April Is the Cruelist Month

Introduction…

The husband in this tale will eventually tell all, admit how he is to blame for the predicament he now faces: “Henry Jackson” is indeed responsible for what’s now coming down in his life. The man knows for certain that “Elizabeth Meyers Jackson” has retained a lawyer: Stanley S. Shirk, Esquire.

Hank’s wife deliberately discarded “the letter” on their bathroom counter, where it could not possibly be overlooked, the letter advising: “prior to any drawing up of your requisite paperwork, I’ll need to meet with you and your husband as soon as possible.”

Irony, this communication expressing the likelihood of impending doom for Hank, but ambivalent as well – what with its holding onto a glimmer of hope that “Elizabeth & Henry simply sitting down together” in the presence of a reasonable man might be able to mend their broken fences, maybe even their broken hearts…

T.S. Elliot – possibly copping a resentment against Geoffrey Chaucer – did proclaim: “April is the cruelest month.”

April 26^th: my wife had usually planted her seeds whilst praying for Chaucer’s “Aprille shoures” – however, this year she had planted a troubling seed for me…

Forever guarding this garden against a family of groundhogs, these woodchucks of “Marmota monax” that have taken up residence beneath the utility shed in our backyard. My darling then would become animated, as impressive as one of God’s creatures can possibly be, delivering redundant demands: “These Flowers Are My Life! Do something already about your horrid rodents!”

The elders of these visitors appeared twelve or thirteen years ago, soon after their former farm had been sold to a county land developer; two years later invaders of the human variety began arriving.

Only last summer my wife informed me of her solution: “I’ve researched the problem on the internet – the urine of a fox will drive impossible creatures away.”

I smiled: “thou art the only fox I know. Maybe you can begin peeing outside. But you better watch your pale rump. The moon is full and your bountiful butt might be mistaken for a sunflower.”

I recall Liz angrily retreated to the bedroom, locking the door: “PISS OFF ALREADY HENRY JACKSON?”

I attempt laughter; however, humor is not my strong point. Besides I deserved her bit of upbraiding. Lately I am unkind, even cruel. I penned the following limerick to mock her former prowess in the sack…

There once was a girl named Lizzy,

When she did it her hair turned frizzy;

She never ever would tire

Until her ass was afire,

Her head spinning most dizzy…

I’ve been hiding the jingle – awaiting the right moment – to utilize it in retaliation for her own meanness since I retired. However, truth be told, I’ve been rendered nervous, freakish with no reason for living; my life’s former fun swiftly evaporating…

Before turning to my television to ease stress, I remembered that first summer together when her parents bought us a small dilapidated cottage on Shickshinny Lake and we discovered ourselves next to an elderly couple who lived in a proper house with its shabbily maintained swimming pool, and the most spectacular landscape – and they ought to have been happy, but were instead continually in combat – waging war about the silliest stuff and we laughed naming them “The Loony Lake Couple!” Nowadays, Henry and Elizabeth need to find happiness living in our expansive four bedroom home, with a bath for each, at 19 Schneider Circle…

I remember those words, which both of us vowed forty-three years ago, during our summer of 1960; my wife and I were twenty, still in college, and we had many reasons for optimism, and perhaps we ought to have been less judgmental, but were not…

“We’ll never be like them, will we Hank? Please tell me we won’t ever fight.” The woman of my dreams paused a long interval and when I did not respond, she continued: “we’re going to be school teachers, educated people and - - - and - - - and we know better - - - don’t we know better Hank?”

“Dearest Elizabeth, how could you even think it possible? I love you and you love me and that’s all we will ever know. Our love is forever!”

.

Weariness torments these days. I’m sick and tired of trivial earthly concerns. Indeed, total exhaustion hath seized my soul…

Still I managed to push my face right next to that nearly-worn-out door, from where I attempted the final word; I retorted almost-triumphantly with one of my familiar torturous queries: “Aren’t my creatures majestic? Remember how regally they stand while devouring your silly sunflowers and you want to me to buy a gun and shoot them? I’ll buy that gun, but I will not be shooting groundhogs.”

Surprisingly, she responded: “you were lying then when you told me last summer that my garden of sunflowers was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen?”

“I was not lying, maybe exaggerating a bit – and they are beautiful. I’m only defending one of God’s creatures – what I mean: doesn’t a groundhog have the right to eat?”

The unhappy woman cried out from behind her barrier: “Go ahead and shoot me, I don’t give a darn!”

This “barren” woman – Liz’s precise term employed to define her perceived personal failure once my sperm count and their viability had been confirmed, and we were still unable to produce children – unlocked the bedroom portal, proceeded to reject my latest impersonation of St. Francis with a familiar scowl and a tormenting retort: “I’ll never again allow you to enter my bedroom HENRY JACKSON – NEVER!”

