The Undertaker’s Wife

LEN GASPARINI

THE UNDERTAKER’S WIFE

 PROSE SERIES 79

GUERNICA

Toronto – Buffalo – Lancaster (U.K.)

2007  

Contents

Frank and Millie 

Absent Without Leave 

The Grass Is Greener 

Ghosts 

Ballroom Dancing for Beginners 

Winter Fantasy 

My Uncle Roy 

Laura 

The Rememberers 

The Automobile Graveyard 

Incident in an Elevator 

The Creeper 

Stranded 

A Day in June 

The Undertaker’s Wife 

Montego Bay 

For Leslie Thompson, Antonio D’Alfonso, Margaret Norman, and The Fangster

FRANK AND MILLIE

I turned twenty-one the day I graduated from boot camp at the naval training center in San Diego, California. It was a sunny July day. My recruit company and others took part in a full parade, with a band, color guard, and a special company carrying the flags of all fifty states. The usual U.S. military hoopla à la John Philip Sousa. Instead of a skinhead recruit, I was a seaman apprentice. The first distinguishing mark I had consisted of two diagonal navy blue stripes on the left sleeve of my service dress whites. But more important, on completion of training and before transfer to a duty station, I was granted a leave of two weeks. Of course I went home.

I would never have joined the U.S. Navy voluntarily. It was my well-meaning father who persuaded me to enlist. I chose the Navy for three reasons: I thought the Navy uniform – white hat, rolled neckerchief and bellbottoms – looked sexy; ships evoked adventure and mystery; lastly, the poetry of Hart Crane, which, together with his biography, I was reading at the time. Crane wrote beautifully of the sea. Sailors were his fetish. It all made a strong impression on me.

The Royal Canadian Navy didn’t want me because I was a high-school dropout. So I enlisted in the U.S. Navy, at its recruiting station in downtown Detroit. I had to sign up for four years. There was a swearing-in ceremony, the whole rigmarole. My recruiting officer was an aviation ordnanceman first class. So commenced my naval career at the NTC, on San Diego Bay. San Diego was and still is a huge fleet base. I saw ships and aircraft operating every day.

I traveled home by train. A three-day journey during which time I saw a lot of natural scenery: deserts, mountains, prairies; I daydreamed; perused The Bluejackets’ Manual; read Nabokov’s Lolita. "Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth." The alliterative track of those alveolar trochees tingled my testicles all the way home. It didn’t take much to turn me on. I’d been celibate for months.

On my arrival I was greeted by my parents and thirteen-year-old sister. They looked at me as if I was playacting. I suppose part of me was. To convince herself that I was really in the Navy, my mother placed a notice in the social column of the Windsor Star. (I still have the newspaper clipping.) "Seaman apprentice (my name) of the U.S. Navy is visiting his parents (their names) of Chappus Road during his two weeks’ leave from San Diego, California. When he returns to California, he will be stationed at Imperial Beach." All in all, I think my parents were proud of me. There were moments when I couldn’t believe I was actually in Uncle Sam’s Navy. It was like balancing one reality against another. I was free, white, and twenty-one. No, not free. I wore dog tags on a chain around my neck. With my change of status I was now subject to all of the Navy’s laws and regulations. Whenever I slipped into my civvies, I experienced a peculiar kind of freedom. The Uniform Code of Military Justice seemed remote and inapplicable now that I was back in Canada.

To please my father, I had signed away four years of my life. That’s how I viewed my situation. Before I joined up I was unemployed, living on and off with an interracial married couple. Although I sometimes helped my father with his auto glass business, I did a half-assed job. I was rudderless, with no direction other than the poolroom or the public library. My only purpose was pleasure, having a good time. My father believed the Navy would teach me a skill, give me a sense of responsibility. I figured the Navy would be just another adventure – an extended tour of the world, three squares a day, and a sweetie in every port. At my first classification interview (a process of vocational counseling to determine my eventual rating), I told the interviewer I wanted to be a boatswain’s mate. (The name of this rating sounded masculine, salty.) When I learned the duties of a boatswain’s mate involved supervising personnel in marlinspike seamanship, maintenance, and upkeep of a ship’s external structure, rigging, deck equipment, and boats, I was completely dismayed. I didn’t know a pipe wrench from a putty knife.

