CONTRACT

Author(s): Mieke Eerkens

Source: Creative Nonfiction , SPRING 2012, No. 44 (SPRING 2012), pp. 63-71
Published by: Creative Nonfiction Foundation

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/44364770

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 CONTRACT H
Eerkens

1 Experiments
Experiments

referred to as "You") and Me (hereinafter referred to as "Me" ).

WHEREAS you let me use your colored markers;

WHEREAS you let me ride your bike;
WHEREAS you are shy, have knobby knees, take me into the brush beyond
the school fence that we call Outer Mongolia and ask if I will "go"
with you on a piece of notebook paper with three boxes: "Yes," "No"
and "Maybe" ;
You agree to love me.

SIGNED this

[You]

I with WHEREAS WHEREAS WHEREAS X This You and SIGNED ref r ed the [You]

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BE IT KNOWN that, for good consideration, the following additions
or changes will comprise a part of said contract as if contained
therein. All future addenda shall likewise be considered as contig-
uous to said contract, and all other terms and provisions of said
contract shall remain in full force and effect.

1. Insert "WHEREAS you are dark-haired and dark-eyed, over 6 feet

tall, and have dimples"
2. Insert "WHEREAS you are a musician in a rock band and at least 12
years my senior"
3. Insert ''WHEREAS you are a bad boy on the outside, but on the
inside a sweet, sensitive, loyal boy who is not afraid to cuddle and
jl^H
SIGNED this

ADDENDA : BH|H
1. Strike "over 6 feet tall";

2 . Replace "a musician in a rock band and at least 12 years my

senior" with "creatively inclined";
3 . Insert "WHEREAS you do not make out with me after your show and
then drive me home in your van with your buddies in the back, snick-
ering, 'Someone's gonna face the hairy ax wound tonight'";

SIGNED this

ļgļUļH

ADDENDA:

1 . Insert "WHEREAS we do not meet on my European backpacking trip

right out of high school. You do not have an enticing South African
accent and do not invite me back to spend the summer working at a
youth hostel with you in Athens, Greece, and I do not accept your
invitation after months of exchanging letters and phone calls. When
I arrive, you do not say you are 'not one for public displays of
affection.' You do not buy me souvlaki and drink retsina with me on
a rooftop at sunset, looking out at the white buildings dotting the
city like cranes, and you do not kiss me like it matters, and I don't
lose my virginity to you. You don't tell me, a month later, that if |H^H
I was a good girlfriend, I wouldn't chat with the Australian boys
in the bar as I wait for you to finish bartending. Another month
later, as we work passing out brochures to masses of grimy back-
packers on the Athens -bound trains from Elefsina, and I casually wave
to a guy employed at another hostel, you don't call me a slut under
your breath. You don't throw away letters from my friends, don't
tell my family I am not there when they call, and then don't say,
when I wonder why nobody seems to miss me, that you are obviously

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 the only one who cares about me. No. You don't tell me 1 am worth-
less and don't routinely lock me out at 2 a.m. so 1 end up sleeping
on benches in the Athens subway, and you don't manage to convince
me I had it coming somehow. You don't get me drunk celebrating our
boss's birthday with round after round of ouzo, telling me it's rude
to refuse a birthday toast, and then you don't hold me down and have
your way until 1 get sick. You don't tell me it's all water under the
drunken bridge the next day and to get out of bed and stop crying.
You don't berate me with lectures about sucking it up and discipline
^^^^0 and how what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. One night, long after
I have stopped waiting in the bar for you to get off your bartending
job, because it provokes you, you don't wake me in the staff room
with butterfly kisses and say, 'Baby, it's time to go home,' and
^^■1 stroke my hair because you know what that little gesture can do, and
when we are in the lobby and nearly out the door, you don't ask me
if I can get you a cigarette from Irish Steve in the bar. I don't
^Hh go down to the bar and get you that cigarette and then return to
an empty lobby. I do not then ask the night receptionist where you
have gone and get a shrug in response. I do not search the hostel
bathrooms, winding my way up each empty floor to the roof, where 1
hear laughter, and I do not see light coming from under the door of
the rooftop studio of Irish Steve, who is- I know, because I have
just gotten a cigarette from him for you- in the bar. I do not go to
that door and do not push it open and do not see you on your back on
a mattress with a naked woman straddling you on all fours and her
vagina pointed straight at me. I do feel my stomach drop each floor
to the lobby and out to the street, where I do follow to discover
my lost voice. I do go through the movements to pack my backpack
and walk out the next morning, straight past your raised hand, you
fucking asshole, I dare you, just dare you to do it and show everyone
watching what I already know about you" ;
2. Strike "you are a bad boy on the outside";

