After Gregory

by Austin Wright

  There was Amy slapping her hands lightly on her knees, her voice keening, excited, a soft whinny. Joe said, When they notice the missing car they call the state police, call goes out, cop looks up from his radio and there you are.

  Murry Bree is only trying to start a new life. Not easy to make clear to strangers. From scratch. Sounds like a place, a small country town, the wrong one too, for scratch was dry and dusty whereas his beginning was a river. You had to speak their language, translate the river into scratch. You couldn’t say, I rose from the river, any more than you could say, I left a dead body in the woods. You heard them looking at each other. I just got out of jail, Murry Bree said. Maybe.

  Oh. That explains it. What were you in for?

  I don’t know. This created another silence. I forget. How could anybody forget what they were in jail for? Murry Bree explained, it was nothing serious, I mean nothing dangerous. It’s all right, you don’t have to tell, Amy said. What’s your name?

  My name is Murry Bree. Temporarily, you added. Then, hearing himself, you think I’m crazy. That’s all right, we’re crazy too, Amy said. We are not, Joe said. That’s bullshit, that everybody’s crazy including us stuff. Bullshit bullshit. What do you mean, temporarily?

  Murry Bree explained, I’m trying to get rid of my old name. Amy can understand that. Can’t you, Joe? No answer from Joe.

  At the foot of the hill the road joined a two-lane concrete state highway. Better watch it, Joe said. Billboards and signs in the field. You had come into another valley. In a moment you came to a small amusement park. Here, you want to leave the car, leave it here, Joe said.

  They left it in the parking lot of the amusement park. Keys in the glove compartment, so no one would come along and steal it. He wiped his fingerprints away with Amy’s sweater, which had been wrapped around her waist. Wiped steering wheel, door panel, gear shift. Joe was shifting his weight from foot to foot as if he had to go to the bathroom. Once they were away from the car, he was more comfortable. They went into the amusement park together. Since Murry Bree had no money, they paid his way.

  So there he was, following his new friends around the amusement park like a parent or a child. A merry-go-round and three circular flying rides. Pony rides. Children, fathers in colorful shirts and mothers in Bermuda shorts, groups of girls in jeans. You rode on the Ferris wheel, Joe and Amy together in one seat while you sat by yourself in the next one. Later from a bench you watched them on the circular flying things. You had this consciousness of the crowd and a secret: I am different from you. You stopped by the psychic couple who guess your name. This Lola, who wore a turban and sat in the center of the tent. Now concentrate. Think of your name and a question you want me to answer. But remember: the mind, it has a lot of garbage to put up with. Sometimes the vibrations don’t get through, interference, the thoughts fall into the great Swamp of Taboo. If that happens, Lola will hear a high buzzing in her ear, and you’ll be entitled to a free prize—this teddy bear, this gorgeous bride doll.

  She guessed Amy’s name and answered her question (it was about love). When they made her guess Murry Bree’s name, she called him Murphy and said he was named for someone dear and near to the person who had named him. Then Joe, his face anxious, drew you away from Lola’s tent and pointed to the parking lot beyond the fence. Two state troopers with broad rimmed hats and golden chains were looking at the white Ford. The word is out.

  Don’t look. What should we do? Nothing. You sat on the bench. The whole park was enclosed by a fence, and the only gate was at the parking lot. No problem unless the man at the gate connects us, Joe said. Just keep doing what we’re doing.

  So you did everything in the park twice. The cops went back to their car, parked outside the lot behind a tree. Waiting out the thief, Joe said. They’ll catch him when he comes out.

  So here’s Joe’s plan. He leaned forward and talked crisply like a boy scout leader. What we do, we stroll out like it was no problem. Out to the road walking, like we came on foot. We’re hitchhikers. We’ve got our New York sign. And you, you’re hitchhiking too. They can’t prove a thing, Amy said. He took the sign that said NY out of his pack. Buy some cotton candy before we go. Look casual.

