by Lanny DeVuono.
I used to say I was done with relationships, just done. But after Tom, I don’t say that anymore. I just know I’m done. A swan song, I guess.
Family narratives would have me unlucky in romance, but family narratives, like any history, serve those on top. It’s true, however, that when looking at my own romantic record, it’s pretty mottled. Before Tom, I’d had one significant relationship in terms of both years (not so long, but over fifteen) and two children (very significant, still here and thank god). Libido being what it is in one’s forties, I did have some lovers after my children’s father and I split up, but nothing significant that caused more than a few days, maybe a month’s worth, of bother. I’m older now. Even within the range of current life-expectancy statistics, I am on the decline. Not that I feel declining myself. I am in good health, walk a lot, have occasional back pain (lumbar spine), and do yoga two times a week. So when my girl friends talk about relationships, I’m supportive and don’t say too much. If they get to a part where the guy has suddenly asked to borrow a large sum of money, or more frequently, has simply disappeared, I state the usual platitudes, the kind of things that riddled self-help books in the early ‘90s. Yeah, I know, right?, or It’s hard, most men our age are threatened by accomplished women, or All the good men are happily married, or simply, You’re too good for him. But it doesn’t matter. Some people are just wired for romantic relationships. I was not, yet for nearly seven months I lived with the perfect man.
I see myself as an in-betweener. We’re termed baby boomers, a demographic description of sheer volume. But I see us as in-betweeners, because I was a teenager during the sexual revolution before abortions were legal and the pill was still hard to get. I was part of the 50% divorce rate, I grew up in an era when some of my friends had kids in their twenties while others waited until their forties. Neither here nor there, neither 100% wife nor 100% career women. The latter is an old fashioned term used to describe working women from the middle class as a matter of choice rather than necessity, but everyone knows that now there are very few families that can afford to not have at least every adult working. It’s economic. All hands on deck, and if all hands are on deck, I want to be the one determining what those hands are doing.
So, when I think of model couples, and I occasionally do, if only to prove a point, the few I can name always include the Smiths. They lived across the street on Elm when I was a kid. Mrs. Smith wasn’t elegant (something my mother valued alongside that nebulous quality she termed wit), but she was refined. And she was educated in a way my mother’s other friends were not. When my mom said, “You know, Helen went to Smith College,” I assumed my mother’s slightly reverent tone was somehow related to the fact that Mrs. Smith had gone to a college specifically named after her, and this raised her in my estimation. I liked Mrs. Smith too. I liked the way she was with her children, the way she had of coolly questioning them, rather than the rougher interrogations I was used to. The Smiths had a vegetable garden, something unheard of in my tidy suburban neighborhood, and it amazed me that one could both grow things and then eat them afterwards. One day Mrs. Smith showed me her chives, an herb that, up until that point, I had never tasted. She kindly told me that I could have some whenever I wanted. A few days later, in a misjudgment of how to harvest, I ended up pulling out the entire batch of chives and brought the rangy stems in their full clot of dirt home to my mother as a gift. Naturally she was upset and immediately sent me back across the street to apologize. While I hadn’t realized that pulling up the whole plant was wrong at the time, after seeing my mother’s reaction, I was nervous about bringing it back. But Mrs. Smith just looked at me calmly as I stammered out an apology and simply said she was sure that wouldn’t happen again.
I liked Mr. Smith too. He was a bit more rumpled than his wife, wearing baggy brown suits, and he had a habit of pushing his glasses further up his nose while considering what to say. And that is something they both seemed to do—consider their speech.
But why they exist in my very small pantheon of couples worth admiring is the way they spoke to one other. They seemed to enjoy themselves. When Mr. Smith came home, he would push up his glasses in a single happy motion and quietly say something to Mrs. Smith. I can’t now think of what it could have been, but something, and Mrs. Smith would say something back to him and he would say something back to her and they would chuckle together. Their pleasure in each other was tangible, Not sexy, or at least I didn’t see it that way then, but simply as if they amused each other very much.
