SYMPATICOS

SYMPATICOS

It had been hot all month with record-breaking temperatures.  He walked now up the road toward the park where the walking trail began at the edge of the woods.  The sun came slanting between the houses and through the trees along the road, and he could already hear air conditioners at the sides of the houses whirring to life.  It was early, not yet seven, and already getting hot, the day promising to be even worse than yesterday. 

     Once on the path he would cross into the shade of the trees, and the walk would then be at least bearable.  He did it every Saturday, even in winter, except when it snowed heavily.  It had been hot for so long now that he no longer needed to spray himself for mosquitos.  There weren’t any.  He wore dark blue shorts and white tee-shirt, white sox and sneakers.  He walked briskly for half a mile until he came out of the woods at 3rd Street.  On the sidewalk there he would meet Sandy, and they would cross 3rd and continue on together through the woods on the other side of the street. 

     He ran into her the very first time he tried the path, and they became friends, meeting every Saturday on 3rd and walking together.  They walked till they came to the three mile marker, then turned around and came back.  For her, it was a five-mile stretch—there and back.  For him, it was six.  This morning, when he reached 3rd, she hadn’t yet arrived, so he walked in place for a few moments, then leaned against the telephone pole to cool off.  There was no traffic on the street, and he stared across it at the place where the path continued, bright in the morning sun but darkening as it wound into the trees, thinking of nothing in particular, when he heard her.

     “You’re deep in thought this morning,” she said, causing him to jump.

     He turned and smiled into her pale, freckled face.

     “Been waiting long?”

     “No,” he said, still smiling, “just got here.”

     “Let’s go,” she said and stepped into the street, leading him across.

     “How’re things?” he said.

     The story of her life was an on-going saga.  They had much in common regarding life stories, which, more than anything else, kept them faithful to their Saturday morning walks together.  Both were divorced, neither had children, and neither was interested in another relationship, this last making them perfect partners for Saturday mornings, and perfect sympaticos.  She wore tan shorts and white sleeveless tee-shirt, and, like him, white sox and sneakers.  Her light brown hair was put up in a bun to keep it off her neck. 

     What made her life a saga was a tormenting ex, a man driven by insecurity and resentment and not a little jealousy.  He had a way of wheedling himself into her life at the most inopportune times, as though he planned it that way.  Finally, in desperation, she moved away, coming to this town, which meant quitting her job.  The search for new work was still going on, the major uncertainty in her life and cause of unhappiness, all of which she blamed on her ex.  She had come to town a year and a half ago and lived on her alimony. 

     He was driven from his home by a wife who couldn’t adapt to the sudden onset of Grave’s disease in him.  Grave’s causes the person who suffers from it to become violent, to blow up into blind rages, and she could not bring herself to trust his medication, which nevertheless completely controlled the disease.  Her lack of trust was pure acid to their marriage, and her exaggerations of his tempers, though bad, ultimately turned their friends against him.  He was damaged goods, and she wanted her money back.  He had come to town a year ago.  When he and Sandy met that first time, their walk was as a balm.  He knew.  She knew.  Their Saturday mornings were thus devoted to this “knowing.”

     “Things are not good,” she said.

     “What else?” he responded.

     They were already sweating heavily, in spite of the shade.  The path was the width of a sidewalk and was made of white crushed stone, so that in their silences as they walked they listened to the crunching of their steps.  On either side, the cottonwoods and ash rose overhead and interlocked branches, and the low scrub cedar and Russian olives between the larger trees walled them in.  Her tee-shirt was wet, and as she wiped the sweat from her forehead and cheeks with the palm of her hand, she looked sideways at him. 

     “What else,” she echoed in agreement.  Walking side by side, their elbows often collided, and he would try unsuccessfully to keep some space between them.  His legs were hairy down to his ankles, and tufts of black chest hair crowded out of the top of his tee-shirt.  He was mostly unconscious of his hairiness, except when he noticed her looking.  He tried to be less obvious. 

     “Rennie is pestering my mother to find out where I am.  He claims he needs my signature on some stock transfer forms in order to sell the stocks.  My mother tells him to send her the forms and she’ll get them to me, but he says that both our signatures need to be notarized at the same time.”

     “Not true,” he said as they crunched along.  He had been through that and knew.

     “I know it, so does my mom.  That doesn’t seem to matter to him.”

     “Why not meet him at your mother’s and do it there?”

     “Because that’s just what he wants.  I don’t know what he’s up to, but I’m not giving in this time.”

