People Who Knock on the Door (17 page)

It sounded awful to Arthur, untempting. Imagine going to bed with Irene! Or from Irene’s point of view, sleeping with a truck driver who hadn’t had a bath or a shave in a couple of days! “Well—is she demented?”

“No. Why?” His father slowed to let him off at the next crossing.

“Because she didn’t seem quite right in the head the night I saw her.—Is her sister any better?”

“Um-m—no.” His father stopped the car.

Arthur got out and said through the open window, “G’luck Dad. And thanks.”

On a dark sidewalk between Main and Gus’s house, where the commercial started to blend into the residential, Arthur encountered a prostitute. She was strolling languidly and said, “
Good
evening,” as they passed. What was the world coming to? His father had his work cut out for him.

Arthur rapped on the frame of the screen door at Gus’s, and getting no answer, walked in.

“Hi, Art! I’m in the kitchen!” Gus yelled.

Arthur went into the kitchen and found Gus on the linoleum floor near the back door, working on a lawnmower, a small Wolf that ran with gasoline. Gus’s mother greeted him. She was slicing orange peel and the kitchen smelled nice.

“Sit down, Art. I won’t be long on this.—Want a beer?”

“Not just yet, thanks.” Arthur sat on a straight chair, watching Gus’s work.

“What’s your news?” Gus asked, blowing on a bolt. He screwed it back with his fingers and picked up a wrench.

“I’m in at C.U. Heard today.”

“Oh—fine. Hear that, Mom? Art’s going to C.U. in September.”

“Are you?—Well, nice you’ll be around with us, Arthur.”

Arthur nodded. “Other news,” he said to Gus, “Maggie’s away for two weeks at least. Canada.”

“Oh. Yeah, you said she was going.” Gus stood up and pulled the starter cord. The mower burst into noise and trembling life.

“
Really
, Gus!—You’ll make me
cut
myself!” cried his mother, turning around, laughing.

Gus smiled with success and switched the motor off. “Sorry, Mom.—Now I’ll git this so-and-so out on the back porch for the night.”

Arthur stood up to help, but it was a one-man job. Arthur held the screen door open. Then Gus took beers from the fridge. Gus washed his hands at the sink; then they went up to his room.

“How’s Veronica?” Arthur asked.

“Okay, helping her mother put up stuff tonight, she said. String beans and beets.” Gus started to sit on his bed and chose the floor. His jeans had grease spots.

Arthur thought about his father, with that nut Irene this minute, in that nutty household. Did his father pick up the Bible and start quoting?

“Something happen with Maggie?”

“Oh, no!—She invited me up to Canada for a week. But I thought I better stick with my job.—More news, my dad said he’d help out with C.U. Moneywise. Not sure how much, but it sounds like about half.” Arthur knew Gus’s family was helping him out, even though Gus would no doubt keep on with his repair jobs, which were quite lucrative. “Maybe I’ll have to take a part-time job. I hate it. I suppose I’m lazy, if you come down to it.” Arthur wouldn’t have minded if Gus said he was a bit lazy.

But Gus didn’t. He got up and with his back turned to Arthur removed his jeans and put on pajama pants. Then he sat on his bed.

“Can you drive me home tonight?” Arthur asked, worried slightly about the pajama pants, but Gus said:

“Sure.—You walked here?”

“Na-a. My dad drove me. He was seeing somebody at Haskill and Main, one of his church people.”

“You mean he tries to get people to go to church?”

“Well—yeah, but mostly he meets these people
in
church. Young people, he calls them, but this one’s about thirty. Irene Langley. Bleached blond. Used to be a hooker and took drugs too.”

“You met her?”

“Once.”

“So your dad goes over and talks to her—about keeping on the straight path?”

“Something like that. She calls up and whines, wants him to come over. It’s creepy.” Arthur wanted to tell Gus about her visit, but was afraid Gus might be bored, and Irene was even depressing to talk about, too.

Gus shook his head. “Nice of your dad to give her all that time.”

Arthur dropped his beer can into Gus’s wastebasket. “Yeah. A wonder they let her
in
church, because she still looks like a hooker.”

Gus laughed a little. “Hey, I’m glad you’re going to C.U.—I know you’re not.—Thank God, I don’t have to worry about French anymore, majoring in agriculture. Y’know, my French was just like my dancing; it just got so good and no better. Never would, never will.” Gus put on a cassette, not too loud, because there was always somebody sleeping in a nearby room.

They drank their second beers; then Gus drove Arthur home. The garage doors at Arthur’s house were open, but his father’s car was not there. Gus declined to come in, both because of his pajama pants and that he had to be up by 6:30.

Arthur found his mother in the living room with one of the thick books she sometimes took from the Home, a book on child care, pediatrics.