On the flip side of that, I’ll also always remember another couple I didn’t know. It was right after Jack and I’d split up in New York. I’d moved to a small town in Washington State and was sad, worried about being lonely, and apprehensive. The fantasy of living happily ever after was over, and I was in an elevator heading to my first check-up with my newly acquired health insurance. A couple entered, probably the age I am now. They seemed old. The woman started to press a button, whereupon the man immediately screamed, three, three, three, in rapid succession. Then, Don’t you listen; didn’t you hear me? She seemed embarrassed, but apparently this was their routine, because instead of honoring the fact that they weren’t alone, she took a performative stance and said, Ok, Mr. Wise Guy, I made a mistake, where upon the man muttered, Stupid, stupid, and he told her, but was really announcing it to all of us on the elevator, You know what your trouble is? You don’t listen, all you ever do is talk, talk. She demurred a little and he grumbled as if to himself, but certainly loud enough for us, his captive audience, to hear, You’re embarrassing yourself.
It made me happy. I walked out of that elevator into the doctor’s office realizing that I had received a gift. It was as if the universe had just let me know that I would never have to reach that forty-year, proximate stage of utter disgust for another human being. I felt free.
But that was twenty-three years ago and things changed. I met Tom.
To say that Tom was a small man is simply true. He came into my life over ten years ago—ten years, four months and three days. I remember it clearly. I was walking along a side street, unmarked as so many are in the area, when I noticed this homeless couple. At least they looked homeless. They were dressed in odd, frayed, mixed remnants of fabrics and the woman was calling out that she just needed a little bit– of what I did not exactly hear.
So, I stopped and rummaged around in my pocket for a dollar I knew was there and gave it to the woman in the way any liberal does, looking directly above her eyes. I walked away and before I’d gone a half a block, I heard her call out to me again. It was loud and almost as unclear as her initial request had been, but the Hey you, was unmistakable. I turned around and saw she was grinning at me. Yeah, you. She stood up and even at this distance—it may have been 100 feet—the woman was huge. She was a giant standing up, well over six feet, maybe seven, She took off her hat, which had first impressed me as ridiculous, but now as this seven-foot tall figure gestured with it in her left hand, it seemed courtly. The bearded man sitting next to her on a bench was hunched over, and he did not stand, so I couldn’t really determine if they were a set pair of Titans or not. I stopped, though, and squinted to see them better without moving much closer than a few feet. Yeah, the woman repeated, You. After looking around, assessing that there were no other people, but realizing it was broad daylight, an afternoon on an early day in fall, I walked back towards the couple. But slowly. Come here, the woman continued, the words slightly muffled, softened so it sounded like “comeere.” I was cautious, now noticing that they had an elaborate looking bundle at their feet. It was covered in a patchwork of embroidered fabric, with parts of some shiny polyester or silk material binding its corners, and a large leather strap to keep its awkward shape together. The woman said, Don’t be scared, and then thrust out the package. She was almost two feet taller than me, and I’m sure I was shaking my head, muttering, No, no thanks. But the giant wouldn’t take no for an answer. With her long and powerful hand she simply pushed the object into my chest, at which point my hands went up instinctively, and I ended up with the thing in my arms. Obviously I didn’t want to drop it for fear of offending the woman. It smelled faintly sweet and felt warm. The man added, No worries, it’s a gift, while I just stood there, now actually clutching on to the bundle as they walked almost regally down the street.
I peered at the object in my arms. It was heavy and there was the sound of a small intake of breath. So I sat down at the bench and slowly peeled back the top layer of the brocade that seemed most likely to open without the whole item unraveling. Inside I saw one small brown eye.
My surprise was so great it seemed like I had been staring at that eye for several moments, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, when while still carefully holding both sides of the swaddling securely to the bench, I yanked my head up and yelled, Hey. You. Hey! But the couple, so brilliant in their dress, and able to be seen for blocks, were now nowhere in sight. I looked down, the being’s one eye still staring, unsure what I should be doing, I simply scooped the package up and—not hugging it too close—carried it chest high and walked home.
My house is small. It is what was commonly referred to as a mother-in-law unit, turned condo, and the big house in front is rented out to innumerable busy university students whose names I’d yet to learn. As quickly as I could, shuffling the bundle a bit under one arm to navigate the lock, I pushed open the door, turned on the light, and put the bundle on the couch. It still hadn’t made any sounds other than its soft breathing, which actually sounded a bit like snoring.
