Kissing Earl

Lisa Golden

I do not know why I was so infatuated with Earl. Skinny, skinny, string-bean Earl. I realize, when I look back on it, that I never really knew him. Maybe he was attractive because he had no investment in me. As far as Earl was concerned, I might just as well leave Jack, might not. I was twenty-two years old and had been married three years at the time.

My stomach got all knotted up when I thought of Earl. He came into the truckstop diner in the middle of the afternoons, when no one else was there. Just the two of us, so I would feel his presence like a ringing in my ears. I'd go over to check his water and flirt with him. Give him looks, squeeze his arm. Back behind the counter, I'd find myself standing stock still, staring at some random square inch of empty countertop, idly holding the rag in my hands.

Sometimes I just gave up. I should have been cleaning or stocking-or anything but talking about my marriage behind my husband's back. But I went and sat at Earl's table. I smiled at him in a self-conscious way, liking the feel of my legs in pantyhose, the way they slid on the vinyl seats. Earl was like an alarm that I kept drifting towards instead of running away from.

"Whatever you do, it'll all turn out," I could imagine him saying, and yet he never actually said it. He'd nod his head, lean in to whatever I was saying, chew a toothpick, burst into a grin at the slightest effort at humor I made. Again and again, I came to Earl. My life seemed stagnant, and it was brave of me to tell him that. It seemed to set me on some new path. Just talking, complaining, I felt a grim sexiness creeping back into my life.

One day Earl said, "Sounds like I should just sweep you off to Hollywood. Whatcha think, Lu?"

I was sitting opposite Earl at his booth, looking at Earl's smile, Earl eating his chicken fried steak, Earl's big Ford truck with the tinted windows sitting out in the parking lot. I had been trying to say what it was, what I had realized, why I knew my marriage had gone wrong. Jack and I had spent all dinner the night before talking about the lawn. I felt I had hit some dead end in life.

"You set for Hollywood?" Earl asked. "You and me? I know what you need, darlin'. I'll buy us a red Mustang, and you can be a movie queen."

I wondered if Earl was making fun of me, and laughed nervously. Sometimes it seemed like he was smug in his smiles and his teasing. At times I'd glimpse myself as he might see me-a talking-too-much, depressed waitress at a run-down truckstop. I wanted him to know I didn't talk like that with every man who walked in there. I wanted to assure him that I hated working in that restaurant. I wasn't blind to where I was at. I hated the cheapo picnic napkins with their green and pink flowers. I hated the pitted wood-grain tabletops and stained wallpaper.

I bet Hollywood restaurants could look like spaceships or Roman gardens or anything.

I said, "Earl, you're a nut," and I held my head in my hands, folding myself down toward the table, pressing the heels of my hands hard into my temples.

"I can picture you, Lu," he said.

I slid myself out of the booth and onto my feet, and I saw stars. My head felt staticky inside, and I stood by Earl limply.

"How so?" I said.

"I can picture you as a California girl out on the beach in your bikini." Earl gripped a tattered paper napkin in one hand. "You got a bikini?" he asked.

I smiled slowly, narrowing my eyes. It wasn't a bikini, I told him, but it did have cutouts on the sides. "Here," I said, tracing the circle on one side, in the curve of my waist. "And here," I said, tracing the same line on the other side. I looked down at my baggy pinstripe shirt. My uniform was dingy after the lunch rush. Earl caught my left wrist, and I met his eyes, my face reddening. When he let go, I left the table, walking quickly.

After that, I fixed Earl's side salads fancy—fancier than anyone ever got at a truck stop. I cut radishes into rosettes and put a fan of carrot sticks around them. We joked about California, but after a while the joke got old. Earl started to seem to me like another little pin holding my life exactly in one place. Like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Like laundry, like Jack, like being tired. If Earl had ever said, "Why don't you come by my house, sometime," I probably would have. But he didn't, and I didn't. Then Earl moved away.

Jack and I stayed together. We were married for eight more years-until Jack died. It was cancer. We thought we'd get through it. We were still so young. But he died. Dear Jack.

