Chapter 8 from R.M. Dolin’s novel The Dangling Conversation
MANDY
“It’s not that Henry never says, “I love you,” it’s the way he says it and this awkward look he gets, like a child unwilling to admit they took a candy bar from the counter. I stare directly back to see if he finds the courage to look me in the eye. I can’t describe it any more than I could tell you the color of cold, but that’s what it’s like, something short of certain. Who is though? I mean about the certainty of love. You have to love unafraid, that’s what I tell him. But even as I say it, I know it’s a shallow impossibility. We’re preprogrammed to race into relationships seeking our way out. It’s like boarding an airplane, there’s nowhere in hell anyone’s going anywhere, yet they tell us every time to mark our nearest exits. Is that what love’s become, an airplane with jammed exits leaving us hoping we land okay? Or maybe it’s more like hopping onto the interstate while measuring mile markers so we know how far until the next off-ramp.
“I should be grateful he doesn’t turn the tables. If he pressed me on whether I love unafraid, I’m not sure I could answer; at least not in a way that’d satisfy either of us. And there-in lies the rub, Henry’s hesitant and I’m inarticulate; two souls clinging to separate lifelines. We want to let go but are unwilling to accept the consequences such risks require.
“Henry says it’s unfair to relationship-shame him. He’s probably right, but then don’t toss “I love you’s,” around like expired Metro tokens. If a guy tells a girl he loves her, it means something, even if the girl doesn’t say it back. A girl shouldn’t have to because we’re rock solid in relationships. I mean guys can be madly yours one moment and walking out the door the next. So, of course a girl has to peel back such statements to see what’s inside. And the irony is, we wouldn’t be where we are now if he’d just say, “I love you,” like he means it; or doesn’t say anything at all.”
WES
“When I was a kid, we lived next to this textile mill in a rundown rural North Carolina town with formally palatial homes that spoke of a time long ago forgotten in the conflicts of change. The Mill made cloth labels, you know, the kind you find on clothing and other such things. My buddies and I had this game, we’d sneak onto the factory premise and rummage through their dumpsters to see who could find the coolest discarded labels. The rare find was discovering one colorful label no one had seen before. Sometimes there’d be huge rolls of labels, literally thousands sewn together in one seamless strand like a roll of theater tickets.
“All the kids collected labels, mostly from their parents who worked at the Mill. Me and my boys, though, were rouge pirates acquiring our treasure through more adventurous means, which often meant playing a dangerous game of Dungeons & Dragons. We’d pretend to be on a quest to rescue a damsel in distress and the labels were the currency needed for the journey.
“We’re only ten but already filled with fantastic notions about being men of courage and valor ready to risk everything to prove our chivalry, which is nothing more than romantic love. We’d hide in the forest that ran along the back side of the Mill near where factory workers huddled during breaks. The men would be in one group and the women in another. Each group would further subdivide based on age, race, and factory position. The one thing binding them all though, was smoking. Occasionally, there’d be an athletic man or pretty girl who didn’t, but mostly it was rare that someone wasn’t puffing like a marathon runner trying to ingest one more stick before break ended. We’d pick the prettiest woman and invent some story about her sad fate-filled life, which we’d augment by sworn oaths to see her rescued.
“The boys called me Dakota, on account of being a South Dakota Yankee; and because I taught them how to count coup. That’s what we called plundering labels from dumpsters without getting caught. Tim and Tom were freckled-faced Irish twins who didn’t look at all alike and somehow ended up both being in fifth grade. We all assumed Bogie was named after Humphrey Bogart, but one day we’re at Bogie’s house and his dad comes home hopping mad because Bogie hadn’t done his chores. In between the yelling and cussing, Bogie’s Dad says he got his name cause every time there’s work to be done, he vanishes like a ghost. We considered renaming him Casper but decided he had a Bogart kind of swagger.
