This Boy's Life

by Tobias Wolff

  The sheriff had talked to Tina, and on the basis of what she said he’d persuaded her father to hold off awhile before filing charges. Tina had said she didn’t want to charge anyone with anything, she just wanted Chuck to marry her. Mr. Flood, on the other hand, wanted to send the whole bunch of them to jail. But he must have known that this would do nothing for his daughter, and he must also have known that for Tina to marry into a family like the Bolgers would be a piece of luck wilder than anyone could have sanely imagined for her. So he had taken the sheriff’s advice. He was just waiting for Chuck to say the word.

  Chuck came back from the house that night and sat on his bed and told me everything. He also told me that he had no intention of marrying Tina Flood. He’d said this to the sheriff, too, said he’d spend the rest of his life in jail first. The sheriff told him not to make up his mind too fast. He would keep Mr. Flood at bay until Chuck had a chance to think about it and talk things over with his folks. But he left no doubt of the outcome if Chuck turned Tina down. He would go to prison. The charge was serious, and the case against him and the others was rock solid.

  Chuck said he wouldn’t do it.

  I told him I wouldn’t either. I encouraged him, but in my heart I was glad he was in trouble, and not just because it would take the heat off me. I was still hurt that he had deserted me in my own trouble. It did not displease me to see Chuck on the griddle now, and to have the chance to show him that I was a better friend than he had been. I would stand up for him.

  No one else did. Not Huff or Psycho, not even his parents. Mrs. Bolger was in too much pain even to speak to him. She wept constantly, and hardly ever left the house. Mr. Bolger’s worry for her expressed itself in implacable anger toward Chuck. He rode Chuck hard, and when he wasn’t riding him he watched him furiously, especially during meals. Dinner was the worst time of the day. No one spoke. The sounds of steel on china, of chewing and swallowing, of chairs creaking, all seemed amplified and grotesque. Chuck’s sisters bolted their food and got out of there. So did I. Chuck had to stay, and then, when everyone else was gone, get browbeaten by his father.

  Mr. Bolger wanted him to marry Tina Flood. Chuck had lain with the girl, as he himself admitted. It made no difference whether she had also been with two other boys or a hundred, Chuck had lain with her and by that act he had become responsible for what might happen to her afterward. He had no right to refuse the responsibility just because it was hard. He had played at being a man; now the time had come to be a man.

  Mr. Bolger must have gagged on his own counsel. He was generous but proud, too proud to utter without mortification these arguments designed to win him The Flood for a daughter-in-law. But he accepted the cost of his principles and kept his feelings to himself.

  Huff and Psycho also wanted Chuck to marry Tina, but their reasons were simpler than Mr. Bolger’s. If he didn’t marry her, they would both go to Walla Walla with him. This seemed unnecessary and unfair. All Chuck had to do was bite the bullet for a few years and then dump her.

  Chuck wouldn’t do that. He did not explain his reasons to Huff and Psycho, or even to his father, but at night, when he felt most embattled and alone, he explained them to me. He had to work at putting them into words, and always seemed a little surprised to hear them. So was I. Basically, Chuck would not marry Tina Flood because he believed himself to be otherwise engaged. Sure, he liked to fool around, but way down deep he was saving himself for his wife. He had a clear picture of her, and when he finally met her he was going to marry her and stay married forever. The wife for whom Chuck was saving himself was a television wife, cute, sassy, and pious. Their life together would be a heartwarming series with lots of affectionate banter. It would also have some religious content; the husband Chuck was saving for his wife was a man just dying to see the error of his ways, and to mend them. To put liquor, gambling, and fornication behind him forever, along with the bad companions of his reckless youth. Once married, children, and plenty of them. Sobriety. Fidelity. Grace at dinner and a full pew on Sundays.

  He wanted a good life. The good life he had in mind for himself was just as conventional as the one I had in mind for myself, though without its epic pretensions. And Chuck still had faith in his, whereas I was losing mine. I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen to me. My life was a mess, and because I understood the problem as one of bad luck I could imagine no remedy but good luck, which I didn’t seem to have.

