When We Argued All Night

by Alice Mattison

  She watched little kids with long hair and OshKosh overalls who rode on their fathers’ shoulders. People stepped onto the sidewalk to rest, change their babies on a blanket on the ground, breastfeed on wooden porch steps; people hurried to catch up to their friends. What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now! Someone up ahead asked the questions, and the marchers shouted the answer. The chant grew faster until they were shouting Peace now, peace now, peace now!

  The march both distracted her from the war and reminded her of the war. It was childish to imagine that wearing jeans patched with peace symbols and shouting would make the war end. She felt ugly, out of place, and complicit in a dangerous, destructive world. Children were being napalmed, and that was her fault because she was an American—because she had fun on these marches, because she came only when she had the time, only when she knew she didn’t have to be arrested. If she was arrested, she could lose her job. She wouldn’t risk even that.

  Lee had reappeared with food. Brenda accepted a half sandwich: ham and American cheese. Glad you turned up, Richie said. He might have meant Lee, who had rejoined them after disappearing, but when Richie spoke, Brenda felt Lee become anxious and decided it was a compliment to herself. All at once she felt powerful, free, able to do anything—able to fight the government, required to fight the government, able to be the government that did wrong. She loved these people, this Lee and Richie whom she’d found or invented in what her father insisted on calling the Wilds of California. She was wild too.

  For a few hours at a time, Harold Abrams forgot he had children. His life after divorce didn’t feel like a continuation of his old life but like an alternative one, as if he’d returned to his youth and started over. He lived alone in an ungraceful postwar apartment not far from where he had lived before he was married, in Murray Hill. He prospered: he finished his dissertation and became Doctor Abrams (and wished he had remained Abramovitz because Abrams was someone he didn’t know). He got a job, and now he drove over the East River every day to teach at Queens College. His book on Henry James was published by a university press and received respectful reviews but did not change the history of thought, even among his friends. Austin Granger—now teaching in Chicago—sent a short but enthusiastic note.

  Harold had forgotten that lives take place in chronological order, that one cannot lose one’s past. When something reminded him of Nelson or Paul, a muscle in his chest would clench. It might have been easier if he and Myra had divorced when the children were little, when he could have picked them up on a Saturday and taken them to a museum or the circus. Myra said both boys were old enough to plan their own time, so there was no need for a formal visitation schedule: Harold could see them anytime he and they wished. In 1968 Paul was in his last year of high school, living with Myra but planning to go away to college. He agreed to restaurant meals with his father, and sometimes, after a couple of hours, if the service was slow and the food was good, they talked as they used to. Paul was tall, curly-haired, and confident, a happy kid who excelled at debating and was impersonally polite to his father, as he was polite to the judges of debates all over the city.

  When Nelson was discharged from the hospital—subdued and timid, after two years away from life—he had gone to a college in Massachusetts recommended by his psychiatrist. But he’d dropped out and now lived in an apartment in the East Village with an indeterminate number of young people. At different times there was no phone, a disconnected phone, or a phone nobody answered. Once, someone answered who had never heard of Nelson.

  Harold—this new Harold, Professor Harold—felt better in one way, and it wasn’t being rid of Myra, not that he’d ever be completely apart from his sons’ mother. Though he was glad to be away from the tiring drama of life with Myra, he missed her astringency, her narrowed eyes, her rare hard-won approval. But now it was easier to think about himself, about his life, as a series of moral choices. Before, he’d lived two contrasting moral lives: he was a good boy, and he was someone who reveled in badness. Asked by a stranger as he walked down the street, he would have spoken for the good old humdrum values. In practice, he considered himself a bastard and took pride in that at times; at other times he sickened himself. He had outgrown his moral code but had no other.