SIGNED this

ADDENDA

1. Insert "WHEREAS you buy me a bumblebee finger puppet and a space-

ship that shoots foam bullets, which we use to ambush each other,
shrieking and laughing like kids, on the back lot of the French
Canadian circus, where I work as an usher and you as assistant tent
boss that summer. During the show, you unlace the door flap on the
tent and whisper to me in your disarming Québécois accent until I
wave you away when the audieņce members start to look over. After
everyone has gone home, late at night, we lie on the dark, round
stage in the big top or on the 'tapis rouge,' the 'red carpet,' back-
stage, and we hold our breaths when Tommy comes through every couple
of hours with a flashlight to check the tents. We talk about building
a cabin in the woods one day, where lupines will line the garden. And
when you kiss me for the first time, it's really soft and sweet, and
you ask, 'How was that?"';

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2 . Insert " WHEREAS you do not have to go back to Montreal" ;
3. Insert "WHEREAS when you come back a year later, and we leave an
out -of -hand party and sit, with a drunk Russian acrobat, against the
wall in the hallway of the apartment complex while security guards
give the party hosts a stern talking- to, and we face each other again
for the first time, you look at me and say how good it is to see me,
and you smile that thrilling smile" ;
4. Insert "WHEREAS by that time, I do not have a new boyfriend, and
you do not have a new girlfriend" ;

SIGNED this

X mum

ADDENDA

1. Insert "WHEREAS neither are you my new boyfriend at that same

French Canadian circus, who calls me while I am backpacking with a
girlfriend in Europe. Nor do we talk for hours as I sit in a hotel
room near St. Tropez, listening to you say there is nothing you'd HHHH
rather spend your money on than international calls to me. You do
not ask me to go on tour with you. We don't spend weekends with my
family and go on vacations to Catalina or the Muir Woods. There is
no romantic day walking among giant sequoias, after which we go home
and make a fire and fall asleep entwined, only to have you tell me,
the next day, that you suddenly no longer want me though you can
explain why. You do not tell me you want me to keep living with you
and having sex with you. I do not immediately pack my bags, take
everything in the apartment that is mine, and tell you that you
deserve it when you call me crying and say you have nobody to talk to
about it because I'm your best friend."
2 . Strike "You are dark-haired" ;

3 . Insert "You might be bald" ;

SIGNED this

Evidence of fuck-ups. Attached, Exhibits 1, 2 and 3. ļ^H^H

1. You were great. You liked Ani DiFranco, you were involved in my
politics, and you introduced me to "The Thin Man" and made me swanky
cocktails. My friends told me attraction fades anyway, so I soldiered
on. But I made you get off me and brush your teeth, and when you came
back, I told you that you needed to brush them again because it was
still there, the chemical evidence of our incompatibility. I felt
trapped under you every time we had sex. I was irritable and shallow.
When you asked me to come home to Pennsylvania with you at Christmas
and I said I didn't think it was a good idea, you said, "When I get HHH

