by Larry Watson
She didn’t leave me alone, not exactly. A covered cage in the corner of the living room gave off a tinny, tinkling rattle, evidence that the bird inside (a parakeet, probably) was alive and well. Graduation photos of the Knurr offspring stared soberly at me from a bookshelf. Marilyn, two years older than me, was attending Iowa State University. Richie, five years older, had drowned in northern Minnesota the summer after his senior year.
As I considered these family photos, I remembered the rumors that kept my mother and the other town gossips busy. Beverly Knurr had supposedly had affairs with Mr. Foster, the gym teacher at the junior high, with a garage mechanic from the Mobil Station, and with an office supplies salesman who came through Willow Falls once every three months. The reasons for this wanton behavior were variously attributed to her heritage—she was Italian, the only citizen of Willow Falls who could claim that ethnicity—grief over her son, and her drinking.
When she returned, Mrs. Knurr had a glass of whiskey in her hand. She sat down on the couch a cushion away from me. Then, as if she knew what I’d been contemplating in her absence, Mrs. Knurr asked, “Did you know my son?”
I shook my head. “He was older. But I remember the news about ... what happened. How shocked everyone was.”
Mrs. Knurr nodded with understanding. “Norb has never really recovered. People talk about how boys need their fathers, but fathers need their sons, too. So they can pass on all their useless knowledge about fishing lures and curveballs and carburetors....”
This might have seemed an insensitive thing to say to a boy who had lost his own father, but I wasn’t offended. Quite the contrary. I was flattered. Mrs. Knurr’s remarks had the effect of a shared intimacy. Only those of us closely acquainted with loss understood how refreshing candor on the subject could be.
“I suppose,” she went on, “it’s not unlike your situation with Dr. Dunbar. I imagine he’s assumed a fatherly role in your life? And then he’s passing on his medical wisdom to you as well. And to his own son, of course. Well. If you ever feel as though you’d prefer a legal education, you should knock on Norb’s door. I’m sure he’d be happy to bore you for hours with all the ins and outs of a lawyer’s work and training.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“But what he’d really like is someone to play catch with. Does throwing a ball back and forth mean as much to sons as it does to fathers? If the activity has any appeal to you, be sure to look up my husband. He has the mitts and the ball waiting in the garage for just such an occasion.” The rim of her glass bore the imprint of her lips, stained from her fresh application of lipstick. She was careful always to drink from the same spot.
“I’m more fortunate. I have a daughter on whom I can impose the same lessons my mother forced on me. How to match shoes and accessories. How to curl eyelashes.” Mrs. Knurr leaned forward and batted her eyes at me. “How to tell real pearls from fake.” She put her thumb under her own necklace and raised it, seemingly for my inspection. But what she was really inviting me to examine were her breasts, further exposed when she leaned lower and closer to me.
For many reasons, I’m skeptical of the episodes in books, movies, and television programs that feature the seduction of young men by older women. First of all, an inexperienced young man is often as apprehensive about sex as he is eager for it. And would a frustrated woman want a lover whose ineptitude would only add to her frustration? Also, while a young man might have a physical appearance that makes him appealing to an older woman, the odds that a young man will see a much older woman as attractive are much slimmer. Cheerleaders are often models for a teenager’s lust, and those pert bouncy bodies present a difficult standard for a woman in her forties to match. Troublesome as well are the maternal thoughts that often play a role, even if they are subconscious. And finally, with Mrs. Knurr and me, as is almost always the case in similar circumstances, there was the inevitable gap between signals sent and signals received. The power of human desire is matched only by our inability to express those desires, thus guaranteeing that neither comedy nor tragedy is ever in short supply.
In this situation, for example, even though I believed that Mrs. Knurr was coming on to me, I couldn’t be completely sure. And to have acted on a hunch—even a good one—might have been disastrous. What if I would have responded to Mrs. Knurr’s flirtation the way I thought she wanted me to, putting my hand on her knee, or kissing her, or cupping her breast, only to discover that I had misinterpreted the moment? It was one thing to slide my hand under Debbie McCarren’s skirt and have it pushed away. But were the same rules in effect on the Knurrs’ couch as in the backseat of Johnny Dunbar’s car? What if there were consequences I couldn’t foresee, consequences more lasting and severe than a slapped hand or a reprimand? Besides, I couldn’t stop thinking of Mr. Knurr’s open eyes.