“We called Gary, Preacher, on account of him always fretting about doing the right thing. Polo was Reggie’s tag line since his dad wore a suit and drove a new Mercedes. At first glance we probably didn’t belong together, but what bound us like brothers was our zest for high adventure and willingness to risk capture; maybe not so much Preacher, but the rest of us for sure.
“Our strategy was always the same, we’d wait for the workers to finish their smokes and then, with a daring reserved for the bold and reckless, we’d sneak over to the dumpsters to secure our treasure. That was phase one. In phase two, the plan was to slip inside the fortified fortress to find our fair damsel. To complete the quest, she had to smile at you; indicating she understood her rescue was imminent. The game was won if you made it back to the rally spot.
“Finding a way over the electric fence fortifying the fortress was the first task. Then you had to secure sufficient labels to bribe any sentries you may encounter. Around every corner danger lurks and success is far from certain, but as dedicated warriors embracing destiny, we could no more stray from our chosen path then we could falter from finding the courage required to persevere.”
MANDY
“What the hell does any of that have to do with Henry’s hesitation, and how do ten-year-old boys playing with labels address the aftermath of “I love you?” And that’s not even my question if I’m being honest; Hollywood’s done nothing to prepare us for what follows happily ever after. I’m not sure such a thing even exists; I mean if it did, you and I would certainly be somewhere else. I want to know when we all became so neurotic, or has love always been a poison pill? You reminisce about the age of chivalry as if it’s all so romantic, when in fact love back then was all about political convenience for the rich and matters of survival for the rest of us.
“Think about it, men needed women for all the things women do, like cooking and childbearing. In return women needed men for the things men do, like hunting and protection. No one needs anyone anymore, that’s the tragic truth. I don’t need Henry to survive, or even to be happy. I don’t need his hesitation any more than I need him clinging onto lifelines. It leaves me lost. I’m lost about how to respond as much as I’m lost about what I hoped it would mean. What is “I love you,” supposed to mean? If you remove physical passion, what’s left?”
WES
“We all concedes love’s intimacy requirement, but it has to also have elements of the fantastic. Our quests began with the bold bravado any cache of eclectic boys can muster. It takes courage to love, an eagerness to take on risk, endure any hardship, face any foe; unfortunately, things never ended well for me and the boys. In fact, there’s only one time anyone even finished a quest, but it didn’t matter, not when oaths had been taken, damsels were in distress, and the adventurous demands of destiny were set in our sorcerer’s stone. We never even made it past counting coup without getting caught or being run off by guards, except that one time. The time that made all the other failed attempts worthwhile, and at its core, isn’t that what love’s all about.
Like anyone daring the dangers of love, we had both scares and rewards; we prized our labels because they were earned and not just some parental discarded. Our treasure came with stories, tales of courage and bravery that we told and retold whenever and wherever boys gathered to boast of their boldness. What may seem romantically ridiculous is far from foolish. That’s what love taught me as a boy, a willingness to be bold and foolish. What you denounce as unrealistic expectations I denounce as Hollywood plagiarizing every young boy’s zest for adventure; and the thing is, as I’ve wandered in an out of love and lived through the ecstasy of passion and the agony of betrayal, I never lost my sense of the fantastic.
“That’s how it was for us; the quest wasn’t about finishing, but about battling all the barriers, about being in our moment and living to fight another day. That’s the power and promise of being ten I suppose; romantic fantasies have permission to be real. After all, once an oath is sworn, there are obligations and commitments that must be honored. Thus is the mind and imagination of an undiminished boy on his way to becoming a grown-ass man who still finds the fantastic in romantic adventures worthy of Nordic sagas.”
MANDY
“There is something to be said for needing someone and in love’s defense, I’d like to argue the case. Henry says love is how you feel when you’re with someone, but aren’t the feelings you feel when apart far stronger. Henry says love is not expecting anything from your partner, but doesn’t it really hinge on expecting everything from them; and conversely surrendering everything to them. Henry says the true measure of love is its ability to be self-sustaining, but love needs constant nurturing like a tree and tress don’t thrive in a desert.