  You skipped the cotton candy yourself. You walked toward the gate, Joe and Amy dipping their mouths expertly into the big sticky white fluffs. Notice how skillfully Joe ate without getting it into his beard. He had been eating cotton candy all his life, a lifetime skill. As they went through the exit gate into the parking lot, Joe was working a spiral around the lower edge of his fluff. They passed the white Ford, bait for the trap they were slithering out of. They saw the police car waiting with its two officers just beyond the entrance. They turned the other way and walked down the highway. Nothing happened.

  Don’t count on it. The police car came up quietly and pulled ahead a few feet. The cop waited for them.

  Hello folks. Howdy. Where you folks going? New York. Hiking. I mean, hitchhiking.

  Silence. There was a question whether the police would make a fuss about hitchhiking.

  Where you from?

  New York. Seeing the country. Camping. You too? We met on the road. I’m going to New York too, Murry Bree said.

  The policeman’s partner at the wheel kept looking in the mirror—still watching the parking lot. Can I see some identification? Joe and Amy reached into their pockets, took out their wallets, and handed the policeman their driving licenses.

  “Joseph Fingerton, twenty-four years old. New York. Amy Glazer. New York. Twenty-three.”

  Yours? You looked at him and didn’t say anything. Your identification, please?

  The policeman was looking at you, his eyes scared, he held you tight with diffident hooks. No driver’s license? No nothing? The policeman was ugly, he had an ugly mouth, with curling lips. His cheeks were fat. What are you, a bum?

  Another bum, this one in uniform. Someone was angry at how you were about to be treated, about to be knocked around for being a bum. The policeman’s ugliness, however, was a practical question, not one of principle. Use your brains.

  My wallet was stolen. Yeah? Where was that? You remembered a name on a sign. Dennis Ohio (pop 375). Did you report it? What’s your name, Jack?

  It’s not Jack, Jack. The ugliness was powerful. You were forgetting something, but the brain performs only so many calculations per minute. You needed conviction if you were to convince anyone else, and you groped for the plausible.

  My name is Peter Gregory. The words came naturally to mind.

  Peter, eh? You wanted for anything, Peter? Ever been in trouble with the law?

  Joe’s aroused. Hey man, take it easy. There was also something new in you, encouraged by Joe’s flurry, a feeling of being someone, heated into pressure by the insult. My name is Peter Gregory, and I’m the senior English teacher at Uptown High School, Cincinnati. You said it with all the shock and daring of a lie, after which the world would never be the same.

  The policeman was startled, then puzzled, skeptical but a little frightened. It was open to him to question your story, but he did not want to. Your anger—ignited by his condescension, though it was only an outer flame after six days banked—must have shown on your face, scaring him and forcing him to believe. He glanced at his clipboard, craned his neck for a moment back to the parking lot. Can you tell me why you’re not in school, sir? Is the school year over in Cincinnati?

  Research project.

  Right. The policeman knew all about it and was embarrassed. I hope you find your wallet. The car swung around and went back to watch the parking lot, to trap the thief who had stolen the white Ford.

  NINE

  You were shocked by the banished name that had uttered itself. It was hard to imagine what could be worse than being mistaken for Peter Gregory, up from the dead to undo a week’s lifetime of work. All it needed was for the police to call Cincinnati. Peter Gregory not dead but fled. Wife, children, colleagues, students. No new man of the river, only Gregory the Fugi
tive.

  Meanwhile, down the road with the two kids, silent, puzzled, with Joe’s words after they drove off, Jeez that was close.

  Most likely the policeman would not check it out. If he had wanted to, he would have detained you. You were still safe except for these kids. To persuade them Peter Gregory, high school English teacher, was a fiction like Murry Bree.

  Joe looked back. We can start thumbing now. It was Amy who asked you to join them. A quick look from Joe to Amy, and Amy returning his look.

  Questions while waiting for rides. Is it really a research project? Is Peter Gregory your real name? Are you really a high school teacher?

  The correct answer was, not any more. You quit? Was that when you went to jail? Oh, jail. Then a car stopped to pick you up, the three of you together now.