  Harold in his solitude set out to learn and practice a new moral code—to find a way to be as good as he thought people should be—and doing so made him want to write about it. He proposed an essay to someone at The Nation he’d met in his reviewing days: it would be about political action—including his own youthful membership in the Communist Party—and whether political outrage and activism are invariably meaningless if they are motivated in part by selfishness. If young men protested the war because they didn’t want to be drafted, did their protests count? Harold no longer believed in his old self, but he wanted a reason to keep his old politics, which felt more valid than ever as war continued in Vietnam, and as protests against it were considered unpatriotic, while angry students were treated like unruly children.

  One Tuesday evening that fall, Harold came home tired after a late department meeting and sat down in front of the news with a drink, breaking his rule, which did not permit him to turn on the television set until he’d cooked something. The news was depressing, and sometimes he would watch something else—anything—to take his mind off it, not eating until nine or ten. The descent of his fleshy rear end onto the sofa cushions was to be avoided. This would matter even more on a Tuesday because he had an early class on Wednesdays and intended to reread the short stories he had assigned. It also would be a good idea to go over the proofs of his essay for The Nation, which were due in a couple of days.

  The doorbell rang at eight thirty, freeing him to turn off the TV. The garbled, interrupted voice on the intercom sounded like Nelson, and it was indeed Nelson who came uneasily into his father’s apartment a few minutes later. Nelson was a darker, narrower version of Paul: thin, loose-limbed whereas Paul was solid—and it was hard not to think of Paul as the standard for young men, though he was the younger brother. Nelson moved at angles to objects, at a slant, while Paul squared himself, walking through the center of doorways and standing parallel to the wall behind him, at right angles to the wall at his side. Harold recognized his own way of negotiating space in the way Paul moved. Now Nelson said nothing after his greeting: Hi. It’s me.

  —Have you eaten? Harold said. He led the way into the kitchen and began searching the refrigerator and freezer.

  Nelson stood behind him. I’m not too hungry, he said.

  —Well, I am. How are you? How long is it since I’ve seen you?

  He glanced behind him and saw Nelson’s shrug.

  Harold found frozen hamburgers and cooked rice and frozen asparagus to go with them. Do you want a drink? he said.

  —Milk?

  Harold had no milk.

  —I’m not too thirsty, Nelson said.

  When Nelson had told Harold he was leaving college, he said, I’m pretending all the time. Harold didn’t know what he meant and wished he had thought fast enough to ask; he’d never been able to find a way to ask since then. Nelson had said then that he wanted to be an actor, and that actors were better off taking acting classes and going to auditions than getting a degree. Now he’d been in New York for a couple of years. Harold hesitated to ask about acting, but as they ate, he said, Are you still going to auditions?

  —I’m kind of busy. But sure, sometimes, Nelson said.

  —Busy doing what?

  —I was in Chicago. Unbelievable.

  —Chicago? For the convention? My God, you could have been killed!

  Nelson had a way of smiling with only part of his face. I didn’t get killed by that subway train when I was a kid, I’m not going to get killed going to demonstrations. But that’s why I came—I mean, to see if you were okay and all that, but I wonder if I could have some money. I had to quit my job to go to Chicago, and he wouldn’t give it back
to me.

  Harold tried to remember if he had known where Nelson was working. Which job?

  —It was a good job. The box office at St. Marks. He looked up from his plate and down again.

  —Really? St. Marks Cinema? Do you watch the films?

  —Oh, man, sure. But he won’t take me back.

  —I never saw you there, Harold said, but he didn’t want to sound as if he doubted what Nelson said. Sure, I can give you some money, he said quickly.

  Nelson looked up, with that fragment of a smile again, and down once more. He had hair past his shoulders and the start of a beard, and his face above the beard was marked and scarred. Harold stood and put his plate into the sink, then walked to his son at the end of the table and knelt so as to look at his face. He’d never before done anything like this. Nelson, he said. Why do you look so—so tired, so . . . he didn’t want to say ravaged. So—not right?

  —Do you mean do I take stuff? Of course I do. When I can get it, which isn’t often. You need money for that.

