"Can you believe that, James?" Joanie asked me bringing me out of my own little world and back to the one I inhabited with her. We'd made it through the New Year and into the drudgery of regular life again. I worked all day with kids I wasn't sure I could really help while she divided her time between school and work. My evenings were mostly spent either in classes or at a library studying or researching. I didn't even understand why I was still bothering. Nothing seemed to have a damned point anymore. Yeah I know those pictures were there to remind me that I had life and something to live for and I know the times when Joanie and I were actually together was a reminder of that too. I mean, how could I not want to strive for something when I could come home to her? Still I spent a good amount of time lost in my own head.

"What was that?" I asked realizing that it was better to just admit I hadn't been paying attention than to try to fake it.

"That story on the news," she clarified with some annoyance, "A man in Atlanta would rather close his restaurant than serve a negro. And then he had the chutzpah to blame the Negro man for ruining his business."

"Yeah, that's bad," I said and I know I sounded pretty apathetic. The fact she was sliding in the Yiddish should have clued me in to where her temper was right about then but I wasn't paying enough attention.

"James, I can't even believe that tone," she said though she was nearing a good yell. "Put aside that treating every man as an equal is just the right thing to do and it is the law. Segregation is illegal. Did you even see the banner over the sign? 'Closed by L.B.J.'? How in the world can people even look themselves in the mirror?"

"I don't know, Joanie," I replied and it was a snippy reply I'll grant you so I will say I probably deserved what came next. I'll have you know first of all that I didn't dispute a single thing that came out of her mouth. She was right and that man in Atlanta was flat wrong and I would never say otherwise but right then I just wasn't in the mood for that.

"James!" she yelled and I know she yelled plenty more and I heard some of it before I made it to our room and slammed the door behind me. There was plenty about how these same people would turn her out just as fast because of her maiden name and her features and how these were the people who'd beaten Aaron within an inch of his life and how they would have killed him for sure if they had known anymore about him. There was something about Noah too but I didn't really hear that part. Nothing she said was false and most days I cared too. I know that the types who were for segregation thought as little of Jews as they did blacks. I could pretty easily pass too being a convert and all but I wouldn't go anywhere Joanie wasn't allowed and her features were just way too Jewish to be mistaken for anything else.

Well, it's not like there was a lock on the bedroom door or anything and Joanie came right in without too much of a pause. I was on the bed pretending to read and trying to look mad. I don't know why I thought it would be better if she thought I was mad at her than what I was really feeling but that's what I went for anyway.

She was still yelling though I wasn't making out words or anything by that time. It was all just noise coming at me like every other rotten thing at that time. I realized she had stopped and was just staring at me. I had no idea if she had yelled herself out or if she had asked me a question and was waiting for a response so I just stared at her. That started another tirade.

"You weren't even listening, were you James?" she was screaming again and I just couldn't take it anymore. I got up and went right past her. I grabbed my coat as I went out the front door and slammed it hard behind me. I didn't know where I was going or why I had left even. I should have talked to her, I suppose but for some reason I just couldn't. Remember once I said I was real good at falling in love and not so good at the rest of it? Yeah, four years of schooling to get better at dealing with people and the one I handled the worst was my own wife. That's not all that uncommon I found out later but I felt like a failure as a husband right about then and I was feeling like a bit of a failure as a counselor and even as a friend. So outside with my head down against the snow and wind seemed the right place for me that night. I certainly didn't deserve better. I don't know why I didn't get in my car at least but you know how it is when you're upset and you just need to walk it off. I walked it off so much that I found myself standing in front of the garage. It was close enough to Al's that I headed that way. A few feet further and I would have been to Emma's but I didn't really deserve her mothering right then. I wasn't sure I deserved the warmth of Al's house but I was froze near through by that time. It was windy, the snow was blowing and the temperatures were probably in single digits. I grabbed a coat but no hat or even gloves when I went out. It wasn't well thought out but then there's lots I've done in my life that I didn't think through too well. I knocked on the door. Al looked puzzled when he opened it but then got all concerned looking and nearly drug me into the living room.

"Dammit Jimmy," he said, "I just got off the phone with your wife. She's worried sick. Where in blazes have you been?"

"Walking," I told him.

"And you ended up here?" he asked incredulously, "It's a good four miles from your place to here. Thermometer out back says it's only eight degrees."

"Sounds about right," I said as he nearly pushed me to sit on the couch. He threw one of Emma's crocheted creations on me and then went to the kitchen to pour me a cup of coffee.

"What are you thinking running off like that leaving your poor wife to worry?" he demanded.

"I don't know Al," I said, "I just had to get out of there. She was yelling about something and I just couldn't care about it today."

He sighed and looked at me with more sympathy than I felt I warranted right about then.

"I should've just stayed working for you, Al," I told him, "I should've never kissed Joanie. I should've let her be. She would have found some nice guy who was smart. I can't do anything. You've seen where she grew up and I've got her living in some dinky apartment. I don't know what possessed me to think I could help those kids at school. I'm too much of a mess myself. I hear them tell me how they live and I don't know how to help I just want to punch something. I don't know how to be a husband. I was probably better off when I swore off women."

"I know it seems that way sometimes, Jimmy," Al said resting his arms across his belly, "Women ain't easy to figure out and neither is life most times. You're good enough at that job of yours because you care about those kids. You feel like you can't help them because you're the only one that does care."

He leaned forward like he was making sure I was paying enough attention to hear the next part. Like it was extra important or something.

