47

 

       JOHN'S WIFE

   

    Finally he stops.  I hear the hammer for several minutes after.  Even when it is gone I sit, waiting for it to begin again.  When I go to the window and look out, he is on the porch, sitting, talking.  I hug myself tightly and return to my chair.  For the first time in hours I feel free to relax and allow my back to fall back into the pillow.

    John has no consideration.  Going over there to play cards with an old man while I'm sitting home alone.  Iced tea and pinochle with a half dead old fart like that.  At least he could play poker, come home drunk in the middle of the night.  I could live with that.  That is how I thought--how I was always told--it would be.  I could understand that.  I could understand that.  I wouldn't even mind losing the money    I never even think that he might win.  But there is no money.  There is no beer.  No hard talk.  No comraderie.  No real gamble.  He comes home irritable, his face saying, Well, that's over for the week.  I lie there, pretending sleep, listening to him sigh his way into the room and jingle his pants off.  And if I roll over, blinking interrupted sleep, he apologizes for the noise and sits on the edge of the bed.  And when I ask what is wrong, he shakes his head and smiles at me, I'm just tired, he says.  Usually I don't bother.

    Oh, John, I hear myself say it aloud.  I stand again and pace around the room, restless tonight for some reason.  I end up at the window.  Elvira and Lorraine sit, their backs to the wall, their hands holding sweaters up over their shoulders.  There must be a breeze.  I know they are talking.  They might even be talking about me.  I don't care anymore.  Occasionally Lorraine's arms fly wide in a gesture of disgust or wonder or resignation; it doesn't seem to matter.

    Art is a little farther away from them than before, and he's angled his chair toward them.  Like me, he is an onlooker.  He seems to be watching them like a television program, his chin in his hand.

    Suddenly I realize that I've been watching him for a few minutes already, that I've pulled the curtains aside to see him better.  He is a big man.  I've always thought of him as heavy, sort of dumpy looking, but now I see I was wrong.  He is not handsome, but he is not ugly either.  You wouldn't notice him on the street.  So, why do I look at him now?  Why do I see him for the first time in all these years?  The husband that Lorraine brought back with her from living in the city.  That is what he has been.  So why do I see him now?  Why do I see that the belly I always assumed hung out over his belt doesn't?  Why do his legs look so strong when that is not even something that you can see from across the street?  Why is the profile of his nose, outlined in the yellow light, intriguing to me?  Why, as he opens his mouth, do I feel so hurt and cheated that I cannot hear what he says?

    I hug myself closer, and realizing that I'm leaning very close to the screen, that my face is being lit by the street light in front of Killian's, I back away from the window.  I'm shaken by a chill.  It must be getting breezy.