Crying

  On Sunday, I have dinner with my parents.  For two years now, it’s been part of our routine, a weekly confirmation that we can still tolerate each other.  We have the same meal of roast beef, sit in our usual places, and have similar conversations to what we always have.  But this Sunday was different.       

  The first thing I noticed was that the table setting was wrong.  The roast beef was on a double-stacked paper plate instead of the usual serving platter, causing the juices to soak through and spill onto the table.  Also, the roast beef was on the edge of the table instead of in the center like it should have been.  The potatoes and gravy were on opposite sides of the table, napkins were missing, flowers were missing, and there was just an unexpected randomness to the arrangement.  My mother made a token effort to correct this, but in the end she just shifted a couple of bowls and plates to no effect.  She then threw her hands up in the air, but even her gestures lacked their usual enthusiasm.  “It’s as good as it’s going to be,” she said. 

  I looked to my father for some explanation, but he apparently hadn’t notice anything unusual.  His head hung towards the table as if in extended prayer.  "We’ll eat if we’re hungry,” he said.

  “I suppose so,” my mother agreed, sad but not hurt.  She sat next to my father and allowed him to momentarily pat her hand.  That was all wrong too.  My parents never sat beside each other at the table.  They sat across from each other, even when it was just the two of them.  Probably since the first day of their marriage, it had been that way.  But this… this looked like they were sharing a ride on a bus; they were so removed from each other.  And I started to feel out of place, like I wasn’t really there at all.   

  I began helping myself to the food, hoping that the act of eating would restore some sense of normalcy to our table.  Or maybe I just wanted to distract myself – sometimes I could do that.  “Are you okay?” I finally asked, looking from my father to my mother. 

  “Sure,” my father said, just barely interested. 

  “Hmm?” my mother added.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”  I asked, speaking to my father. 

  “Just a little tired,” he assured me.  “When you get older you don’t have the same energy you used to.” 

  “I suppose.”  I had them pass me the mixed fruit and bread, and I passed them the potatoes.  They didn’t even look at the food, but gave a perfunctory scoop to whatever was near them, and they did pass me the mixed fruit and bread. 

  "How’s work?" my father asked, his voice weary and slight. 

  “I haven’t had a job in a month, Dad.  You know that.” 

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” he said.  “It’s hard to remember everything.”  He shook some pepper over his plate.  “Have you seen the new film yet?” he asked. 

  I took this to be a good sign and smiled.  “No, not yet.  Is it any good?”

  My mother made a muffled whimpering sound and then quickly got up from the table. 

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  My father shrugged as he watched her disappear from the kitchen.  “It’s just very sad.” 

  “What is?”

  “The movie.  We were talking about the movie.” 

  It occurred to me that maybe they had been fighting, but that it was a different, quieter type of fighting.  Somehow that made it even more unsettling.  I didn’t know what to say so I asked him about the movie.  “So what made it so sad?” I asked him. 

  He didn’t answer and neither of us ate or talked for a few minutes until my mother returned.  When she did, she was dabbing her eyes with a green-and-white handkerchief. 

  “Marge, I was telling him about the movie,” my father said.  His voice was louder but still a thin echo of what it should have been.

  “Oh,” she said, sniffling loudly.  “Let’s not talk about it.” 

  Typical.  I assumed that my mother had caused the argument – she caused the majority of them, mostly because she had a particular way of wanting things and the stubborn persistence to ensure we accommodated her.  Maybe she had sabotaged our Sunday dinner in retaliation for something.  With my father looking so lifeless, maybe she had found a new way of breaking his spirits.  Her crying could do that.  I couldn’t be sure though so I decided to just ask her:  "Mom, what’s the matter?”

  She ignored me. 

  "The potatoes look good," my father said.  He continued to stir them with his fork. 

  I tried some of the mashed potatoes and nearly spit them back out.  The potatoes had been cooked but the gravy was refrigerator cold. “What the hell?  You didn’t heat up the gravy?”

  “I must have forgot,” my mother said, disinterested.  She turned to my father.  “Fred, I forgot to heat the gravy.”

