Against his mouth the boy held the bag of ice and blood was staining the cloth and there was an old towel laid on the floor under his chair to protect the linoleum and though he had stopped crying hours ago his eyes were still red and swollen as she had not seen them before and though it gave her a flutter in her stomach she sat down at the table with the enamel plate and the hamburger and the peas and ate her dinner and then the boy understood, she could see, that she had cooked only for herself. His fingers scrunched the bag of ice and a drop of meltwater mixed with blood dripped along his hand, rolled past his wrist, along his bare arm, down to his elbow where it sat against his bare ribs, and trickled around his waist, disappearing into the folds of the second old towel, the one she had told him to wrap round himself for decency, him having had to undress otherwise his clothes might have got stained, never mind that they already smelled of smoke from his treachery and would have to be laundered before he had worn them twice. She would be sure to make him do the washing.
Take it away, she said, the ice. He moved the bag from his face. Open your mouth, she said, and he did and she watched to see whether any new blood would come, and when it didn’t she said for him to go wash himself and put on his pajamas and then it would be time for bed. But, he started to say, and she looked down, took a bite of the burned hamburger patty so raw inside it was oozing blood onto her plate, and with the hand not holding the fork she held up a finger and the boy knew better than to speak again when she did that, and he stood and quietly pushed the chair back under the table without knocking it and went quietly to the bathroom and closed the door just as quietly and she heard in all that silence more anger and terror than she had known from the child and it made her feel glad.
One lesson learned.
She finished her food although almost choking, and listened as the boy washed, and listened as he pulled pajamas from the dresser in the living room, and listened as he returned to the bathroom. At a lower setting than before she heated the frying pan and poured in corn oil and when it was hot enough dropped in another patty and reheated the peas and took another plate from the cupboard and when the meat was cooked and the peas hot she put the food on the plate and the plate on the table, so when the boy came back to the kitchen he saw the food and his face was like morning. She smiled at him and they sat together at the table as he ate, chewing each bite slowly because who knew when the next might come, a good lesson to learn, one she had taught by giving him nothing but water for two days a few months earlier, and when he was finished she took out the crystal sherbet glasses that Ruth had sent her and in each glass spooned half a canned peach and another spoon of the syrup and she and the boy ate their peaches, smiling at each other in silence, and she knew the lesson had been learned, at least for now, and he would not soon cross her or misbehave or disobey and in time she might even begin to trust him a little.
You can wash up, she said, and the boy said, Yes, Mother, and carried the sherbet glasses to the bathroom, then came back for the forks and knives and the two enamel plates and the frying pan and spatula and the pot for the peas and the bread knife and she listened, there, sitting at the kitchen table, as the boy ran water in the bathtub and washed the dishes and placed each clean dish in the bathroom sink and then looked up and smiled at him when he came back in the kitchen and took the cloth from the rail on the stove and walked back across the living room to the bathroom, and let the water out of the bath and dried each plate and pot and pan and utensil and then carefully brought them back to the kitchen, the glasses each on their own to be especially careful, the plates stacked together with the cutlery on top, the pot on the pan and the spatula and knife last of all, the blade held down for caution, and then she listened as the cloth dropped with a wet settling whip onto the handle of the oven door and she said, Now you can watch the television, if you like, until nine, and then it will be time for bed. What will you do, Mother? the boy asked and she said, I will read the paper, by which she meant Mrs. Smith’s newspapers saved from the trash, and that morning’s copy of the Los Angeles Times, which she had bought for herself with the money hidden in the couch, the money the boy claimed was his own, rightfully gotten, and that was something she should not forget, although that particular lesson would have to wait.
