“After all it’s cost you.”

“Right.”

“After you’ve lost your whole family over it.”

“Wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to stop now, would it?”

She started crying. I knew she would. I went ahead and got the beer. She was probably thinking How did I ever raise this cold-blooded child?

I sat down with her.

“Look, Mama, I can’t help it that I want to do this. It’s not even a matter of wanting to. I have to. I can’t live without it.” “Well, how are you going to live? You don’t even have a job.”

I looked out the window.

“I work when I need the money. I paint a house once in a while. I work for a while and then I write for a while. I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”

“It’s my grandchildren I worry about. How are you going to pay your child support? When are you going to get to see them?”

“I guess I’ll see them when she lets me. Have you seen them?”

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

“They wanted to know when you were coming home.” Then she started crying again.

5

I hadn’t made love in about sixty-four days, which is not an easy thing after you’ve been married and used to getting it whenever you want it. I didn’t know many women and had great difficulty communicating with them. Most of the women I did know were friends of my ex-wife or wives of my friends. I was never able to tell women just exactly what I thought about womanhood in general, what wonderful things I thought women were. I had composed several poems about women that I had not submitted to any of the literary quarterlies, but basically they sang the praises of legs and breasts and long hair and painted toenails, red lips and nipples. Once in a while I would take these poems out and read them and then put them away again.

I missed my children. They were big holes torn out of my life. I knew that I had torn a big hole out of their lives. I hoped that their mother would have the good sense to marry a good man who would take care of them and give them a home, educations, food, love. I knew there’d never be a reconciliation. Their mother didn’t want it, and I didn’t want it. Our children and our parents were probably the only ones who wanted it. I only had one life, and I’d be damned if I’d live it in a way that would make me unhappy and please somebody else. I had already lived that kind of life, too much of it already.

6