To be honest, I had already decided upon a solution to our groundhog problem. I drove across town last Friday, and entered “Ted’s Clothing Barn & Gun Shop” and purchased a firearm. Plenty of ammunition too! I also signed up as a new member of the NRA, to protect my second amendment rights. Truth be told, I have never fired a gun.

My once “Dearest Elizabeth” was raised a farmer’s daughter; she’s probably an expert when it comes to shooting creatures. However, she remains totally ignorant of my brand new toy, my shiny shotgun hiding beneath the bed; something had to be done to put an end to our futile fighting. There was a time I never would’ve dreamed of speaking to this once-wonderful woman with cynicism. But her fruitless womb has somehow changed the two of us for the worse. I have remained at Elizabeth’s side only because of old-fashioned vows: “for better or worse, in sickness and in health – until death us doth part.” – O well, if that’s what it’ll take, so be it.

I have condescendingly admired her seemingly-undying courage within strife these last six years of my retirement, and this singular, hopeful thought allows me to remember our days of “I and thou” – days of old when Henry and Elizabeth were deeply into Martin Buber’s “Holy Concept of Love.”

I take heart and I plead with my own intellect, I wish longingly for a return of my former self and lament the “Disappearing Love” from a relationship: “you’re not locking me out of our bedroom, are you Liz? Please say you’re not.”

“It’s my bedroom and I’ll bar you from entering ever again, do you understand?” She awaited my response and when I had nothing to say: “you should know sir that my girlfriend Claire and I are getting our own place in June – right after school’s out!”

I was taken off guard, but I should’ve realized how things would become after she had bitterly opposed me retiring at fifty-nine-and-a-half: “what will you ever do? There won’t be one drop of booze permitted! That’s all I have to say HENRY JACKSON! You may as well forget your favorite IPA – AND BLACBERRY BRANDY TOO!”

I could not believe what I was listening to and argued back: “Claire’s never leaving her husband!”

“That’s what you say, but I’ll give you permission here and now, just ask her.”

“How can that be happening to Jim?”

She scowled: “Jim Matthews is a drunk – the same as you!” She stomped into the bedroom and locked me out a second time.

I could’ve easily knocked the worn out door down, but chose to fall asleep in front of a mesmerizing television instead…

I recall May’s draught from late last year…

Unmercifully, rain failed to come forth for the last three weeks; I’m forced instead to listen once more to murderous demands accompanied by the old bag’s screeching commands: “Help! Get one of these hoses outside – NOW! They’re so heavy! Hurry up! O my poor back!”

I too am able to scowl in the language of sarcasms most splendid: “your poor back? Surely you jest!”

“Finally” – the bitch mumbles in one of her numerous exasperations despite me showing up with the demanded hose; I actually assist her in relieving the thirst of these precious flowers that I’ve grown to love...

An hour later I lift her nightgown, unwittingly exposing everything she’s got and I’m surprised by her nakedness, and pleased to be able to gently massage her poor back, honestly hoping to take the pain away.

Elizabeth resists: “not tonight!”

I’m suddenly saddened: “Liz, what do you want from me? I only wished to give you a nice backrub, to take away a bit of your pain.”

“I said not tonight!”

I abandon her and return my weary “habeas corpus without writ” to TV for yet another night; I think of running into town for a bottle craving my favorite blackberry brandy, but am able to resist temptation and instead recall a previous time when my massages were welcome, when Liz would readily participate, when we would mutually describe our sexual encounters as amazing assignations…

“O God, God I love you Hank – You’re the very best lover ever! I love you, I love you, I love you! – I love you forever!”

I am thrilled by her utterances, but I want her to describe what she’s feeling when we do it; I’ve heard it before, many times but desire to listen to her description of our love-making once again: “tell me Liz, tell me again what I do to you. You’ve had others – I’ve only had you and need to know what it is about me that makes me your best?”

I’ve told you – it’s like I’m boxed inside this canyon, and this amazing herd of horses, wild horses are upon me and then they simply trample me and I believe I’ll surely die – but I do not die and my herd is eventually tamed by my body and when I open my eyes, there you are.”

“It’s an amazing assignation!”

“It is that, dear poet! O God, how did I ever get so lucky to spend my life with you, Hank? Can you explain it to me again, please tell me again.”

“Well when I was younger I would listen to a poet named Leonard Cohen singing his song ‘Suzanne’ and I immediately knew I had to find my own Suzanne and Liz – Liz you are truly my Suzanne.”

On the morning of April 27^th I sipped bitter coffee watching some figment of my former woman efficiently preparing for another school day, but now without a single soothing syllable; feeling sorry for myself within this saddest of silences – an empty atmosphere I acknowledge to be of my own making…

I’m desperate enough to complain – but grudgingly admit that this June may indeed be the end of everything, including her glorious garden – “Elizabeth’s Eden!”