“If a tree stands in the desert, alone and unprotected, can we say it thrives? If its leaves are vibrant and its fruit nourishing, can we call it strong? If birds build nests in the full foliage, raise their hatchlings, shelter them from storms and hide them from predators, is the tree not necessary and does not the bird love her tree; and would not all she holds dear perish without this tree? Is this not love, a lone tree standing strong in the desert, providing life to others?
“Hesitant Henry says he loves me, but could he ever love me as the bird loves her tree. More important, could I ever love Henry the way a tree loves her birds, surrendering everything so they might thrive? Need is a necessary part of love, and if I don’t need Henry and he doesn’t need me, whatever we share is not love and whatever future we hope to build is doomed.”
WES
“I once tried to equate Newton’s Law of Thermodynamics to what I called my Law of Love. Newton may have stolen calculus from Descartes, but he was spot on with dynamics; every action, he said, has an equal and opposite reaction, or as my dad would say, a consequence. Love’s a strange thing when it comes to consequence. Sometimes, people in love know their consequences full-on but chose to ignore them. Sometimes they’re calculated but not weighed against the expected reward. Other times, we give nary a thought to consequence at all, which leads to a life lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way, repeatedly; when consequence occurs, you can fight it, deny it, or accept it, but you can’t outrun it.
“Consequence comes down to cause and effect, something we don’t get much say in. Isaac should have spent more time exploring that. Had he pursued “Reaction Theory,” Newton would have concluded that reactions depend on both context and our inherent nature. My nature is to accept consequences because to deny is dangerous and to fight is futile. Before you accuse Henry of hesitating, you need to know his nature.
“I’ve come to accept and appreciate that as a grown-ass man I still possess the untethered imagination of a boy on a quest. The consequence of that is I often find myself out of phase with reality; out of sync with other people, out of rhythm with life’s predilections, out of touch with all the clues we’re provided, out of step with the ebb and flow of powerful currents guiding our destiny. What you call hesitation is perhaps just Henry not in phase with your expectations. Maybe Henry’s like me, in constant need of recalibration.
“The problem with being me is that I’ve never seen a fence I didn’t want to climb, a river I couldn’t cross. I’ve never known a road that didn’t demand exploration or a mountain not clamoring to be climbed. I’ve never tasted a wine I wouldn’t finish, never poured a whiskey I wouldn’t drink. I’ve never known someone well enough to not want more, never fallen in love while holding onto a lifeline. I don’t know how to tentatively dip my toe in the water when that only denies the rest of me. Most men are not me though; most can’t climb mountains, would drown crossing rivers, and can’t appreciate a fine wine. What if Henry’s not hesitant, he’s just in his nature; and who can fault a man for following his nature?”
MANDY
“Are you suggesting Henry’s hesitation is all he can offer. It’s the age-old dilemma, do you love the man for who he is or for who you’ll help him become? My dad used to joke that the difference between a man and a woman is that a man falls in love hoping, even praying, his woman never changes, physically, emotionally, in every way. A woman, however, falls in love knowing exactly how she’ll change everything about her man.
“My dad was very wise, and I miss him. He’d tell me to let Henry be, to embrace his hesitation. He’d say the problem is not in what Henry says, but in what I hear. And here I am, like always, questioning Dad’s wisdom.”
WES
“One day we’re at the factory fortress; I can’t really say how this adventure started or even if it’s ended. But on an otherwise casual December day in a place that knows nothing about winter, my buddies and I are playing basketball waiting for school to start and the next thing we know, we’re in the forest on the freedom side of the electric fence taking stock of the factory folks finishing their morning smokes. As I would unsuccessfully explain to my parents later, we didn’t mean to skip school, again, it just sort of happened.
“There we were, young warriors swearing an oath to rescue the factory’s newest captive; a girl more beautiful than any before. A damsel not made for forced labor, a fact made evident by her not yet learning to smoke through regrets and requisite disappoint. Our imperative was clear, we’d release her from captivity before the influences of her cellmates resigned her to unjust fates. As I stealthily scale the electric fence, I sense a new purpose; I don’t have any other way to describe it, other than to say it was like the voice of fate whispering gentle warnings.