  “Jason, it’s just gravy,” my father said. 

  “You gotta be kidding me.”  My voice was intentionally loud, trying to startle them into some sort of recognition.  It did nothing.  At least they weren’t fighting, I thought.  I microwaved the entire plate of food and then just concentrated on eating.  I didn’t ask any more questions.  The thought that my parents were just two strangers on a bus came back to me and lingered. 

  “You want some more roast?" my mother eventually asked.  She wasn’t looking at me.

  "No."

  "What about the potatoes?  We have a lot of potatoes."  She stirred them with a spoon.  "I suppose they’re lumpier than usual."

  "They're fine," I assured her.  "I'm just not that hungry."

  "I wish they were better."  She looked down at the bowl of potatoes and started to cry again, a whimpering series of gasps that sent tears down her cheeks.  She put the green-and-white handkerchief to her eyes in an attempt to calm herself, but then once more got up and retreated from the kitchen.

  I looked to my father, but he sat with his head bowed, tears beginning to roll down his face as well.  Occasionally, he dabbed his face with a similar green-and-white handkerchief. 

  "Dad, what is it?" I asked.

  "It can’t be helped," he answered.  "No matter how good something seems….  Poor girl!”  He slid his chair backwards and left the table.

                   *                    *                    *

  In the living room, I turned on the television and there was a preacher hammering his fists weakly on the pulpit and offering strained words of encouragement to the congregation.  He spoke of a girl named Susan and the mere mention of her caused his voice to crack and give out.  Soon he was sobbing loudly and wiping his eyes with a green-and-white handkerchief.  He stepped away from the pulpit and sat down on the edge of the stage.  There, he leaned forward and cried without shame, his face covered by his hands and the handkerchief, his body shaking in great wracks of grief. 

  There was a similar transformation amongst the crowd.  People rocked back and forth in calamitous grief, like the surge of a violent ocean.  Some threw their arms towards heaven, while others leaned forward as if they had just been punched in the stomach.  And everywhere were the green-and-white handkerchiefs.  It made no sense.  None of it.  But amongst all of this, there were a handful of people apparently unaffected.  They had the same bewildered expression that I must have had.  Something had happened – something big – and we had somehow been excluded from the sadness. 

    I turned the channel to a football game, except there was no football being played.  The camera showed just a smattering of fans and players, most of whom were crying.  Home Shopping Network – people crying, Local News – people crying.  And again, green-and-white handkerchiefs were everywhere.  I switched off the television.

                   *                    *                    *

  The center of town, with the bulk of the stores and restaurants, was less than a mile away, but I was happy to be outside and away from my parents.  The people I passed looked like those from the television, except that I knew most of them.  The majority were crying or just on the verge and few of them seemed in any condition to explain what was happening.  This was probably for the best; the criers were getting on my nerves. 

  I eventually made it to the town’s center where the movie theater, shoe store, and ice cream parlor came together in a neat row just across the road from the courthouse.  A large throng was gathered by the movie theater with some people waiting in line, but most of them were just milling about in various states of grief.

  I did find the source of the handkerchiefs.  There was a stand, not unlike a lemonade stand, and it was being worked by a rather obese stranger who was adding bills to an already large roll of money.  I moved closer. 

  “Ten dollars!” he yelled to me.

  For a handkerchief? I thought.  Is he out of his mind?

  The vendor turned his attention to a woman who had edged in beside me.  In a matter of seconds, he took the woman’s money and completed their transaction. 

  “What’s with everyone?” I asked. 

  “People are sad,” he said, not at all concerned.  He looked around, but apparently I was the only potential customer.  “You gonna buy one or what?”

  “No,” I said, even though I felt a nagging urge to do so, mostly because everyone else seemed to have one.

  “Fine,” he said.  “But don’t stand around here.”

  “What?”

  ”If you’re not buying, I don’t want you standing here.”  The vendor smiled affably, a big gap-toothed grin that was unpleasant and mocking.  “You should go home,” he advised.  “Or go see the movie – I don’t care.” 