  That evening, unable to bear anonymity any more, you told everything you could manage to say about Peter Gregory for Amy and Joe. They paid for your meal in a Pennsylvania mountain town. After dinner, you walked out along the small river that went through the town. You found a grassy place where Joe set up the tent from his pack. You would sleep on the grass nearby. You sat in the twilight by the riverbank, looking at the trailer homes on the other side, the trees turning black in the fading light, the oil refinery tanks beyond the trees, partially blocking the view of the darkening ridge. It was peaceful. Joe and Amy sat side by side, smoking.

  You wanted to tell, but left it to them to ask. Out of the silence, Joe: you wouldn’t kid us, would you? You never went to jail. But what were you doing with that stolen car?

  No I never went to jail, but I told you, I needed that car to get out of Badgerton.

  But Peter Gregory is your real name? You: I gave that name up when I quit being a teacher. My name is Murry Bree. Long silence in the growing dark, while their cigarettes glow. Why did you quit being a teacher?

  Why? The question elicited no words, only whistles in the head. You weren’t ready for why, only when and what.

  When, then. When did you stop being Peter Gregory?

  About a week ago.

  Joe thumped the ground with his fist. Just a week? What’s this, you running away? Amy: Do they know you’re gone?

  They’ll know by now.

  Won’t they worry? Won’t they be looking? High school teachers don’t just disappear.

  They won’t look because they think I’m dead. The words startled you, because you had not anticipated how dramatic they would sound.

  Oh, murmured Amy, long and low. Joe glooming in the dark. A long pause before he asked: How did you arrange that?

  You tried to answer, face buried in arms. What did you say? You repeated, cradled in your sleeves. I can’t make out what you’re saying. You got the words disentangled at last. It required two sentences: Peter Gregory wrote a suicide note and drowned himself in the river. I swam out on the other side.

  No kidding! Joe, transformed. For real! Is that what happened?

  That’s what happened.

  Why did you do that?

  Why, again. Like asking you the meaning of life in a word. Mangled by thought, you mumbled, I wasn’t suited to that life.

  Amy: Your poor wife. Aren’t you sorry for your wife? Pointed to his wedding ring, which you had forgotten.

  My wife left me two months ago and took the kids with her.

  Oh. Amy, softly: Is that why you did it? The why question again. But she had suggested an easy answer, and Peter Gregory grabbed it: Yes. Because my wife left me and took the kids.

  Someone complained: lots of wives leave their husbands. People don’t commit suicide over that. Yes. The question now with Amy and Joe in the increasing dark, by this little river so much narrower, gentler, slower, than the original, was how to tell what you yourself were only beginning to figure out about Peter Gregory who drowned.

  You poked at the ground with sticks, they made their cigarette butts glow. They waited for the facts of life like news, as if they really believed life could be fit to words, reduced to story. Challenged to remember Peter Gregory, you had to violate the habit of a week’s effort to get rid of him. The world is full of suicides, Hal Hastings for instance. It was natural for Gregory to consider this among his options.

  The suicidal option worried them. They were young and full of life and hated the very idea of suicide even in the abstract with all arguments that might be made on its behalf. Children, Joe with his beard crushed on his raised knees, Amy pulling her ponytail across her nose. Looking at you, trying to nullify the suicidal passion of this man from the road, soft talking, wry, possibly ironic stick poking, twig breaking, tossing pebbles into the stream, never quite still.

  What a terrible thing to do to a child, Amy said, a parent who commits suicide. If your own parent who gave you life decides life’s not worth living.

  Your heart clutched to reject this effort to load you with Gregory’s guilt. I told you, she took the children with her. They were gone, two months ago.

  Amy’s sympathy, she meant no harm. As for parents, remember his gentle father full of cigars in his brown suit with the broad vest, its gold watch chain. Who staggered in the basement and crashed into his collection of fossils under illuminated glass. His mother jumped up: Stay where you are! He heard her help him mumbling up the stairs and later he went to peek in the basement. Fossils scattered on the floor amid splinters of glass from the display case. Though his father died of a heart attack, you said, there’s a family tradition of suicide.

