obviously he’s a man of substance, but he still seems—”
“Who?” I said.
Lorna Sue blinked. “Well, you know.” (She then intoned the man’s name.) “He’s got—”
“Let me guess,” I said. “I’ll bet he’s got substance dripping out his nostrils.”
It was shortly thereafter that Lorna Sue suggested I see a counselor. I was paranoid, she claimed. I was irrational.
“First Herbie,” she said, “and now you’re jealous of—” (Again, painfully, she uttered the tycoon’s patently ridiculous name.) “I’m serious, Tom, you need help. It’s like you won’t … like I can’t have anybody else in my life. No friends. Not even a
brother
.”
I shrugged and closed my eyes.
Her allegations were without substance.
Tampa: it breaks my heart.
I stare at my airline ticket stubs and feel a great chill in my chest, a frozen sensation. I cannot catch my breath. For you, perhaps, the place might be Boston, or San Francisco, or Fiji, but in any case it strikes me that words, too, have genuine substance—mass and weight and specific gravity. I carry Tampa with me all day long, and to bed each night, and I fear my spirit has been warped by the burden. I dream in turquoise.
An interesting wrinkle. One hot afternoon, while staking out Herbie’s new house in Tampa, I happened across a spicy little itemin the local newspaper. A Catholic church in the vicinity—Our Lady of Assumption—had burned to the ground three days before my arrival. No surprise: arson. The possibilities for vengeance did not escape me. Immediately, still seated in my rental car, I began composing an anonymous letter to the Tampa police force, alerting them to Herbie’s presence in their sunny city, providing key data regarding similar events in the small prairie town of Owago, Minnesota.
Can I be faulted for giggling as I posted my incriminating epistle that night?
(I cannot be.)
Even if by some curious fluke he was completely innocent—in fact, especially so—Herbie would soon be feeling precisely what I had felt on the day he invaded my marriage and my life. He would learn, as I had, the full meaning of such phrases as “circumstantial evidence” and “presumed guilt.” Late at night he would wake up screaming the word
assumption
.
A few weeks after returning from my third solo trip to Tampa, revitalized by my successes there, I had occasion to revisit the backyard of my childhood. Easter break, spectacular weather. My students had packed up their Levi’s and bad grammar, I packed my Wittgenstein and a pair of suits.
At a gas station near campus, as I took on fuel, a trio of young coeds sped by in a blood-red Camaro, giggling and honking at me, lifting their stubby middle fingers in salutation. I returned the greeting. (My students, it appears, consider me an odd duck. And why is this? Because I can spell
cat
without drooling? Because I refuse to fucking split my infinitives?)
Believe me, I am no duck. I am a man. I sail along with furled feathers, an ardent, lovable, hurting human being. A victim, in fact, of my own humanity. Remember: Herbie destroyed me. Lorna Sue sleeps with her tycoon in Tampa.
Enough—why bother?
Easter break, school dismissed, and I drove south through farmcountry, past pigs and soybeans, past a huge billboard indicating my arrival in the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant. (Fee-fi, ho-hum.) Two hours later, in early afternoon, I approached the outskirts of my pitiful history, a forlorn little prairie town tucked up against the Minnesota-Iowa border. Owago: Pop. 9,977. Off to my left, as I made the final turn onto Highway 16,1 took notice of the very cornfield in which Lorna Sue and I had once bared ourselves to the elements of autumn. Such zeal, such ardor. “It hurts!” she had cried, and who could blame her? A layer of frost had accumulated that night on the hood of my father’s Pontiac.
Now she lives in Tampa. Quack-quack.
Tired and hungry, battered by the road, I found humble
“Who?” I said.
Lorna Sue blinked. “Well, you know.” (She then intoned the man’s name.) “He’s got—”
“Let me guess,” I said. “I’ll bet he’s got substance dripping out his nostrils.”
It was shortly thereafter that Lorna Sue suggested I see a counselor. I was paranoid, she claimed. I was irrational.
“First Herbie,” she said, “and now you’re jealous of—” (Again, painfully, she uttered the tycoon’s patently ridiculous name.) “I’m serious, Tom, you need help. It’s like you won’t … like I can’t have anybody else in my life. No friends. Not even a
brother
.”
I shrugged and closed my eyes.
Her allegations were without substance.
Tampa: it breaks my heart.
I stare at my airline ticket stubs and feel a great chill in my chest, a frozen sensation. I cannot catch my breath. For you, perhaps, the place might be Boston, or San Francisco, or Fiji, but in any case it strikes me that words, too, have genuine substance—mass and weight and specific gravity. I carry Tampa with me all day long, and to bed each night, and I fear my spirit has been warped by the burden. I dream in turquoise.
An interesting wrinkle. One hot afternoon, while staking out Herbie’s new house in Tampa, I happened across a spicy little itemin the local newspaper. A Catholic church in the vicinity—Our Lady of Assumption—had burned to the ground three days before my arrival. No surprise: arson. The possibilities for vengeance did not escape me. Immediately, still seated in my rental car, I began composing an anonymous letter to the Tampa police force, alerting them to Herbie’s presence in their sunny city, providing key data regarding similar events in the small prairie town of Owago, Minnesota.
Can I be faulted for giggling as I posted my incriminating epistle that night?
(I cannot be.)
Even if by some curious fluke he was completely innocent—in fact, especially so—Herbie would soon be feeling precisely what I had felt on the day he invaded my marriage and my life. He would learn, as I had, the full meaning of such phrases as “circumstantial evidence” and “presumed guilt.” Late at night he would wake up screaming the word
assumption
.
A few weeks after returning from my third solo trip to Tampa, revitalized by my successes there, I had occasion to revisit the backyard of my childhood. Easter break, spectacular weather. My students had packed up their Levi’s and bad grammar, I packed my Wittgenstein and a pair of suits.
At a gas station near campus, as I took on fuel, a trio of young coeds sped by in a blood-red Camaro, giggling and honking at me, lifting their stubby middle fingers in salutation. I returned the greeting. (My students, it appears, consider me an odd duck. And why is this? Because I can spell
cat
without drooling? Because I refuse to fucking split my infinitives?)
Believe me, I am no duck. I am a man. I sail along with furled feathers, an ardent, lovable, hurting human being. A victim, in fact, of my own humanity. Remember: Herbie destroyed me. Lorna Sue sleeps with her tycoon in Tampa.
Enough—why bother?
Easter break, school dismissed, and I drove south through farmcountry, past pigs and soybeans, past a huge billboard indicating my arrival in the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant. (Fee-fi, ho-hum.) Two hours later, in early afternoon, I approached the outskirts of my pitiful history, a forlorn little prairie town tucked up against the Minnesota-Iowa border. Owago: Pop. 9,977. Off to my left, as I made the final turn onto Highway 16,1 took notice of the very cornfield in which Lorna Sue and I had once bared ourselves to the elements of autumn. Such zeal, such ardor. “It hurts!” she had cried, and who could blame her? A layer of frost had accumulated that night on the hood of my father’s Pontiac.
Now she lives in Tampa. Quack-quack.
Tired and hungry, battered by the road, I found humble
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