The checkout girl shook her finger at me when I came to her register with a little hand basket full of cat food, Budget Gourmet dinners, and cleaning products. "Wait," she said. She scurried to the office.

Coming back, she said, "I don't know how long I've been meaning to give this to you," and handed me a Polaroid: Jack with the bicycle we had won the Christmas after we found out.

He didn't look sick. The flash made him appear pale, but his face was full, his eyes bright. We were frequent shoppers who had spent $500 or more over the year, and so were automatically entered in the contest. The bike was the grand prize, and Jack had gone to pick it up. A man who was dying. It was absurd, but he insisted on it.

The checkout girl rang up my few groceries. "I don't know . . ." she said, looking suddenly insecure. "I just thought you might want to have it."

The bike in the photo was too small for him, was splashed with neon green paint. And who was he smiling at? Probably some balding manager in a red polyester vest. In a way, I didn't want that sort of a photo in with all the ones I'd taken of him-but it was Jack, and I couldn't throw the smallest artifact of him away. I shook my head with sadness or amazement and gazed at the photo, hungry for the familiar curve of his face.

"He . . . . That was before he got sick, wasn't it?" the checkout girl said.

I hadn't even remembered that she had worked at Save-Rite so long.

"Yes, we were well then," I said, and when I turned to the door, there was Earl.

I stared, trying to figure out if my eyes could deceive me in bright fluorescent light. It really was the same old Earl, walking in quickly like anyone just set on picking up a carton of milk. I called his name, and he looked up, recognized me right off, and smiled.

"Well, I wondered," he said triumphantly. "I wondered if I'd run into you sometime." He gave me a big hug, a funny thing after so many years. For all he knew I was still married. And who was he anyway? Just a customer from years before. There I was holding Jack's sad little picture in my hand, and I started crying. Earl held me at arm's length, looking at me with concern, and I had to tell him about Jack. Just like that. "Oh, Lu," he said, and he wrapped me up tightly in his arms. He patted my back and rocked me back and forth, as if we had always been close.

A few days after we ran into each other at the grocery store, Earl called to invite me to dinner that Friday night. I didn't have any reason to say no. I was free every night, but I hesitated. I could hardly imagine the whole endeavor of dressing for dinner, being social for hours with someone I hardly knew, dealing with all the baggage that's associated with a date.

"It doesn't have to be Friday," Earl said. "If another night would be better, you just say the word, Lu. I was just going to try out this new grill I got. Get us some steaks."

I told him Friday would be fine. And because it was the nice thing to say, I said I looked forward to seeing him. I worried about it more than anything, but I thought maybe I needed to start acting like a normal person again. Soon after Jack's death, I'd gotten a job processing mail at the post office. That had been what I wanted: a busy, mindless job where I didn't have to deal with anyone. But in the huge windowless room where I worked, it seemed that no time existed. Somehow nine months had passed since Jack's death, and my life had just stopped still.

On Friday, I worried about the dinner all day. I didn't know if it was really a date in the romantic sense or if it was just old acquaintances catching up. I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to feel. I was numb.

When I got home from work, I showered and scrubbed my face, trying to loosen it up, work some blood into my cheeks. I put on a hot pink silk shirt, hoping it would help. I imagined Earl opening the door and exclaiming at how nice I looked, but looking at myself in the mirror I had to say I was not transformed so easily. My eyes were sunken. I never slept well anymore.

Maybe he'd look at my face and say sadly, "You look like you've had a rough time of it all, Lu." Or he'd just look at me, notice the silk blouse and the lines in my face without comment, take me in piece by piece, evaluating me, how well I'd held up, what part of me had changed. Like people do at a high school reunion.

I felt like a clown. I wanted oblivion. When Jack was sick, I'd wrung myself out with love for him. Every moment seemed vivid and unforgettable. Every little ugly or beautiful thing. Waiting rooms, salty tears, sweaty palms. The green apples in the orange colander on the kitchen counter. The hushed murmur of the nurse who came with enemas. So this is how it is, I'd thought. It all seemed important, grave. Nothing was like that after he died. I'd been slowly sinking. I didn't know what I was for.

