Chapter 12 in R.M. Dolin’s novel, “The Dangling Conversation,” April 30, 2023.
ISABELLE: “It’s not that Henry doesn’t say, “I love you,” it’s the way he says it with this awkwardly forced look, like a child taste-testing spinach. I can’t describe it any more than I can tell you the color of cold, but that’s what it’s like, something short of certain. No one is, right, 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 improbability. We’re preprogrammed to race into relationships seeking ways out. It’s like riding an airplane, there’s no way anyone’s going anywhere, yet they have us mark our nearest exits. That’s what love’s become, an airplane ride with someone other than us in control.
“I’m grateful he doesn’t turn the tables. If Henry pressed me on how I love unafraid, I’m not sure I can answer; at least not in ways that’d satisfy either of us. I need his confidence to convince me, and there-in lies the rub, Henry’s hesitant and I’m uncertain; two souls clinging to separate lifelines. We want love to sweep us away in its powerful torrents but are unwilling to embrace the required risks.
“Henry accuses me of relationship-shaming him. Fair enough, but then don’t toss “I love you’s,” around like expired Metro tokens. When a guy tells a girl he loves her, it means something, even if the girl doesn’t say it back. She shouldn’t have to, we’re rock solid. 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. The irony is, we wouldn’t be here if he’d just say it like he means it or doesn’t say anything at all.”
KYLE: “I’m ten when we move to this rundown rural North Carolina town with formally palatial homes that speak of a long-ago time lost to the consequences of conflict. People either work in the textile mill or support those who do. The Mill makes labels for clothes and sometimes things go wrong in the weaving process, and labels get tossed into dumpsters; huge rolls with literally hundreds of labels stitched together in one seamless strand like movie tickets.
“Kids collect them, mostly from their parents. Me and my boys though are rouge pirates seizing our treasure through more adventurous means, which requires a dangerous game of escape and evasion with security guards. Our quest requires rescuing damsels in distress and labels are the currency needed to ransom freedom. We sneak onto the factory premises and rummage through dumpsters for the coolest discards; the rarest finds are prototype labels no one’s ever seen.
“We may be young, but already our hearts are filled with fantastic notions about being men of courage and valor ready to risk everything to prove our chivalry. We hide in the forest that runs along the back side of the Mill near where factory workers huddle during breaks; the men in one group and women in another, each further subdivided based on age, race, and factory position. The thing that binds them is smoking. Occasionally, there’ll be an athletic man or pretty girl who doesn’t, but they mostly don’t fit in. We pick the prettiest woman and invent the back-story about her sad fate-filled life, augmented by sworn oaths to see her rescued.
“The boys call me Dakota, on account of coming from South Dakota and because I teach them the Sioux way to count coup; that’s what we call plundering labels from dumpsters without getting caught. Tim and Tom are freckled-faced Irish twins who don’t look anything alike and somehow both end up in fifth grade. We assume Bogie’s named after Humphrey Bogart, but one day we’re at his house and his dad’s hopping mad because Bogie hasn’t done his chores. In between the yelling and cussing, his Dad says he got his name cause every time there’s work to be done, he vanishes like a ghost. We consider renaming him Casper but decide he has a Bogart kind of swagger.
“Gary’s called, Preacher, on account of always fretting about doing the right thing. Reggie’s tag line is Polo since his dad wears a suit and drives a new Mercedes. At first glance we’re a bunch of misfits but what binds us like brothers is our zest for high adventure and willingness to risk capture; maybe not so much Preacher, but the rest of us for sure.
“The strategy’s always the same, wait for workers to finish their smokes and then, with a daring reserved for the bold and reckless, sneak over to the dumpsters to secure our booty. That’s phase one, phase two involves slipping inside the fortified fortress to find our fair damsel. Once found, to complete the quest, she has to smile indicating she understands rescue is imminent. The game is won if you rescue the damsel and make it back to the rally spot unscathed, which no one ever has.
“Finding a way over the electric fence fortifying the fortress is the first task. Then we have to secure sufficient labels to bribe any sentries we may encounter. Danger lurks around every corner and success is far from certain, but as dedicated warriors embracing destiny, we can no more stray from our quest then we can falter from finding the courage required to persevere.”
ISABELLE: “What the hell does any of that have to do with Henry’s hesitation, and how do little boys playing with labels address the aftermath of “I love you?” That’s not even my question if I’m being honest; it’s the aftermath of what follows happily ever after, something Hollywood’s done nothing to prepare us for. I’m not sure happily ever after even exists, if it does, you and I certainly wouldn’t be here. Does love necessarily make us neurotic or am I being dramatic - don’t answer that. You reminisce about an age of chivalry as if it’s all so romantic, when in fact love back then was a matter of survival. 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 sad 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 to lifelines and that leaves me lost. What is “I love you,” supposed to mean? If you remove physical passion, what’s left?”
