Cheating Hearts: On James M. Cain and Infidelity

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Many noir tales feature infidelity as the motive behind mayhem and murder. More than a few of my favorite novels, films and songs have been motivated by cheating partners whose adulterous lust leads to broken hearts, cracked heads, stolen money or dead bodies. A few of the cheating narratives I’ve admired over the years include the Billy Paul song “Me & Mrs. Jones,” the steamy flick Body Heat and James M. Cain’s masterful debut novel The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934). Cain’s hardboiled story was about a miserable woman named Cora Papadakis who has an affair with java gulping hobo Frank Chambers, who’d recent been thrown off a “hay truck.” 

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Minutes after meeting him, Cora’s husband Nick Papadakis hired Frank to work at the gas station outside their diner Twin Oaks Tavern. Nick was a cool guy from Greece who had relocated to rural California to make his fortune in the world. He loved wine, money and perhaps his wife, but Cora viewed him as the barrier that kept her from freedom. She soon recruits Frank, who was in lust with her at first sight, to help murder Nick. 

Cain’s text was as naughty as it was intriguing, and The Postman Always Rings Twice has been adapted several times on screen and stage. The 1946 noir starring Lana Turner and John Garfield has long been a respected landmark while the 1981 remake starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, directed by Bob Rafelson with a screenplay by David Mamet, was my least liked film of the decade. While in the first film Cora was an alluring earth angel (Lana Turner literally had a sanctified glow) who became a femme fatale, Jessica Lange’s portrayal was grittier, sweatier and hornier. In fact, the entire film was grimy. “They took a classic and turned it into pornographic trash,” Lana Turner told Phil Donahue in 1982.

James M. Cain was an Annapolis, Maryland native who had worked several jobs before becoming a middle-aged novelist; he was forty-two when The Postman Always Rings Twice was published. Cain soon became the king of infidelity noir: two-timing spouses and the murders that followed. A former journalist and screenwriter, his writing style was raw, but poetic with a side of erotic fetishism thrown in. Cain would go on to write a few other infidelity masterworks including Double Indemnity (1936) and Mildred Pierce (1941), but it was Postman… that I read first. 

I bought the book after peeping in the window of the original Mysterious Bookshop on 56th Street in 1984. There was a special display window to commemorate the book’s 50th anniversary. Having seen the original film at the Thalia months before, I was ready to dive deep into Cain’s bleak world filled with various levels of betrayal. I devoured the paperback in a couple of subway rides between work in midtown and my Harlem home. While earlier that year I’d gone through a Hemingway/Fitzgerald phase, two writers who we’re taught from a young age represented the genuine American voice, I was more drawn to Cain’s brutal world. 

Though Cain wasn’t the first to write world-weary, cynical and lustful crime fiction, his refined style of viciousness inspired countless others. Years before he too became a novelist, journalist/ cultural critic Tom Wolfe wrote in his 1969 introduction to the collection Cain X 3, “Cain was one of those writers who first amazed me and delighted me when I was old enough to start looking around and seeing what was being done in American literature…I can see how complex Cain’s famous ‘fast-paced,’ ‘hard-boiled’ technique really is.”

Back when I was a teenager, knowing the cheating ways of my father, having witnessed mom curse his name and my stepmother curse him out, I vowed to never inflict that kind of emotional pain on any woman I loved. In 1984, when I still had morals and was guided by what I was taught at Catholic school St. Catherine of Genoa, I thought I would never put myself in the same sort of compromising situation Frank Chambers found himself in with a married woman. 

Certainly, what kind of man can be so blinded by lust that he’d go against the seventh commandment and sleep with another man’s woman or cheat on his own? That self-righteousness lasted until the following year. Like many nice boys who grow-up to be messed-up men, I slipped and became a cheater. It’s funny how real life can turn into a noir novel (or film) real quick.

Ironically, my first cheat happened across the street from the Mysterious Bookshop at a coffee shop called Miss Brooks, where I worked and had an affair with a married manager. The last occurred in the fall of 2000, sixty-six years after the first printing of Cain’s novel, when I had a summer fling with a woman named Elizabeth that began in August and ended badly one night in a SoHo restaurant after she was two hours late for dinner.

Elizabeth owned and operated a movie website and I was a pop culture critic who wrote for cultural rags. Two months after we split, I ran into her at a screening for a biopic about Vincent Van Gogh, one of my favorite painters. Minutes before the film began Elizabeth was escorted down the aisle by a red jacket wearing usher. Stopping at the row where I was sitting, she glanced over and smiled. Taking a seat next to me, she blurted, “I didn’t plan this.”