The boy turned on Pantomime Quiz Time and Mike Stokey and the guests were sitting in a living room with Adele Jergens, who had that funny squint, and Frank De Vol, who looked like he might be a Communist, and Hans Conreid, who had played a Communist in that awful picture The Senator Was Indiscreet, and then there was Vincent Price, as sinister a man as she had ever seen. On top of her pile of newspapers was the clipping from earlier in the week about the wedding of Generalissimo Franco’s daughter and the Marques de Villaverde, and the new Marquesa in a Balenciaga faille dress and there having been footmen to carry the train, it being five yards long and all of it happening at the Pardo Palace outside of Madrid. The people on the television were playing charades and laughing and it seemed a little off-color and the boy laughing along with them but also at them in a way that seemed a little off-color too, but the boy was happy and what with how rare it was to hear him laugh she turned back to that day’s paper and read about how the awful Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul, president of the University of California, had allowed an active member of the Communist Party to remain at UCLA, the woman having registered three times as a Communist in Los Angeles County, so there could be no doubt about it, could there, that Dr. Sproul was in no position to defend his position. It only went to show that Senator McCarthy was right about the Communists and their fellow travelers being everywhere, at every level of society and in every profession, even the universities, trying to indoctrinate and recruit the innocent youth of America.
The boy laughed and it came out so shrill she thought there was a girl in the room and looked up and knew it was the boy and it made her so angry she flipped the page of the newspaper so it almost tore. There was a story about that nasty man Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood scriptwriter and Communist, and that other one, Lawson, and how their lawyers were trying to keep them from having to go to prison as they were meant to do, but luckily the Supreme Court, Kay read, had refused to reconsider its judgement that the men were, in fact, in contempt of Congress, them having failed to answer the questions put to them three years ago about being Communists, in point of fact. She cut out the article and underlined words like routine and refusal and postpone, which although she knew them did not use them often enough in her letters or everyday speech. Pantomime Quiz Time was finished and there were commercials and then it was 8:30 and time for B.F. Goodrich’s Celebrity Time with Conrad Nagel, who was not very good because he always stuttered and hesitated when he was speaking, as if he was not sure what he was supposed to be saying or even, sometimes, what it meant, and that did not give a good impression. Ilka Chase and John Daly were on the program and she didn’t like either of them, too smart for their own good, so turned back to the newspaper and the first story that really unsettled her, it being proof if ever she needed it that the Democrats really were no better than Communists, since President Truman had said something to the effect that Senator McCarthy was the Russians’ most important asset in the United States, and Senator Taft said how that was libelous and now the President was asking whether libeling Senator McCarthy was even possible, which is to suggest, as Kay understood it, that the President himself was suggesting that Senator McCarthy was such a terrible man through and through, in every facet of his life, public and private, that a person could say any vile thing about him and it wouldn’t be libel because it was true, and that seemed to her the most outrageous thing she had heard said about anyone, tantamount (a fine word that made one sound sophisticated) to calling Senator McCarthy the devil incarnate, a man of total sin, and not just a stooge of the Kremlin. It made Kay so angry she stood up and went to the desk and took out a sheet of paper and a pen and began writing a letter but she became distracted by John Daly’s voice on the television and the sound of h
is vowels, there was something about them that reminded her of that rogue Roosevelt but it was stranger than that, almost as though it were not entirely American but not British either, it was so strange that she began to wonder if perhaps English was not his mother tongue, and he might have been one of these very well trained foreigners who can sound almost American but never be altogether convincing because of being born into another language. She made a note on a leftover envelope to write to CBS about it.
She turned back to her sheet of stationery and was about to address the letter to the White House when she heard the downshift of gears and a clunk-clunk-throb coming around the corner, recognizable as the sound of Hank’s red pickup, so she put away the pen and paper in the desk drawer. Should I turn it off, the boy asked and she said No, it will be fine, because of it being a Friday and Hank bound to be in a good mood and she tried to remember how many days it had been since she had seen her husband and then the truck’s brakes squealed and when she looked out the window she could see the truck parked outside, but right in front of the driveway, blocking the whole span of it such that Mr. and Mrs. Smith would not be able to get in and out of the garage in the morning, which she knew would be a problem, Mrs. Smith always preferring to go to the grocery store on a Saturday and Mr. Smith to go fishing, and often early, some weekends leaving before dawn to drive up into the foothills and on occasion all the way to Kings Canyon. She waited for Hank to move the truck into a more appropriate position but the lights were still on, and the engine running and it stayed that way for some time until the lights and the engine both went off but the door of the truck had not yet opened and the boy looked at her with his fretting expression and she said, You had better stay here.
