(Babenhausen, Germany, 1974)
They were living in Babenhausen, Germany then, and the bridge to the brewery, crossed a canal that ran from one end of the township to the other. They could see the Old Tower, built in 1714 AD from their 3rd story apartment windows. Up a ways from the center of town where they lived, was a park, and the Babenhausen, Schlosshof (where there was a café and art shows, along with small concerts, they were headed that way).
It was a town-let, sort of, where people wore-for the most part, back in the early to mid seventies-wore common and plane cloths, a hard working community, along with a hard drinking class of German stock males that filled the guesthouses almost every night of the week. There were also, a few select bars where the young folks hung out.
It was a city were folks rode their bicycles as much as they drove their cars, across the those two bridges, the second one being in the center of town, where a creek run underneath it.
He noticed off and on, kids wildly escaping the grip of their mother's hands, to run up to the few venders selling bratwursts, with mayonnaise, French Fries, and mustard on the side.
Sherwood Sullivan often drank-in those bars, cafes and guesthouses in Babenhausen during those days. Perhaps that is why they were always broke in those days, in particular, the summer of 1974, but they ate well, and he smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, and had his a six-pack of beer nightly, either at home, or as I said, at the bar, or guesthouse.
He ate breakfast at home usually; the Germans could never satisfy his American tastes in that category.
He was twenty-seven years old, she, twenty, he had met her when she was seventeen, and he had just come home from the Vietnam War.
In the middle of the night they had made love, it was quick and unemotional, a sparse event in that they only had sex once every three to four months now.
On this morning, he was not in a hurry as often he was to find a quiet place to do his writings (he was working on a book called "The Loved and the Desolate"), and so he took his wife out for breakfast with him.
He watched the cars and bicycles go by, as she buttered her sweetbread, both sitting at a table in the cafe.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Carla.
"Nothing much, why?"
"It must be something, you're kind of daydreaming it seems."
"Just feeling alone, that's all."
"How can that be, I'm here! Right here by your side:"
"Yes, you seem happy." Sherwood replied.
"I like feeling happy," she said, adding, "isn't that normal?"
"Oh...yes, of course," then hesitated, but added, "you're not happy all that much," he said almost in a whisper.
"Ah," she said, in a disappointed tone, "I don't care, I'm happy now, and we don't have to worry, or even think of anything in particular, do we?"
"Not one thing." He answered.
"What do you want to do today?" She asked frigidly.
"I don't know, you tell me."
His mind was drifting, somewhat daydreaming on an issue he hadn't brought up-not after it happened anyhow, he had put it to rest because it wouldn't do any good to belabor it: it was about her cutting up his cloths with a scissors. She had gotten mad with jealously, painted herself up like a whore, and when he come home, she was dancing about, trying to lure him into bed, saying 'You like whores, here I am!' and when he went to change cloths, he noticed all his cloths were shredded, that was two weeks ago, and he was waiting for a check to purchase more, then he'd head on up to Darmstadt, where he usually bought most things, such as stereo equipment, cloths, shoes, and so forth, that is where his mind was at the moment.
"I want to go somewhere, anywhere, I'll stay happy, I promise! Maybe to Dieburg, I like the little shops there, or to Darmstadt, no, maybe Munster, we can catch the train there and go on to Frankfurt and spend the day. Or go see that pink castle in Aschaffenburg?"
"Let's talk about it after breakfast, when we get to the park, there we can decide what to do, I'll not write today at all...!"
"No! No, no, no...I think I want to go back to the apartment and take a nap!"
"Wow! That's a sudden and new idea," he said, she adding, "You know I get these abrupt flashes of depression and agitated behavior, I'm not happy anymore, take me back home, I want to go home, you make me feel guilty for wanting to do something other than watch you write."
"Ok," he said, knowing she could be destructive. Matter-of-fact, it was just yesterday in a shop in Dieburg, a town a few miles away, she had a manic explosion in front of the clerk, who begged him to take her out of the store quickly before she called the police....
They stepped outside the guesthouse, onto the sidewalk, the morning sun was getting hotter, but there was a fresh breeze mixed into the warm air.
He gazed about for a moment, only a flash of a second perhaps or maybe ten-seconds at most, but a million bits of information flooded his cerebellum: he wished she was normal, like the majority of people, with ordinary behavior, with no ebbing consequences, no abrupt changes, that could take place in any minute of any day; he wished she'd not have to endure anymore psychological bent emotions, or schizophrenia tendencies: she was so easily angered, and frustrated. She had mood changes likened to the flick of a card in pokier, long deep sleeping spells. And if she didn't get her way, those hard looking blank, rock like eyes would appear.
He knew she didn't even like her mood swings herself, for such a young and lovely, and intelligent woman, but she had no more control over them than the man in the moon had over night and day. And so they fought back and forth like cats and dogs, and until he would leave and get drunk, that was the only thing that stopped the ongoing, enduring, squabbling, until he returned that is.