I looked in the mirror, remembering nights when Jack and I had gone out. Back then he'd bustle around behind me, from the bathroom to the closet, and I'd lean into the mirror for the longest time, plucking my eyebrows, putting makeup on, trying to make my hair lift without being stiff, curl without looking like it had just come off a curling iron. We'd talk offhandedly, familiarly. I wished I could have that again.

I was already late for Earl's dinner, but I grabbed an ashtray and lay down on the living room couch for a cigarette. I stared at the thick layer of dust on top of the ceiling fan's blades. It seemed I was always finding some totally filthy spot I'd overlooked, even though I'd spent most nights cleaning the house in the months since Jack's death. I'd scrubbed grout, scraped old paint flecks off my windowpanes, poured heavy-duty chemicals on rust stains in the toilet. When I cleaned, I carried an ashtray and a plastic tumbler of white wine around the house with me. I drank too much. I was sad.

The whole house was full of Jack. I didn't know how I could ever leave it, and I couldn't imagine bringing another man there. There was Jack, cooking in the kitchen. There was Jack, lying in my spot on the couch watching TV. Jack out on the lawn, watering, talking on the cordless phone, laughing. Jack, weakened by the cancer, falling on his way to the restroom in the night. Half-asleep, I heard his cry and ran to him before I was fully conscious. I found him on his knees in the hallway, arms out in front of him, head bleeding from where it hit the tile floor. I found him there in the hallway again and again. Every time I walked through it I saw him there.

Earl and I sat on his couch eating our steaks, broccoli, and potatoes. Earl gestured with his fork. "I like to think that if I ever found myself in a hostile or war-like situation, I would have developed good instincts."

I nodded, wondering about the likelihood of Earl finding himself in battle, wondering at how much his experience with paintball would help out. He'd been telling me about some indoor arena he went to. They rented out guns that shot capsules of fluorescent goop. The place was lit in blacklight and all set up with mazes and ramps. A bunch of grown men running around in the dark playing commando.

It sounded stupid, but I told myself it was just the sort of thing men did. Just because it didn't sound attractive to me didn't mean it was any stupider than a lot of things one could do with one's time. It wasn't as if I spent my free time doing some high-minded charity work or something.

I ate my potato. It was hot. The glass of red wine at my feet made me nervous, but there was nowhere else to sit it but on the white-carpeted floor.

I said, after a while, "You look a lot the same, Earl." I'd been looking at him as he talked. He was still thin, still wore the same sort of western shirts and had the same basic haircut. He didn't hardly look older at all. The only sign of age I noticed on him was the creases in the skin around his neck. He worked as a land surveyor, had a healthy looking tan. I felt like a mushroom next to him.

"If you'd seen me a few months ago, you might not have recognized me," he said. "I had a moustache and beard for years."

He sat his plate down on the floor, wiped his hands on his jeans, and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.

"Look," he said. "Check this out."

It was a family photo, Earl, wife, and kids, hairy-faced Earl looking like a mountain man, but in a suit, standing behind his family. The wife had brown hair, a shapeless blue dress. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyebrows raised.

"You didn't tell me you were married, Earl."

"I'm divorced. Got two kids, though." Earl looked at the photo intently, then handed it to me. "Ain't it wild," he said. "It doesn't look like me, does it?"

It seemed that he wanted me to say no. He wanted me to say, No, I could never imagine you in a million years having a beard and posing for a family portrait, nor living in a house with ruffled curtains, nor sitting complacently watching TV with a secretary who was your wife while your two children slept securely in their beds. But I felt like I could see all those things when I looked at that photo, and I wondered how Earl could've left them all behind. I looked at the smiling family in the photo, looking for evidence, looking for the cracks in the façade. I gave the photo back to him.

"How long ago was that picture?"

"Spring," he said.

Some whole other world.

I twiddled the blue plastic handle of the knife in my hand, realizing for the first time that Earl's apartment was unnaturally empty. You'd have thought he had lost all he owned in a fire. The plates looked new-no scratches. On the kitchen counter, a new-looking TV and VCR sat facing the couch where we ate. It seemed like maybe he'd bought it all in one trip to WalMart, gotten the couch at a yard sale. On the wall above us, there was a Led Zeppelin wall tapestry, something he'd probably had in a box all during his marriage.

