ALTERNATE REALITY

Chapter 2 from the R.M. Dolin novel, “The Dangling Conversation“

Chapter 2: Alternate Reality

ISABELLE: “Ya gotta love this park, perfectly placed bench, crystal clear night sky, the only thing missing is a blood orange moon to cast us in a surreal sense something either magical or mystical is about to happen. Guess heaven’s leaving that for us to work out. We came earlier today, Murray acted all disappointed you weren’t here; I don’t know if dogs get depressed, but that’s how he seemed.

“The cool thing about working from home is not only do I get to live hundreds of miles away, me and Murray sneak over between meetings to goof around and de-stress. I bring a laptop sometimes, you know, a medicinal way to work through tedious never-ending meetings, at least that’s how I justify it. I am productive, plus keyboard jockeys can never get enough vitamin D. I’m talking too much again, still working through my, “getting to know you,” anxiety. You make me nervous for reasons I can’t explain, but in a good way, like meeting the Pope or something; not that your pious or anything, but you know what I mean. You see through me and it’s-, well-, intimidating.

“I’m certain it’s none of my business, but you said something the other night that’s been churning in my head, stop me if I’m being noisy, but you did open the door. Anyway, you were married twice, but there’s only been one woman who ever spoke to your soul. While that’s enough to fire up any girl’s attention, what stands out as utterly shocking is you then follow that by saying she wasn’t either of your wives, and you never found a way to marry her. That’s a helluva bomb to drop on someone without expecting follow-up Q & A. To start with, wow! And I don’t just mean wow, but WOW! I literally don’t know what to do with that, and again, I don’t mean to be poking around no-trespassing zones, but there’s no way that’s not a story filled with tragedy; I’ll even toss in suffering, and if not suffering, then at least agony on levels I’m certain me and all my crap can hold a candle to.

“It’s not only what your story means to you, which don’t get me wrong is huge, but what’s churning my head is this belief that understanding your story’s gonna help me gain prospective and get resolution on critical crap I’m confronting, like being convinced I’ll never fall in love again; not that I can’t, just that I won’t. That’s a whole lot more to untangle and unpack than all the moving boxes strewn around my apartment.

“I know you’re gonna say I should never say never on the falling in love thing, trust me, I’ve had that conversation with mom a hundred times, so, let’s put aside all the good-vibe mumble-jumble and say for the purposes of going forward, you and I can dive into the honest end of the pool. You feel it, right; this sense we’re connecting on a deeper level that lets us openly and honestly not only explore but express the clustered catacombs of darkness directing protected paths. That being said, let’s agree to bridge the one topic mom and I can’t find the courage to cross: being honest about my predicament. If love were in the cards for either of us, neither of us would be sitting on this park bench, especially on a Friday night.”

KYLE: “I gotta say, Isabelle, you’re not one for touching a toe in the water are you; no hello, no how ya doing, just walk right up and start excavating sacred places I only tread with trepidation. It was a mistake on my part to say what I said about Nadia; can’t say why I did, only maybe your right and my soul, needing to vent, decides you’re the one to open up to? You’re right about my story, only it can’t be confined to just one tale because while some chapters long ago closed, others are still being written. It is nonetheless fair to ask, after all, as you said, I did open the door. I’m just not certain how much I can, or should, share; guess we’ll both find out as we go along.

“Have you ever met someone and known in an instant they’d be the most important person you ever encountered? I’ve loved Nadia most my life, but the line connecting when we first met to right now; a simple one-dimensional shape representing the relationship between two rather random points, for many complex and convoluted reasons, never could quite close. That’s my back story, one that must be presented from three unique points of view; there’s me before Nadia, me and Nadia between wives one and two, and the post-marriage us leading up to now. Phases one and two are in the books, but here in the present Nadia and I have yet to concede a conclusion; some have been proposed, others seem certain, a few are still being negotiated. As I meander in and out of fragmented pieces of my story that are either germane, or the limit of what I’m willing to share, I’ll do my best to keep some sort of chronological order; to be honest though, that’s not how things lay out in my head, or my heart. Sometimes, Isabelle, nearness matters more than time and hurts that hold their pain the longest linger loudest in the queue.