“This feeling grows, slow at first and then faster and more intense until it causes me to pause as the others move on. Tim is the first to establish a beachhead at the dumpsters, and per our rules of chivalry, his box and all it contains belongs to him. Polo is almost to his chosen dumpster when he’s spotted by a guard. Rather than retreat, he takes off down the asphalt road separating the line of dumpsters from the red brick factory wall with the guard in close pursuit. Tim ducks down as a second guard starts flipping open dumpster lids while shouting something about finding us rat-bastards.
“It’s hard doing justice to the bizarre string of events that next unfold, but Tom, probably in an effort to rescue his brother who’s about to be discovered, runs straight at the second guard shouting and screaming like a crazed animal. Then, just when he’s close enough for the guard to grab him, he darts down the paved road skipping and singing like a leprechaun; occasionally looking back over his shoulder to torment the overweight out-of-shape guard lumbering in pursuit.
“For the moment Tim seems safe, that is until a third guard arrives. In a move that shocks us all, Preacher steps out of the trees and onto the road spouting bible verses. We’re all thinking, “what the hell’s he doing?” but it works. The guard stands frozen like a confused statue staring as Preacher rants and raves about getting right with God. No one’s really sure what happened to Bogie, in the after-event hotwash, all anyone remembers is him hopping over the fence before just disappearing.
“At the height of all this chaos, fate whispers for me to make my move. So, I duck behind a row of blue plastic barrels stacked two high and arranged in a way that there’s a random maze running between them. By now a fourth guard’s arrived and he’s standing beside the other guard equally mesmerized by Preacher’s theatrics. Slowly, I inch toward the barrel’s edge, crouching low to avoid detection. Seeing my strategy, Preacher re-positions himself in a way that causes the guards to turn their backs to me. Knowing this is my moment, I slink across the road with the stealth of a seasoned Sioux warrior.
“Before even touching the handle of the fortress gate I hear the embryonic melody of machinery in motion as it emanates from the red brick wall and am instantly mesmerized by the smoothing harmonies that tickle my soul the exact same way your lover does when whispering in your ear. I’m so stunned I don’t know what to do; no one’s ever made it this far before, so there’s no playbook telling me how to proceed. And proceed I must, so, with tepid trepidation, I slowly open the fortress gate, silently slip inside, and slither down the dark corridor making sure to stay hidden in the shadows. Who knows how long I stand at the end of the hallway transfixed by a sight so profoundly magnificent I’ve never found words to describe it.
“Before me is a room so large I’m not convinced it ever ends. It’s filled with massive fabric weaving looms driven by rubber belts two-feet wide and fifty-feet in diameter. At the opposite end of the drive belts are the largest engines I’d ever seen; quiet engines churning to the slow steady vibration of industrial economics. Below the belts and between the large looms are smaller machines whose job it is to manage the hundreds of colorful threads going into the looms, and the woven labels coming out. The machine nearest me has multiple rows of thread spools stacked in a pyramid of colors. Each spool’s thread feeds through independent eyelets and guides as it makes its way to the loom.
“The waspy sounds of each loom’s warp are countered by the sharp troll of the treadle and taken together form their very own jazz ensemble describing life through love; a slow melodic rhythm telling a tale of passion and drama. The smaller machines, each with their own engines, are the percussion section, tapping out a beat that’s uniquely their own and yet when taken as a whole, provide the pulse of production, which is an amplification of love.
“I’m in such overwhelming awe that without thinking I step up to the small machine with the hundred spools of multi-colored thread just to marvel; to better understand its role in the label making orchestra. I didn’t last more than twenty-seconds before a beefy man in pinstriped bibs grabs my shoulder with the clenching force of hydraulic jaws vanquishing any hope of escape. I look up at this mountain of a man; his white handlebar mustache tapering into two fine points on either side of his rock-hard chin. His equally long white hair flowing freely around his shoulders in a way that makes him look like the Norse God Thor we’re learning about in school.