Earl squinted down at the photo as if he weren't sure he ever had been married. It was as if he were a much older man looking at some questionable nephew of his who would never quite become an adult in the family's eyes.

I had the strong feeling then that Earl had failed. He had run off from things that were good and whole. It was unfair of me, I know. I never did know the whole story, but I thought then that if Earl had run off just like I'd thought about doing so many times, I wasn't ever going to fall in love with him. Before that point, I guess somewhere in my head I'd thought maybe I could still fall in love with Earl. Even with all my grief.

Earl tapped the photo with his index finger. "Happily ever after," he said, and then he smiled ruefully. "That's what they tell you ain't it? 'And then they lived happily ever after.'" And then he seemed so lost and bitter that I felt bad for him. Whether or not he had run, whether he was right or wrong-he was hurting. Even if no one had died.

He put the wallet away and I touched his shoulder gently. "You want to tell me about it, Earl? What happened?" Maybe his wife had been an alcoholic or a head case or something, I thought. Maybe she'd hurt him and driven him away.

Earl looked at me sheepishly. I studied his face, trying to figure him out. He smiled hesitantly, uneasily, then abandoned the smile. When he turned away, he sighed heavily. "There were different things in life we wanted. I don't want to talk about it right now if that's OK."

He squeezed my knee before picking up his plate again. I looked down at the shine of my fingernails in the dim light. I'd painted them in clear gloss.

I took a bite of broccoli.

"We were married five years," Earl said.

He squinched up his face, brought his wine glass to his lips, then realized it was empty. We were silent for a moment.

"I figured Jack and I would grow old together." The words came out slowly. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to say. "I was glad I stayed, Earl. Sometimes you don't know how to fix things, but it's hard being alone too." I imagined Earl sitting there by himself watching movies on his new TV. There were three cases from rented movies sitting up there.

"You don't know anything about my situation, Lu," he said into his plate. He was chewing on his steak again.

I thought about it, about the rough sketches of a life I'd invented for him in my head.

"No, I don't suppose I do," I said.

I didn't really have any appetite. My food was growing cold. Agitated, I lit a cigarette, not knowing if he minded or not. I went to the kitchen with my half-eaten plate of food and dropped it off by the sink, looking for an ashtray or something like an ashtray. I ended up pulling an empty can out of the garbage bag hanging on the doorknob of the pantry. I leaned on the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room and smoked. Earl sat eating doggedly without looking at me. I'm not sure if he just didn't know what else to do, or if some part of him wanted to point out my own rudeness. It seemed like we were mad at each other, though I wasn't sure why we should be. I guess we had both hit on raw nerves somehow.

I imagined Earl shopping for the meal, cutting the broccoli down into florets, putting the potatoes in at six. It made me sad. The stems of the broccoli sat on a little nylon cutting board next to a small wood- handled steak knife. On the stove were two disposable pre-filled salt and pepper shakers. On the counter, next to the plastic bag the dinner came in, was an unopened package of paper towels and a can of honey-roasted peanuts. It was good of Earl to cook for me, I told myself.

I remembered all the rotten things I'd told Earl about Jack, how I must have made Jack sound like such a drag when I was twenty-two and wanted more thrills in my life. "Jack and I had a good life," I said. "I don't know what to do without him."

The tears started up. I felt naked. Earl nodded his head, looking at the cold potato skin, fat, and gristle left on his plate. He sat the plate aside, on the couch next to him and looked up at me blankly.

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't think things continued on badly . . . ." I said. I wanted to say more, but I didn't know how. There was no way to change anything, to make Earl see differently or care or believe. I didn't end up talking any more to Earl about Jack.

Mama always said, when you start to feel sick, focus your eyes on some far-away thing that doesn't move. On a plane, watch the horizon. I roamed my eyes around the living room and out the sliding glass door. Moths fluttered around the porch light. The new grill sat cooling.