“Gus drove you home?—Thought it was Richard for a minute.”

Arthur looked at his watch. Ten to 11. He stretched, suddenly sleepy. “I’m turning in.”

“I wish Richard was. He needs his sleep, and I
don’t
feel like calling that woman up, even if I had her number, which I haven’t.” She laid her book aside.

“I bet I could find it. We could call up and remind Dad of an early morning appointment.”

“He may well have one,” said his mother, lighting a cigarette.

“Have you met the sister?”

His mother shook her head. “Weighs over two hundred pounds, Richard says, sits around nibbling all day and doesn’t bother looking for a job. Who’d have her?—Oops! That’s Richard’s car now.”

Doors slammed. Then Richard came in with his arms-hanging attitude, smiling tiredly at both of them. “Whew!—That was tough. She hadn’t paid her electricity bill. No money. I was trying to go over her finances—income with her, but she says the tips vary so much.” Richard shook his head. “I didn’t offer her a loan, anyway.”

“Good,” Lois said smugly.

“Sister sitting there”—Richard removed his jacket—“eating candy bars while she listened to us.”

“Must be depressing,” said Lois.

“Oh-h—she tells me about the characters she meets where she works. About the offers she’s turned down to travel places. Ha! She was even invited to Cuba, she says. Havana.”

Arthur was bored. Even Havana with its good cigars sounded boring, if Irene had anything to do with it. “G’night, Mom. G’night, Dad.”

19

O
n his first day at Chalmerston University, Arthur noticed a girl who much resembled Maggie. This was perhaps the most jolting of his experiences. She was among a couple of hundred students in a corridor of Johnson Hall. Her hair was the same color and cut the same way; she was taller than Maggie and her mouth was wider, but she had the same erect posture and air of energy. She and Arthur were walking in opposite directions.

Arthur’s mother had contributed two hundred dollars, which she implied his father wouldn’t miss from their joint bank account; Arthur had twice that, and his grandmother had sent him five hundred with a nice note in early September. His fifteen-hundred-dollar grant had been applied, so Arthur was more than in the clear for half the year, which gave him a good feeling. The other feeling he had about C.U. was a fuzzy and disturbing one: Everyone seemed to be specializing instantly in something, agriculture in Gus’s case, biology in his, or statistics, or in some detail of electronics. He had imagined a wider range of required subjects, such as English composition and a foreign language (French for him), the study of which would be lifted to some higher plane where classes were smaller, standards higher than those of high school. However, English composition and French were still demanded for the A.B. he was aiming for, besides the chemistry and physics that went with specializing in biology. In a burst of extravagance, Arthur decided to add philosophy, which was not required.

At home, his father continued the cool treatment, saying “Morning,” with a faint smile as if Arthur were a stranger on ship, and “Good night, Arthur,” over his shoulder sometimes. But no matter, because his mother beamed at him often. Arthur carried his books and notebooks in a brown leather briefcase with three compartments and two zippers and with both handle and strap, which Maggie had brought him from Canada. “Strap’s detachable,” Maggie had said, “in case you think it’s feminine.”

At C.U., there was Gus and Veronica, and other faces familiar to Arthur from senior classes in high school. He had a locker for a spare raincoat, boots, and old umbrella, with a good combination lock, because there was a lot of thievery, he had been warned. He had bought the secondhand brown Ford.

As the autumn came on, there was a letup in Irene Langley’s telephone calls, Arthur noticed. At least, his father seemed to be home most evenings. Arthur now refused to go to church, claiming that C.U. demanded all his time, which was certainly true if he scanned even half of the “suggested reading list” for English and philosophy, not to mention biology, as Professor Jurgens was always adding titles of his latest fancy to his mimeographed list.

Maggie wrote in October:

Just finished a swat at math. Can you believe that I still have to spend extra time on it? Exam coming up even and if I don’t pass they can warn me in January and throw me out next spring!

It’s as you said, the older boys date all the freshmen as if they’ve never seen girls before, but so far I’ve had just two “dates” and these were in groups. Twice as many fellows as girls, so you’re not really dating anybody . . . I miss you.

All my love,

M.

She was coming home for Thanksgiving. That was something to look forward to.

After a long period of abeyance, Robbie’s tantrum fits returned over a square dance party to be given in the high school gym on Halloween. All the kids were to come in costume. And Robbie had announced one evening that he was going and was taking a girl named Mildred. Robbie had said he wanted a costume of black tights, maybe with a white skeleton painted on it, and he was going to look for it. His parents and Arthur were all pleased that Robbie intended to go to something “social.” They asked about Mildred.

“Oh, she’s just a girl,” Robbie replied.

Then, the evening before the event, Robbie got cold feet. He wasn’t going, he said, and no, he hadn’t told Mildred.

