Separate tables

Marriage and the "Tritown Marriage"

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

There is one longtime Tritown custom that gives outsiders a start: the "Tritown Marriage." Actually, "Tritown Separation" might be a more accurate term, as the practice doesn't interrupt the legal vows. The marriage involves, at least for a time, real space between the parties in question and occasionally a separate roof.

After the kids moved out, one Tritown matriarch decided her true calling was as a breeder of dachshunds. Slowly, the family manse was transformed into a kennel with very low steps and a lot of chewed doggie toys. At first, her husband was grudgingly enthusiastic, but five litters of pedigreed pups later, he put a TV and easy chair in the tool shed. Cranking the volume was his only recourse to the incessant yapping emanating from the linoleum level.

Hollis the Mountain Man's Aunt Winnie and Uncle Wilton stayed married for an impressive 42 years while cohabiting for just part of the year. From May to September, both lived at the Mountain Lair (on the lee side of Mt. Magoonamitichusimog, an amalgam of French, Algonquin, and English that means, "My idiot friend who lives by the bog -- he likes it"). When harvest time came, Winnie packed up her creel and moved back to their home on Main Street, while Wilton bunkered in. He came back for Christmas and New Year, but then returned to the Lair for ice-fishing, trapping, and various cold weather pursuits. Winnie might come by for a visit, but how Wilton could stand that poky old coal stove and the draft, she never did understand.

For a time, Happy, of Happy's Qwik-Stop and Coffee (30 kinds of doughnuts, 20 kinds of lottery tickets, one kind of coffee) also had a Tritown Marriage. Long before the Dunkin' Donuts campaign ("gotta make the donuts"), he knew the importance of getting most of your work done before the sun crept past the tree line. His day was over by noon, while $erena's mother's work as a hairdresser was just beginning; but at various points in the marriage he retreated to the cot in the back office of the doughnut kitchen where the aroma of permanent-wave solutions could not permeate.

At first glance, it might seem that the Tritown Marriage is either cynical or cruel, but over the long run commitment is a priority, and this modification of the institution tends to do just that. (Keeping the peace is an attractive option as well.) $erena the Waitress thinks about her parents' marriage a lot these days, as she prepares for her own wedding (the date is set, the wheels in motion). Happy only moved back to the house when her mother was diagnosed with the terminal disease that eventually took her life. But even when he was camped out at the Qwik-Stop, they got along pretty well. And $erena's fiancé, Hasky Tarbox, of Tarbox Automotive ("Collisions? A specialty") has the example of his own parents' enduring marriage. H. Tarbox senior had quarter panels and fenders to absorb his worst frustrations, and Mrs. Tarbox was gentle but tough. But she was a pretty conventional wife, who cheerfully provided meals, cleaning services, and domestic chores. Fortunately, $erena loved to cook, but she knew she and Hasky were going to have "some issues" to resolve through their marriage.

Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother) sympathizes. She and $erena are spending an afternoon scrubbing the walls of the apartment upstairs from $erena's Cousin Theresa (of the T 'n` T Beauty Salon). This will be Hasky and $erena's first home, and $erena is exultant about this new phase of her life. "This is great, you helping me out," she tells Delia. "No one's lived here for ages." The apartment is an upstairs flat, but the rooms are small. Even so, Delia can imagine the hulking yet compact Hasky growing quite fond of its cozy corners and bright sun. The Tarbox and Mountain Man estates are on the Mountain, where the trees are thick. The only way you get full-on sunlight is in a canoe in the middle of Picture Pond. "No problem," says Delia. "This is a nice place. Why is it empty?"

$erena wiped a strand of red hair off her forehead and pulled her ponytail more tightly. "My cousins, Big T and Little Terry, lived up here for years and had the beauty shop in the front room," she explains. "Then their parents died, so they moved the shop downstairs, and Big T lived in the back while Little Terry lived up top. Then the shop needed more space, so they rented downtown; and when Big T started having her health problems, Little Terry moved in to take care of her. So they're downstairs, and we'll be upstairs."

Delia nods and knows better than to ask $erena exactly how Big T and Little Terry are related. The complexities of kinship in Tritown would defy a genealogist or even an anthropologist. "It's a great place," Delia says sincerely. "The woodwork is really beautiful, and the built-in drawers in the bedroom and bath save bureau space."

"I think my great-grandfather built those when he and his family were here," says $erena, sticking her bucket under the bathtub tap and turning on the hot water. "I guess people didn't have much clothes or anything then, and if the bureaus were built into the walls, no one could take them away with them."

Delia laughs. "The one unpardonable sin in Tritown is disposing of property," she says. "You're pretty lucky, though, you and Hasky, having this place to move into."

"I know," says $erena. "Of course, we could have moved into his parents' house, but I said `no way'; and since he got rid of his wide-screen TV, he's more likely to end up at the Rod 'n` Reel." $erena hands her bucket to Delia and fills the next. Delia sits on the closed toilet and notices traces of the cousins' long tenancy -- a crocheted toilet-roll cover with a nosegay of yellow plastic roses.

"Are you going to do some painting?" asks Delia, taking her bucket and following $erena back to the living room. "We should do the cabinets in the kitchen at least,"

$erena replies, "I'll show you." she says, going to the back of the apartment. "My aunts didn't cook, but they were crazy bakers. And at least they put vinyl wallpaper in here."

$erena turns on the overhead light, a fluorescent halo that buzzes and shimmers (Townie Rule: Real Townies don't mind fluorescent light in the kitchen or mind eating things out of cans). "I hate that," she says. "We're gonna have to get another one. I think Hasky is gonna ask Hollis to do the wiring in exchange for turning his rotors on the truck. But god knows when any of that's gonna happen."

Delia shakes her head. Hollis was good about doing chores for other people but not good at initiating any arrangement. If his rotors still had so much as a millimeter of metal, poor Hasky and $erena would gaze at each other in a fluorescent haze for some time to come. People living in larger communities have a variety of tradespeople to choose from when tasks need to be done, but in Tritown you could usually barter services. The trick was finding the right barter. "I guess I can live with the light for a while," she says. "Just bring in some regular lamps and put 'em on the walls."

"Maybe Hasky can bring some of those work lights from the garage," jokes Delia. "You know, the kind with the cage around the little bulb and the hook with the long cord. Just hang 'em where you want and then you can move 'em where you'd like . . ."

"Ha," snorts $erena. "That'd be typical -- this place would look like a mine. But we'll probably work it out. I told him as long as he washes his hands at the shop before he comes home, we'd probably get along okay. He told me I had to wash my hair to get rid of the rotten-egg smell after doing a permanent, which is only fair. I hate that smell myself."

Delia nods. Undoubtedly there would come a time when Hasky was washing, or not-washing, his hands at the Rod 'n` Reel, in which case $erena could play cards with her cousins downstairs, or not; but in any event, these two had all the ingredients in place to consider making a life together. A roof, walls, years of knowing one another, and a crocheted cover for the spare toilet roll, so they'd never run out.

Sally Cragin edits Button, New England's tiniest magazine of poetry, fiction, and gracious living, based in Lunenburg. She can be reached at buttonx26@aol.com

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