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back, this is going to be over, isn't it?" and I said yes. And after
Christmas, you came up to me in a university hallway after I avoided
you for days, and you gave me a Simon and Garfunkel CD box set. "I
got this for you before we broke up," you said. "And I don't have
anyone else to give it to."
2. You were big and beautiful, and so very dumb and loyal. One night,
a boy I liked more than you invited me out to dinner, and I forgot
my date with you. When I returned, two hours late, you were sitting
on the steps out front, waiting patiently. 1 hung on the arm of the
other boy, and your face fell. "So sorry," I said, "We ate already.
I'm completely exhausted. I'll call you tomorrow." We climbed the
stairs around your seated body. I didn't call.
3. I was on a train from Rome to Barcelona with my friend. Two
Italian conductors had offered us a sleeping berth "for free," except
it turned out that by "for free" they meant "for sex," and they held
us in a locked, dark car that was not in use. I told one of them
I had to use the bathroom, which meant he had to unlock the door
between the cars, and he told me to leave my stuff and come right
back, but I ran down the train to the next occupied car, where I
found you and your buddy Paolo. You saved us from the creepy conduc-
tors, confronting them and grabbing our bags with some choice words
I could not actually understand. You were in medical school, and we
stayed up all night on the train, drinking wine and talking. You
played Beatles songs on the guitar and invited me to come see you in
your villa in Tuscany. You said you would cook me a proper Italian
meal. When we got off the train, the four of us spent the day in
Barcelona, marveling at the unexpected and thrilling angles of Gaudi.
When yte parted, you said you wanted to come see me in California, but
I told you about my boyfriend back home, and I wouldn't let you kiss
me. You sent me letters and postcards for months. Recently, I found
you on the Internet. You are a plastic surgeon who repairs the faces
of Muslim women who have been disfigured after being doused with acid
by their husbands. You are married and have a child.
I , the undersigned, understand and freely admit that I fucked up, and
do hereby submit a motion of mea culpa. I understand that these fuck-
ups may render all potential future husbands null and void, according
to Article 1, Paragraph 6, of the Municipal Code of Karma and Common
Sense

1. SIGNED here X

2 . and here X

3 . and here X

ADDENDA

1. Insert "WHEREAS we have chemistry and you smell good to me";

2. Insert "WHEREAS you are actively interested in personal growth, do
yoga and are a Buddhist."
3. Insert "WHEREAS you are not a guy from Boston who sits cross-
legged in the grass with an acoustic guitar. You do not read spiri-
tual texts to me and talk about how your life was 'totally changed'

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when you became enlightened. You do not take me home to meet your
mom and dad. You do not simply stop talking to me one day, ignoring
my calls and letters asking what the hell went wrong, then write me
an eight-page letter telling me life is a lonely climb up a snowy
mountain and you felt moved to teach me this by ignoring me so I
might become as enlightened as you. You do not write that I am too
emotional and use the word feel too much in my letters or that you
hope I will come to understand, in time, the gift you have bestowed
on me . I do not then tell you to go fuck yourself and your misappro-
priated Eastern philosophy, which enables you to avoid the word feel.
You do not, long after I have shut down that feeling for you inside
of me, have a delayed reaction and tell me you love me."
4. Strike "are actively interested in personal growth." Strike "and
are a Buddhist"

5. Insert "WHEREAS you are in touch with your emotions";

SIGNED this

ADDENDA:

1. Insert "WHEREAS you are not my professor in the Netherlands. We

do not stand in the hallway, talking about books for an hour before
moving to the pub next door, where we meet almost every day when
we're not e-mailing or in class. It does not take you two weeks to
mention that you are married and have an 8 -year-old daughter. We do
not continue meeting for coffee xas friends' and marvel at the way
time flies. I do not get the inevitable phone call one night, just
as I am crossing the bridge in the damp Dutch autumn, that you love
me. I do not force you to stop talking to me and get yourself into
therapy to make sure, and I do not finally give myself over to you
when you say you know there is no other way for you. You don't beg
me to trust you. You don't write pages and pages about how we will
build a family. You don't quote Yeats. You don't move to an apartment
overlooking the canal in Utrecht, where we spend our days. We do not
go to faculty dinner parties together or go to Luxembourg and Antwerp
on weekend trips. You don't let your ex-wife have the house in the
divorce because, otherwise, she will take your daughter 'to live in
the ghetto.' You don't let her tell you that you can't call your
daughter to say goodnight on the days that aren't scheduled for you.
You don't accept your ex-wife's terms that you can only visit your
daughter at her house and that I can never be in the same room with

2. Insert "WHEREAS we do not fight when things are still the same a
year later, and you do not promise me things will change. When we
decide to buy a home in the same neighborhood as your ex-wife's so
your daughter can come over after school, you do not find problems
with every house we look at. I don't tell you I am dying inside and
we have to move forward. I do not go home to see my family and give
you space to sort yourself out, and you do not promise to get serious
about finding a house for us when I come back. Two weeks after I am
back, you do not call to tell me you are moving back in with your
ex-wife for the sake of your child, and I do not hear the kind of