“I went to France and fell in love, isn’t that how great love stories begin? Like you correctly pointed out; somewhere between that starting dot, along the disconnected line taking me to right now, like in any great Greek tragedy, is filled with tales to be told and lessons to be learned.

“I bought my first rode bike in college, that doesn’t have much to do with Nadia, but everything to do with my story and how I came to this park bench. After sophomore year I move to Denver for the summer; don’t have a job or any prospects really, but managed to get on in an architectural firm as an intern by convincing them I can draft even though I don’t know how. I can’t afford a car so buy a simple Japanese ten speed that not only gets me to work and home but introduces me to the raw uninhibited joy of open road cycling.

“At the end of summer, I’m back on campus a lean mean biking machine eager for new roads to ride. I attend a fraternity party my first week back; not my fraternity, but another one for engineers. The party’s packed, mostly with fresh faces I’d never seen. Full of world conquering confidence and a body much stronger than what I’m packing these days, my buddies and I play this game where one person points out a girl and challenges another to go chat them up; if you don’t, not only are you a wuss, but you have to drink a beer. To make the game interesting, the guy in charge of pointing searches out the prettiest most unavailable girl hoping the challenger meets with a highly entertaining and unceremonious rejection.

“We’re four, maybe five rounds in, completely undeterred by repeated humiliations. It’s my turn at being the designated chatter and my buddies are busy scanning the room for a hilarious defeat when suddenly, this amazing full-on Irish redhead catches my eye. I grab my buddy’s arm and yell above the loud music, “pick her!” He stares at me hopping up and down like a dog at dinner, then glances at the fair-skinned wonder who’s obviously out of my league, “Kyle!” he announces all coy and casual while closing one eye to take careful aim at the unsuspecting damsel, “I command you to win good favor from far fair lady!” With that, fate sets me on a seemingly seductive course; courageously inebriated from five, maybe six, beers and filled with the swashbuckling swagger of a pirate wannabe, I slice through the crowded room and approach her with my best Bogart impression, “of all the gin joints in all the world, you walk into mine.” To the astonished amazement of both me and my wingmen, she’s actually flattered; turns out Casablanca is her favorite movie. We spend the rest of night talking like we’re the only two people in the crowded chapter room; Maggie’s a math major, which is sorta sexy, at least for a fellow traveler.

“At this point you’re no doubt wondering, “what the hell does any of this have to do with a Japanese ten speed?” Very little, that’s the difficulty of my Nadia story, everything has very little to do with anything, yet, when you put it all together and call it the life of Kyle, each intricate piece becomes essential.

“After some persuasion Maggie agrees to go out with me, but since I’m too poor for a car, she has to drive; kind of awkward but I don’t care, I’ve never been one to get hung up on protocols or societal expectations. She’s from the rich side of town so pulls up to the dilapidated house I’m renting with four other guys in her Dad’s Cadillac, which on the one hand is cool, but does present some unexpected challenges, like where does a poor boy take a girl from the rich side of town on your first date when she’s driving a Cadillac? It’s painfully obvious the dive bar down the street is gonna be a bit underwhelming as she suddenly seems to no longer be the sawdust floor kind of girl I remember from the other night. Funny the way life swings on context, in the chapter room of a crowded fraternity, she’s from my world, but from the passenger seat of a Cadillac, I’m out of place in hers.

“Expectations are a bitch when you’re trying to impress, and I find myself cast on the wrong side of that examination couch. We drive around for hours talking because I’m reluctant to recommend a venue and then, without realizing it, wind up on a forested road where we stop to take a walk. It’s there, under a lone Ponderosa at a canyon’s edge with the bright moon filtering shadows on her freckled face like silhouettes from an old black and white movie that we share our first kiss. And what a kiss, not only do her soft lips tenderly mesh with mine like magic on magnets, but at that moment, for the first time ever, everything in the universe is perfectly how it’s supposed to be and anything not her is as inconsequential as air to a fish. In the years that follow, as life ebbs and flows over challenges and struggles, nothing can tarnish the profoundness of that kiss. It’s important in life to not let precious moments be overshadowed by the crap that comes after. Tuck that away as a caret’s worth of wisdom.