The air was still warm as she went down the steps, noticing the television was on in the Smiths’ living room and the curtain moving as if Mrs. Smith had been checking to see what was happening and then the Smiths’ back door was opening and Mrs. Smith standing there and calling out to Kay, Your husband will need to park his truck elsewhere than in our driveway, I’ve said it before and I will not say it again, and Kay said, Yes, Mrs. Smith, I’m just coming to remind him, but when she reached the truck and saw Hank’s head leaning forward on the steering wheel and the smell of whiskey coming out of the open window and beneath the booze, rising up from around Hank’s feet, the sourness of vomit and on top of it all cigar smoke and a strange perfume, a perfume she did not recognize and knew was not hers because she had no perfume, she knew that Hank would not be moving the truck himself. Mrs. Smith was watching as Kay stepped up to the truck window and said, Hank, Hank, you have to move the truck, and Hank murmured and she said it again, Hank, Hank, you cannot leave the truck there, and then Hank began to snore. She turned and looked at Mrs. Smith, the woman standing at the gate that separated the yard from the garage, and her hands on her hips. Mrs. Smith was a substantial lady, and not at all intemperate usually, but Kay could see that she had had enough, what with the boy setting fire to the vacant lot and now this and the rent coming due and who knew what Mrs. Smith might have discovered in the apartment while Kay was in town that afternoon. She said to Mrs. Smith, I’m sorry, I just have to get my boy to help, my husband isn’t well. And Mrs. Smith dropped her hands, and the woman’s face was sympathetic when she said, He’s already in bed, but should I ask my husband to help? And that was the worst of it, actually, the sympathy, and Kay said No, I’ll just get my boy, and she tried to run up the stairs but tripped and fell forward, and had to reach out and brace her hands to keep from hitting her face on the steps, and as her palms hit the risers splinters went into her skin and she twisted her left wrist and the air was knocked from her lungs and she had to stop a moment but then righted herself and reached the landing. As she came through the door the boy sat up on the couch and turned around, craning his neck to look at her and she said, Your father is – that is – your father needs your help.
The boy put on his slippers, the ones his grandmother had sent, and followed Kay down the stairs and the two of them stood at the side of the truck and the boy’s face lost its fretting and became angry again, and then she opened the door and Hank was in a dark suit she did not recognize and there was vomit at his feet, around and inside his shoes, which she also did not recognize, shoes of fine dark leather, and she said, I’m going to pull him forward and you’re going to support one side while I support the other, and she thought how she wished her friend Vivian could be there to help her, because Vivian was strong and could corral a pack of hunting dogs and get them to do just what she wanted and would have been able to hoist Hank out of the truck without any more bother than lifting a sack of potatoes. Looking at her husband Kay tried to make herself into Vivian, the way she imagined Vivian would have been, and pulled at Hank’s arms, turning him around, and when that didn’t work, she pulled his legs to the left and out from under the steering column, so she could then turn his shoulders and get her hands up under his arms and lift him out and the whole great weight of him fell on her so that she staggered backwards, but he was out of the truck and she could prop him against the side of the cab and the boy was there to support his father on the left while she took the bulk of his weight leaning to the right and he was starting to come around, though still drunk. Lucky the stairs were wide enough the three of them could walk abreast, and they took it one step at a time, practically lifting Hank the whole way up to the apartment and Mrs. Smith watching them all the while. Kay felt her face burning and it was a relief to get inside the apartment and maneuver Hank to the couch where the boy usually slept, and watch as he collapsed, face down against the cushions, and she angled his head to one side, in case of there being more sickness to come, and found a paper bag and an empty coffee can and put those next to him and the boy was sitting at the table watching, and the child looked so small and thin and his father so fat and white and she said, I have to go back outside again for a minute. If he’s sick use the bag to catch it, and the boy nodded and she could see his eyes were red again and she didn’t stop to think about it but went out on the landing and down the stairs and into the truck and the keys were still in the ignition and she took herself to the Smiths’ back door and knocked and Mrs. Smith opened and said, Are you all right, Mrs. Knowlton? And Kay said, Yes, thank you, but you can see my husband is not well enough to drive, and I don’t drive myself. The keys are in the truck, so if your husband—
My husband came home early today with a case of the flu, so I will move the truck myself, said Mrs. Smith.