KYLE: “I assure you; my story has meaning and while we can concede love’s intimacy requirement, but it also has elements of the fantastic. It takes courage to love, which is why our quests begin with bold bravado, an eagerness to take on risk, endure any hardship, face any foe; unfortunately, things never end well for me and the boys, but it doesn’t matter, not when oaths are taken, damsels are in distress, and the adventurous demands of destiny are set in our sorcerer’s stone. That’s what love is, a willingness to set aside pragmatism to embrace the fantastic.
“We never actually make it past counting coup without getting chased off by guards, except one time, the time that makes all failed attempts worthwhile, and isn’t that the essence of love; fearlessly failing with an unfaltering need to keep trying. Like anyone daring the dangers of love, we treasure our labels because they’re earned and come with tales of courage and bravery that are told and retold wherever boys gather to boast of their boldness. What seems romantically ridiculous to you is far from foolish, that’s what love’s taught me; to be both bold and foolish. What you dismiss as unrealistic I denounce as Hollywood plagiarizing every young boy’s zest for adventure; and the thing is, as I’ve lived through love’s ecstasy of passion, agony of betrayal, and suffering of sorrow, my sense of the fantastic has never wained.
“The quest isn’t about finishing, it’s about battling barriers, about living in the moment, about pushing through setbacks and disappointments. 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, obligations and commitments 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.”
ISABELLE: “It’s all very convenient for you, isn’t it. I try talking about something serious and you hide away in fantasy, just like Henry. I’d like to argue in love’s defense in real terms; Henry says love is how you feel when you’re with someone but aren’t the feelings you feel when apart more profound. 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. What happened to good old-fashioned needing someone? Henry says true love is self-sustaining, but I say love needs constant nurturing.
“If a tree survives in the desert, alone and unprotected, can we say it thrives? If its leaves are vibrant and its fruit nourishing, do we call it strong? If birds build nests in the full foliage and raise hatchlings while the tree provides shelter from storms and safety from predators, is the tree not necessary and does the bird not love her tree; and would not all she holds dear perish without this tree? Is this not love, a lone tree providing life to others?
“Henry says he loves me, but not in the way a tree loves her birds, surrendering everything so they might thrive. But what has me completely unhinged is that his hesitation causes me to question if I can love Henry as the bird loves her tree? Need is a necessary part of love, and if I don’t need Henry and he doesn’t need me, how is whatever future we hope to build not doomed.”
KYLE: “I once equated Newton’s Law of Motion to what I call my “Law of Love.” Newton says every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or as my dad would say, a consequence. Love’s a strange thing when it comes to such matters; people in love know their consequences full-on but ignore them; they’re calculated but seldom weighed against an expected reward, which leads to a life lesson I’ve had to relearn repeatedly. When consequence occurs, you can fight it, deny it, or accept it, but you can’t outrun it. Mark that down as one of my pearls of wisdom.
“It all about cause and effect, which leads to what I call “Reaction Theory,” something Isaac should’ve spent more time exploring because he would’ve concluded reaction is a function of both context and our inherent nature. My nature is to accept consequence because to deny is dangerous and to fight is futile. Before you accuse Henry of hesitating, know his nature. I possess the untethered imagination of a boy on a quest. The consequence is I often find myself out of phase with reality; out of sync with other people, out of rhythm with life, 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 sync with your uncertainty.
“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 exploring 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 a lifeline. I never dip my toe in the water because that only robs the rest of me. Most men are not me; they won’t climb mountains, would drown crossing rivers, and can’t appreciate good whiskey. What if what you call hesitation, is just Henry in his nature; and who can fault a man for that?”
ISABELLE: “Are you suggesting this is all he can offer, because that then leads to the age-old dilemma, do you love the man for who he is or who he’ll become? My dad used to say “Remember, Isabelle, a man falls in love hoping his woman never changes. A woman, however, falls in love knowing exactly how she’ll change everything about her man.” Dad would say 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 his wisdom.”
KYLE: “One day me and the boys are at the factory fortress; can’t really say how things start, but on an otherwise casual December day in a place that knows nothing about winter, we’re playing basketball before school starts 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 unsuccessfully explain to my parents later, we don’t mean to skip school, it just sort of happens. There we are, young warriors swearing an oath to rescue a girl more beautiful than any damsel that came before. It’s evident she’s there against her will cause she hasn’t yet learned to smoke through regrets and requisite disappointment. Our imperative is clear, to rescue her before the influences of her cellmates resign her to unjust fates. As I stealthily scale the electric fence with my cohorts, I sense-, well-, there’s no other way to describe it other than to say it’s like the voice of fate whispering gentle encouragement.
“This sense is soft at first then grows stronger 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; per our rules of chivalry, his box and all it contains now belong 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 dumpsters shouting something about finding us rat-bastards.