  How horrible.

  Two uncles killed themselves. One before Peter Gregory was born. The other, you could call it that too—in old age (in disgrace). That establishes a tradition. They looked at you, trying to see him. Refusing to be distracted, Joe asked, Why did your wife leave?

  There had to be a better reason. She took a lover, you said. That’s Louis the Lover, remember him, who took the place of Peter the Dull. This is easier to write than it was to say. It would have been nice to tell these kids all about Louis the Lover, who teaches Romance Languages at the University. Teaches them all, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, slithering among them like an easy jelly fish with five noiseless dictionaries in his head. With a black mustache and a black curl of gallic hair and a faint French Italian and Spanish accent, and a sport car which he drives fast and a house with sliding panels and its own personal ravine and imported china pitchers and speakers in every room and a mirror over his King Louis bed to double your fun and pink-tinted windows in the west to liven up the sunset. With attractions for children, too, wicked things, a tunnel of love in the basement, a Forbidden Room with spooks and furry tails, video games and a dollar changer and a slot machine giving you gum balls for your quarters. It would have been nice to tell them that.

  And say, the trouble was, Dull Peter’s wife worked at the University in the office of Romance Languages. She was daily within range of the Latin magician’s perfumed spell, hearing his voice resonate in the offices, his hand tapping her shoulder every time he passed reeking through. Her own husband a mere high school teacher, such a wife can get bored, mad, fed up. She took the children to live with Lover Louis. The children: the fat boy, the girl with glasses, their backs turned.

  You must have said some of this, but Joe was not satisfied. What did you do to make her bored, mad, and fed up? Remember them, Amy and Joe, sitting there quietly with their mild shocked questions. People get tired of each other. You don’t know the distractions of Peter Gregory. Unable to concentrate, a burden on his mind. Bitter, sarcastic with students, snappish with wife, withdrawn from children.

  Mostly shadow in the dark, Joe with his upraised knees, gloomy, skeptical. Next to him Amy, cross-legged, straight-backed, and curious. They spoke at the same moment, Joe: What burden? Amy: You weren’t happy with your work?

  You tried her question. Was Peter Gregory happy in his work? Distinguish what you said from what you might have said. What you might have said: postulate an original Gregory, sensitive and literary, who loved explaining what he had
found hard to learn, who not wanting to be a suffering lawyer like his father or a scandalous broker like his uncle, and not knowing what else to do except make love and write bad poetry, went into the pure idealism of teaching. The security, the summer vacations. The challenge of talented students. A world of writing and reading, not merely the recreation of his evenings but the profession of his life.

  What you said was: It stinks.

  What stinks?

  Your average high school, or even your slightly better than average high school, like Uptown H.S., Cincinnati.

  You mean, like switchblades and drugs?

  You weren’t talking switchblades and drugs. You’re talking forty students in a class, one hundred papers a week, Silas Marner year after year.

  Didn’t you know that when you went into it? (I happen to like Silas Marner, Amy said.)

  What did you know when Mr. Gregory went into it? Never much for ambition, you thought he would have time enough, with the vacations, to be eccentric and lovable and write poetry in the summers and maybe a famous book or two, though that part’s optional.

  You didn’t like teaching? That’s no reason to kill yourself. The oil tanks across the river were still visible as large black shapes against what faint light remained. Mildly Joe snarled: Half my friends would give everything for a good high school English teaching job. (What? Amy said. Name one.) The best teacher I ever had was my high school English teacher. Above in the almost dark sky a silver jet trail caught the hidden sun.

  If you hated it so much, why didn’t you quit and get another job?

  Energy. It took all Peter Gregory’s energy to find an apartment after his wife kicked him out.

  It takes energy to drown yourself in the river. You sound sorry for yourself, man.

  Not I. That was Peter Gregory.

  Nuts to you.

  You brooded, full of wondering yourself, a problem as mysterious to you as to them, but for different reasons. You’re right, you said. It’s not enough.