  Chuck held on to his dream as if it were already actual. He was even prepared to go to prison for it. Tina Flood and the baby she carried were not real to him. They were just another entry in the ledger of past mistakes which would give drama to his future change of heart, and which the virtue of his married life would atone for.

  The sheriff had expected Chuck to back down after a few days. When this didn’t happen he started talking tough. Mr. Flood wouldn’t wait any longer, he said. The charges were going to be filed any day now, and once the case went to court Chuck would have no chance of probation. The sheriff wanted Chuck to understand that he wasn’t bluffing about this. A boy and a girl was one thing, but three men and a girl was something else. In the eyes of the law Chuck and his friends were men, and they would be punished as men.

  Chuck did not give in. The idea of going to prison scared him, but he refused to consider marrying Tina Flood. Even the suggestion made him sick. He came back from browbeating sessions at the house with his eyes burning and a feverish sheen of sweat on his face. My own idea was that he should run off and join the army, but he wouldn’t give this any thought. He was frozen in the path of the future rushing down on him, with only enough strength left to say no to poor Tina Flood.

  When he started crying in his bed at night, I lost my secret pleasure in his situation. I wanted to do for him what I used to do for my mother, throw an arm around him and speak some words of comfort. But that wasn’t possible between us, and anyway I could tell he was trying not to be heard.

  IN THE MIDDLE of all this I had another telephone call at school from Mr. Howard. He was shouting on the other end of the line as if we had a bad connection, which we did not. He told me that I’d been awarded a scholarship to the Hill School. He had spoken to the director of admissions just that morning. I would be getting an official letter in a couple of days, but he wanted to let me know in person and to tell me how happy he was for me. And he was happy. I could hear it in his voice, as if it were some good news of his own he had called to tell me about.

  He said he’d been pretty sure I’d get it, as sure as one could be about these things. But he had thought it best not to raise my hopes too high. Anything could have happened. “Still,” he said, “I would’ve been very surprised if you hadn’t gotten it, after the letter I wrote.”

  Mr. Howard said we had a lot to talk about. He wanted to tell me more about life at Hill, so I wouldn’t be completely unprepared for what I found. There was also the problem of clothes. I would need an extensive wardrobe just to meet the school’s basic requirements. These clothes really had to be of a certain cut and quality. He wished he could say that boys at Hill didn’t care about such things, but unfortunately they did, like boys anywhere else. Mr. Howard did not want me to feel out of place. What he proposed to do, if my mother agreed, was take me to his own tailor in Seattle and set me up with everything I might need. He wanted me to tell my mother that he would consider it a favor if she would allow him to do this.

  He would call back to arrange details. “I’m very happy for you,” he said again. I had hardly spoken at all. After Mr. Howard hung up I went back to my algebra class, which I was failing, ard watched the teacher’s mouth move for the rest of the period.

  THE LETTER CAME. I had received a scholarship of $2,300 a year against the annual fee of $2,800. The director of admissions congratulated me on my school record and test scores, and said that the headmaster joined him in welcoming me to their community. Unfortunately, because so few of my courses at Concrete had been academic, I did not have enou
gh credits to enter Hill as a fifth former, or junior. They had enrolled me in the fourth form instead. I shouldn’t worry about this, he told me. It was common practice to hold back students coming from the more vocational public schools. There would be other boys in the same position, and the extra year would help me settle in at Hill and establish a strong record before applying to college.

  The director of admissions sent me warm regards and passed on those of the headmaster. They both looked forward to meeting me in September.

  I read the letter obsessively, trying out words like head-master and fourth form. The director of admissions had enclosed an alumni bulletin filled with pictures of Gothic-style buildings on emerald lawns, big trees in autumn color, playing fields, and the boys themselves in various attitudes of work and worship and athletic striving. Here were more words to taste. Lacrosse. Squash. Glee Club. The students looked different from the boys I knew. It wasn’t just a difference of clothes and hair style. The difference was tribal—bones, carriage, a signature set of expressions. I pondered these pictures the way I pondered pictures of Laplanders and Kurds in National Geographic. Some faces were closed to me. I could not feel the boys behind them. In others I sensed a generous, unguarded spirit. I studied each of them closely, wondering who he was and whether he would become a friend of mine.