Abruptly I asked, “Is your husband’s pain in his lower back?”
“Is ... what?”
“His pain. Is it in the lower back? On one side? Because that’s a symptom of sciatica.”
Mrs. Knurr smiled knowingly, as if she were perfectly aware that concern for her husband was not prompting my questions. “You don’t say,” she said. “You’re certainly set on that diagnosis, aren’t you?”
“And the pain usually goes down into the buttocks and then down the leg.”
“The buttocks ... Really.” She let go of her necklace, but leaned in even closer. Something she did with her arms squeezed her breasts together, deepening her cleavage and pushing more flesh out of the top of her dress.
“And down the leg.” I shifted my gaze deliberately, looking into the autumn darkness of her eyes.
And then suddenly Mrs. Knurr saw something in me or in herself. She sat up straight and wriggled slightly to adjust her clothing. She swung her legs off the couch. Only when her feet were flat on the floor and the moment had passed was I sure: I could have fucked Mrs. Knurr.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You probably didn’t know it, but we just had a little test. You passed, and I failed.”
I’m sorry, I wanted to reply. I don’t mean to insult you, but I’ve pledged myself to another woman. . . . But even if I’d changed my mind, there was nothing I could do at that point. Pity is an even more powerful antiaphrodisiac than fear.
“Do you prefer Matthew,” she asked, “or Matt?”
“Doesn’t matter.” For some reason I had a hard time getting the words out.
“My son was always Richie. Until he graduated. Then he wanted to be Richard.”
“I remember him as Richie,” I said. “When he was on the basketball team.”
“Matthew ... ,” she began, but then thought better of it. She lit a cigarette, and when she turned back to me her smile had vanished. Now her expression was close to a grimace, as if it were she whose back had gone out.
For a moment or two she simply smoked, exhaling in my direction and regarding me so coolly I began to calculate how far it was from the Knurr house to my own, and what the effect would be of traveling that distance in the subzero cold without a coat, hat, or gloves. Although the surrounding hills were now dotted with houses, divided by pavement and leveled into lawns, the terrain was still mine, in the singular way that childhood play takes possession of place. I wouldn’t walk, I decided; I’d run home and hope that activity would generate enough heat that I could cover the two and a half miles without freezing.
Then Mrs. Knurr smiled once more. Her face lifted unevenly and one eye squinted almost shut, yet she looked more beautiful, if sadly so, than she had when she was posing for me.
“Tell me,” she said, “what else have you learned from Dr. Morgan? Oops. Dr. Dunbar. But that’s what some women call him. You know, from the comic strip? Rex Morgan, Rex Dunbar. I’ve also heard ‘Sexy Rexy.’ You know, like Rex Harrison.”
“He concentrates on teaching us about the most common problems. Because that’s what a doctor is most likely to see. Besides, he says, the other stuff’s for specialists.”
“And now he has a new protégée, I understand? The young woman the Dunbars have taken in? Is he instructing her as well?”
“She’s mostly making appointments. And doing some bookkeeping.”
“How does Mrs. Dunbar feel about their houseguest? Although I can’t imagine that little china doll complaining about much of anything. And the way she stares up at that husband of hers when they’re out in public? I can’t help it. All I can think is, does anyone fall for that act?”
My impulse was to protect Mrs. Dunbar, but I could only defend one woman at a time. “Mrs. Dunbar feels sorry for her. For Louisa Lindahl. She’s had a hard life.”
“I should say. Getting shot certainly qualifies in that regard.”
“I meant before. But Lester Huston was crazy.”
Mrs. Knurr exhaled a stream of smoke and innocently asked, “Before he met her or after?”
I knew what Mrs. Knurr was implying, but I had no answer for that question. “She came from a real poor family.”