Inside, I started to undo the layers, removing the leather, carefully unfolding the fabrics. I noticed no movement. If it had not been for the light wheezy sounds and an occasional soft snort or snuffle, I would have been worried. The wrapping was elaborate and took some time. The sweet smell I’d originally noticed seemed embedded in the brocade, which was not only around the figure’s face, but another piece tightly binding the tiny form. The smell was now identifiable: English Leather. I was relieved to notice that there was no urine or shit, then stopped. What I saw was surprising but not as startling as what I then heard. The baby—it wasn’t a baby—was an old man. He was dressed in a perfectly styled, if somewhat wrinkled, tweed blazer, a black T-shirt and a pair of black jeans. And he was under two feet tall.
He was talking. I realize now that it was his kind of nervous patter but at the time it was comforting. He had a somewhat deep baritone. His use of language was careful, and he was explaining. I wasn’t certain that posing as a foundling was such a good idea, but, he glanced around, They thought it would be easier and it appears to have worked, hmmm? The last was a sort of guttural uplifted hum accompanied by a wide smile showing what were proportionally large teeth in his very small face. He ran his fingers over his stubbly chin. Excuse me, he asked, But may I use your bathroom? He went, and I started to follow him. Excuse me, he said again and firmly closed the door. I didn’t know it at the time, but I do now. He peed in the shower as the toilet was too high to reach. Later, after we’d been living together for a few days, adjustments were made: a small set of stairs here and there, some low chairs and tables. We did just fine. That sort of stuff wasn’t so hard. And falling in love was so easy.
That first night, after he came out of the bathroom, he straightened his jacket and asked me about myself, as if I was the one who’d been given away on the street. He had that ability to elicit information, to draw people out. It’s a charm really, and most people don’t do it well. They ask questions and then fill in their own answers, or don’t listen enough to carry the thread onward. Not Tom; he did it very well. Within minutes I was fixing us drinks and telling him about myself. He was loose and breezy. He told me a little about himself. He hadn’t always been this small. It was a medical experiment, he said. He’d worked in finance for Goldman Sachs, but never identified with the business. In fact, he said, he’d majored in film as an undergraduate. I wanted, of course, to ask him more. Of course, I did and now, of course, I regret I didn’t. But he always deflected with a slight shake of his head, a little sad, as he’d let his smile recede, and in a quieter tone, ask about me. I learned, as one does in relationships, that some things shouldn’t be said–that a charmed relationship relies on the charm of trust. So I talked, he talked, we talked together. We did that nearly nonstop the first night of his arrival, drinking whisky, laughing and finally falling asleep, spooned up against each other on the floor.
Living with Tom was like I’d always imagined the Smiths. I told him about them. He asked what happened to them, but naturally I didn’t know. It had been so long ago. I was still working then, and when I’d come home from work at a small state university, he’d ask me about my day and really want to hear about it—sordid details of academic infighting, ridiculous tales of cut backs—stuff that doesn’t concern me at all now and that, in retrospect, I can’t believe was of any real interest to him. He kept up his own end of the conversation too, for he was a voracious reader of fiction as well as an American history buff. His analysis of current events was not only entertaining, in the short time we lived together, it was more than once, positively prescient. His analysis of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were nuanced. He liked to watch comedy and we laughed together at Jon Stewart, Louis C K, although I suspect he’d be as put off by the latter now as I am. He was of my generation and said he’d known people like Ted Kaczynski. He told me stories about other math wizards gone awry.
At one point, I remember him telling me about the 19th century Battle of Mier, an earlier time of border tensions between the US and Mexico. It started because he referred to the couple as the Miers. I didn’t always understand him and when he first referred to them as Miers, I said, Mere? They were huge. He laughed and said, Not mere—m-i-e-r as in the Battle of Mier. It was during the first few days of our relationship when this came up and I’d tentatively begun again to ask him about how he’d come to be packaged up. He had laughed and said, Oh, the Nephilim, the Texans? I call them the Miers. They’re all right, he said reflectively as if I’d asked about them rather than him. But, he added, I’m here now, and I really don’t want to talk about the past. Or, he added, Mine.