     They walked briskly.  With her hands in fists, she swung her arms vigorously in time with her steps, and he just walked naturally.  He looked across at her.  She fell silent.  His ex was not like hers—she couldn’t care less if he lived or died.  He would have been flattered had there been jealousy.  Had there been jealousy, he would still be with her.  All she wanted was to be rid of him.  They had been married four years.  Things were much more complicated for him.  His rages, though he knew they were not controllable, and though the pills completely ended them, caused unending guilt in him.  He could never get over the sight of her cringing in fear of him.  And then there was her coldness, her lack of sympathy and of trust, and the deliberateness with which she set about shedding herself of him. 

     Guilt and hurt, self-blame and the feeling of betrayal, these made up the texture of his emotional life.  He couldn’t explain these feelings to Sandy, but somehow she divined them, she knew, and for him that was almost enough to heal him.  It was enough to heal him when he was with her, but during the week, the feelings settled back in him, leaving him with a sense of being lost.

     “Well,” he worked himself up to say after a silence of many moments, “if he really wants to sell those stocks, he’ll come round.  That’s how you’ll know.  If he’s up to something, he’ll just go on and on.  The stocks’re not what he’s interested in.  Easy enough.  Stay clear.”

     He made it sound so easy, so logical, and it passified her.  It was what she needed.  They walked in silence again for a while.  The heat was intensified by the uncommon humidity.  They usually encountered others along the path, some walking by themselves or with dogs or jogging, some in pairs, like them.  And they often saw deer in the forest on either side, sometimes even on the path ahead.  But this morning they encountered no one and saw no animals except birds.  And then suddenly, she stopped and turned to him.  They had only just reached the two-mile marker.  Strands of hair hung in front of her ears, curled from sweat, and sweat beaded on her brow and nose. 

     “Why don’t you come to my place when we come back?” she asked.  “I’ll make us some ice coffee and we’ll cool off.”

     It was a breach in their unspoken agreement this invitation.  What made these walks so special was their explicit limitation on their company with each other, the looking forward to it, the meeting at 3rd, their openness to each other because their time was so brief.  The walks had something of essentialness to him, something he wanted to preserve, something he didn’t want to endanger.  If he went to her place, he might go again, then she to his, and the walks would lose that character of essentialness, that whatever-it-was that made them so pure with each other.  He wished she hadn’t asked.  He felt he couldn’t refuse.

     “Sure,” he said, looking into her eyes. 

     She didn’t blink.  She looked right back into his.  Perhaps because of the heavy, humid silence and their aloneness, perhaps because of long pent-up desire, she reached out and touched his shoulder.  His tee-shirt was wet and she quickly removed her hand and wiped it on her shorts.  He smiled.  “Getting rid of me,” he thought.  “That’s how it is.”  The thought did not make him glum, however.  It amused him.

     “Come on,” he said, turning back to the path and urging her along by reaching for her back and gently pushing.

     She stepped into the walk right beside him, swinging her arms, a frown of uncertainty about what she had just done visible to him.  He rightly understood the frown and thought about it as they walked in silence.  Her uncertainty about the invitation made it all right to him, took the edge of disappointment off of it.  The spontaneity suggested a feeling, and he liked what he thought it meant.  He began to feel it himself.  At first, when he left his wife, the feeling of being unattached, of having no obligation to her, of there being open horizons for him to explore excited him.  It wasn’t long, however, before he discovered the inherent loneliness of those open horizons.  

     She gave him again that sidelong look, as though to assess his silence after her invitation.  She felt a need to talk.

     “How do you deal with it every day of the week?” she asked.

     He knew what she meant.  This time, he stopped, and they turned to face each other.

     “How does one do it?  I guess one doesn’t,” he said, turning her question about him specifically into a general observation.  “One goes on, what else can one do?”

     “I mean,” she said, “I meet people every day.  Every one has a life.  I mean, there’s no explaining.  How can I explain?  What’s to say?  Everything changes?  So?”

     He knew what she was feeling because he felt it himself.  He knew, too, that she couldn’t say what she was feeling.  That would be too much like laying her soul out for inspection.  He felt it, too.  What he did in response was put his hand on her shoulder and hold it there in spite of the sweat.  That’s when the tears began to flow.  For a moment he thought they were beads of sweat running down her cheeks.  Tears of sorrow, he thought them.  His own eyes got hot.

     What he said was, “Ice coffee sounds good.  I’d like that.  Do we have to finish?  Can’t we turn back right here?  Look how we’re sweating!”

     She wiped the tears from her cheeks and smiled.  She looked wilted.  Her wet tee-shirt clung to her breasts.

     “No,” she said.  “Let’s finish the walk.  It’ll make us want the air conditioning more.”

     “It’ll make us want more than that,” he said, turning back to the path, his hand again at her back urging her forward.  They walked the full course before going to her place.