“It would’ve taken a lot to do that,” I replied. “Plus, I don’t mind seeing you.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Have you missed me?” Just as she asked the question the house lights dimmed, the curtains opened and some of the other critics were shushing people before the projector started flickering. Starting at exactly 7 pm, the next two hours was a brilliant mediation on madness, art, brotherhood and sacrifice. The tragic brilliance of Van Gogh’s life and work made me weep. 

There were still tears in my eyes when the lights were turned on. Elizabeth glanced over, but remained quiet. Like the rest of the audience she was stunned silent by the masterwork we’d just experienced. We stood at the same time. Liz was about 5’5″, but in heels she could almost look me in the eye. “Are you going to the after-party?” she asked.

“I hadn’t planned on it, but if you want to hangout for a while, I’m down.”

“Plus the food and liquor is free,” she said laughing.

“That’s my favorite price.” 

Outside yellow cabs lined the block. The Supper Club, the midtown venue where the party was being held, wasn’t far. We settled in the cab and I glanced over at Liz and felt a shiver. She looked beautiful, elegant and smart as the girls with glasses that I usually dated. “You look marvelous,” I said, quoting Billy Crystal mimicking Fernando Lamas on Saturday Night Live. Liz smiled. “Thank you. That’s kind of you.” I smiled.

“You don’t have to be so formal Liz, loosen up.” We arrived at the club in 15-minutes. Three vodkas and Red Bulls later we were dancing wildly to “Come On Eileen.” At that point Red Bull was a relatively new drink in America, and neither Liz nor I realized the cocktail would make us both intoxicated and hyper. However, when the DJ played that MTV staple from twenty years before, we lost our minds.

Hours later I was awoken by the morning sun beaming through a window and the soothing vocals of Bill Withers singing “Lovely Day.” Slowly opening my eyes, I discovered myself in an unfamiliar bedroom wearing only my underwear and a black t-shirt. Glancing around, I saw a picture of Liz on the dresser and slapped my forehead like the people in those old V8 juice commercials.

Since we’d broken up Liz had moved to Jersey City, but how I’d gotten from the after-party to the 20th floor of a newly built residential skyscraper was a mystery that was soon replaced by the smell of eggs and bacon frying down the hall. Seconds later Liz walked into the room and smiled. She looked ravishing in the morning light.

“Oh good,” she said. “I wanted to make sure you were awake. The food is almost ready and I brought you a cup of coffee.” She sat the flowered mug on the night table and kissed me on the forehead. A part of me wondered if I’d been drugged.

“What happened last night?”

“What do you mean?

“I mean, how did I get here?”

“You don’t remember? I called a car for us. We came here, and made love on the living room floor.”

“Like animals?” I laughed.

“Yes, like animals.” Liz laughed too. “Then we came into the bedroom, made love again and went to sleep.” Though I’d been drinking since I was a sneaky teenager bar hopping in Baltimore, I had never blacked out nor woke-up in another state. Oh well, things could’ve been worse I reasoned. After breakfast Liz insisted that I walk with her to the mall a few blocks away. On the way there we passed a few abandoned factories that would soon be converted into condos. 

A decade before, it was obviously someone’s dream to turn working-class Jersey City into a luxury branded outer borough to Manhattan, and by the early 2000s it was progressing at a steady pace. Afterwards we went to the promenade, sat on a new bench and talked. By the time we stood-up an hour later, Liz and I were a couple again.

All was lovey dovey for a few weeks as we walked around looking like unmarried honeymooners. Everything was fine until Liz suddenly announced in November that she was going to Chicago to attend a business conference. “I’ll only be gone for a few days,” she promised. I had no reason not to believe her. She left the following day.

A week passed and while we spoke on the phone every day, Liz was still in Chicago. Considering that it was her hometown I figured she was spending time with friends and family. However, one afternoon I received a call from our mutual friend Shawn, another Chicago transplant living in New York. After we caught up, he said, “I wanted to ask you…are you still dating Liz?”

“Yeah, man. Why?”

“Well, I don’t know if I should tell you this, but I saw Liz at a business conference and she was with her ex-boyfriend. Some New York City dude she dated a few years back. They were all hugged up, telling me they got back together. In my mind I’m thinking, ‘Does Mike know?’”