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wail that I have never before heard come out of me or anyone else,
fill my apartment. You do not actually tell me to wait 10 years for
you because when your daughter is 18, you plan to come back to me.
You do not talk about how this is your sacrifice and your loss and
your great tragedy. You do not snuff out our unborn babies and burn
down our unbought house. Your wife does not change your phone number
so I cannot contact you when I am sobbing at 4 a.m. and considering
killing myself. Your secretary does not refuse to put me through when
I try to reach you. There is not a hideous, impenetrable silence
from you during all those nights that I pace my studio apartment in
a frothy delirium, until you once again begin to send me e-mails
and birthday cards. You do not call me your Beatrice, your muse, as
though I exist solely as a prop in your life, as if I have not lost
the ground from under my f eet" ;

ADDENDA :

Strike the emails that say, "I want a tape of your laugh" ;

Strike the emails that arrive every day, every day, until I say,
"Stop it, stop killing me," and- poof !- you are gone; and

Insert "WHEREAS you, vis-à-vis me, now exist solely and exclusively
in past tense, and time travel is a posteriori impossibilis ;
''WHEREAS terra nullius therefore null and void by conditions of
terms and mutually agreed upon in perpetuity ad infinitum default by
undersigned henceforth shall cosigner per outlined therein without

Terminate the contract . Terminate .

SIGNED here X

and here X

and here X

and here X

here

and here X

this

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 Renegotiate
ADDENDA :

^^^B 1. Insert "WHEREAS you are not a naturalist ranger I meet hiking in a H^^B
Berkshires nature reserve. You do not take me out, and I do not let
you hold my hand and let someone call me 'Baby' again. I do not wait
to hear the sound of your squeaky truck bounce up the drive . I do not
^^^B start to think about it all again, about my waning fertility and the
ghost babies that fill my bedroom at night, about how nice it can be
to have someone place coffee and fresh fruit before my sleepy face in
^■1 the morning and lean down to kiss my forehead. I do not see the sun
peeking over the horizon at the end of the marsh outside your house
just as I find out I will be moving to Iowa. You do not get guide-
books to Iowa and call me daily until I arrive in my new apartment.
And you do not then start to falter'' ;
2. Insert "WHEREAS I do not hear, in our telephone conversation a
few weeks later, that moment when you slide away, out of reach, that ^B^H
last conversation where I try so hard, so hard to hold you, to recap-
ture the connection, but watch you slip from my pinched fingertips H|^B
like the curve of a ring that I am carefully trying to fish back up
^■1 through a sewer grate. I do not watch you clink down into the abyss,
settling into the oil-slicked puddles and chewing gum and rat piss. I
^^^B do not hear your mundane questions about my family and my apartment
^^^B and my work. And I want to say, No, please-wait-stop, please, please
^^^B let's talk about when we hiked to the waterfall and watched the teen-
agers leap from the top, hurtling inches away from the rock wall into
the pool below. Please, let's remember how we discussed the temerity
and conviction of youth while we held hands on the walk down. Let's
talk about picking stinging nettles and how we shrieked and snick-
ered each time one got us, exacting our revenge over the steaming
^^^B nettle soup in your little house, those easy kisses punctuating our
kitchen dance as we prepared the table. Let's look for bears and coo
over baby saw-whet owls and watch for the skunk cabbage to bloom.
^^^B Let's talk about weekend mornings in bed, my head on your belly,
talking of writing a children's book about the migration of salaman-
^■B ders . ... Please. I am not ready for this to be over yet. But I see the
futility, and as I say goodbye, I know definitively that you are gone
after the click. I am left standing with the phone in my hand in my
empty apartment"

3 . Insert "WHEREAS I remember how one night as we walked in a parking

lot, you took me by the hand and led me to a tree. As a naturalist,
you had taken to showing me such things. 'This is the black locust
tree,' you said. 'It is completely poisonous, except for the bios-
soms. You can eat the blossoms; they are delicious and filled with
nectar.' You picked the blossoms and brought one to my mouth. 'Trust
me' you said. 'It's delicious,' you said. 'But the leaves and the
rest of the tree will kill you.'"

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 ADDENDA

1. Strike "You agree to love me."

2. BE IT KNOWN that the following contract and its terms and condi-
tions shall supersede versions of previous date. No further claims
shall be made pursuant of prior agreements. All parties shall be held
harmless

CONTRACT

This AGREEMENT is between Potential Future Husband (hereinafter

referred to as *You") and Me (hereinafter referred to as wMe") .

I, the undersigned, agree to love you.

SIGNED this

■H X
■■ [Me]

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