  There were class notes in the back of the bulletin.

  “R.T. ‘Chip’ Bladeswell, ’52, recently heard the chimes at midnight with old relay partner R. Houghton ‘Howdy’ Emerson IV and his wife ’Noddy’ (Miss Porter‘s, ’55). Howdy and Noddy have set up housekeeping in the Windy City while Howdy thinks up ways to help Armour out-swift Swift. Seems Chip had ‘business’ in Oak Park the next day with one Miss Sissy ShowalterPrice (Madeira, ’55). They plan to tie the knot in June. Ever since the announcement appeared, residents of Greenwich have reported widespread sounds of wailing and gnashing teeth. Hmmm ... wunda who dat c’d be? Nuff said. Good luck, Sissy! (Hint: When last seen, Chip was handing off to Howdy on the comer of East Wacker and Lakeshore Drive, with Noddy in hot pursuit...)

  “R. S. K. Unsworth St. John, ’46, was recently named Director of Marketing Research for Newcombe Industries. Well done, Un!”

  There were several pages of these notes, some of them accompanied by pictures of smiling, confident men in business suits, tennis whites, golf outfits. The last page of the bulletin had nothing but pictures of babies—all boys, all sons of alumni, and all of them wearing little white sweaters with a big H on the breast. The classes of 1978 and 1979 were already starting to fill up.

  The director of admissions had sent me a form to complete, a straightforward information sheet. I did not send this back right away. I carried it around with me for a few days, then filled it out. Where it asked me for my name as I wished it to appear in the school catalogue, I wrote, “Tobias Jonathan von Ansell-Wolff III.”

  MY MOTHER PICKED me up after school one afternoon and took me into Concrete for a Coke. She couldn’t get over the fact that I had been given a scholarship to Hill. She kept looking at me curiously, then laughing. “All right,” she said. “What did you tell them?”

  “What do you mean, what did I tell them. I didn’t tell them anything. I just applied.”

  “Come on.”

  “My test scores were pretty high.”

  “You must have told them something.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Are you going to get in trouble?”

  “Get in trouble. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Are you going to get in trouble?”

  “No. I’m not going to get in trouble.”

  “Promise?”

  “I’m not going to get in trouble, I promise. What do you want, blood?”

  We passed on to other things. She was happy for me, after all, and willing not to question fortune too closely.

  She had good news of her own. She’d found a job in Seattle, a secretarial job at Aetna Life Insurance. She was supposed to start there in another week. A woman she knew had offered to put her up until she found a place to live so she wouldn’t be under pressure to rent something she didn’t like. She could afford to relax and take her time, especially since I would be going off to California in June rather than coming to live with her. My father had been in touch, she told me. He’d arranged everything. I would take the bus down to La Jolla as soon as school let out, and Geoffrey would join me there after his graduation from Princeton.

  “What about you?” I said.

  “What about me?”

  “Are you going to come too? Later, if things go all right?”

  “I’d be a fool if I did,” she said morosely, as if she knew that wouldn’t keep her from doing it.

  We talked about Dwight and his little ways. How he used to stay up late counting all the pieces of candy in the house to see how many I’d eaten that day. How he used to run into the living room when he came home and put his hand on top of the TV to see if it was warm. How he bought vacuum cleaner bags by the dozen and wrote month-apart dates on each one so they would last exactly a year. My mother said he’d been on his best behavior since she started looking for work. He didn’t want her to leave. Now that she’d found a job he was falling all over himself to be nice to her. He was sort of courting her, she said. Being friendly and having Pearl cozy up to her all the time. He had even applied for a transfer to Seattle so he could be close to her.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “He doesn’t even like me. He just wants to hang on. It’s so strange.”