“I’m sure she did.” She finished her drink in one long swallow, the ice cubes bumping against her teeth. “She strikes me as a bit of a plain Jane, but something about her must rile men up. I’ve pissed off a few men over the years, but none of them took a shot at me.”
Mrs. Knurr bent over, but this time it was not an invitation to look down her dress. “Well,” she said, slipping on her shoes, “I’d better get you back to Palmer’s. Phil would probably like your help with cleaning up.”
At Mrs. Knurr’s insistence, I drove once again. Nothing but the big Lincoln was moving at that hour on the curving streets of Rocky Run Acres. The sprawling ranch houses, set far back from the street, were all dark and silent. The smell of Mrs. Knurr’s perfume filled my nostrils and the smoke from her cigarette stung my eyes. And suddenly it occurred to me that this darkened housing development was a kind of adult equivalent of Frenchman’s Forest, a place men and women built for themselves so they could smoke, drink, and conduct their sexual experiments away from judging eyes. When Mrs. Knurr offered me a cigarette, I accepted it and let her light it for me.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“She can’t decide between me and another guy. I’m not exactly sure what to do.” If my evening with the Knurrs had taught me nothing else, I’d learned that a falsehood could be stated without fear of contradiction—my husband has injured his back—and that others would pretend right along with you.
“The thing is,” I gently added, “he’s my friend.”
Only three cars were still in the parking lot when we pulled in to Palmer’s, but my mother’s DeSoto was one of them. I pulled alongside it and got out. Mrs. Knurr slid over. She looked very comfortable behind the steering wheel of the Lincoln, and I wondered if the smaller car belonged to her husband.
“Thank you for your help tonight, Matthew. And don’t forget—if you ever feel like throwing a ball around, Norb would welcome the company.” Although euphemism and metaphor had been the rule that night, this remark was neither.
My mother was sitting at the bar, and Phil Palmer was with her, standing behind the bar. Phil was a buzz-cut, rock-jawed ex-Marine, and he believed his success as a restaurateur was attributable to his policy of giving a customer an occasional free drink or dessert. Some people said he kept a list in his office, so he never gave anything away to the same customer in the same year.
Both Phil and my mother were smoking, and they both had drinks in front of them. My mother’s represented the only drinking she ever did: a single brandy old-fashioned at the end of her shift. Phil, on the other hand, drank from the time he arrived at his supper club early in the afternoon until he left early in the morning. He always drank beer, and never in front of the customers. All the staff knew that the open bottle of Budweiser on the counter just inside the kitchen door was Phil’s, and that it was not to be disturbed, no matter how long it had been sitting there.
Phil asked me, “Did ya get Norbert tucked in?”
“He’s down for the count.”
He cocked his eyebrows. “How about the Missus? Get her tucked in, too?”
“She’s still out and about.”
“I bet she is. On the prowl is more like it. Hey, you want something to drink, Matt? A beer? A soda?” With a sweep of his arm he took in the array of bottles behind him, indicating that I could order anything I liked. “Something stronger?”
I looked at my mother, and she shrugged. I pointed to her glass. “Can I have one of those?”
“Like mother, like son,” said Phil. “Coming right up.”
I sat down on the stool next to my mother. She was leaning her head on her hand, looking tired enough to fall asleep at the bar. “So,” my mother said, “you’ve done your good deed for the day.”
Her pack of Pall Malls was on the bar. I took one and lit it. “Mrs. Knurr said if I have any interest in being a lawyer I should look up Mr. Knurr and he’ll be glad to give me some advice.”
“I thought you were headed toward the medical profession.”
“Just trying to keep all the possibilities open.”
“Well, lawyering pays well, too. Not as good as a doctor, but then lawyers don’t have to put their hands right into the body’s muck.”
Phil put my drink down on the bar. “No fruit in yours, Matt. That’s all put away, and I’m not about to get it out just to make your drink look pretty.”
My mother reached into her glass and grabbed the stem of the cherry. “Don’t ever say I didn’t make any sacrifices for you,” she said, dropping the cherry into my glass. She was joking, but her tone allowed her to convey a truth she needed her son to know. I thanked her and took a swallow of the drink, which was sweet and bracing.
