The Water-Method Man

'I'd appreciate lots of photographs, Couth,' I said. 'When you make some of ... of Colm, you know, just make a print for me.'

'I have some I can give you now,' you said.

Ploink!

'Shit, I'm sorry, Bogus,' you said. 'Who could have known it would work out this way?'

'Me. I could have known, Couth ...'

'She'd already left you when she came here, Bogus. She'd already made up her mind, you know ...'

Ploink!

Fip!

'What about the Pillsburys?' I asked. 'What are they going to think of you living here with this woman and a child?'

'That's why we got married,' you said, and I thought that I must have become a snail - that I must have thrown myself in and swallowed too much water to be hearing you right, Couth.

'You mean you want to get married, Couth?' I said.

'No, I mean we did ... sort of.'

I brooded over this for about four ploinks. How was it possible? It didn't seem that it could be, so I asked, 'How could that be, Couth? I thought I was married to her.'

'Well, you were, of course, and this ... thing, hasn't legally gone through yet,' you said, 'but since you ... deserted her, it was possible to get a kind of thing proceeding. I don't understand it myself, but one of the Pillsburys' lawyers has some things already drawn up ...'

I thought, Well, you haven't just been sitting on your hands, have you, Couth?

'We had no way of knowing when or if you'd be back, Bogus,' you said. Then you went on and on about how it was almost legally necessary to go through with this, because of the tax structure and the way dependents were regarded by law. Thank you, I thought, when you got to the part about there being no alimony this way.

'How much do I owe you?' I said.

'I don't care about that, Bogus,' you said, but I already had the envelope out and was pressing nine hundred dollars out into your fine, thin hand.

'Jesus, Bogus. Where did you get this?'

'I've struck it rich, Couth,' I told you, and tried to put the envelope back in my pocket as if it were a casual gesture - as if there were other envelopes stashed all over my body and I wasn't exactly sure which pocket this one belonged in. Then, because I thought you were going to refuse it, I started to babble, beginning no place special.

'If I can't live with them, Couth, then I'm very glad it's you. You'll take better care of them than I have, I'm sure, and I won't ever worry about them with you. It's also a wonderful part of the country to grow up in, and you can teach Colm photography.'

'Biggie is going to help this summer,' you said. 'You know, when the Pillsburys are here - shopping and doing some cooking and taking care of the house. It will give me more time to take pictures and work in the darkroom ...' you trailed off. 'I've got a part-time job at Bowdoin in the fall. It's only forty-five minutes away. You know, just one section of students - a sort of workshop in photography. They gave me a show this spring and the students even bought a few prints.'

The weight of this small talk was crushing us.

'That's great, Couth.'

'Bogus, what in hell are you going to do now?' you asked me after a long silence.

'Oh, I have to get back to New York,' I lied. 'But I'll be up again ... when I get settled, you know.'

'It's almost morning,' you said. We watched an early orange sun rise out of the sea, its faint glow striking the shore. 'Colm gets up early. He can show you his animals. I built a kind of zoo in the boathouse of things I caught for him.'

But I didn't want to be around to see what he looked like and if he even liked me any more. Let the grave mound grow a little grass, I always say; then it's safe to look.

But all I said was, 'I've got to talk to my driver now, Couth.'

When I tried to get up, you caught me by the belt and said, 'Your driver doesn't even know who you are, Bogus. What's going on with you?'