  —That’s not what I meant, he said, terrified not of grass—he’d been turned on by his students long ago—or even of LSD but of heroin. Do you still live in that apartment?

  —Sometimes.

  Harold felt—because he was kneeling—a sudden new freedom. Nelson, why did you jump in front of the subway train? Why? He didn’t even mean the question. He meant, Why can’t I understand you?

  Nelson stood, so Harold had to get up as well, and led the way back to the living room. He said something Harold didn’t hear.

  —What? What is it? Harold hurried behind him, not wanting Nelson to leave but worried about his class the next day.

  —I said, Did it ruin your life, what I did? They were sitting down now, and Harold was afraid Nelson would lean forward and turn on the television.

  —I ruined my own life, insofar as I’ve ruined my life, Harold said, but I don’t consider it ruined. Your mother and I were a risky business from the beginning, if that’s what you mean.

  —I bet, Nelson said.

  —Nelson, why is your face so marked up?

  —I got beat up in the street, Nelson said. I was on mescaline, a bad trip. I stayed out all night. Somebody beat me up for my money.

  —You’re not afraid, Harold said.

  —I already died, Nelson said. It wasn’t so bad.

  —But you didn’t die.

  —Sure I did, Nelson said. You don’t jump in front of a train and live, Dad. He got up and began touring the room—bookcases, windows with venetian blinds. His back to Harold, he said, Anyway, I’ll be drafted and die in the jungle, and if that doesn’t happen, a hydrogen bomb will get me.

  Nelson always had little things—except in the hospital, where they were afraid he’d harm himself with them. Now Harold saw there was something in his hand: a small glass unicorn. He sat back in his chair. You’re twenty-three. They’re not drafting guys of twenty-three.

  —There’s no telling.

  —And you have a medical history.

  —Insanity. That could help. Nelson sat down on Harold’s shaggy gray rug and stretched out his arms and legs. Dad, you should have stuck with Mom. She’s nuts and now it’s all Paul’s problem, since I’m also nuts. Paul will be old fast. He’s getting gray, Dad, he’s turning seventeen and he has a gray hair. He stood again, stared at Harold’s books. I’ve thought of applying for conscientious objector status.

  —Are you a conscientious objector?

  —Yeah. Aren’t you?

  At last, Nelson stopped circling and sat down, again on the arm of the sofa.

  —Maybe I am, Harold said. The moment was good—the question about himself, the admission about Myra, the unfair pleasure in being Nelson’s confidant when it seemed that Myra wasn’t. He said, Of course, in the Second World War, you—

  —I know, I know.

  —Stay here tonight, Harold said, standing. He wouldn’t get his work done, but he’d get up early. Or he’d fake it in class.

  —No, Nelson said. There’s a chick. He shrugged and lingered, looking at the books again. Then he hurried to let himself out. Goodnight. Thanks for the food.

  —What about the money? Harold said. Wait.

  —I’ll be back, Nelson said, but Harold didn’t see him for two months.

  What little Brenda knew about teaching was irrelevant, except for the familiar form: people gathering at scheduled times in a room with windows on one side, the expectation that somebody would stand in front and speak. One surprise was that the person in front was herself. The students included scared, silent girls; boys who wore heavy belt buckles decorated with rodeo scenes; neatly dressed boys with short hair and button-down shirts, who were often studying to be cops; Mexican-American kids; a few Portuguese; hippies with long hair; Mennonite girls in organdy bonnets; Vietnam vets. The veterans were the best: smart, profane, but ungrammatical. Her classes were elementary, most were remedial, and she saw that her task was to make her students less frightened of reading and writing, maybe less frightened of thinking and talking. When she said it was important to ask questions, a girl raised her hand to ask if she also believed in setting off bombs.