  "Movie?”

  "Yeah,” he said.  “You know what I’m talking about.” 

  Just then, two people moved in beside me, sniffling and crying.  Both held ten dollars in their hands, eager to buy one of the handkerchiefs.  I watched for a moment longer and then left.

  As I continued to walk around, it struck me that the vendor seemed to be the only person not affected by the hysterical sadness.  The only other person anyway.  Maybe greed somehow overcame sadness.  Still, aside from this one commonality with the vendor, I was isolated, as alone as you could be in a crowd of so many.  More than anything, I wanted to understand why everyone was acting this way, to share in their sadness if that’s what it took.  Or maybe what I needed to do was…  My thoughts were interrupted. 

  I noticed Neil Fowler sitting on a nearby bench, slumped forward and crying like pretty much everyone else.  As far as enemies go, he was pretty mild but I suppose that everyone has that one person you can’t stand and who hates you right back in return.  We’d fought a couple of times when we were younger – nothing serious – and as we got older, it graduated to a more restrained hatred of one another. 

  Anyway, I walked over to where he was sitting and just hovered over him for a minute or so, feeling a sense of dominance and strength.  I then pulled my arm back in an exaggerated windup and I slapped him across the back of the head as hard as I could.  In baseball, it would have been a home run.  My hand stung from the impact and I almost laughed to see his head ricocheting forward and back like a bobble-head.  No real harm was done, but it did make me feel better, even if just temporarily.  Maybe it was no more than taking advantage of an opportunity or maybe I went after him because I couldn’t hit everyone.  As much as anything, I think I hit him because he was crying.  It was a selfish thing to do and a distraction that I didn’t need.  Looking back I should have showed some restraint, but a crisis doesn’t always bring out the best in people. 

  After that, I decided to find someone who could explain what was happening.  I steered away from the worst cases in the crowd (and I would have been hard-pressed to understand most of them anyway); and from a nearby cluster, I spotted a former girlfriend.   

  “Meg, what’s with everyone?” I asked, skipping past the polite greeting and feeling none of the usual awkwardness of seeing her again. 

  “Hey Jason,” she said, but except for knowing my name, she didn’t seem to recognize me at all.

  “What’s with everyone?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her eyes lacking even the slightest sparkle of comprehension or enthusiasm.  “I can’t believe it happened.  Why would it be like this?”

  “What?”

  “Poor Susan,” she said, seemingly talking to herself.  “I can’t believe that he left her....  Not just left, he abandoned her.  He’s supposed to come back.  He promised!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She took a step backwards, obviously displeased at having her thoughts interrupted.  “The movie!” she snapped. 

  Normally, I would have teased her over something this ridiculous, but I had lost my impulse for fun.  “All this is about a movie?”   

  “It’s not a movie,” she said.

  “You just said—“

  “It’s not a movie!” she insisted, and then she was sobbing.  I put my arms out and hugged her softly, and all of a sudden I remembered how good it felt to hold her.  It occurred to me that this collective sadness might have some benefit, though I decided against taking advantage of it just then.  I didn’t rule it out for later though. 

  Once I let her go, she dropped her purse and then collapsed to the ground alongside it.  Like so many others, she held a green-and-white handkerchief to her eyes and cried without shame.  Soon, her crying blended in with similar sounds on all sides of me until it disintegrated into an ominous and desperate hum, so encompassing that it seemed to be the only real sound that existed.  This humming sound, the blur of green-and-white handkerchiefs, and the saltwater smell of despair swirled together around me.  I shifted my feet to counteract the dizziness I was feeling. 

  I began to think that the answer might be found in the crying itself.  I considered taking the pepper spray from Meg’s keychain and just aiming it between my eyes.  There was a strange appeal to this thought, as if an illogical problem needed an illogical solution.  But in the end I was too cowardly (or maybe too sensible) to follow through with it.  Strange that I didn’t take a moment to consider other options then, but the next step seemed inevitable.  There was really only one idea that made any sense. 