"No man really knows how to be a husband any more than a woman knows how to be a wife. We kind of have to figure it out on the job so to speak. Now you couldn't think how to tell her whatever it is what's bothering you and you feel like a failure as a husband. How do you think she feels sitting at home thinking she drove her husband out into the snow on a night like this?"

I just looked down into the dark liquid that filled the cup in my hand.

"Now I know this can't be the first fight you've had with her," he said gently and I shook my head. "From the look of you I'm going to say it was the first since you got yourself hitched."

I nodded.

"It was stupid too," I said.

"They usually are," he smiled at me. "Lucille and I had some doozies in our day. I would say probably most of them were my fault but I wasn't ever about to admit that at the time. I'll tell you there's a bright spot to having a fight."

"How can there possibly be a bright spot?"

"You get to make up," he said with a devilish grin and a wink. He didn't wait for any other response from me; just stood and headed for the phone. He didn't even try to speak soft so I wouldn't hear or anything.

"It's just me, Joanie…he's safe…yeah, darned fool…no, don't you get all weepy there…I'll bring him to you now, you just sit tight."

"You don't have to take me home, Al," I told him.

"I'm not letting you walk all the way back home," he said, "You ain't exactly dressed for the weather."

To be honest I'd been inside with a hot cup of coffee in my hands for a good fifteen minutes at that point and my hands were still cold enough to feel like they didn't want to move so I gave in and let the old man drive me home. Besides, I couldn't let Joanie worry for me any longer and if I didn't let him drive me he'd have just called her and then she would've come out in the cold looking for me. Al got me to my apartment building and I trudged up the stairs wondering the whole time what I was going to say to her to even try to explain myself. I reached for the doorknob and had it in my grasp before it flew out of my hand and Joanie threw herself at me.

"I was so frightened," she said between planting kissed all over my face and neck. There were tears streaming down her face as she pulled me inside and to the davenport. She got me to sit down and wrapped a blanket around me and then bustled off returning moments later with a cup of hot tea and another blanket.

"I'm so sorry," she said still crying, "I didn't even think. I should have noticed."

I just stared at her in wonder.

"The story before the one that got me so worked up was about the latest casualties in Vietnam," she went on, "God, I hate that war so much I guess I just tune it out and I might not have even figured it out but I called Emma and she was crying about it and then I saw the mail from today. I didn't know you'd gotten a letter from him."

"I shouldn't have left," I said, "I shouldn't have ignored something that was upsetting you. There's no excuse."

"No, you shouldn't have left," she said cuddling close to me and nestling her head against my shoulder. "I was so scared. But it really was my fault."

"You know what I would tell a couple that came to me with this fight?"

"What's that, my love?"

"I'd say she shouldn't have been so quick to fly off the handle," I told her, "And then I'd tell him he should have spoken up instead of expecting her to read his mind."

She laughed at me although it sounded strange because she'd just been crying.

"Are you warming up?" she asked.

Now actually I was warming up nicely and I was in no danger of dying from exposure although I was still a little chilly. A Michigan wind in February can really cut right through you.

"Might warm up a little better if you was under the blankets here with me."

Then Joanie got that gleam in her eyes.

"You know I read somewhere about the best way to warm someone up who's freezing," she told me with a smirk that made me wonder what she had up her sleeve. "Come with me."

She took my hand and pulled me to the bedroom and began to take my clothes off.

"Joanie," I said, "I'm trying to stave off hypothermia, not heat stroke."

"I know," she whispered low in my ear making all my hairs stand on end.

Once she had me undressed she half pushed me onto the bed and pulled the blankets over me. I was still shivering until I saw what she did next.

"See, I read somewhere that the body heat of another person was the best way to warm someone who had been exposed to the cold," she explained as she lifted her shirt over her head discarding it on the floor and then reached behind herself to unclasp her bra. "Now to truly get my body heat," she went on unzipping her jeans and pushing them down followed by her panties. "There can't be anything to interfere in the transfer of that heat."

Then she climbed into bed and cuddled right up tight to me. Parts of me warmed up pretty quick, that's for sure.

"If I remember correctly from science class," she said softly, "Friction generates heat."

She started rubbing against me and that made me just need to rub against her and eventually I was plenty warm, maybe even too warm because I'm sure I was sweating. I couldn't help chuckling.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Something Al said about the good part of fighting was the making up."

"I always thought he was a very wise man," she said.

"Wiser than I am," I agreed.

"He's had a lot more time to get that way, my love."

I thought about that and I know what she said was true. I was still awful young then but I think about how now I'm older than he was back then and really older than he ever made it to and still I don't think I'm near as smart as that man was. Of course, maybe he didn't really think he was that smart either. After all the grandkids still haul their behinds to my door when they need some advice so maybe I'm smarter than I think. Or maybe they're a really bad judge of advice givers.

Okay...I spent yesterday watching old news footage of Vietnam to get an understanding of what Jimmy would be seeing and the emotional toll that would take on him. I would have liked to have written earlier but J&J were "busy". They are newlyweds after all and sometimes I can't get Jimmy to stop kissing his wife long enough to talk to me. Anyway, I caught a news broadcast that led off with casualties in Vietnam and then went to a story from Atlanta where a man really did close his restaurant for good rather than have to allow black people to dine there. I knew that would just steam Joanie's shorts when she heard that and Jimmy would still be reeling about the Vietnam stuff...next chapter really gets into the war story and Kid's letter. And I'm such a nerd that writing chapter 66 had me humming the old song Route 66 all day so far...hehehe-J