“This God of the factory floor looks down at me demanding to know what the hell I’m doing in his world. Unsure how to react or what one even says to appease a God, I humbly lower my head to await his punishment, which I’m sure will be swift and without mercy. But rather than smolt me in my footsteps, for some unexplained reason, his constricting grip on my shoulder softens and the next thing I know, instead of tossing my ass outside like a mis-woven roll of labels, he’s inviting me to join him as he makes his rounds.
“My mixed-up mass of anxiety and amazement can only muster a nod, which is okay since Thor’s not expecting a reply. As we tour through mechanical wonderland, this king of the factory floor hands me an oil can sternly saying something about everyone having to earn their keep. The next hour is mostly a blur of Picaso impressions, but not only do I get to see the large looms up close as Thor proudly explains the process of threads going in transforming into labels coming out, I get to squirt oil into open gears and exposed cam shafts, which gives me this never before felt sense of purpose and being, and is that not the essence of love.
“And my reward, the forgotten part of my dangerous quest making all the risks worthwhile, is that when we get to the last loom in this seemly endless land of magic and motion, there stands the Damsel I’ve come to rescue. She’s running a fine line of neon yellow thread from a spool on her small machine into a large loom. Thor walks us up to the fair fine lady and introduces her as his daughter, Christina, who’s earning money for college. It’s only after Christina smiles with the grace and charm of an appreciative princess that I realize I’ve completed my quest.
“My friends, fearing the worst, had long since fled the fortress walls, working up alibis for the pending investigation into my sudden and unexplained disappearance. I didn’t see them the rest of that day or even the next, as I was dealing with the consequences of skipping school and my parents’ inquisition. It was days, maybe even weeks, before I could calm down enough to sleep through the noise and shuffle in my head of hundreds of machines working together in-phase, in-sync, in-rhythm, in an ebb and flow that seems impossible to comprehend let alone ever even engineer. Never in my young life had I seen anything so unexplainably amazing, and I’d already been to Disney World.
“That’s the deal with Henry and what you call hesitation. Destiny comes at us from many moments and many angles and while we’re looking left, we’re drifting right, and when we think we’re on an adventure, we’re really laying a foundation for the rest of our life. And it can be that we’re not so much hesitant in a moment, as we are stumbling to understand what’s happening. It took months, even years, to stumble through the lesson kismet was trying to teach. I started that day skipping school because men of adventure can’t be contained in the prison cell of a classroom, only be re-calibrated to the muscle and magic of engineering, and the profound way love extends beyond what’s animate.”
MANDY
“Henry’s hesitation is not about a man stumbling through the minefields of love, that’s a more obvious form for avoidance. I sometimes think he suffers from what doctors should call RSD, relationship stress disorder. Just imagine the billions big Pharma could make with a pill that cured that. But I see your point, in fact, I sort of agree. After all, none of us make it to gray hair without being somehow damaged. But it doesn’t help with Henry, I mean does everyone hear hesitation or do a lucky few find ways to love unafraid? My first marriage didn’t last and there’s little value in sorting through all that bullshit; maybe it was me, but probably it was him. How can we reach a verdict when there’s no jury of our peers? We can no more pinpoint the moment love dies, than we can identify the destructive remains. There are those who argue love dies when it draws its last breath, but doesn’t the death really occur when the darkness first takes root?
“He did this, and I did that, and in the end, love didn’t last. Does it ever? Would a jury of our peers not conclude that Henry’s right to hesitate, or would they say he hesitates at the risk of being late?
WES
“I remember every feature of my label-making King and still sometimes feel his crimping grip on my shoulder; ironically though, I can’t recall anything about Christina, other than she wasn’t a princess and didn’t need saving. What does that say about the end of love, when even a romantic like me forgets the fantasy fate gifted him. It’s not a question ten-year-olds even know how to ask, but one that haunts grown-ass me to this day.