“You sure you don’t want to work tomorrow night?” Phil asked. “It’s supposed to be cold, and for some reason the cold brings out the customers.”
“It’s a Minnesotan’s idea of a big adventure,” my mother said, as if she hadn’t lived in the state all her life.
“Sorry,” I replied. “I’ve got a date.”
“You sure? Tony went home sick tonight, so he probably won’t be in. I’ll pay you what I would’ve paid the both of you. In cash.”
“Nope. Can’t do it.”
“Okay, Matt,” said Phil, “I hope the cold’s good for your business, too.” He roared with laughter and slapped the bar.
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it was next to impossible not to laugh along with Phil Palmer.
Then, quite abruptly, my laughter stopped. Somehow I felt as if I were being wooed. Sit down, Matt. Want a drink? Relax. Have a smoke. Join us.
I finished my drink and crushed out my cigarette. “I’ll go out and warm up the car,” I said, heading for the door.
13.
WE WERE ALL STANDING in the Dunbars’ kitchen, the doctor and his wife, Louisa, Johnny, and I. I was wearing loafers I had polished that afternoon. My gray flannel trousers were freshly pressed, and under the navy blue V-neck sweater was a white shirt and tie usually reserved for Sunday mornings. Louisa looked me over from head to toe and smiled.
“Where are you going again?” asked Mrs. Dunbar.
“To the show,” replied Johnny, “and then over to the Johnsons’ to watch Shockerama.” Johnny’s lie was excellent. There were three Johnsons in our class, and we had already seen the Wolfman movie that would be shown that night.
Johnny was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and Louisa was in her usual outfit—the cotton print dress and oversize cardigan. They were both dressed for an evening that wasn’t supposed to be anything special, but I couldn’t help myself. Practicing a deception twice, as I had the previous evening with Mrs. Knurr and then with Phil Palmer and my mother, must have been sufficient for me to convince myself that I had a date with my girlfriend tonight.
Louisa needed no more than a single look at what I was wearing to know what my ambitions were. Then Dr
. Dunbar, who must have been keeping a close watch on Louisa, noticed as well. He pinched his own shirt collar to call attention to my tie. “And you, Matt? Are you heading straight to church after?”
Johnny knew me well enough to realize that my embarrassment might get in the way of my ability to provide an answer, and so he replied, “He’s trying to impress her parents.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Dunbar, “then this is like a double date?”
At the mention of a date, the twins, who were eating ice cream at the kitchen table, looked up expectantly.
Mrs. Dunbar had tried to sound playful as she asked the question, but her frown revealed how she truly felt about the prospect of her son taking Louisa Lindahl out on a date. Dr. Dunbar looked none too pleased himself. Yet both Dunbars had encouraged Louisa to go out and socialize with people closer to her own age.
“More like we’re the chaperones,” joked Johnny. His parents looked relieved and the twins went back to their ice cream.
Johnny put on his coat, and Dr. Dunbar helped Louisa with hers. “Are you sure about going out in the company of these two troublemakers?” That, too, was supposed to be a joke, but I couldn’t help but think that the doctor would have been happy if Louisa had changed her mind and decided to stay home and make popcorn.
“I’m sure I can keep these two in line.” She laughed her mature, innocent laugh, meant to calm any fears.
Then, as soon as we were in the Valiant, I heard a more conspiratorial laugh, as she slapped Johnny harmlessly on the arm. “What a liar! I’m impressed. Did you have those planned?”
“Totally spur of the moment!” Johnny said, with the same elation he had displayed after racing Chuck Killion on Chippewa Avenue.
Just as Phil Palmer had predicted, the night was cold—eight below according to the thermometer on the side of the Dunbars’ garage—and every word we spoke was wrapped in vapor. On our way out of town we passed Palmer’s Supper Club, and from the number of cars in the parking lot it looked as if Phil’s other prediction had been borne out as well. I couldn’t imagine how the cold would work to the advantage of my “business,” as Phil had termed it. But I could hope.
