Perhaps it’s better off dead.
Wonderful, isn’t it?
Sometimes satire is the only thing that does the job. All right…
Enough nonsense.
I began by disclosing that while I prefer men to women on the sexual front, I’ve had meaningful relationships with both. I told you I was married but separated, and that I—we—have—had—a child. A son. We had a son.
His name is Ryder.
(I won’t say “was” because it still is.)
My wife’s name is Kelly.
I haven’t seen her for seven or eight years. She lives in Canada with her sister. On her sister’s property anyway. I send money every month. The occasional postcard or email. She writes back now and then. Her sister worries, endlessly. “She’s thin as a bone!” My frontal lobe seems to have taken that information and run with it, because whenever I think of Kelly I picture a haunted scarecrow piercing me with haunted, pleading eyes.
We were living together but hadn’t been physically intimate for a long time when Kelly said she wanted a child. She was 35 or 36—I was 29—she’d had four abortions. Also had PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome, so the doctors said the odds were slim. We were prepared to go another route if we didn’t have any luck but never talked exactly about what that route would be. If I recall, adoption wasn’t entirely ruled out. Kelly was certain motherhood had passed her by (I was certain too) and as a hedge against likely heartbreak she convinced herself that it wasn’t possible, wouldn’t happen. Made her peace. When the kit showed the + sign, it shocked her into bliss. Me too (into bliss). I was a little surprised by that. She said it was a miracle baby and I couldn’t argue.
Back then, we had the understanding our physical needs would be met outside the partnership. I mean, sex was actually fun — for a while — but once she got pregnant, we were forever done. I knew Kelly was involved with various women over the years but had no idea she pursued men as well. I’m not sure if that would have bothered me or not… I mean, another man. I guess it would have, if she didn’t invite me to share! At any rate, we were a “don’t ask, don’t tell” household. If you’re wondering why we stayed together, that’s a little predictable. Better to ask, What forces prevailed to bring us together in the first place? And for what purpose?
I said it before and I’ll say it again: I only know what I know. And what I don’t know, I’ve learned to leave alone.
Until now.
Kelly was an old friend of the Learys’ and liked to tell people our son was named after Tim’s goddaughter, the actress Winona Ryder. Kelly thinks she came up with the name — Ryder — but that’s not how I remember it. And my ego has nothing to do with it. You see, our son didn’t have a name until the very moment he was born. When he popped out, a name popped in: Ryder, from the Djuna Barnes novel. God, I loved that woman! The mad hermit dyke of Greenwich Village. Lived right across the street from e.e. cummings by the way… I know that sounds precious, to name your kid after a Djuna Barnes book — about a monster-dad! — but that’s how it went down, as my biker friends like to say. I didn’t realize it at the time but I think that when I mentioned it as a possibility, Kelly immediately thought it was some sort of ode to Winona—she had a soft spot for glamour and celebrities. She probably loved the idea of being tied into Winona and the Learys. When people asked about it she said she liked the karma of the name, as if our son’s fate (and her own) was to be part of a famous clan. Oh, she basked. I was just happy she went for it. One of the things I love about “Ryder” is that it’s close to writer. And reader too.
My wife — that still sounds weird to me, “my wife,” and it’s funny how it still makes me feel good to say it, that bourgeois part — has always been a serious Buddhist. Me, I’m a dabbler. I told you we met at Spirit Rock but technically that isn’t true. We’d seen each other a handful of times before on skid row, at the mission in Alameda. Part of the do-gooder crew serving meals to the homeless over the holidays. I was surprised to find an attraction there, on my side anyway. I wasn’t sure what she felt but had an inkling. My hetero radar isn’t completely broken, you know. I guess it was karma, as Kelly would say — that I’d feel an attraction toward this woman that was physical, aside from anything else. We didn’t talk much but there was definitely somethin’ going on. We percolated for three years running until we bumped into each other at the retreat. Which brought things to a boil.
Like a lot of people who become interested in Buddhism, I was traumatized by religion, in my case the Catholic Church. My big sis and I were both victims. Cheryl got pregnant at 16 and confessed to one of the fathers. He told her there were special things he could do to make sure the baby would never come out. He said God would help, as long as she kept his intervention a secret. He tried “the cure” a bunch of times but the baby came anyway.
Oh, they did things to me too… that’s why as an adult, I was lost. I drifted toward Buddhism, becoming fairly serious in terms of my meditation practice. But I was never as into it as my wife. Kelly went to all the advanced workshops, you know, the ones they won’t let you in unless you’ve received the transmission of whatever obscure teaching from whatever non-English-speaking roshi. Like a lot of folks, she definitely set out to acquire a black belt in Zen. I just wasn’t that interested — the minute prayer became work, I was out the door. I wasn’t wild about the hierarchy thing either. Hierarchies bug the shit out of me. That smugness, the whole power-tripping, my-silence-is-better-than-your-silence deal. (Anyway, it ain’t Buddhism’s fault. “It’s the people, stupid.”) Oh boy, did we use to skirmish! Kelly called me a living master of “couch potato Zen” and I called her Brigitte Bardo. “Bardo” is Tibetan — have you ever heard? — it means the limbo or “in-between.” There’s a bardo between life and death, a bardo between wakefulness and sleep… a bardo of dreaming. “Brigitte Bardo” used to piss her off, though not completely, because remember, she was into glamour and celebrity. It was all pretty playful. The mood was still light.
Our little family moved from the Haight — from the same block Kenneth Rexroth once lived, he had these famous salons back in the day… everyone used to go, Ferlinghetti, Lamantia, Snyder and Joanne — Kyger — Whalen and McClure and di Prima and Anne Waldman, and of course Ginsberg and Jack — we got out of there and rented a bungalow in Berkeley. I clerked at a bookstore on Telegraph until my lawyer advised it’d be better for my case if I just stayed home and collected disability checks. (More about that in a minute.) I didn’t like that but I do as I’m told. I always obey my nurse. So I became the house mascot, the flâneur who perfected his couch potato Zen. Kelly taught at junior high a district away. She was wrapped too tight — another phrase used by my Hells Angels friends, some of whom are very literate, you know, big readers, and I’m not just talking Stephen King and John Grisham, there was a 400-pound fellow with a swastika tattooed on his forehead who was crazy for Schopenhauer and Spinoza, good Lord! — whenever I hear about one of their weekend gatherings, I’ll try to show up in the bookmobile and they’re tremendously appreciative, though I suppose I took some getting used to — my dear wife was wrapped too tight and all that meditating wasn’t fixing her. A month after we moved to Berkeley, I began to have the vibe that Kelly was staring down the double barrel of a righteous depression.