d. w. merriman

Before turning twenty-three Hendrik had begun to suspect that, contrary to the longstanding opinions of those who loved him, he was not lazy, he was not necessarily happier being idle, and although he had refused to hold a job for longer than a month, preferring instead to live in Rebecca’s apartment under the premise that he would contribute for his half of the rent and groceries the stipend his parents sent him each month, he really did think he would be happier devoting himself to a life of labor, even if it were, to a some degree, tedious. He was defensive about this. He did not want to be considered lazy or unmotivated. But the notion of working on a schedule was so bewildering to the young man that he feared it, as when he was a boy he feared the naked body of a woman. He was ashamed of this fear. With stupendous bitterness and cunning, he had devised all sorts of tricks and excuses for not applying, for not showing up for work if he did apply, and for the time being those who loved him gave up and conceded to the aforementioned arrangement.

A month after their graduation from college Hendrik proposed to Rebecca. First, he convinced her to drive them both several miles south of town, under no pretext other than you’ll see; second, he convinced her to park beside a field of violets, where he wasted no time in kneeling and putting inside her palm (with the same gesture his father, after he took Hendrik fishing and after gutting the first fish in front of him, dropped the fish eye in his palm) a cold ring with his dead grandfather’s diamond, all the while saying nothing but kissing her ankles and her pale knees and legs, which seemed to him then even more pale and worthwhile and loving, and when she began crying, overwhelmed by what the proposal meant, he was even happier and took her, still without speaking, into his arms, almost pushing her down into the ground, and anyone could have driven past to see them kissing each other as fervently as before they would make love. Three years later she filed for divorce.