Frank and Millie, the salt-and-pepper couple I mentioned earlier, were my closest friends. Frank was twenty-eight, a year older than his beautiful, blonde, grayeyed, Yugoslavian-born wife. I couldn’t wait to see their faces when they saw me in uniform. They knew I was coming home on leave. I had sent them a postcard.

Frank, a handsome mulatto, worked as a filing clerk for the Unemployment Insurance Commission. He was bisexual. His wife Millie (her real name was Milka) had a part-time job at a fabric shop. I knew for a fact that she was unaware of Frank’s homosexuality. After two years of marriage – a marriage whose suddenness had surprised me, Millie was still in the dark about Frank’s extracurricular activities, his nocturnal trips across the river to gay bars in Detroit. I think Frank had married her for the sake of respectability. It was like a marriage of convenience for him. He was affectionate with her, to be sure, but hardly what you’d call passionate. As for Millie, she retained her old-country ways – those traditional values of honor, duty, trust. Which is not to imply she was old-fashioned but, rather, just a little naïve about the erratic nature of love. Her love for Frank did not preclude the possibility of her feeling sexually aroused by certain men. She was no shrinking violet; and she was a Virgo, a sign compatible with mine. I got along well with both her and Frank. When the three of us were together in a room, the atmosphere was charged.

I recall an incident during Easter time. I was with a girl friend at Frank and Millie’s apartment. It was evident to me that they’d been quarreling before we arrived, and, for my girl friend’s sake, were behaving with cool politeness to each other. We were having drinks, eating walnut baklava that tasted as delectable as Millie looked in her white wool sweater and mauve cotton skirt: a sexy and cuddlesome Easter bunny. She easily outclassed my girl friend. Frank and I were both wearing suits and ties. We all took turns taking Polaroid snapshots of one another. At one point I wandered into the kitchen for ice cubes, and Millie, drink in hand, suddenly slinked up beside me. She wished me Happy Easter. We toasted, and kissed. Her kiss lingered a few seconds beyond friendliness, long enough for me to taste the tip of her tongue probing my lips. Then she backed away and smiled at me with her eyes, neither of us saying a word.

It seemed whenever I visited them they began fussing at each other. Sometimes I found their petty quarrels laughable. I never took sides. How could I? I suspected Frank instigated most of the squabbles as a pretext for going out at night. If I was present, I had to tag along with him, out of loyalty; though I would have preferred to stay and commiserate with Millie. Frank told me that she often smashed dinnerware when they were alone and quarreling. I wondered how they made up afterwards. With sex? Who gave in first? When I teased him about the lovey-dovey part, he said I was reading too many books. There were times I had the impression Frank was only playing house with her.While on leave, I had use of my father’s car – a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air that still looked classy in the summer of 1962. It felt good just tooling around, my hand draped casually over the wheel, the radio throbbing rock ’n’ roll. Knowing I only had two weeks, I felt like a visitor. My second evening home I called on Frank and Millie. I was wearing my service dress whites. My spitshined shoes shone like hot tar.

A slender black woman my age answered the door. My face must have shown surprise, because the woman quickly explained she was Frank’s cousin, visiting from Nova Scotia. I introduced myself. (Frank had gone to the drugstore, but Millie was in.) I followed her up the chipped linoleum-tiled stairway.

When Millie saw me, she was speechless for a moment; then she cried out the diminutive of my first name. Let me look at you! she said excitedly, staring at me or, rather, at my summer whites. She embraced me. We all went into the front room and sat down. Frank’s cousin, whose name I’d already forgotten, excused herself and said she would make a pot of coffee. Millie plied me with a hundred questions. Before I could finish answering one question she would ask another.

You look different in a uniform, she said. 

"Good different or bad different?"

Older.

I’m twenty-one now.

A faint smile played about her lips. You gained some weight.

Navy chow, I said, patting my belly. 

And your hair . . .

Yeah, they scalped me. I lit a cigarette.

She asked to see my hat. I handed her the hat. She put it on her head.

Ahoy! I threw her a salute. It looks great on you. 

She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror, adjusting the hat. Frank will be happy to see you, she said.

