Read Online New York Echoes by Warren Adler - Free Book Online Page B

agenda. What
he really wanted to do was go into a dark room, shut the door, curl up in a
fetal position and go to sleep, forever if possible, to spare himself the
impending pain and agony.     
    Following the long-standing tradition of
an amicable divorce, he moved into a hotel and, in time, into a small apartment
near his office. The meeting with his daughter had been fatherly, with no
bitter or hateful allusions to her mother’s affair as anything more than a
natural event, merely a manifestation of a midlife crisis. He resisted any
temptation to characterize her mother in a way that would be emotionally
disturbing to his daughter.
    In his loneliness and despair as he
tried to adjust to his new life, he had slowly begun to feel a growing rage,
which he was finding unable to keep under control. He tried to rationalize his
situation by ascribing it more to self-pity and merely a passing trauma that
time would eventually heal. But as the myriad details of separation and divorce
progressed, he was growing exceedingly less understanding. They had each hired
lawyers who diligently and expensively prepared documents and listed their
possessions and the details of their dispossession, about which he found
himself growing increasingly uncomfortable.
    When they met they were polite and
proper, especially if their daughter was present. As time went on they met infrequently,
letting their lawyers deal with the details. Once or twice he had actually seen
Carol with her new lover, John Fletcher, noting that he was definitely cut from
a different cloth. Once they had met in a restaurant. Fletcher struck him as a
Waspy country club frat boy, straight featured and uncircumcised, a goy down to
his toenails. So she had receded back to her roots. He was certain of this
truth even as he smiled and shook the man’s hand. At that moment, hatred for
Carol gushed over him like a tsunami.
    It was a delayed action, and his lawyer
had advised him to resist recrimination, settle the matter, and go on with his
life. Of course, he agreed in principal, but he knew the so-called civilized
and sensible paradigm was totally shattered. He was becoming increasingly
pissed off. He had been screwed, betrayed by a conniving, deceptive, lying
bitch. The Blonde Goddess had morphed into the witch of the west and all points
of the compass.
    Living in his one-bedroom, furnished
apartment while the lawyers worked out the division of property, he would often
think of her living in the lap of luxury in their once prized apartment, now
populated by her lover, the Wasp goy, sleeping in his bed, screwing his once
worshipped blonde goddess, handling his cherished leather-bound books, and
enjoying his appreciating art. It began to inflame him emotionally and, finally
defying his lawyer’s good advice, he began to throw obstacles in the way of
what once was an amicable divorce procedure.
    â€œI want all of my leather-bounds, most
of the artwork, half of the furniture and half of every fucking thing in the
apartment. I want half of everything down to every spoon, knife, and fork in
the silverware. I want the apartment sold immediately.”
    â€œIt’s your nickel,” the lawyer told him,
an obvious reference to his fee.
    â€œExactly.”
    His resistance was, at first, adamant.
Her lawyer, at Carol’s behest, tried various strategies to compromise. Of
course, she had her own agenda regarding the possessions, some of which was
unreasonable as far as he was concerned. It was, he supposed, a typical
standoff. At one point his daughter intervened, urging both parents to make
peace for the sake of their own happiness. Her plea made sense, of course, and
he hated the idea of being the cause of any emotional pain to his beloved
daughter. Apparently Carol and her lover were planning to marry after their
divorce was final, another item to fuel his anger.
    Finally, after months of wrangling, he
decided that it was self-defeating and ridiculously