I don’t think you understand, said Kay. The truck, it is not—
I am capable of driving a truck, Mrs. Knowlton, and Mrs. Smith came out of the house, pushing past Kay and down the walk to the gate, and then along the driveway and to the truck and when she reached the truck and opened the door Mrs. Smith held her breath and covered her mouth and turned away, saying, Yes, I see. Do you have any newspapers? as if she knew Kay had been taking them from the trash, and Kay nodded and ran back up the stairs and in one of the stacks against the wall found some newspapers from February that she had finished reading, and brought them back to Mrs. Smith who put the papers down on the floor of the truck, covering the vomit so that it squelched under the newsprint, and then she got in and started the engine, and put the truck into reverse and backed it out of the driveway and parked it across the street. When she got out of the truck she wiped her shoes on the grass and handed Kay the keys and said, It is a sorry business, Mrs. Knowlton.
I can only apologize, Mrs. Smith.
It is a good thing my husband has not seen this, Mrs. Knowlton, because if he had, I cannot promise what he might have done, but I will keep it to myself. There are doctors, I believe, who specialize in your husband’s condition.
Yes, I understand, said Kay. Thank you, Mrs. Smith.
I am not unsympathetic, Mrs. Knowlton, but it is my and my husband’s lives as well as yours and your boy’s and your own husband’s. We all of us feel it when someone near us is ill, as your husband is
ill. All the people around him feel it, you see, not just his family, and I have to wonder—
Yes, I see, said Kay, I will do something about it.
Kay and the boy sat watching Hank as he slept, snoring, sometimes talking, the two of them waiting for him to be sick, although he was not, or to wake, which he did not, and Kay looked at her palms and with her fingernails tried to pull the splinters, and when her fingernails wouldn’t do it she went to get the tweezers and by the time she was finished her palms were red and sore, prickling as with heat rash. After a while the boy began to drowse, his head bobbing forward and then righting itself, but she did not want to tell him to go sleep in her bed, lest Hank wake and find this the case, him having nearly killed the boy once a couple years ago when she said he could take a nap one afternoon in the bed and Hank had come home early and said, What is this filthiness, but tonight, now, she eventually said to him, Go get a blanket and try to sleep in the armchair, and the boy drew himself up, his limbs loose and dangling, and trudged to the sideboard, where his bedding was kept, and he found a blanket and a pillow and settled himself in the green armchair, the pillow against one of the wings, blanket drawn up to his neck, tucked around his chin, and in minutes he was asleep. She leaned back in the hard dining chair watching the boy and the man, thinking how her father was never like this, and her brothers neither, how they had always kept their decorum and never got more than tipsy, not in her presence, and if there was bad behavior it was confined to a world outside of the family home, where women and children could not see it, at least not women like she thought of herself, perhaps the women Hank courted when he was not attending to his wife and his child, those women might like a man out of control, but Kay did not. When still in school, long before Hank had appeared in her life, she wrote a story about a young woman who marries the first dashing man who pursues her only to find too late that he is an embezzler and a cheat and a failure who brings shame on his family. There are times, watching Hank now, that she wonders if she did not write her husband into being, if imagining an unhappy marriage had brought Hank to life, summoned him into her own life, and condemned herself to this.
Night for Day Page 44