                   *                    *                    *

  “Separation and Sorrow” was showing on all three of the theater’s screens so I bought a ticket for the 6:45 show.  I tried sitting towards the back, but as other people crowded in, I moved to the front to get away from them.  It didn’t matter.  Within minutes, the theater was filled and I was surrounded by criers.  The atmosphere felt more like a support group than a movie crowd, and from what I could tell I was the only person who hadn’t already seen the film.  It seems strange to think of it, but I remember having this weird smile and just taking a moment to appreciate the surreal atmosphere and my own growing anticipation.  Somehow, this would all make sense. 

  My immediate neighbors made it through the opening credits without too much of an uproar but that was only temporary.  Once the main character Susan was introduced, the crowd was in tears.  She was about eighteen years old, a little too thin, and she had straight brown hair.  She was plain but not unattractive.  I think her teeth were her most prominent feature.  They were off-white and crooked and showcased a prominent chip in one of her upper front teeth.  She also had a small scar on her right cheek that was just barely noticeable.   

  "She’s beautiful," a female voice from behind me said.

  "Through no fault of her own," another lamented.

  The crowd was getting on my nerves, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.  I was trapped. 

  On screen, Susan waited near a pier, looking hopefully towards the open sea.  Eventually, a boat appeared and came closer.  Mark, the other star of this film, was on the boat and had returned to be reunited with Susan.

  "He's gonna break her heart," the woman beside me moaned and it seemed for a moment that she was talking to me specifically, as if to warn me of what might happen next.  That wasn’t the prevailing sentiment though.  The anticipated reunion brought a small buzz of hope from nearly everyone.  There was even a smattering of applause.

  Except for intermittent scenes of Mark’s boat drawing closer, the first two-thirds of the movie was mostly flashbacks of the two during an earlier courtship.  They had met at a wedding, then there was dinner at a restaurant, and several walks through fields and parks, and it had a nauseous, cheerful, greeting card feel to it.  Even worse, Susan was completely shallow and stupid.  She made observations such as "The sun is really bright today" and "I like flowers, especially the pretty ones" and "It feels so nice to be here."  Mark, for his part, did a lot of smiling for the camera, or smirking, or staring with his best effort at being seductive.  When he spoke, it was mostly to echo what Susan had said or to assure her of how beautiful she was.  The worst part was that the crowd hung on every word, responded to every gesture.  It was unbelievable. 

  People really are stupid – I guess I’ve always kind of thought that.  But this… this seemed to be approaching some lower limits of human taste and intelligence. 

  After an hour or so of Mark and Susan admiring each other, the story began to wind down.  On what would be their final date, they had planned a picnic.  Susan had brought sandwiches and fruit while Mark had brought wine and some flowers.  She took a bite of her sandwich, looked awkwardly towards him, and smiled.  Then he took a bite of his sandwich and smiled back at her.  This continued for a while and then both of them looked deeply into each other’s eyes until he eventually leaned forward and kissed her.  This was met with great approval, if not outright rejoicing, from those in the theater. 

  “But you don’t have to leave,” Susan said, pleading. 

  The crowd in the theater leaned forward, their tension rising.   

  “We talked about this,” he answered. 

  “That’s not true,” the woman to my right insisted.  “They never talked about this at all.”

  “I know,” Susan replied.  “I’m just going to miss you so much.”

  “Love is everything,” he assured her.  “I will return.  And we’ll always be together.”

  “I know,” she said, and they kissed with feeling.

  "It's so sad," a man behind me said, just barely audible.

  "They belong together," another voice added.

  "He's gonna break her heart," the woman beside me said.  This time she seemed to be talking to herself. 

  The scene switched back to the present.  Susan waited on shore as the boat made its approach, Mark steering it closer until it drifted within a few feet of the pier.  Susan was still some fifty feet away and taking tentative steps forward, barely moving at all.  Then she stopped.  For a long moment, both Mark and Susan were motionless, frozen in time.  Suddenly Susan’s eyes jolted open and she jerked her body as if to start forward, as if to run to the pier and to Mark.  But her legs did not move.  It was like she had forgotten how to run.

