this world. So we would just die. It is awkward to write this. It sounds so selfish and melodramatic. When we said it, it was a horrible bleak truth.
In the morning we got in the car, headed for San Clemente. I’d arrive at my parents’ house on Wednesday. On Thursday I’d go to the beach and swim out to sea. This way it would be an accident and my parents could deal with my body. Jesse would drive back and hang himself on Friday, so Jon could find him.
We had to taper off drinking just to make the trip. We called Jon, Joe and Ben, to let them know we were going away, would see them next Friday. We took a slow trip down. It was a wonderful trip. Swimming in the ocean. Carmel and Hearst’s Castle. Newport Beach.
Newport Beach was so great. The motel lady knocked on our door and said to me, “I forgot to give your husband the towels.”
We were watching “Big Valley” when Jesse said, “What do you think? Shall we get married or kill ourselves?”
We were close to my parents’ house when we got into a ridiculous fight. He wanted to see Richard Nixon’s house before he dropped me off. I said that I didn’t want one of the last acts in my lifetime to be seeing Nixon’s house.
“Well, fuck off, get out here then.”
I told myself that if he said he loved me I wouldn’t get out, but he just said, “Let me see your smile, Maggie.” I got out, got my suitcase from the back seat. I couldn’t smile. He drove off.
My mother was a witch; she knew everything. I hadn’t told them about Jesse. I had told them I had been laid off at school, the kids were in Mexico, that I was job hunting. But I had only been there for an hour when she said, “So, you planning to commit suicide, or what?”
I told them I was depressed about finding a job, that I missed my sons. I had thought a visit with them would be a good idea. But it just made me feel that I was procrastinating. I’d better go back in the morning. They were pretty sympathetic. We all were drinking a lot that evening.
The next morning my father drove me to the John Wayne Airport and bought me a ticket for Oakland. He kept saying that I should be a receptionist in a doctor’s office, where I’d get benefits.
I was on the MacArthur bus headed for Telegraph about the time I was supposed to be drowning. I ran the blocks from Fortieth Street home, terrified now that Jesse had died already.
He wasn’t home. There were lilac tulips everywhere. In vases and cans and bowls. All over the apartment, the bathroom, the kitchen. On the table was a note, “You can’t leave me, Maggie.”
He came up behind me, turned me around against the stove. He held me and pulled up my skirt and pulled down my underpants, entered me and came. We spent the whole morning on the kitchen floor. Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Jesse made us his favorite sandwich. Chicken on Wonder Bread with mayonnaise. No salt. It’s an awful sandwich. My legs were shaking from making love, my face sore from smiling
We took a shower and got dressed, spent the night up on our own roof. We didn’t talk. All he said was, “It’s much worse now.” I nodded into his chest.
Jon arrived the next night, then Joe and Ben. Ben was pleased that we weren’t drinking. We hadn’t decided not to, just hadn’t. Of course they all asked about the tulips.
“Place needed some fucking color,” Jesse said.
We decided to get Flint’s Barbeque and go to the Berkeley Marina.
“I wish we could take them to our boat,” I said.
“I have a boat,” Jon said. “Let’s go out on my boat.”
His boat was smaller than “La Cigale,” but it was still nice. We went out, using the engine, went all around the bay in the sunset. It was beautiful, the cities, the bridge, the spray. We went back to the pier and had dinner on deck. Solly walked past, looked scared when he saw us. We introduced him to Jon, told him he had taken us out on the water.
Solly grinned, “Boy, you two must have loved that. A boat ride!”
Joe and Ben were laughing. They had loved it, being out in the bay, the smell and freedom of it. They were talking about getting a boat and living on it. Planning it all out.
“What’s the matter with you guys?” Joe asked us. It was true. The three of us were quiet, just sitting there.
“I’m depressed,” Jon said. “I’ve had this boat for a year, and this is the third time I’ve been out on it. Never have sailed the damn thing. My priorities are all out of whack. My life is a mess.”
“I’m…” Jesse shook his head, didn’t finish. I knew he was sad for the same reason I was. This was a real boat.
Jesse said he didn’t want to go to court. I told Carlotta I would be by for her really early. It was the time of gas rationing, so you never knew how long the lines would be. I picked her up on the corner by Sears. Jesse was with her, looking pale, hungover.
“Hey, man. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” I said. He nodded.
She put a scarf over her hair. She was clear-eyed and apparently calm, wearing a dusty-rose dress, patent leather pumps, a little bag.
“Jackie O goes to court! The dress is perfect,” I said.
They kissed goodbye.
“I hate that dress,” he said. “When you get back I get to burn it.” They stood looking at one another.
“Come on, get in the car. You’re not going to jail, Carlotta, I promise.”
We did have a long wait for gas. We talked about everything but the trial. We talked about Boston. The Grolier Book Shop. Lochober’s restaurant. Truro and the dunes. Cheryl and I had met in Provincetown. I told her Cheryl was having an affair. That I didn’t know what I felt. About the affair, about our marriage. Carlotta put her hand over mine, on the gearshift.
“I’m so sorry, Jon,” she said. “The hardest part is not knowing how you feel. Once you do, well, then, everything will be clear to you. I guess.”
“Thanks a lot.” I smiled.
Both the policemen were in the courtroom. She sat across from them in the spectator section. I spoke with the prosecutor and the judge and we went to his chambers. The two of them looked hard at her before we went in.
It went like clockwork. I had page after page of documentation about the police, the paperwork from the security check which did not find marijuana. The judge got the idea about the police report even before I really got into it.
“Yes, yes, so what do you propose?”
“We propose to sue the San Francisco Police Department unless all charges are dismissed.” He thought about it, but not for long.
“I think it appropriate to dismiss the charges.”
The prosecutor had seen it coming, but I could tell he hated facing the policemen.
We got back into the courtroom where the judge said that because of a lawsuit pending against the San Francisco Police Department he