“Look,” Arthur said, “you can’t just stand a girl
up
! Unless Mildred can go on her own or something. You’d have to be in the hospital—”

“I’ll talk to him,” their mother said.

A few minutes later, when Arthur was in his own room, he heard Robbie’s voice rise to a screech, as it had used to before his voice changed. Arthur got up to close his door, found it already closed, then heard his mother say:

“No one’s
making
you go, Robbie. What do you mean?”

“It makes me sick,” Robbie replied, “and I’m not
going
!”

What was the hitch now, with little Robbie? Arthur went into the living room, because he wanted Robbie to go to this party. Little Robbie, now half an inch taller than he, had no social life at all.

“Now what’s up?” Arthur asked, with a genial air of someone who had been only slightly disturbed by the loud voices. His father’s study door was closed. “You’re not going—why? That’s a good-looking outfit, by the way.”

Robbie was in the pants part of the skeleton suit, and the shirt part dangled from one hand. He shifted about the living room, naked from the waist up, red-faced. “It’s silly and I’m not gonna wear it!”

“Then wear your blue jeans!” their mother said. “Nobody’ll care, Robbie. Wear your skull mask—”

“I’m not going at all!”

“Shy about Mildred maybe,” Arthur said.

“You shut your trap!” Robbie retorted. “The hell with her, I just don’t want to go to this goddamned
thing
!”

Lois put her hands over her ears for an instant, and Richard opened his study door.

“What the dickens is going on here?” Richard said.

“Robbie doesn’t want to go to the party tomorrow night.”

“Not only don’t want to, I’m
not
going,” said Robbie. He started to shove his tights down, then ran off to his room to do it.

“Robbie!” said Richard in his best baritone.

Robbie stopped and turned.

“Why aren’t you going to that party?” Richard asked. “It’s a school party.”

“I don’t feel like it; I think it’s silly, and I don’t know why I have to go.”

“You have to go, because
I
tell you to go,” said Richard, advancing on Robbie. “Your mother sees that you get the—the right stuff to wear; you’ve got a date to take—and you back out?
No
, boy. You’re going.”

Robbie hesitated, crumpled, bowed his head, then turned and fled before anyone could see a tear.

Arthur looked at his father, amazed. The argument was over. Robbie was going tomorrow night. In the old days, Robbie would have writhed on the floor with clenched fists.

Richard said to Lois, “He’s going.”

“I can’t—understand it,” Lois whispered. “I mean the way he’s acting.”

“Neither can I. But he’s going. Do him good.” Richard went back to his study.

As Arthur returned to his room, he heard a choked sob from behind Robbie’s closed door.

A couple of days later, Arthur said to his mother, at a moment when they were alone in the house, “What was Robbie afraid of about that party? Taking a
girl
with him?” Robbie had returned with a grim air of having done his duty in regard to the party.

“Well—maybe,” his mother replied, “because Mildred asked
him
, I gathered. Robbie’s—”

Arthur burst out laughing. That made sense. Arthur couldn’t imagine Robbie taking the initiative and asking a girl.

“I think he wanted to go, but by himself. That’s the way I see it. He came back saying parties like that were silly and not grown-up.” His mother added, “Maybe we should be glad he’s not sniffing coke.”

Arthur knew his brother was still consorting with his Delmar Lake chums, who were now hunting instead of fishing, the season having changed. Robbie hadn’t his own gun, because their father forbade it, but Robbie shot rabbits and wild ducks with the guns of others, he had told the family.

In the corridors, and sometimes on the steps of the C.U. library, where students stopped to talk and smoke a cigarette, Arthur saw the girl called Aline Morrison, who looked so much like Maggie, and his heart gave a jump each time. His eyes were apt to linger, but twice the girl had noticed him, and Arthur had at once looked away. She wasn’t, of course, a duplicate of Maggie. Her nose was more pointed. But the way she held herself was like Maggie in a good mood. One day in the library, when Arthur had taken some books from the stacks and sat down to do an hour’s work, he glanced across the long table and saw the Morrison girl directly opposite him.

She looked at him at the same time, then back to what she was writing.

Arthur slowly gathered his books and notebooks, as if moving slowly would make him less conspicuous, and left the table for another. He forgot about the Morrison girl, and then as he was checking out books at the desk, he saw her standing by the exit door.

“Hello,” she said. “I don’t know your name.”

“Arthur.”

“I was wondering—well, why you looked at me and then left that table.” She smiled, almost laughed. Her brown eyes had darker brown flecks in them, a little like Maggie’s which were, however, an odd mixture of blue and brown and green.

They were walking on slowly.

“It’s nothing. It’s just that you remind me of someone I know.”

“Somebody here?”