  "Go!" screamed some in the crowd. 

  "Run, Susan!  You have to!" another shouted.  Seemingly everyone was yelling some type of encouragement.  And I’ll admit that I was hoping for her in some slight way as well.  The crowd screamed their exhortations, begging her to go to Mark….  But Susan did not move.  She stood in place and it soon became apparent that she would not run to Mark, perhaps could not run.  The crowd turned their hopes to Mark who didn’t appear to see her at all. 

  “Wait for her,” a voice screamed, but Mark was already turning the boat.  He looked back for her twice and just after the second time, Susan regained her legs and sprinted to the pier.  She called out to him, “Mark!  Mark!  Come back!”  But Mark did not hear her.  He did not look back a third time and the boat faded into the distance.  As it did, a look of horrific understanding overcame Susan.  She burst into tears and as she did, the audience howled in sympathy. 

  "It's not fair," the woman beside me sobbed.

  "Why didn't she go?" a voice from behind me cried.

  “He left her!” added another.  “Why?  Why would he do that?”

  Others tried to express their feelings as well, but most were too overcome to do so coherently.

  The final scene showed the boat disappearing from view and Susan gathering herself just enough to pull a green-and-white handkerchief from her dress and wave it to Mark in farewell.  A hundred hands from the theater waved their handkerchiefs in return.  It was actually kind of touching.  The scene then turned to a shot of the open water, rippling but empty.  The credits started to roll, the lights of the theater came on, and we filed out with mine the lone dry face. 

  I walked in a direction away from most of the others and tried to make some sense of what I had been part of.  People really are stupid, I thought again, but not with the same intensity as before.  The film had been so pointless.  A mindless girl and her equally vacuous guy, neither one special or even all that interesting.  But still, they seemed to deserve each other.  There was no reason why the film should have ended like it did – it didn’t seem right.  A sensation of warmth came over me and I felt a hollowing anxiety that surprised me.  Surely, Mark would return, I told myself.  But then I realized that he had already returned, and that he had left without her.  For all their initial happiness, for all their possibilities together, they had lost their opportunity for something more.  As for Susan, she had made her decision and now all she could do was wait.  And waiting was pointless. 

  I mulled this over as people bumped and moved past me.  I had stopped moving and was feeling a shortness of breath that bordered on asphyxiation.  "It can’t end like this," I said out loud, knowing that it had.  Tears finally welled in my eyes.

  I suddenly realized that I did not have a green-and-white handkerchief.  At least it was something, I thought with near desperation -- a remembrance.  I pushed my way through the crowd and hustled towards the vendor.

  “Ten dollars?” I asked him as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

  “Fifteen,” he said, smiling like a schoolyard bully.  “So you saw the movie?”

  “Yeah, I saw it.  And it was a terrible movie – a terrible, beautiful movie....  I don’t understand why it...”  My crying became worse.  “I don’t understand.”

  He took my fifteen dollars and handed me a green-and-white handkerchief.                    
         *                    *                    *

  Writing doesn’t bring me much happiness, no more than anything else; but I started on this and I feel some obligation to finish.  Besides, there might be some value in remembering how it used to be.  Already my memories are growing more and more faint, and conversely the feelings of hopelessness grow worse.  Maybe there had been an opportunity to resist the sadness, to rally those who could still fight, and to find a way to bring relief to the others.  I suppose there probably was.  It just never occurred to me at the time. 

  Sometimes the sadness relents a little and I can sustain my focus to put a few sentences on paper.  Since my initial viewing, I’ve seen the movie thirty-seven more times.  And each time, Susan seems poised to take that first step towards the boat, but then she doesn’t.  Eventually, she will.  Part of me worries that she might never succeed, but I believe that she will.  She has to.  Each time I cheer for her louder, and one day -- maybe after many, many days -- she will proceed forward, she will get on the boat.  Until then, I cry.  Like everybody else.  I cry until my body is numb from the effort.  I cry because I have to -- what else is there?