“Turns out Maggie and I have a lot in common, like her being born in the same small town I went to high school; only she gets out before I get in. She doesn’t go straight to college either, choosing instead to get a job as a bank teller while I’m off working as a plumber. On the one hand, someone good at counting money seems seductive, but she’s twenty-one and still living with her parents, which is a bit of a red flag, and if you have a novelist’s flair, you already know what we’re talking about here is foreshadowing.

“Even though we’re just a month apart, Maggie’s a year behind me in school but knows way more than me, so, she becomes my math mentor. She’s the reason I make it through my last two years; not only does she help with homework, she keeps me off the streets at night and away from fraternity parties. The problem with college though, is it’s a lot like riding a bike; when you’re peddling along some random road you get into this alternate reality where all your problems are lost in hills you easily conquer. That’s college’s fundamental flaw, every problem has a quick and easy solution; but that’s not how the real-world works. In college, major conflicts are trivial by real world measures, which is why they’re easily worked out. Real world conflicts are convoluted, and for reasons that defy logic, end up intertwined to the point where after a while you’re not even sure of the causal crap you’re currently dealing with. In college, everyone’s more or less on the same team striving to achieve the same goals, but in the real world, people diverge and when problems arise, they get so wrapped up in competing concerns and subterfuge that seemingly simple solutions staring you in the face avoid resolution.

“We get married under the college banner believing we’re perfect for each other and our love can conquer any crisis. She tosses her bouquet, we climb into the restored 68 Ford Bronco dad gives me as a wedding present, and we drive into the real world. When crisis comes, which it always does, we pick the wrong time to learn love isn’t capable of conquering anything; within a few years we’re slowly separating and emotionally preparing for what seems increasingly inevitable.

“So much happens in a small span of time; things you never imagine and can’t possibly prepare for. I sell the 68 Bronco, which to this day ranks in my top five of the all-time stupidest damn things I’ve ever done. I upgrade my Japanese ten-speed to Trek 420; it costs over five-hundred dollars, which at that time is a boatload of bucks. I still have that bike and take it out every now and then just to remember what life without worries or regrets tastes like. The thing is, Isabelle, in any relationship, it’s never the last thing that causes the thing you’re trying to avoid from happening to happen, but when I take a job at the State Department and have to move to Washington, that’s when it really is really over.

“I remember the last moment Maggie and I are together as vividly as our first kiss. In unceremonious fashion, I silently load what few things I have in the back of a Datsun pickup, strap my Trek to the rear bike rack, and leave for Washington. I still see her in my rear view mirror like the sad ending to a Bogart movie, like it’s the day before yesterday; she’s standing stoically in the driveway, her red hair fluttering in the wind, her green eyes staring in my direction but not at me. She’s long past tears or tenderness, just standing like a statue in solemn sorrow, both of us realizing the finality of saying good-bye to a life we once believed would last forever.”

ISABELLE: “I know I’m a broken record, but wow! And not just wow, but WOW! Clearly you left a lot out, strings just begging to be pulled, but not now, there’ll be the right time for those sorts of details. I like the way you talk; reminds me of dad, he has this melodic way of storytelling that weaves many moving parts seemingly impossible to track, but somehow in the end, all come together in a profound way that leaves me thoughtless. I know I’m supposed to say, “speechless,” but I never am, in case you haven’t noticed. Sometimes though, I do get thoughtless. You know, where every assumption I have, every obvious outcome I’ve role-played, gets scrubbed from my mind with nothing to back-fill and I don’t really know where to go with what’s left.