She was almost a constant shadow in his mind, he walked on egg shells when he was around her, and held his breath hoping she was asleep when he'd return from an afternoon walk, or writing period, or drinking spell; sex was a lifeless event to say the least too, it was hard to include, to produce an erection, to get excited, when being beaten over the brow with scornful and hurtful words throughout the day, hard to kiss, and make love as if nothing happened in bed in the night, it was better often to go into the bathroom and do what you needed to do, to relieve the urge, lest you feel awful afterwards, and used like an old dirty rug, to be stepped on later, with those same dirty shoes from yesterday, or that very same day the praetor used.
Oh it wasn't all her fault, he knew that, but it was as it was, nonetheless, and enduring, agonizing, never-ending, a born-again cycle of being drained of your life's resources. Therefore, he tried to allow himself daily to do some writing, usually in the park, where he could find the right setting, a calm, sedate scenery, where birds sang freely and without disruption, and the flowers seemed to reach out to him with adoration, not an expectant penitence for breathing God's air, and the butterflies circled his head as if he were a prince and they wanted to give him a crown, and the mood to write his paragraphs, descriptions, dialogue, and explanations, would flow like a kite on a breezy day, and he'd work out his plot, scheme, theme, and so forth unabated.
He took another step, another quiet ten-second rush to his cerebellum, he acquired some anxiety looking at her staring with her blue unblinking eyes, he looked at her and his mouth went dry, she had taken an abrupt lunge, her continence in her face was wild like, a hellish look drooped over it like a purple curtain. He looked back around him, he heard something, and it was the waiter in the window he was cleaning up the table they had sat at.
"Well, take good care of yourself, I'm going home," she said tiredly.
"There he stood as she started to walk away, he thought and thought, and thought, 'What sort of wife is that? She's happy one minute, the next she's unhappy.'
He watched her walking down the street, knowing the only way to quiet her down was to tire her out, but in the process-which took hours--he got fatigued.
There was a darkness in this women, one he never fully understood, he had sent her to the psychologist, saying if she'd not go, he'd send her home, that was months ago, they gave her some Minnesota test, and it came out positive for paranoia schizophrenia, among some other mentally ill classifications. At times he even felt, he was a surrogate parent, not a husband.
But the psychologist seemed to be pretty much in the right area, when he talked to them both it all seemed to fit her profile, in that her reality was interpreted abnormally, especially with her thinking that, Sherwood wanted to kill her, so she'd kill him first with his own gun, which she attempted once, and backed off just in time, thank goodness.
On the other side of the coin, she could function pretty well on daily matters, her memory was ok, but her concentration was going down hill, and her suicidal behavior up, she tried to drawn herself in the bathtub, and he told her, almost humorously, "You can't kill yourself that way, your internal system will fight against it."
He thought about that later, it was a bad thing for Carla to do, and there was no purpose in him making fun of it. That's when the doctors put her on medication.
She had told him, "I want you to have friends, men or woman, it doesn't matter, but just don't fall in love with them."
And when he'd bring them around, she'd get jealous, and spiteful.
She had told him, "I don't run around with women or men, you know that." And so that was her way of saying, she didn't want friends. On the other hand, she told her husband, "Just be with me to help me, support me, do the laundry and we can sleep together now and then."
No More Surprises
Sherwood noticed as he crossed the bridge, now in the center of it, that led to the park, an old man fishing, a few boys, seven or eight years old were in the shallow waters of the creek, playing under the surface, more at splashing, and blowing bubbles, it wasn't at all that deep, perhaps three to four feet.
There were many more people walking by, across the bridge, walking each way, some kid yelled,
"Look, the old man caught one!"
Sherwood looked, the fish seemed lean, but it was a fish. That was what life was all about, he told himself.
Several men were doing some roadwork, a few of them were on a building across the street also, kitty-corner, doing some construction work, they all had bottles of beer, large bottles of beer lying about, one took a drink, then put it back down and went back to work, this of course was a normal sight for him to see in Babenhausen, and he appreciated normality.
Then Sherwood leaned over the bridge, his elbows on the iron rail as a few more kids seemed to come out of nowhere to see the old man's fish.
"What kind is it?" asked a voice, but Sherwood couldn't make out the category the old man put the fish into, the type that is.
Next, he turned about; saw the guesthouse he had just left, the waiter saw him by himself, as he kept sweeping the edge of the street in front of his place of work. He had seen him and his wife there plenty of times, more often him though, than both of them together, and Sherwood was sure he caught their dilemma, that being, knowing they were not good for one another, yet they remained with one another.
The water in the creek looked beautiful, fresh and cool, clear as a clean glass window.
"Yes," he said talking out loud, looking over into the water, "it's so true, she's getting more dangerous to herself and to me," he said in a convincing tone.
He then lit a cigarette, mumbled, "I'm going to change," his mumble was stern, "more than change," he added, "it's for her sake, mine also. No more surprises by her, it's going to end."
Then he thought about what he said, "Maybe I shouldn't let her go, what she will do? Oh yes, it's very sad, but I thought about it long enough, and just how long is enough, and how much is enough, it's enough now, today is enough; it is something that she and I really want. It really is. Yes, it's all right!"