“It’s hard doing justice to the bizarre string of events that unfold, but Tom, probably to prevent his brother being captured, runs straight at the second guard shouting and screaming like a crazed animal. Then, just as he’s close enough for the guard to grab him, Tom darts down the paved road skipping and singing like a leprechaun; occasionally looking back to torment the overweight out-of-shape guard lumbering in pursuit.
“For the moment Tim’s safe, that is until a third guard arrives. In a move that shocks us all, Preacher steps around a semi-trailer and onto the road spouting bible verses. We’re looking on in amazement thinking, “what the hell’s he doing?” The guard stands frozen like a confused statue as Preacher rants and raves about getting right with God. No one’s sure what happens to Bogie, he seems to have just disappeared.
“At the height of all this chaos, fate nudges me to make my move. I duck behind a row of blue plastic barrels stacked two high and arranged in a way that creates a random maze. By now a fourth guard’s arrived and he’s standing beside the statue guard equally mesmerized by Preacher’s theatrics that would put any Baptist minister to shame. Slowly, I inch toward the barrel's edge, crouching to avoid detection. Preacher spots me and re-positions himself causing the guards to turn their backs to me. I slink across the road to the door of the factory fortress with the stealth of a seasoned Sioux warrior.
“Before even touching the handle, I hear the embryonic melody of machinery in motion as it emanates through the red brick wall; I’m instantly mesmerized by the soothing harmonies tickling my soul the exact same way a lover does when whispering in your ear. I have no idea what to do next, no one’s ever made it this far before but proceed I must, so, with tepid trepidation, I slowly open the door and silently slip inside. I stealthily slither down a dark corridor doing what I can to stay hidden in shadows. I reach the end of the long hallway transfixed by a sight so profoundly magnificent I’ve never found words to adequately 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 belts are the largest engines I’ve ever seen; quietly churning to the slow steady revolution of industrial economics. Below the belts and between each large loom are smaller machines whose job it is to manage hundreds of colorful threads going into the looms where the labels get made. The machine nearest me has multiple rows of thread spools stacked in a pyramid of colors; each thread feeding through independent eyelets and guides on its way to the loom.
“The waspy sound of each loom's warp is countered by the sharp troll of the treadle and taken together in concert with all the looms form the crescendo sound of life through love, a slow melodic rhythm of passion and drama. The smaller machines, each with their own engines, provide percussion, tapping out a beat that’s uniquely theirs and yet, when taken as a whole, provide the pulse of production.
“I’m in such overwhelming awe that without thinking I step up to a small machine with multi-colored spools of thread just to marvel; to better understand its role in the label making orchestra. I don’t last more than twenty-seconds before a gigantic man in pinstriped bibs grabs my shoulder with the clenching force of hydraulic jaws vanquishing any hope of escape. I gaze at this mountain of a man with his white handlebar mustache tapering into two fine points on either side of a rock-hard chin. His equally long white hair flows freely around his shoulders making 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 what one says to appease a God, I humbly lower my head to await punishment, which I’m certain will be swift and without mercy. But rather than smolt me in my footsteps, for some unexplained reason, his constricting grip softens and the next thing I know, instead of tossing my ass outside like a mis-woven roll of labels, he invites me to join him as he makes his shop-floor 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 his mechanical wonderland, this king of the factory floor hands me an oil can sternly saying, “everyone’s gotta earn their keep.” The rest is a blur of Picasso impressions, but not only do I get to see the large looms up close as Thor proudly explains the process of threads going in and labels coming out, I get to squirt oil into open gears and exposed cam shafts, which gives me this never before feeling of profound purpose and is that not the essence of love.
“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 seemingly endless land of magic and motion, there stands the damsel I’ve come to rescue. She’s frustratedly struggling to run a neon yellow thread from a spool on her small machine into a large loom. Thor introduces this fair fine lady as his daughter, Christina, who’s earning money for college. It's only with his help that Christina finishes her neon task; then, she smiles at me with the grace and charm of an appreciative princess while informing her dad about child labor laws she learning in school.
“My friends, fearing the worst, flee the fortress factory, working up alibis for the pending investigation into my sudden and unexplained disappearance. I don’t see them the rest of that day or even the next, as I’m dealing with the consequences of skipping school. It’s days, even weeks, before I calm down enough to sleep through the noise and shuffle in my head of multiple machines working in-phase, in-rhythm, in an ebb and flow that seems impossible to comprehend let alone ever engineer. Never in my young life have I seen anything so unexplainably amazing, and I’ve been to Disney Land.
“That’s your deal with Henry and what you call his hesitation. Fate finds us in unexpected moments from many different 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’s not so much hesitation in a moment, as we’re stumbling to understand what’s happening. It takes months, even years, to muddle through the lessons fate’s teaching me on the factory floor. I start that day skipping school because men of adventure can’t be contained in the prison cell of a classroom, only to discover the muscle and magic of engineering, and that sets in motion the rest of my life.”