“No, she’s at another college.”

“Remind you pleasantly?”

“Yes, sure.—Sorry if I annoyed you. Didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t annoy me. Why don’t you join us in the lunch hall some time? We’re usually back corner right.”

Who was we, Arthur wondered. “Thanks. I’m only a freshman.”

“Sophs are allowed to talk to freshmen. Anyway, you don’t look like a scared rabbit type.”

“Thanks.” Arthur smiled and walked on. He had no desire to make a date with the Morrison girl, he realized. Was he afraid of her somehow? No. He had Maggie, so why make a date with the Morrison girl?

Three days before Maggie was due home for Thanksgiving, Arthur had a telephone call from her. Maggie said she had chicken pox.

“Unbelievable, isn’t it? Hundred-and-four fever at six this evening and I’m in quarantine. I can’t come home for Thanksgiving. The doctor says it’ll take a week—”

“Gosh, I’m sorry!”

“So’m I. Now it’ll be Christmas before I see you!”

Arthur told his mother, who was in the living room working over a big file of letters from the Beverley Home.

“Oh, dear! That’s a nasty business at her age. What tough luck, Arthur—for both of you.”

“Her mother knows, but I think I’ll call Betty anyway.” Arthur dialed the Brewster number, but nobody answered. He went to a shelf in the living room, and pulled out the Merck Manual. “Did I ever have chicken pox, Mom?”

“You certainly did. Robbie, too, at the same time. It’s not serious when you’re small.—Maggie must’ve come in contact with a small child with it—somehow.”

As Arthur was reading about pustules, his father came in, unexpectedly, because he had gone out after dinner to visit a client and the client had stood him up. His father’s presence, plus the rotten news from Maggie, inspired Arthur to leave and go straight to the Brewster house.

A dim light was on in the Brewster living room, but no one answered the doorbell. Arthur had brought a philosophy text and a flashlight and sat in his car reading.

Betty Brewster’s white Volkswagen Polo arrived in less than half an hour.

“Hi, Betty!—You heard the bad news?”

“About Maggie? Yes, this afternoon.—Come in, Arthur. How long’ve you been waiting? You must be freezing!”

Arthur was happy to come into the house. He had visited Betty at least twice since Maggie had been gone, and once Betty had called him to ask news of Maggie, suspecting that Maggie wrote to him more often than to her. Betty had asked him to visit anytime he chose. Now she made old-fashioneds in heavy glasses.

“I wrote a note to Maggie,” said Betty. “I’m afraid to try to call her, in case she’s not near a phone. I reminded her
not
to scratch, now or later. Quite a big rash, you know, all over the face and the torso even.”

Arthur felt increasingly alarmed. “Maybe you should get her into a hospital here?”

Betty laughed. “No. I had a friend who caught it. A grown-up. Four rotten days, but you’re hardly in bed, just fever. Then these little pustules break. Highly unpleasant.”

The grandfather clock ticked in the hall. Betty asked him about college, about his brother. Arthur was reluctant to leave.

“Come and have Thanksgiving dinner with us, if you feel like it, Arthur,” Betty said. “Just Warren and me and another couple—middle-aged, sorry to say, but easy to get along with.”

Arthur was tempted, because the dinner would be in Maggie’s house. “Thank you. I suppose my folks’ll expect me to be home.”

“We have our dinner in the evening. You can eat two dinners, can’t you?”

Arthur grinned. “I suppose I can. Thank you, Betty. I’d like to come.”

“Six-thirty.—Any time between six and seven doesn’t matter at all.”

Robbie’s contribution to Thanksgiving was a rabbit freshly shot by himself in the Delmar Lake woods with “the men,” as Robbie called them. For some reason, Arthur thought of a chain gang when Robbie said this. His mother, of course, was going to bake a turkey, and nobody in the family cared for rabbit except Richard.

“Can’t we put it in the fridge or the deep freeze till after tomorrow?” Lois asked.

This was the day before Thanksgiving Day, and Arthur was home when Robbie came in with the rabbit in a slightly bloody newspaper at noon.

“Sure, but I gotta skin him and clean him first. Want to watch me skin him, Arthur?”

“Not particularly,” Arthur replied. “I suppose it’s dead and not just half-dead?”

Robbie’s macho bored Arthur. He now wore green rubber boots too big for him, somebody’s hand-me-down hunting jacket with pockets for bullets and small game, and a murderous-looking knife in a leather sheath fastened to the jacket belt. Robbie stalked out with the bloody bundle into the backyard, via his father’s study door, and proceeded to skin the animal with the knife. This involved cutting the head and feet off first, Robbie had informed Arthur and their mother. She had a plastic bag in which to put these items for disposal, plus the skin, but no, Robbie wanted to keep the skin, he had said.