Ten Cartons of Cigarettes and Six Quarts of Milk (for L.D.)

I grew up here in the suburbs, didn’t know much about much, didn’t date a lot in high school, so he was really my first guy. I was a waitress at Jay’s Steak House. They had us wear these low-cut blouses, short skirts and fishnets, so I probably did look pretty appealing, especially back then. … Well, thank you. But even so …. He used to come in every now and then and ask to sit at my station.

Then he invited me out one night. He had tickets to a Lakers game, and I’m a sports fan so I went and had a good time. He was funny and nice. We went out a couple of more times. Dinner dates, movies, a walk on the beach. … Yeah, he was older than me. … Gee, let me remember. Twenty-seven when we met. His cousin was getting married and he brought me to the wedding. So I met his family. Everything seemed OK.

He bought me an engagement ring and asked me to marry him. Yeah, I know, in hindsight, it was crazy, right? But I was nineteen. I thought maybe this is how these things happen. Well, I don’t know what I was thinking, really. But I said yes.

We put the wedding together right away, in just a couple of months. We met in January, got engaged at the end of February and set May 1st as the big day. Small ceremony, non-denominational, immediate family and friends, low-budget, but nice. We rented a hall that had a patio, there was a guitarist and a singer, they did jazz standards, “Sunny” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” We drank and danced and everybody got along fine. “Crazy kids,” I’ll bet they said. “And they just met. Isn’t love great?”

We took a ten-day cruise as our honeymoon. It was really nice. Luxury dining, swimming, stopping at the ports along the coast. On our way back home, we were standing on the deck watching the ocean go by, and there was another couple, I don’t know, fifty or sixty feet away. Maybe farther. Off in the distance, in any case. He heard them laughing. And suddenly he froze. He turned to me and asked:

“Are they laughing at me?”

And I told him, no, no, they can’t hear us, they’re not looking at us. They’re just having a good time.

He closed his eyes and gave his head a slight shake. I thought he was saying no, then I thought he was shaking off some acid flashback or something. I was a little concerned. But the cruise ended without anything else weird happening. I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but I wasn’t worried. I was nineteen. There was a lot I didn’t know.

After we got back from the cruise, I moved into his apartment. It was small, but it was in a nice complex. So there was a lot of activity over the next couple of days. You know, you can imagine, with a woman moving in, the clothes, the décor. Adding that feminine touch to his bachelor life. Maybe all the stimulation was good for him. Maybe all the activity kept his mind working. Maybe it was when he slowed down and his mind wandered – maybe that’s when the problems started.

It was a Friday. He was still off from work for the honeymoon. He had a job at his father’s mortgage company. We were sitting in the living room watching the Dodgers game. Suddenly, he started laughing. Nothing was funny, though. I looked at him. He didn’t know I was looking. He acted as if I weren’t there. He was transfixed by the TV. He was sitting there laughing at the Dodgers game.

So I watched his reactions, and I watched the TV. And I saw what was happening.

You know how the catcher gives the pitcher signals? Well, every time they showed that shot, the one from behind the mound where you see the catcher hold down two fingers or three fingers and the pitcher nods yes or no, he laughed, or said “oh yeah, that’s true,” or disagreed, or got this look on his face like he was in on the secret. And I knew he thought the players were communicating with him through their hand signals. …

What did I do then? I didn’t know what to do! I was – astounded. No, that doesn’t describe it correctly. I was disoriented, caught off balance, completely baffled. I was scared. I didn’t know if I should ask him what was going on, if I should shut the TV, if I should splash cold water on his face, or what. So I just watched. And he started getting worked up, more and more as the game went on.

“What?” he shouted after one hand signal. “Oh, no!”

Then he turned to me, and in kind of a frenzy, he said:

“Lisa! Go to the store now and get us ten cartons of cigarettes and six quarts of milk!”

I’m guessing that the catcher told him there was going to be shortages. Or something. I don’t know, I’m just guessing. But I took my cue and walked out the door. I went to the first pay phone I could find. Fortunately, I had his sister’s business card in my purse. I called her up and told her about what happened on the cruise and what was happening at the apartment.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “He’s told me that when he’s on his meds, he feels dead, like a zombie. I’ll bet he went off his meds to enjoy the wedding and the honeymoon. And Lisa, I gotta tell you, when he’s on his meds, he’s fine. But off his meds ….”

… Well, yes, I asked her why she didn’t tell me, why nobody warned me. She said it had been years since he’d had problems, that the meds had kept him under control, that they’d talked about it and he knew he’d have to stay on them for the rest of his life.

And then she said:

“Whatever you do, do not go back to the apartment.”

She told me to call county mental health and explain the situation to them. Meanwhile, she called the social worker. She told me to keep the front door within eyeshot so that if he tried to leave before they got there I could go and stall him. So I stood in the parking lot. And then I watched when they came and took him away. And they
really were wearing white coats. He struggled as they dragged him out of the apartment, but not that much. He could see me watching. That’s the last I ever saw of him.

My dad found a divorce lawyer through somebody he knew. It was an old guy, seventy or so, sole practitioner, at the end of his career, I think. Quiet. Reserved. Silver hair. Glasses. Hearing aids in each ear. I told him the whole story. He just sat there listening. When I was done, he didn’t respond for a few seconds. I thought maybe his hearing aids weren’t turned on. Then he said:

“That’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard.”

And this was a divorce lawyer who’d been practicing for years, decades maybe. You’d think he’d have heard worse, huh?

What should I do? I asked him.

“Sweetie, you don’t have to do anything,” he said. “I’ll take care of the divorce. No charge. You just forget it ever happened.”

… Yeah, really nice of him. That was the end of it. … No, I was never mad. And now, twenty years later, I’m even sympathetic. I understand why he went off his meds. You can’t live life like a zombie. Until I met you last week, that’s what my life was like, kind of. A zombie’s.

I married Paul two years later, and it was fine until now. The kids are great and I love them. But the routine, month after month, year after year. It turned me into a zombie. When you and I left the hotel that afternoon last week I walked outside and the trees were green and the sky was blue and I said to myself: Colors! I’m seeing them again! I’ve come back from the dead! So I kind of understand him now. Sometimes you’ve just got to come back to life, whatever the consequences … Thanks, I’m glad you had a good time, too, but it was more than just a good time for me. Like I said, I’m alive again.

Oh, and I wanted to mention: I still follow baseball, and I go to a game every now and then. But I don’t watch on TV. Ever. Can’t.