“My story parallels yours before quickly diverging. My Ex and I met at work; a clique tale that finds it’s hellish tragedy long before the final act. I’m new in accounting and he’s in sales. As you can probably surmise, he’s an excellent charmer while I’m a bit naive. I’m not sure why he targets me, who knows, maybe the slime-ball bastards in the showroom are playing your game and he’s assigned to chat me up or risk having his manhood challenged. Doesn’t matter much, especially given how he makes me feel; like I’m the most important person in his life. We don’t date for long, but while we do everything’s perfect; he even charms mom. She used to say, “Isabelle, a good man makes you, his priority. Forget nice gifts, fancy dinners, or expensive vacations, if he loves you, he’ll find far more meaningful ways to demonstrate affection. And in the end, Isabelle,” she would always add, “that’s all that matters for two people to be happy.”

“And he does, even in the aftermath of all the hell he puts me through, I can honestly say that while we’re dating, he makes me feel like I’m his priority. Getting married is an obvious next step, a way to lock down euphoric feelings; and I am happy, at least until I’m not. Looking back, the signs were there all along, but when you’re blinded by love even flashing neon goes unnoticed. It starts small, like him insisting on picking the color of my toothbrush, who even notices something so trivial, or better yet, who cares?

“His argument for picking toothbrush colors is completely legit; so, we can tell them apart. He claims to be color blind, but it only seems to apply to oral hygiene products. From there, in softly subtle ways, it expands to the toothpaste I use; can’t have my own or one I pick, no, it has to be his. From there, in ways that are undetectable at the time, things escalate to increasingly higher levels. One time I surprise him with new kitchen towels because he likes to cook, instead of being thankful, he gets agitated and angry; not because he doesn’t like the towels but because I pick them on my own. He makes me return them and then he buys an almost identical set, which makes no sense, right? In retrospect this is an obvious sign of something disturbing, but instead, I make up lame excuses about him dealing with work stress or having an irrational attachment to kitchen towels stemming from some childhood trauma. Because I love him, and because he tells me every day how much he loves me, I write off the entire incident as just an unfortunate moment; a one-off that won’t happen again. And please, don’t lecture me on my stupidity for not seeing things for what they are, mom’s already staked out that unscalable mountain.

“Before long, his kitchen and bathroom antics spill into all aspects of our life, but again in such small and subtle ways they go unnoticed. When I do manage to stand back and see things for what they are, I somehow find a justification allowing me to dismiss everything. Eventually, and in very gradual ways, I realize he doesn’t talk about love anymore and seldom says tender things. He starts criticizing anything I do and I’m pretty certain he subversively works to get me fired because I wouldn’t quit as he insists.

“Weeks after losing my job it hits me, because I’m out of work, I’m completely dependent on him. I don’t realize it in the moment because he’s so sympathetic to my sadness and humiliation, and vows to do everything in his power to get my job back; even says he’ll quit if they don’t rehire me. I believe him; he’s such a convincing charmer. Then one day, I’m walking through this art gallery because I get used to doing weird things like that to fill the emptiness of my day as well as the void in my soul. I unexpectedly bump into my old boss; while that surprises me, what completely blows me away is him congratulating me on being pregnant! He says if I decide to come back after the baby’s born, my old job’s waiting because they sure do miss me. Stunned to realize I’m pregnant and still have a job, I rush out of the gallery in anguished tears straight home to confront this horrible man pretending to care about me.

“How can he do this? How can he make up such lies just to get me fired? That’s the moment I see my life for what it’s become. For all his pretending, all his persuasive charm, he doesn’t care one spit about me; couldn’t care less how I feel or what I need to be happy. But what can I do, I’m dependent on him. That’s the bitter reality of what he’s done, of what I’ve allowed him to do. Not only does he have complete control over me, he’s become a master at wielding power without pity. You have no idea what it’s like to be at the mercy of someone; the damage it does, which I suppose is why I linger with him far longer than I should, long after the love’s gone. Living on pins and needles, afraid to move, to do anything because he finds fault in everything. Afraid to leave because he’s convinced me I can’t, and while I can truthfully say I never had suicidal idolization, I wouldn’t duel death if it came calling.

“Things get so bad I start obsessing on the pros and cons of dying from cancer versus in a car crash, or some other terrible calamity. I create a list of the ten best ways to die. Then, and this is where my anxiety becomes macabre, I start assessing each day from the context of my list, concluding that today’s a cancer day, or it’s a car crash day based on how I feel and his reaction to whatever it is he’s going to find fault with. To be clear, I never seriously contemplate that sort of action, it’s just the metric system I develop to gauge the quality of my existence.

