Drinking gin and talking about love
(This is a draft of Carver’s story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” without Gordon Lish’s edits.)
My friend Herb McGinnis, a cardiologist, was talking. The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. It was Saturday afternoon. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Herb and I and his second wife, Teresa—Terri, we called her—and my wife, Laura. We lived in Albuquerque, but we were all from somewhere else. There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the tonic water kept going around, and we somehow got on the subject of love. Herb thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. When he was young he’d spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. He’d left the Church at the same time, but he said he still looked back to those years in the seminary as the most important in his life.
Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Herb loved her so much he tried to kill her. Herb laughed after she said this. He made a face. Terri looked at him. Then she said, “He beat me up one night, the last night we lived together. He dragged me around the living room by my ankles, all the while saying, ‘I love you, don’t you see? I love you, you bitch.’ He went on dragging me around the living room, my head knocking on things.” She looked around the table at us and then looked at her hands on her glass. “What do you do with love like that?” she said. She was a bone-thin woman with a pretty face, dark eyes, and brown hair that hung down her back. She liked necklaces made of turquoise, and long pendant earrings. She was fifteen years younger than Herb, had suffered periods of anorexia, and during the late sixties, before she’d gone to nursing school, had been a dropout, a “street person,” as she put it. Herb sometimes called her, affectionately, his hippie.
“My God, don’t be silly. That’s not love, and you know it,” Herb said. “I don’t know what you’d call it—madness is what I’d call it—but it’s sure as hell not love.”
“Say what you want to, but I know he loved me,” Terri said. “I know he did. It may sound crazy to you, but it’s true just the same. People are different, Herb. Sure, sometimes he may have acted crazy. O.K. But he loved me. In his own way, maybe, but he loved me. There was love there, Herb. Don’t deny me that.”
Herb let out breath. He held his glass and turned to Laura and me. “He threatened to kill me, too.” He finished his drink and reached for the gin bottle. “Terri’s a romantic. Terri’s of the ‘Kick-me-so-I’ll-know-you-love-me’ school. Terri, hon, don’t look that way.” He reached across the table and touched her cheek with his fingers. He grinned at her.
“Now he wants to make up,” Terri said. “After he tries to dump on me.” She wasn’t smiling.
“Make up what?” Herb said. “What is there to make up? I know what I know, and that’s all.”
“What would you call it then?” Terri said. “How’d we get started on this subject anyway?” She raised her glass and drank. “Herb always has love on his mind,” she said. “Don’t you, honey?” She smiled now, and I thought that was the last of it.
“I just wouldn’t call Carl’s behavior love, that’s all I’m saying, honey,” Herb said. “What about you guys?” he said to Laura and me. “Does that sound like love to you?”
(This is a draft of Carver’s story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” without Gordon Lish’s edits.)
Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Herb loved her so much he tried to kill her. Herb laughed after she said this. He made a face. Terri looked at him. Then she said, “He beat me up one night, the last night we lived together. He dragged me around the living room by my ankles, all the while saying, ‘I love you, don’t you see? I love you, you bitch.’ He went on dragging me around the living room, my head knocking on things.” She looked around the table at us and then looked at her hands on her glass. “What do you do with love like that?” she said. She was a bone-thin woman with a pretty face, dark eyes, and brown hair that hung down her back. She liked necklaces made of turquoise, and long pendant earrings. She was fifteen years younger than Herb, had suffered periods of anorexia, and during the late sixties, before she’d gone to nursing school, had been a dropout, a “street person,” as she put it. Herb sometimes called her, affectionately, his hippie.“My God, don’t be silly. That’s not love, and you know it,” Herb said. “I don’t know what you’d call it—madness is what I’d call it—but it’s sure as hell not love.”
“Say what you want to, but I know he loved me,” Terri said. “I know he did. It may sound crazy to you, but it’s true just the same. People are different, Herb. Sure, sometimes he may have acted crazy. O.K. But he loved me. In his own way, maybe, but he loved me. There was love there, Herb. Don’t deny me that.”
Herb let out breath. He held his glass and turned to Laura and me. “He threatened to kill me, too.” He finished his drink and reached for the gin bottle. “Terri’s a romantic. Terri’s of the ‘Kick-me-so-I’ll-know-you-love-me’ school. Terri, hon, don’t look that way.” He reached across the table and touched her cheek with his fingers. He grinned at her.
“Now he wants to make up,” Terri said. “After he tries to dump on me.” She wasn’t smiling.
“Make up what?” Herb said. “What is there to make up? I know what I know, and that’s all.”
“What would you call it then?” Terri said. “How’d we get started on this subject anyway?” She raised her glass and drank. “Herb always has love on his mind,” she said. “Don’t you, honey?” She smiled now, and I thought that was the last of it.
“I just wouldn’t call Carl’s behavior love, that’s all I’m saying, honey,” Herb said. “What about you guys?” he said to Laura and me. “Does that sound like love to you?”
by Raymond Carver, New Yorker | Read more:
Image: Jessica Hines