  Then my mother said she had something to tell me, and I knew from the way she said it that it wasn’t going to be good. It was about my money, she said, the money Dwight had been saving for me from my paper route. She knew I was planning to use it to pay the fees not covered by my scholarship. The trouble was, Dwight hadn’t really been saving it. It wasn’t there. Not a penny of it. She had asked him about it and he stalled and avoided the subject until she finally cornered him, and then he admitted that he didn’t have it. He also didn’t have the money she had earned at the cookhouse. The account was completely empty.

  “I’ll get the five hundred,” she said, “don’t worry about that.”

  All I could do was look at her.

  “There isn’t anything we can do about it. It’s gone. You just have to forget about it.”

  That wasn’t what I was doing. I wasn’t forgetting about it. I was remembering it. Over $1,300. But it wasn’t really the money that made me feel sorry for myself, it was the time. For two and a half years I had spent all my afternoons delivering papers. Most nights I went out again after dinner to collect from my subscribers and to try to recruit new ones. People didn’t like to pay me. Even the honest ones put me off again and again. Then there were the deadbeats. They either told me sob stories about lost checks and doctor bills or turned off the lights and the TV when they heard me coming, then whispered and peered out the blinds until I gave up and left. In the winter my shoes were always wet and my head stuffed up, my nose chapped and red. I was bored crazy. One of my ways of distracting myself was to tally up over and over again, to the last penny, the money I had made.

  I said, “What happened to it?”

  My mother shrugged and said, “Beats me.” She was ready for a change of subject. Her tolerance was good for most things, but she had no time for crybabies. Whining turned her to ice.

  I didn’t stop. “That was my money,” I said.

  “I know,” she said.

  “He stole it.”

  “He probably meant to pay you back. I don’t know. It’s gone. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about that. I said I’d pay the school bills.”

  I pulled a face.

  “It’s probably a little my fault too.” She said she should have known better than to let Dwight handle the money, she should have insisted on a joint account. But it was a point of pride with him to deal with the finances and she hadn’t wanted to get him all worked
up over it. She’d wanted all of us to get along.

  We finished our Cokes and walked up the street to the car, my mother moving with the buoyancy of someone who has just dropped a burden. When she was worried she wore a pale, tight-lipped mask. Lately it had started to become her own face. Now the mask was gone. She looked young and pretty. The day was warm, the air hazy with cement dust. Logging trucks banged past us through the town, grinding gears and spewing black exhaust. As we walked we made plans. Considered different possibilities. We were ourselves again—restless, scheming, poised for flight.

  CHUCK CONGRATULATED ME when I told him about the scholarship, but I was careful not to let my happiness show too much. His day of reckoning was at hand and he might well have wondered why we should have drawn such different cards. This question would have crossed my mind if I had been in his place. But he probably thought nothing of the kind. He didn’t want what I wanted, and he was a lot more interested in what was going to become of himself than in what was going to become of me.

  Then the sheriff paid his last visit. He hadn’t dropped by in over a week, and he had left that night in an angry mood, fed up with Chuck’s bullheadedness. He’d given Chuck an ultimatum: Get with the program or else. If Chuck did not call him with the answer he wanted by such and such a day, he was going to let justice take its course. Chuck hadn’t called the sheriff with the answer he wanted. He hadn’t called him at all.

  We heard his cruiser in the drive. The sound of the big engine was familiar to us by now. Chuck put his shoes on and waited for Mr. Bolger to come and get him, then the two of them walked up to the house. While he was gone I kept going to the window and looking out. I had a bad feeling through and through.

  When Chuck came back I was sitting on my bed in a kind of trance. He looked at me without any sign of recognition and closed the door gently behind him. Then he jumped on the floor and started pounding it with his fists like a brat having a tantrum, except that instead of crying he was laughing. After he’d done this a while he got up and staggered from wall to wall. His face was red. He grabbed me by the shoulders and danced me across the room. “Wolfman!” he shouted. “Wolfman!”