He was trying to convince himself to let her go, once and for all, critically thinking out loud, it zoomed to the top of his head, and out his mouth, "Good," he said, "I'll let her go, since she wants to go. Yes indeed, it's better to be alone, I'm alone anyways, that will be my surprise for her, I'll let her go this time, and not look back."
Evening Descending
He now found himself walking around the town aimlessly, as often he would, stopping at a few guesthouses, having a beer here and there a glass of red wine, ate a ham sandwich at one disco bar, listened to a Neil Diamond's song, one he became found of, 'Cracklin' Rosie,' he had heard it before, it wasn't all that new, but it was circulating throughout Germany, and popular, it made him happy, sad, and drifty in a nice kind of way, Cracklin' Rosie was his bottle of beer, or wine his lover for the night, the girl he could have, because the one at home was the one he never did have, or would have. The exchange was a reasonable one he thought, as reasonable as he'd get.
Then he up and left the bar, told himself it was time to go back home, he told himself he'd have to make sure the gun was empty when he got home, he couldn't sleep another night thinking she might be as dangerous as she says she feels.
He walked though the apartment door, "Good Evening," he told his wife, the main room was dimly lit, and he was lightly drunk.
He was very careful not to disrupt her mood.
"Go back out and get drunker," she told him, "come back when I'm sleeping, I'm going back to St. Paul, Minnesota tomorrow."
He looked at her, she was curled up in a corner of the leather couch, with a cigarette in her hand, and he noticed three burn holes in the coach.
"Look at what you're doing, I'll have to pay for the whole coach now (it was a furnished apartment)."
She looked, "I think you did that a few nights ago!" she said, indifferently, "so don't blame me for your drunkenness, you probably fell to sleep."
"Did you take your medication?" he asked.
"Can't you tell, I feel and look like a zombie?"
Sherwood reached up high on the bookcase, took his 45-automatic down, pulled the clip of bullets out.
"I see you're taking my advice, smart boy." She commented.
He had a beer in the refrigerator, he took it out, opened it up, sat in a chair, and smoked a Camel Cigarette, and dark a Beck's beer halfway down, and let out a deep hidden sigh.
He tried to write a paragraph in his new book but everything seemed complicated. He crossed this out and that out until he couldn't really see what was what, then dated it "July 5, 1974" and leaned back in his chair.
He had come to the conclusion he was powerless in helping her, and for himself, he was becoming perhaps codependent, if not her on him, him on her, or both on each other, and he was fighting for his own preservation, to keep his own identity, before she swallowed it up, and he had none. They were like two drowning souls in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes what?" she replied.
"Yes, I'll find a ride to the train station in Aschaffenburg or Munster or Dieburg, one of the three, most likely, Munster by Dieburg, it's closer, and buy your tickets for your departure, it will take you directly to 'Frankfurt am Main,' and you from there, can take a taxi to the airport, you got your passport, that's all you need, and I'll give you some money tomorrow, I'll go to the bank and take out whatever we got."
"Give me a drink of your beer," she asked. She looked happy again. She had left him before, a number of times only to call him back up, wanting to return to wherever he was. But his thinking was different now; he knew it was a one way road for her, she couldn't live on a two-way, and it would be a life of endurance, and more dangers by the passing of each year.
"I knew that would force you to send me home." She said.
"What?" he asked.
"Telling you I'm getting more dangerous."
"It's a long night until tomorrow," he said, adding, "What do you want now?"
"Let's go to bed, and do it!"
"I can't," he said.
Carla laughed heartily, "I swear you're homosexual, and you like men don't you."
He shook his head, whispered to himself, as she went into the bedroom, and he moved over to the couch to sleep the night away, "I'll wait (again the mood was dead)."
A New Morning
Sherwood woke in the morning, almost at first light, looked out the window, his legs were stiff from being crotched up in the couch. Sat on the edge, trying to wake up completely. He remembered everything that was said the previous night, and was hoping she'd had not changed her mind. He looked at her sleeping from the doorway of the bedroom, remembering how she was, her image when they first met, it was a good image. Then he went to the bathroom, took a warm shower, shaved, put on a t-shirt, and light windbreaker, a pair of slacks, and carefully looked back into the bedroom, she was awake; she stood up, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, and moved over to the door where he stood, and slammed it in his face without a word. Somehow he knew she'd be this way, she had to get her last mutiny against him out, for marrying her. He figured it would be a dreadful morning, but perhaps the last with her.
She had finished all she needed to do, suitcase and her passport in hand, and said, "Let's get on with it."
Departure
He felt fortunate she actually got on the train, she was not a simple woman, she got onto the train, never looking back at him, yet prior to getting on, she hesitated, as if she wanted him to talk her out of it, and he wanted to, but he couldn't, and I think she knew that. Not a glance was missed by either one, because they didn't want give any glances to remember the other by.
That afternoon he found himself improved with a normal heartbeat, and his breathing was back to normal, and he didn't have to worry about walking on eggshells anymore she was gone, so his nervous system was being repaired, he felt. He wrote in the park that afternoon for a long while, his inspiration was back intact.
Written February, 20 &21, 2009 "
Afterthoughts and 'The Shop in Dieburg,' added 2-22-2009
See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com
