Jack was with the boys. Marsha knew this. She had known it as she dialed the number. She had known it as she set the receiver to her ear. There were no secrets, that was why it irritated him.
“Hello?” Jack said.
“Hi baby.” Marsha replied.
“Yeah, what is it?” He wanted to get back to the card game. He was willing to listen if it was some sort of emergency, but there was really no reason to talk to her just now. He had been with her for most of the week after all.
“Nothing, I just wanted to hear your voice.” Her voice trailed off into that kind of playful tone that she only ever used when she wanted to manipulate him. She’d never pull it out to get a rise out of him just for his own sake. Not just to please him, lord no! He could picture her laying in bed, playing with the cord as she talked to him. She was wrapping it around her fingers. It was being stretched between her painted toes.
“Listen baby, I’m sorry, but I can’t talk now.” Jack shrugged uncomfortably. The room was silent in the background. The usual banter had stopped. He was looking the other way but he could sense the smirks on the boys’ faces. They were waiting to see how whipped he was. They were waiting to see what Marsha would get him to say. It was humiliating. He had explained the situation to her. She understood it. She wasn’t an idiot. She was the equal of a man after all. Isn’t that what he had been taught? Isn’t that what society had repeatedly drilled into him? Why then, he wondered, couldn’t she learn the situations in witch to keep her mouth shut. Even men had to do that at times. All men.
“Oh, but I miss you.” He could hear the pout.
“I know.”
“I mean I really miss you.”
“I know, look, I can’t talk know.”
He heard a laugh from behind him and his temper flared up. Was she using him? Why was his humiliation a necessary part of the proof of his love for her? Why couldn’t she have a little respect for the situation? He only went out once a week. He was with her the rest of the time. Why couldn’t she leave him in peace?
“I love you.” She said in that expectant way. Briefly Jack wondered if declaring that on the condition of a reply voided the sentiment.
“I know.” He said back.
“Don’t you love me?” She kept at him.
“I can’t talk now.”
“Tell me you love me Jack.”
The boys were all laughing now. They’d all been there. Sure they were hiding it with their mouths behind their hands, but Jack could hear it. It was worse than if they were laughing outright. Rage flashed through him. Now, no matter what, they were going to get on him about his nagging girlfriend. They were going to say....”Jack, tell me you love me.” And he was going to have to sit there and stew and put up with it. His one night a week. His one night to hang out with the boys and she had to stick her little selfish nose into it and add her negative contribution to the ambiance.
All that talk of feelings and sensitivity. What about his feelings? What about her sensitivity for what he went through? She flew off the handle if he asked her to pass him a fork in public. But apparently she felt different rules applied to her.
“Listen Marsha!” The tone of his voice brought a sharp exhalation of shock from both the boys at the table and the girl at the other side of the line. He had made up his mind. He had decided to stop letting her dictate the terms. “I’m not going to say it! I’m not going to say it because I don’t think I would mean it. This is the type of thing that I didn’t want to discuss where people were around to hear, but you wouldn’t take the hint! You kept pushing me and pushing me and pushing me and now we have this big scene. All the boys are behind me and they are laughing at you now. I’m sorry, it isn’t what I wanted and I did everything I could to make it come about a different way but you never have been too sharp at picking up my subtle signals. Maybe you’ll have learned something for your next relationship. Good-bye!” And he slammed the telephone to the cradle.
Jack walked over to the table and sat there staring down at the cards. The boys didn’t say anything, but it was obvious they held him in a kind of awe. There would be no razing. He could just play the game.
For a flashing moment he was grateful to Marsha. Grateful that she had been there on the other end of the line to be humiliated for him. Grateful that he could unburden the humiliation onto somebody else. Granted she had created the whole situation, but still her last act had been an unselfish one. Even if he had to make it come about. Even if he had to essentially take it.
It was kind of an illusion to be satisfied, but it was the only one that he was granted. A fantasy of kindness where there really was none. He was a man, and he had been groomed through years by the hard hand of culture to accept whatever fragments of goodness came trickling down to him. The real morsels were left to the women, the real emotional support. Jack knew in most man/woman conflicts the man would be chosen the instigator by default, but he didn’t even question that anymore. He just hoisted up that burden of guilt and did his best work from beneath it.
He picked up the cards he had been dealt. He played them alone, without complaint.
The End