ISABELLE: “Henry’s hesitation is not about a man stumbling through the minefields of mechanical love, it’s a more obvious form for avoidance. He suffers from what doctors should call RSD, “relationship stress disorder.” Imagine the billions big Pharma could make with a pill to cure that. I do see your point; however, I fail to see what your afternoon with Thor has to do with Henry’s hesitation. You boldly step onto that factory floor consequences be damned, just as, after all you’ve endured, you find ways to love unafraid.
“Henry and I are not so lucky, he’s hesitant and I’m uncertain, which are two forms of fear. He does this, and I do that, and in the end, how can love last. Does it ever? That becomes the question your quest fails to address. Would a jury of our peers not conclude Henry’s right to hesitate, or would their verdict be he risks losing everything. Since I’m the one to decide and I’m uncertain, we’re stuck in this bizarre perpetual motion like the belts on one of your looms, moving but not going anywhere.
KYLE: “I still sometimes feel Thor’s crimping grip but, ironically, can’t recall anything about the smiling damsel who completed my quest. What’s that say when even a romantic like me forgets such an essential element of his fantasy. It’s not a question ten-year-olds know how to ask, but one that haunts grown-ass me every damn day. By now I’m more than familiar with my parent’s inquisitions. They worry about my future so, with Dad as Prosecutor, Mom as judge, and both as jury with predetermined verdicts, all that remains is learning my consequence. My weak defense is that no day in school can possibly equal a day with Thor on the factory floor. For the crime of skipping school, I’m guilty as charged. As I’m being led away to serve my sentence, my Dad says in his clear, concise, and absolute way, “you need to think about the path you’re choosing, because you’re in serious need of re-calibration.”
“Each person’s life is parsed into a few life-defining moments. My parents view my many misadventures as opportunities to teach me about crime and punishment, when the true lesson to be learned is more about risk and consequence, and a willingness to listen to fate’s gentle whispers. I can’t sleep that night, or the next; my adventure into the kingdom of industrial equipment requires way too much processing to permit sleep for quite some time. What I need more than anything is to once again hear the soothing embryonic melody of machines in motion and for a future engineer, is that not love?”
ISABELLE: “Fate’s the filter separating Henry’s “I love yous,” and what I hear. This is why I struggle, fate whispers in your ear and you hear clearly and know without hesitation what to do. I hear Henry’s hesitation and wonder what fate wants from me. What is that Shakespeare quote of yours, “the fate is not in our stars, but in ourselves?” Shakespeare absolutely nails it, Henry doesn’t hesitate in proclaiming his love, I hesitate in hearing it. The unanswered question becomes, is my hesitation kismet telling me I’m not ready for love, or is it saying not Henry? Either way, I agree with you that we ignore fate at our own peril, so something must be done; unless that something is doing nothing.”
KYLE: “The something is the thing that haunts us. I’m still learning to appreciate how the random adventures of ten-year-old me feed the imaginations of grown-ass me and are intrinsically wrapped up in feelings for Nadia. Everything in my life, misadventures to mistakes, all lead me to her, just as fate led me to Thor’s kingdom of industrial magic. The consequence of embracing my destiny is an inability to grasp the implications of being out of phase with the world; it’s not a sin to let imagination run ahead of where you really are even if the world says it is. After my impromptu trip to Versailles to restart my life with Nadia, I eventually return home, renewed as lovers, as much in love as we are constrained by our distance and the two separate worlds we live in. I admit at times the challenges seem insurmountable. Love is an insatiable desire for constant contact, a longing that drifts toward anguish when starved. That’s what differentiates me from Nadia, she ghosts me whenever we’re apart.
“When we’re together, Nadia’s present and her love’s apparent in every breath, every smile. But when we’re apart, I cease to exist in her world and the anguish of that causes a pain so deep I worry I may not recover. She’ll go days in silence, off to wherever it is she retreats. These periods of utter loneliness fill me with painful longing so intense as a matter of survival I have to learn to scale back my desire. How two people stay in phase when their worlds have two divergent rhythms is a painful lesson that must be learned, or in my case relearned; leading me to wonder what Thor would have to say.
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 or a feeling and run with it, failing to realize 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 my current something is morphing into my next new something that’s begun morphing into yet another new something. I’ll be three, four branches downstream unaware others wait upriver wondering where I’ve gone. When I do eventually figure shit out and attempt to re-sync with reality, it’s often not possible; and that dear Isabelle, is the color of cold.
Nadia challenges me to see the realities of our relationship, at least she tries to; not only in how I see me with her, but more essentially, how she sees herself with me. That’s the challenge of Henry’s hesitation. He’s in love with you, he said so; but you’re uncertain you’re ready to be in love, uncertain how you see yourself with him.