“In retrospect, the script’s transparently simple, you start out in love, after realizing the love’s gone, you go through the “if only,” phase; if only I was more pleasant, if only the house were cleaner, if only I was prettier. One day, you wake up to realize that, as you said, you’re living a fraudulent reality, and you subtly, without conscience thought, slide into a “let’s get past this,” phase where all you do is try eking out some measure of tranquility with a beleaguered belief things will get better. There is no happiness, no hope, just getting by as best you can. Eventually you come to accept things are not ever going to get better, that’s when you’re compelled to take the most difficult and dangerous step by entering the, “I must get out,” phase.

“He gets wind of my plan to leave and all of a sudden, he breaks down and begs for forgiveness; says he’ll change, and everything will be different, and it is for a while, until he knows he has me back under his control, until the cancer and car crash days return. But slowly, without really realizing it, I gain strength, maybe not a lot but enough to do what I have to do. I’d fallen into a death spiral and the only way not to die is to risk death. I must get out, which I do, which is how I came be living in an apartment full of unpacked boxes with a dog named Murray.

“I live off the grid because each time I start over, no matter how careful I am, he finds me. It starts with virtual stalking, which I have to tell you is every bit as terrorizing as the real thing, which he quickly escalates to. It’s hard, harder than you can even imagine, especially at my age; living off the grid leaves me feeling like a “nowhere man in a nowhere land,” to borrow from the Beatles. Dad wants me to come home, but I can’t, my Ex knows how to find me there. Dad says we’ll get the police involved but trust me, the police either can’t or won’t do a damn thing, I’ve tried. All I can really do is wait for him to find his next victim, which is even more tragic than my death list days. You know, hoping he enslaves a new victim so I can be free. There’s something perversely twisted in that, and it makes me sad I’ve become a person I’d wish what happened to me happens to someone else. It makes me not a nice person, not someone I want to recognize, not someone anyone should want to be with.

“Now you know the sad tragic tale of me and its pitiful panacea. You also know why I’m running, running out of reasons to be loved. Tell me truthfully, does riding a bike on the open road really transport you to an alternate reality? I need that, I need to find something to make me feel all my troubles are behind me and I can conquer any hill. Maybe you can take me someday; God knows I desperately pray each night for a chance to live any other kind of reality.”

KYLE: “First off, sorry for your troubles, if ever there’s something I can do, I’m just an ask away. I’m not good for much but I do occasionally have my wiles. Of course I’ll take you riding; it’ll be fun. There’s this grocery store a few towns over, small little Mom & Pop place I pass by on my rides. Sometimes I stop to grab nourishment, you know, a piece of fruit or something to drink. They have this bin in the back corner for reduced items; stuff like overripe fruit, breads past fresh, and meat starting to spoil. Overripe fruit’s high in sugar, which means good for energy; I like picking through the offerings but one has to be careful, there’s a fine line between overripe and not fit for human consumption. They have a sign above the bin that unapologetically says, “Damaged Goods.” It speaks to me; we’re all damaged in one way or another; so, trust me, you’re no more messed up than the rest of us, your troubles no more than those of others. You need to embrace your sweetness even if it seems you’re starting to spoil. Even with all your cuts and scars, your bruises and banishments, there’s someone somewhere waiting, wanting to cherish you, treat you the way everyone should be treated; you just need to be careful not to rush into anything.

“When you get to be as long in the tooth as me, you’re so covered in cuts and scars, so taxed by troubles, it’s hard to see you’ve healed; to see that the goodness in your soul hasn’t been tarnished or taken away. You also realize that while yes, you’re still hoping for the strength to believe in a forever person, you’re not looking for someone to build a life with, but rather, for someone to share a life with. One of my favorite quotes is from Henry Ford, you know, the guy who perfected mass production, he’s a horrible human but a helluva an engineer. Anyway, he once said, “if you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” Sit with that a bit and let it sink in; once you do, it’ll alter your reality.”