“Mike didn’t know shit, but thanks for telling me.” After hanging-up, I flopped back on the couch and began humming TLC’s infidelity anthem “Creep.” I had heard from yet another friend about Liz’s cheating ways in the past, but I was still surprised that it happened to me. Though shocked, I wasn’t mad. A part of me thought it was kind of funny that, after making such a big deal about our break-up, she’d cheat on me so soon after we reconciled.

 

Hours after learning of Liz’s betrayal I went out with my friend Anna Silverman, a publicist at a prominent rap/R&B record company. She brought her co-worker Terry, a pretty light-skinned woman who had the nerd appeal that I loved. We drank dirty martinis and after the third I asked, “Is it okay if I kiss you?” Terry smiled. “You’re fresh, but it’s all right.” I leaned forward and started with a peck on the lips before diving deeper. Although I didn’t count the minutes our tongues were entangled, I believe we set some kind of record. By the end of the night I had a new girlfriend.

Three days later Liz finally returned to her apartment. We spoke a few times on the phone, but I never revealed that I knew of her reconnection with the old boyfriend. That night I met her in the city at a restaurant in Tribeca. We sat in a booth and ordered our meal. We chit chatted about this and that until Liz finally said, “Michael, I’ve started dating my old boyfriend again. I’m afraid we’re going to have to break-up.”

“Really? Can’t you just cheat on him with me?”

She looked as though she was considering it, but changed her mind. “No, I don’t think that’ll work.”

“It’s alright. I’ve started dating someone else myself.”

“Wait a minute,” Liz screamed in an indignantly stern voice. “You’ve been cheating on me?”

“You cheated first.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that.”

“Actually, I found out before you returned and started messing around with my new woman that night.”

“You have a new girl? That was fast.” I assumed Liz felt cheated because I wasn’t mad or wounded. Perhaps she’d wanted me to scream or cry or stomp my feet like a crazy person. “Are you sure you weren’t dating her before I left for Chicago?”

“You have a lot of nerve. You tell me you’re going away for a few days and that turned into weeks. Then I hear you’re back with what’s-his-name, but now you’re trying to turn this around on me. Give me a break.” Neither of us ordered dinner and after one more cocktail for the road we departed. There was a full moon hovering overhead as I watched her high heel walked towards the World Trade Centers to the trains to New Jersey that ran beneath the gleaming towers.

Months later my telephone rang. I answered without looking at the caller ID and was surprised to hear Liz’s jovial voice. “I just wanted to tell you that my boyfriend proposed to me a few days ago. I’m getting married.”

“That’s wonderful, but what makes you think that I care?”

“Well, we’re going to see each other at that screening tonight at the Tribeca Grand and I didn’t want you acting weird when you saw my ring finger.”

“Men don’t check out ring fingers. Really, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. You know, I’m a bit oblivious.”

That night, before the screening, there was a cocktail reception. Liz and her husband to be strolled in looking sharp. She introduced me to the guy and I wondered if he knew our history. Seconds later she was waving her fingers in front of my face as though she was a hand model or a magician’s assistant. “Congratulations to both of you,” I said. He thanked me and then excused himself to go to the bar. Liz waved the diamond in front of my face a few more times until I growled, “Do it again and I’m going to cut off your hand.”

“Damn you’re mean?” Liz chuckled. “But that was a good line. You can use that in your novel.”

“You think so?”

A few months passed before I spoke or saw Liz again. But, as luck would have it, I overheard her talking on her cell one evening at the Strand Bookstore and I was instantly excited. She tried to shatter my heart, but I still liked her. “Hey Liz.” Startled, she turned around quickly and dropped her book in the process. It was then that I noticed that her sparkling diamond was gone. “Where’s your ring?”

Liz looked at her hand as though for the first time. “Oh, I broke up with him. He was cheating on me.” Without meaning to, I burst out laughing. “I’m glad you think it’s so damn funny.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just ironic. I assume you returned the ring.”

“No I didn’t return it, I lost it.”

“Lost it?”

“It slipped off my finger one morning in the sink and went down the drain.”

“Sounds like someone put voodoo on you. Or maybe it was karma.”

Liz grinned weakly. “Are you still with your new girl?”

“Yeah, we’re still together, but that doesn’t mean that you and I can’t go out for a drink one of these days.” She smiled, I winked and we both knew what I meant. Still, while flirtations came easily, taking that gamble a third time was the last thing either of us wanted to chance.                    

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