As if on cue, the door to their apartment opened, and in walked Frank.

At-ten-SHUN! I shouted, clicking my heels together. Well, well, look what the tide dragged in! he exclaimed, beaming. I like the cut of your jib. Frank and I hugged each other.

When did you get back? he said. How come you didn’t phone?

I wanted to surprise you and Millie, I said. I’m trying to recruit her.

Millie took off the hat and put it on Frank’s head. I like his snazzy neckerchief, he said. 

Sink or swim, Frank, I said.

I’d rather float, he said. We all laughed.

Frank’s cousin came into the room, bearing a silverplate coffee service.

We talked until almost midnight. I regaled them with boot camp anecdotes and with boot camp jargon: junk-on-the-bunk – laying out gear for inspection; shit on a shingle – hamburger and white gravy on toast. We also made plans to catch some entertainment the next evening. I learned that Joan (Frank’s cousin) was engaged to a chartered accountant, and that she was flying back to Halifax in two more days. She struck me as shy and somewhat inhibited. Earlier, when she and Millie were in the kitchen, Frank had whispered to me: Be careful what you say. Joan’s straight as a chopstick.

Frank and Millie, Joan and I drove downtown to the Elbow Room. Nellie Hill, a black female singer from Detroit, was appearing there. Frank had a lady friend who knew the singer personally. A table close to the stage was reserved for us. I enjoyed the fact we were two mixed couples. We stood out like royalty. I had on my uniform; its whiteness shone all the whiter in the dim, smoky light of the nightclub. Joan, though demure, looked quite foxy in her get-up. I flirted with her, trying to draw her out of her shell. Each time she sipped her wine I noticed that she held the glass with her left hand. Of course her diamond engagement ring caught my eye. Her mannered vanity amused me. Millie fidgeted with her swizzle stick. Some guy stopped at our table and greeted Frank. Introductions were exchanged; there was a bit of chitchat; the guy blew us a kiss and then glided away. For a moment Frank seemed distracted.

The backup musicians kicked off with Nellie Hill’s signature tune, (You’ve Got) Personality; then Nellie Hill, petite and vivacious, launched into her performance. She sang current pop songs plus a few old favorites, embellishing each song with her own lusty style. The audience loved her. We stayed for two sets.

The night was in the cradle, and I wanted to rock it to sleep. Joan complained of a headache, and Millie had a dentist’s appointment in the morning. Frank was always ready to party. So we said our good-nights and dropped off the party-poopers. I sped over to the Radio Tavern – a place whose location characterized its clientele. It was on the main drag and around the corner from the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel bus entrance.

There were a dozen or so people in the tavern, half of them sitting at the bar. I didn’t see any unattached young women who were waiting for a sailor. Three black dudes, obviously Detroiters, lounged in one of the booths, drinking beer. Americans were fond of Canadian beer because it contained two percent more alcohol than the horse piss they drank. Frank and I both had a glass of draft beer, and then we left. Neither of us were drinkers.

Outside, the night air was humid. Cars cruised up and down Ouellette Avenue. Reluctant to call it a night, and hungry too, I suggested we go to the Lotus Gardens a few doors away. Frank was keen on hitting the Silver Dollar, a gay bar in downtown Detroit. Just for a looksee, he said. I nixed the idea. Frank would have liked nothing better than to flaunt me in front of the posturing nellies. (In the past I used to indulge him out of curiosity and a desire for adventure. Now I regarded that scene as a dead end. It had been a learning experience and no more.)

I just got back, Frank. I’m not in the mood to watch you cruising trade, I said, using a term I had learned from him. And what would Millie say? I added, with mock righteousness.

He shrugged. I could tell he was disappointed. After a pause, he said half-teasingly: I’ve never made it with an American sailor.

I knew he was baiting me. I ignored his remark, and steered him into the Lotus Gardens – a glorified chop suey joint.

"Om mani padme hum," he said.

The same to you, with dim sum, I said. 

Maybe I’ll find a jewel in the lotus, he said. 

Dream on.

When I drove Frank home that night his mood seemed pensive. He was very quiet. Twice he put his hand on my thigh – not as a gesture of seduction but friendship. I tried to make him laugh; he didn’t even smile. There was a parking