"Doesn't matter, Lu," Earl said. "What's done is done, and we go on."

"Yeah," I said.

I thought about how that must feel to be able to just pack a few suitcases and drive off, sign a lease in another town, buy a used couch. I saw Jack in my mind, all the same little movies I tortured myself with. Jack falling, Jack choking. I thought, Thank god you don't know what that's like, Earl. But neither do you know, I suppose, the warmth that one body can give, how it feels when you don't take it for granted that it will continue.

If, even today, I remember the cancer more than some other things, I'm sorry, Jack.

Before Jack was sick, he used to wake me in the morning with a cup of coffee. He would lean and whisper into my ear, "Lu . . . Lu . . . ." And when I opened my eyes, he'd look so impossibly awake. I was a slug, such a sluggard in the mornings.

After the sickness had become real and Jack started on the morphine, he slept as much as the cat, and I watched him as if he might die any moment. I couldn't help it. I know it bothered him when he was aware of it, but mostly he wasn't. He slept. He dreamed. He had nightmares that made him break out in a sweat. He dreamed his cancer was lying next to him on the bed, outside of his body, but still threatening, throbbing, alive.

When I finally moved the bed into the living room, I wondered why I hadn't before. It was such a nicer and bigger place to be. We could look out the front window or watch the big TV.

There is a particular day I remember. I was awake before dawn, and the Weather Channel was on with the sound muted. Jack was breathing deeply, and I wondered if he was dreaming. The TV gave off a weak, fluctuating, blue light. I pressed myself against Jack's side and listened to his heart. The rumble of the big trucks on the overpass shook the glass in the window quietly.

When it was morning and Jack finally woke, he was disoriented, almost startled. The living room, my being awake before him, his sickness.

I kissed him on the cheek, stroking his forehead. He started to push to sit up, but couldn't quite. I made the motion to help lift him, but I knew I couldn't be much help. I was afraid if he fell in the hall again I wouldn't be able to get him up. His arms had become spindly and weak, withered away, but his body was heavy, bloated.

Whenever he moved then, I always had the irrational feeling that something might break. Part of his intestines had been bypassed with flexible metal tubing. If he bent at the waist, I'd wince and think of a gynecologist's speculum and the little pinch when the doctor would tighten it around my cervix. It was the only thing my imagination could offer-a poor comparison, I knew.

He strained to an upright position, and I tried to arrange the pillows behind him so he'd be comfortable, although it pained him to sit upright long enough for me to do it.

"The coffee smells good," he said, settling back into his pillows.

But he couldn't drink it.

"My gut feels like lead."

I started to get up to get his pills.

"Wait," Jack said. He gazed out the front window at the sun, a bright, white line shimmering over the top of the neighbor's roof. I held Jack while the sun boiled up into day, and I etched into my memory both the intent look of his face watching the sun rise and the sickly contrast of my chapped, pink hand on his deep yellow arm.

When the sun was fully up, I gave Jack his round of pills, then helped him to the bathroom, the one thing he got up for anymore. While he was up, I quickly changed the sheets. After he was safely back in bed, I went outside, squinting into the sun, and picked up the newspaper. A lot of times Jack went back to sleep after using the restroom. I would read the paper, stare out the window, hold his hand. But that day Jack stayed awake. He looked at me steadily, not speaking. I held his hand. For so long I held his hand and looked into his eyes, blue eyes glinting far down in his sunken face.

I wanted to tell him stories, some happy stories, remember the happy times we had together. That seemed like the thing to do when he was dying. But I couldn't hardly. I couldn't tell a funny story-not a story about someone's mistake or misunderstanding, or one of the trips that turned into a disaster. Funny things aren't really funny sometimes when you think about them. I couldn't tell a story about drinking and playing cards. I couldn't tell a story about a dinner we had, or a conversation we had, because why would I be telling it? What one story would be important and happy to remember? I couldn't talk about what good steaks Jack cooked, because we would both just be thinking how he would never eat one again. Couldn't digest it. I thought I could talk about when we had gone camping, how the woods were, the wildflowers, the sun, the feeling of the tired muscles in our legs, but I didn't know how to start. It seemed like I didn't know how to say anything to make Jack happy.