He reached out to hug my leg and I let myself down to the floor and we made love. For the prurient, let me say, it was perfect. For the technical, let me say, use your own imagination. The Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli was singing on the radio that night. We were listening to an obscure program dedicated to musical has-beens and Tom was delighted. Bocelli, he chuckled, laughing a bit, but to this day (or night, usually) I’ll often make myself a whiskey and listen to Bocelli sing Por tí volaré, just wallowing in memories of a time when Tom and I were together and happy. The point is Tom was the most perfect man I’d ever met. Maybe not perfect for others, but perfect for me. I found waking up to him easy. I found coming home to him easy. And sleeping with him was wonderful.
We had to make some changes, of course, and most of them Tom did himself. He was fearless about wiring, for example, and knew exactly what needed to be done when the oven stopped working. His size was useful for relighting the pilot light, but even when his size wasn’t an advantage, he knew how to identify the problem. He wasn’t afraid of heights; he cleaned the gutters, set mousetraps on the roof and under the house. And he was neat. I found myself regularly coming home to a house cleaner than when I’d lived alone.
It’s true that we went out less. My friends, liberals every one, didn’t take to Tom the way I might have hoped. One friend, and I suspect she was speaking for several, took me out for a glass of wine one evening, and after three of them, confided in me that she thought our relationship was peculiar. She stumbled over the words, loathe to identify physical traits as suspect. She said, Do you think, do you think that maybe because…. She stumbled even more here, Because, well because he is so tiny, that it’s not… More stumbling, An equitable relationship? I watched relief dawn on her face as she settled into those last two words. If equality of size is a determinant in relationships, I told her firmly, Then you have at least one hundred pounds to go. I was referring to Charlie, her husband, of course. She was quiet then, ordered another glass of wine, and I spent a few more minutes asking about friends I didn’t see any more in our formerly standard, slightly gossipy way to indicate that I hadn’t taken offense. I really hadn’t.
It wasn’t lost on me—or Tom—that we were in an odd situation. Out in the world, people would often stare, or pretend not to. He didn’t even come up to my waist. We solved it by not going out that much together and for six, nearly seven months we were somewhat cocooned with each other. At least I thought we were. In retrospect I realize that I missed a number of signs I should have noticed. In this, I have to admit, I was a bit oblivious, but they were small, quick little oblique things. I now remember him once asking something to the effect that what if I hadn’t brought him home. I responded by saying, what choice did I have? They pushed you into my arms. The phrase about shadows crossing faces might apply here, as for a second, one did his. It was so brief I barely noticed.
Then, one day, it couldn’t have been more than a week later, Tom suggested we go out together. It was daytime, and we didn’t often go out in the day, as people would look at us, or, more often, not look at us and then do some version of a double take, or give us furtive backward glances as they walked ahead. But that day, Tom said he wanted to go shopping with me. As we started down the street I saw them. The couple. The Meirs, One and Two. I wouldn’t have recognized them, but Tom grabbed my hand tightly and muttered something. They were different. No longer were they dressed in elegant rags, this day they just looked like normal Berkeley people out for a walk: he in an ill-fitting jacket and a pair of dark jeans and she in an Eileen Fisher looking tunic with a yellow down vest. But they were still noticeably tall, and that, along with Tom’s tight squeeze on my wrist alerted me to their presence. Well, well, well. It looks like things have gone swimmingly. They beamed at us like we were both their invention. Tom, the man I loved, who was incredibly competent, able and erudite, was frozen and silent. He seemed to know something I did not. I looked up, at first confused by their presence, by the tension on my wrist and then the inverse, the sudden, awful release of tension on my wrist as Tom walked right up to them. I can’t say honestly that his face looked reluctant when he turned back to me for a second. I ‘ve thought about that look so many times over the past few months, but I can never be sure what it meant. Mier One hoisted him up on his shoulders in a manner that seemed almost disrespectful and the three of them walked away.
I was frozen for a moment and then, almost immediately, ran after them, of course, or tried to, but as on the day they’d given him to me, they just sort of melted away.