  At the first faculty meeting in the fall, a history instructor with a gray beard made sure to shake Brenda’s hand, and she saw that political alignments here were clear and fixed. Nearly everyone avoided politics or openly approved of the war, but three or four were the campus radicals, known to everyone. She spoke up during the meeting, finding herself arguing for encouraging the Mexican-American kids to form a club, for the importance of creativity in the classroom, for an uncensored literary magazine. Some older women teachers turned to look at her. Someone said it might be better if new teachers didn’t speak.

  Brenda was lonely. Her recorder lessons were her only contact with other people except for these teachers and her students. She was one of very few Jews and found herself wondering if there was a synagogue nearby, not that she’d know how to conduct herself there. The second week, one of the long-haired kids asked Brenda if she wanted to be the faculty adviser of a new literary magazine, to be called Speak Out, and soon the five kids who came to the first meeting (one an older woman named Grace) were her best and only friends.

  Speak Out had no budget, but the students seemed to care more about getting together than having a magazine. They did make signs soliciting poems and stories, and posted the signs on bulletin boards—and then a memo went out to the whole faculty reminding them that only authorized organizations were allowed to post notices on bulletin boards, and the signs disappeared. When Brenda read the memo, she flushed with rage and spent a morning writing back to the dean who’d sent it. Her letter to the dean made him summon her to a meeting, where he shook her hand and assured her he understood that she probably hadn’t known the rule. His eyes were perfectly round, light blue, and she tried to think if she’d ever seen truly round eyes before. He was not interested in her arguments about freedom of speech and the educational value of creative writing, and he quickly dismissed her—courteously, as if they had agreed. She called Grace and told her the whole story. That night for the first time in her life she was made sleepless by intense feeling other than unrequited love.

  At a bar in Oakland, a boy from the magazine group met a black poet who gave him a copy of a book he’d written and proposed that they invite him to read to the students. Brenda looked over the book, which had been published by a small press in San Francisco. Some poems were about the man’s childhood. Hearing them might make her students more confident, writing about their own childhoods. The poet was willing to come for nothing. They had to reserve a room in the student center, and she wanted signs to go up and not come down. She went to see the chairman of the English department, who apparently counted out each Monday how many words he planned to speak that week, put them into a bowl on his desk along with paper clips and rubber bands, and used them up judiciously; during his long silences he frequently reached into the bowl and twisted a rubber band arou
nd his fingers or played with a paper clip. She suspected—from a look of pain in his eyes—that in his silence he agreed with her about most issues. In the longest speech she’d heard from him yet, he said the English department would sponsor the reading. A table in the room where the reading took place would have Hawaiian punch, bowls of pretzels, and paper cups on it, and the students would be allowed to put up signs.

  —Buy the Hawaiian punch in the morning, he said, as she thanked him and stood to leave. The ladies in the cafeteria will chill it. Give me a receipt later.

  Because she was buying Hawaiian punch and pretzels during her office hours the morning of the reading, Brenda had a conference with one of her weakest students in the afternoon and was late to the reading. The girl was sweet but not quite able to read. Brenda tried to explain sentences, punctuation. When she became worried about missing the reading, the two of them took their conversation to the student center, where they found that the assigned room was full. The poet was already speaking, and Brenda and her student listened from a room just to the side. He read well—intense, angry poems. Brenda had forgotten how many of his poems had “fuck” or “motherfucker” in them, or maybe some of these weren’t in the book. Her student listened eagerly. Hearing a poem about a white policeman beating a black man, she seized Brenda’s hand. And then—they could hear but not see—there was an interruption. A voice announced the end of the reading, asking the students to disperse. Brenda, her arms and face hot, held her student’s hand, and the two of them squeezed through the door at which they’d been listening and into the back of the room. It was the round-eyed dean, and he was closing down the reading because of the poet’s language. Not knowing anything but that this girl had to hear poems, Brenda led her student through the crowd to the front of the room, where the poet—tall, dark-skinned, with a big Afro—looked as if he was trying to decide whether to get angry or laugh. Excuse me, Brenda said in a loud voice, when she reached the front row. Excuse me.