“By ten I’d become all too familiar with my parent’s inquisitions. I knew they worried about my future but had no way to reassure them I was going to be okay. So, with my trial well underway, Dad serving as Prosecutor, Mom as judge, and both as jury with a predetermined verdict, all that remained was learning the extent of my punishment. My weak defense was that no day in school could ever equal a day with Thor on the factory floor.
“For the crime of skipping school, I was guilty as charged, with a punishment commensurate with previous convictions. As I’m being led away to serve my sentence, my Dad says in a clear, concise, and absolute way, “you need to think about the path you’re choosing, because you’re in serious need of re-calibration.”
“It’s odd how a person’s life is parsed into a few life-defining moments. My parents viewed my many misadventures as opportunities to teach me about crime and punishment, when the true lesson to be learned had more to do with risk and consequence, or in this case, how to measure reward relative to risk. I couldn’t sleep that night, or the next, or the night after that. In fact, my adventure into the kingdom of industrial equipment required way too much processing to permit sleep for quite some time. What I needed to re-calibrate myself, was to again hear the soothing embryonic melody of my new destiny.”
MANDY
“Destiny probably is where all this chimes together; that’s the filter between Henry’s “I love yous,” and what I hear. There is no hesitation in destiny, which is why it rings so true. What was that quote you had once from Shakespeare, “the fate is not in our stars, but in ourselves?” Shakespeare absolutely nailed it, Henry didn’t hesitate in proclaiming his love, I hesitated in hearing it. The unanswered question is whether destiny is a forever thing or a not-right-now thing. Is my hesitation destiny telling me that I’m not ready to love Henry right now but maybe later, or is it saying not Henry and move on? Either way, we ignore fate at our own risk, so something must be done; unless that something is doing nothing.”
WES
“It wouldn’t be until much later that I’d realize the random adventures of a ten-year-old boy feed the imaginations of a grown-ass man and are wrapped up in my feelings for Nadia; everything in my life, from misadventures, to mistakes, to their many consequences all led me to her, just as fate led me to the kingdom of industrial equipment. And just as there were consequences for following Thor’s destiny, I continue to suffer the very same consequences of being out of phase with the world; but I still maintain it’s not a sin to let your imagination get ahead of where you really are.
After my surprise trip to Versailles to restart my life with Nadia, I eventually had to return home. But as lovers, as much in love as we were constrained by distance and the two separate worlds we had to live in, the challenges seemed insurmountable.
Love is an insatiable desire for constant contact, a longing that drifts into anguish when starved. And that is what separated me from Nadia, she would ghost me whenever we were apart. When we were together, she was present and her love apparent in her every breath, her every smile. But when we were apart, I ceased to exist in her world and the anguish of that caused a pain of consequence from which I could not recover. She could go days in silence, off to wherever it was she retreated. These periods of utter silence left me with painful longing so intense that as a matter of survival I had to learn how to scale back my desire for her. It was a painful lesson in love that must be learned. How do two people stay in phase when their worlds have two divergent rhythms.
I don’t know how to hold back, that’s my weakness. I don’t know how to swing from a river rope without jumping in. I get a thought and run with it, failing to realize that I’ve run so fast and so hard for so long that I’ve outpaced and exhausted those around me. I lack the ability to recognize when the current something I’m running with morphs into the next new something I’m running with that is currently in the process of morphing into yet another new something. I can be three or four branches down a flow not knowing others are still way up stream wondering where I’ve gone. When I do eventually figure out my faux pas, the only remedy is to re-calibrate; try to get back in sync with reality; only the reality of love is that it’s not possible.
I had so many “Come to Jesus” moments with Nadia. She challenged me to see the realities of our relationship; not only in how I saw me with her, but more essentially, how she saw herself with me. That’s the challenge you have to confront with Henry. He is in love with you, he said so; but are you ready to be in love with him?
