And then there came a Time in the Life of Lori Pyatt when she wanted to Get Pregnant and Have a Baby, and in a Sense she really didn't give a Tinker's Fuck how she got there. Thus began one of the most insane Chapters in the History of the Institution of Parenthood as most of us are given to Understand it, as most chicks, at least the moderately Stable ones, aren't too Keen on the Idea of being a Single Parent by their own premeditated Choice, unless their partner kills people and tries to kill them and smokes Crack and spends most of his Time in the Pokey.
But Michael Bradstreet did None of the Above, and in fact, on the Contrary, did a lot of really wonderful things, at least so he was told, it was all Second Nature to him, but let's not get ahead of the Situation here. He'd ended a Bad Marriage, a story we'll follow with a Flashback in Chapter 16, and she was single and not getting any Hard Cock, which she Wanted, but they'd known each other for years and years, or at least ten or so, so I guess she knew already he was a good fuck and lots of fun and intelligent with good Genes. Known Qualities have a Leg Up.
He was also a bit of a Wild Man, as he was a Composer of what they used to call 20th-Century Music back when it was the 20th Century, which it was when he first fucked her, by her urging, on his couch and it was great! And he loved her, he really, really did, but Fool that he was All his Life he never could separate the Substance from the Shadow, and he used to go around expecting the Best out of people, and it came as no secret to Lori that Michael liked to guzzle a bit of Wine while listening to Mahler, and the man smoked like a Fiend, too, and he was pretty Out There in some ways but then again now's her Boy, but back when they hooked up for that Final and Fateful time, she was telling him she loved him, that she wanted to spend the Rest of her Life with him, and maybe she actually believed her own Shit, but we all need our little Delusions for Justification for when we Hurt people, I promise you.
She was Raised in a quasi white-trash Holly Hobby world and had to some degree overcome it, but What's Bred in the Bone will Out in the Flesh which is also the Epigraph of a novel by Robertson Davies, whose name has been inserted here because, as They will see, this book is a veritable landmine of what we in the Business call "Googles," but back to the Front.
So she was telling him about this friend of hers who'd gone out and fucked like eight men in a month to get Knocked Up because she didn't even want to know who the Father was, and how insane is that? she was asking him, but it worried him in the same way it worries Alcoholics and Pill Freaks when Other Alcoholics and Pill Freaks start making disparaging remarks about Others with the Same Issues, see. And she made a point of telling him, You have no idea how Spoiled I am, and he was like Shit!
'Cause in Retrospect, which is the only way any of us think Anyhow, he was thinking, Okay, she thought she was a goddamn Princess but of course Nobody Else did, see, save for maybe Michael at Some Point, but he was his Own Man, and we can't have THAT, 'cause we have to be All Alone with another Human Being who can't help but think, Hey, Mommy, you're the Center of my Universe and I love you Unconditionally and I think you're a Princess, too!
People will even kill the Souls of Others to sustain the most Petty Illusions.
And her Mommy later told Michael's Mommy that Laura (Lori, 'scuse me) had told her that if she didn't get Pregnant by 30 she'd be Artificially Inseminated! Michael felt great when he heard that now, 'cause they'd done it and done it and they knew what they were doing and when IT happened and he came, he knew it, as did she, and the next morning she read to him from Winnie the Pooh as if to get herself a little Practice.
She was, of course, from the South (as was he, but he'd Moved) so she moved up North with him where he was a Professor of Music History when she knew her Body was a Go, and he was ecstatic and bought her Folic Acid and Prenatal Vitamins and Waited on Her, went to an Episcopal Church with her, and, God knows How, he quit smoking and he stopped drinking and started running Track to get himself ready for the Long Nights ahead. What bitter Irony in that last statement, Sport.
And she of course wanted to get away while keeping up a Façade of Suthu'n Propi'ty to her Family, so she started railing on him and going passive/aggressive manic/depressive and pushing him away (literally even hitting the sombitch and shit), and lying to him and blaming everything on his ass and then, she started Smoking in the House and he told her, This Will Not Do.
Girls, you really don't need to be smoking while you're Pregnant, especially in the first Trimester. Michael knew all about all of this because he'd studied it with the relish with which he'd studied for his Doctoral Exams on Mahler's 7th.
Well, he was depressed and Walking on Eggshells and couldn't stand the smoking, which gave her an excuse to cry Foul Ball on him from Afar, and Parents and Friends to the Rescue! Go Jim Dandy! They got her out of there like the Devil out of Heaven and that's the last he heard from her for a Very Long Time, save for a few Icewater e-mails and Fuck-you e-mails, which, by this time, he, being distraught, appreciated none too much, to Say the Least. And she moved in with friends she'd gotten busted for the year before for Pot, and then with her Parents, and, well, hey! Wise Move, huh! And no communication. From where they moved, which was Alabama, presumably to Soak up the Culture. And did Michael wish her Happiness?
In his novel Vanity Fair, the guy who wrote it made some kind of an Art of having his Narrator break Narrative to Comment on the Vain actions of his Characters. So skillfully it's one of the Top Ten or so greatest novels ever written, but much as I'd like to Do the Same, I won't. Why? Well, figure it out, Thunderball. That book that dude wrote was and has been around a long time after he shuffled off this Mortal Coil, and so will it be with this, and plus, like I said in Chapter 1, in case you were nodding out on Heroin at the Time, this book is not about ME, it's about THEM. And one day, someone on the Dedication Page is gonna Read it, and THAT is gonna be some shit, Sister, but as for Michael and Lori, who said I want to have your children and DID, well, Michael was thinking, Princess Perfect though you wish to believe yourself to be, Hun, you were lying on that floor and in that Garden getting fucked, down & dirty swived, pelted, reamed, nailed, DRILLED and LOVING it, and he was thinking I ain't sorry for shit 'cause you wanted it, and you took it, hard. HARD. Screaming. Screaming I want to be with you forever and have ALL your children.
But all's it is is just another Fable about the shit that falls like Manna on what God has Joined Together, and for one of you out there reading this, maybe Now, maybe Later, Good Intentions can and have paved the Road to a place where there's a little room and in it there's a man and he's Drunk, and listening to a Bach Cello Suite, and crying his head all wrapped up in pillows and he's beating it against a cinderblock wall and he's saying, Goddamn. GodDAMN!
And maybe God's saying something back and maybe he's not but the fellow in the Room sure can't hear it, and today, he's talking to the Man he Was then and saying to that man, so you wanna die? Fine. Just don't stop loving anybody, ever. Fucker.
So go in Peace, though you know not what your Peace is at Present. This to God, all the Angels, all the Saints as well.
— Give me a few minutes of Eternity, and I'll figure it out with Regularity. Lacking that, I'll just Call it as I see it about all the Crap they pulled and what they got Out of it, or Not.
Oh, and Happy Birthday to You, Too. Albeit a day early.