"Do you want to hear some of the paper, honey?" I asked.

"No, no," he said. "You go ahead. Just sit with me. I just like being by you."

"I just thought . . . . I don't know if there might be something . . . interesting."

I flipped the pages looking for something-anything-Jack would want to know.

Finally I folded the paper back up neatly and laid myself along Jack's side, feeling his warmth.

"Jack," I said quietly. "Have we been too frivolous?"

Because what had we done? Our life was a blur. We got a kitten, we grew plants, we read. We cooked every day. We ate every day. We washed dishes every day. How many days? We went to the mountains, we went to the lake, we went to Florida with too little money. We gambled, we drank, we smoked.

I asked him, "From where you are now, how does it seem?"

Jack said no. No, we weren't too frivolous at all.

So when Earl sighed and said, "God, it's too quiet. Why didn't you tell me? We should have had some music," I said, "Mm- hmm," and thought, This is how things continue. Earl had finished his food, I had smoked my cigarette, and we both had recomposed ourselves a little.

Earl turned on the stereo to the classic rock station, and I sat back on the couch. He grabbed the wine bottle and refilled our glasses.

He sat, turned towards me, and said, "You know I was always attracted to you, Lu." He touched the side of my face. "I hope we can do some things together now. I'll take you out on the town. We can go dancing, go out to the movies, whatever you want."

We drank a few glasses, talked about the trips we made to California with other people. We didn't have to mention the one we didn't take. After a while, Earl moved closer, and brought his lips to mine. I let myself kiss him, opened my mouth to his tongue, let my hand rest on his thigh. My face was warm with wine, and I felt all the muscles in my face, the tension, tried to let it loose. How much we hold in our faces. I opened my eyes, and Earl's cheek and his unfamiliar ear filled my view. I wondered what he felt. I remembered Jack's face when he died, all tension, all energy gone from it, how his mouth fell open, how I cherished that body even knowing he was gone.

I could feel Earl's ribs through his shirt. His body was a stranger to me. My neck got stiff from squooshing up on his shoulder. I kissed him behind the ear, where Jack liked to be kissed. Earl's hands fell to my breasts, and I wished I could feel desire. I went through the motions, kept thinking it might yet come, that I might feel what I felt before. Or if that wasn't going to happen, I wished that he'd just squeeze my back in the right places and ease some of my aches.
We kissed a long time. We kissed until whatever's next should come, but then I pulled away, looking at his face. In the dim light, he kept changing back and forth between a stranger and a long-lost friend. I was exhausted.

I told him I had to go, and the corners of his mouth dropped sadly.

He said, "Yes. Yes. You look worn out." But he put his fingers in my hair. I closed my eyes and he ran those fingers across my scalp slowly, again and again.

I wanted to say, Did you know, after you left, Jack rubbed my feet? After Earl left, I began to work extra shifts at the truckstop, drinking muskily strong coffee all day. I didn't have a plan yet, but I needed money, it seemed. I wondered how it might feel to have a few thousand dollars of my own in the bank, wondered what I might do if I had that. When I considered Jack, it was as a crow glances at a man, some foreign thing of no use and little interest.

Then Jack started to rub my feet at night. I'd never asked him to. He just decided to himself, and slowly he warmed me and kneaded me until I focused myself down into my feet and tried to relax back into love. Some other people might be as good as Jack, but I wouldn't find any better. It is only a no-good that is always looking around for something better.

Earl ran his hands through my hair, petted me like a cat, then sighed, withdrew his hand, and stared out the sliding glass door. He startled when the phone rang. He went to the kitchen to answer it and darted apologetic glances my way as he stood talking. I didn't mind.

I was thinking of the first time Jack kissed my instep. I had jumped. I wanted to say, "How can you put your mouth on my dirty feet!" But I stopped myself, because any rebuke at that point would be to say, "How can we go on when all is lost?" I thought all was lost when I started to have to make an effort to love him, but I was wrong.