She wouldn’t dare leave and if she does try it, I’ll stop her at any price, I will!

And while Liz once produced the most beautiful bounty of flowers, I am stuck here in a “Gethsemane” of my own creation. I played around with booze and lost. Why did I leave Alcoholics Anonymous for this bane existence of merely borrowing time? April 27^th and it’s been thirty-one days since my last drink, but it’s been “one miserable day at a time” if I may borrow a phrase from my old meeting room – a “Dry Drunk” for certain…

As quickly as she departed I went shopping for the foods to make one of her favorite meals – had to do something – and do it quickly…

While in town, I decide to stop at one of my beer outlets, hesitatingly purchasing two six-packs of a favored IPA, suffering instant remorse; if life as we’ve known it is coming to a closure, I had no intention of being sober; I hid the contraband in the winter-coat closet behind no longer needed boots…

It was only eleven am when I turned on TV to watch elected Washington celebrities in action on “C-SPAN.” After barely ten minutes of this activity I grabbed two beers and was soon guzzling away…

“April is the cruelest month.” Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia went on and on while steadfastly facing the sweeping tide of his Republican opposition…

I have been steadfast as well – mightily struggling in support of a political personality upon my screen, this almost-hilarious comedy revealing a tireless man with no real control of his own body’s gyrations. I was saddened because there was an impending sense of tragedy as well surrounding West Virginia’s iconic “liberal” – this character who has cast himself in the role of our “nation’s conscience” – our “voice of reason” – our “John the Baptist crying out from the wilderness” against excessive self-righteousness…

Critics, coming from the right, want me to know that Senator Byrd was – once upon a time in America – “Mr. Robert Byrd of the Ku Klux Klan” – a role many of the man’s detractors would have relished themselves, if they had been alive forty or fifty years ago.

I have every reason to doubt the validity of the senator’s accusers, and no good reason as well. I ask myself, how could such a man, a man of such strong conviction, how could he possibly have become a member of “The South’s Evil Clan?”

The answer I arrive at: because he is such a man, he has always expressed himself with honest conviction.

I attempt forgiveness, understanding – to exhibit the quality of mercy I may soon need for myself.

“April is the cruelest month.” Byrd repeats T.S. Elliot again and over again while wagging his entire body at President Bush, our accidental president for whom neither I nor the golden-tongued senator is able to show one drop of mercy. Recalling what did happen on my fated March 26^th, only one month and one day removed I sob…

I certainly did promise my weary wife then that I would never drink again; I did state my promise on that March 26^th --- the day I almost burned our house down.

I begged her not to spill the brandy down the drain; I promised I would return to AA rather than ever take another sip of any alcoholic beverage. Finally I pleaded: “you’ll need it for your back Elizabeth.”

It’s a familiar tune to the wife: “I’m finished with your lies. Did you hear me HENRY JACKSON? --- I’M FINISHED! Get honest sir, I hardly have an opportunity to touch the stuff with you around.”

“I am powerless over alcohol.” I plead in some vain attempt to reaffirm Step I – just like the old days attending my AA Meetings...

On that cold March night, with the house still smelling of burnt offerings she did shout: “I HATE YOU!” Next, she dumped the sacred juice down the drain.

I restlessly slept on the couch in the living room with the television deliberately blasting…

After school the next Monday, March 29^th, after a weekend of hell, my wife entered the house at 5:22 pm, and as soon as she had arrived, I "pledged my troth" once again: “I’m returning to AA. Not today, but soon, I promise you. Please Elizabeth, please forgive me.”

“I’m leaving you Henry. I’m going to get my own place and you can have this house and every God-forsaken penny of your retirement to drink away.” The wife seemed sincere in telling it to me this time; she seemed to actually have a plan.

April Fools’ Day silently hath passed away, but still it lives for an eternity within me…

It was 4:30 and I have emptied my 12 bottles of beer, and there was no lasagna for Liz, barely time enough to risk driving back into town during rush hour while drunk – however, I stopped myself from attempting this seemingly impossible task; despite my compromised condition the brain rejected stupidity.

I telephoned “Frankfurter’s Pennsylvania Dutch Restaurant” and arranged for them to deliver the woman’s “favorite chicken pot pie.”

My redemption through “Liz’s Luscious Lasagna” will have to wait until tomorrow, if maybe I am able to come back to my senses by then…

I return the 12 bottles – drained of their 6.9% alcohol by volume – back into their containers, hiding them behind the boots…

Was Chaucer wrong when he sang of “Aprille with his swich licour?”

Today my astute allies Robert Byrd and Thomas Sterns Elliot seem so wise in their proclamations: “April is the cruelest month.” – However, it doth remain with less than four days…

Vainly I mumble my desperate prayer: “please dear God – might not this foolish month conclude uneventful at 19 Schneider Circle?”