t home. There were lilac tulips everywhere. In vases and cans and bowls. All over the apartment, the bathroom, the kitchen. On the table was a note, “You can’t leave me, Maggie.”
He came up behind me, turned me around against the stove. He held me and pulled up my skirt and pulled down my underpants, entered me and came. We spent the whole morning on the kitchen floor. Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Jesse made us his favorite sandwich. Chicken on Wonder Bread with mayonnaise. No salt. It’s an awful sandwich. My legs were shaking from making love, my face sore from smiling
We took a shower and got dressed, spent the night up on our own roof. We didn’t talk. All he said was, “It’s much worse now.” I nodded into his chest.
Jon arrived the next night, then Joe and Ben. Ben was pleased that we weren’t drinking. We hadn’t decided not to, just hadn’t. Of course they all asked about the tulips.
“Place needed some fucking color,” Jesse said.
We decided to get Flint’s Barbeque and go to the Berkeley Marina.
“I wish we could take them to our boat,” I said.
“I have a boat,” Jon said. “Let’s go out on my boat.”
His boat was smaller than “La Cigale,” but it was still nice. We went out, using the engine, went all around the bay in the sunset. It was beautiful, the cities, the bridge, the spray. We went back to the pier and had dinner on deck. Solly walked past, looked scared when he saw us. We introduced him to Jon, told him he had taken us out on the water.
Solly grinned, “Boy, you two must have loved that. A boat ride!”
Joe and Ben were laughing. They had loved it, being out in the bay, the smell and freedom of it. They were talking about getting a boat and living on it. Planning it all out.
“What’s the matter with you guys?” Joe asked us. It was true. The three of us were quiet, just sitting there.
“I’m depressed,” Jon said. “I’ve had this boat for a year, and this is the third time I’ve been out on it. Never have sailed the damn thing. My priorities are all out of whack. My life is a mess.”
“I’m…” Jesse shook his head, didn’t finish. I knew he was sad for the same reason I was. This was