Herbert Rowbarge

by Natalie Babbitt

  “Oh—yes,” said Herbert, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” said the boy. “She’s a real nice buggy. Gave the place a little style just havin’ her sit there. Where you headed?”

  “Gaitsburg,” said Herbert.

  “Yeah? Well, you ain’t got far to go, then.”

  Herbert climbed into the Lincoln and left the station, sitting tall in case the boy was watching, but just outside the town he slowed and pulled off the road onto the weedy berm. To his right a cow, alone in a small pasture, stood at the fence and gazed at him without surprise. The cow made him think of Dick, of all the years they had been together, slipping back from the park far into the past, back from the sharp realities of Mussel Point into the blur that Gaitsburg had long since become.

  Sometimes, in bed at night, a dark, dimensionless screen far back in the endless cavern of his brain glowed briefly with flickering images, shreds of action captured on blurry film. Himself running shoeless over grass. A sunlit window. A rush of clustered faces, huge, with moving mouths. The bottom of a staircase flying up at him. But soundless. That was what his childhood had become: the remnants of a soundless movie, dim and disconnected, where, if only he could see, some answer was concealed. The Home, and Gaitsburg, had, he supposed—no, he knew—had substance once, but now … he wondered: could they really be there, walls and grass and windows? Had they been there all along? Or had they slid away from under him, turning with the earth, dissolving into darkness as they dropped beyond his sight? And could they now reconstitute themselves, collect from a swirl of motes and once again be real?

  The question made him think of rocks. He had read somewhere that rocks at the bottom of the Grand Canyon were two thousand million years old. No signs of former life in rocks like that; just the fossils of some poor sort of algae that had grown there long before fish, long before trees, long before himself. Rows of fossil dots were all there was; delicate, like hen tracks. Barely visible. In the office at the Home, at the bottom of a stack of files piled up like the Grand Canyon’s walls from a time before his consciousness, would he find a row of dots left by some fossil Rowbarge, to prove beyond doubt an evolution? And what would it mean if there was nothing?

  These thoughts—he did not like these thoughts. It was as if he heard the breath of madness, that madness he feared so much, snuffling in his ears. There was something the matter. Oh, yes—he was very sure of that. But he would shrug it off. He always had before. He turned his head to find the cow still gazing at him, and for the first time in his life he envied a fellow creature’s lack of comprehension.

  He started up the car and drove the last four eerie miles to find that Gaitsburg was still there. He was stunned to see how little it had changed—stunned to find that, driving through, he was not huge, a giant staring down on little images. It rose up firm and hard around him and he shrank to fit, his head, in the process, clearing and adapting. Why, what an ass he was! It was only a dingy little town, powerless to touch him. There was the depot, as disheartening as ever, and … well, no—the stables were gone. So was the field where he had first seen a merry-go-round. And across the square, with the same frilly little bandstand looking foolish as ever among the leafless trees, there was a wide concrete place to park now, along the riverfront, that hadn’t been there before. He swung the Lincoln into it, climbed out, and stood staring across the Ohio at the West Virginia side. It seemed remote, somehow, another country—nothing but silent hills and trees—and it depressed him. He did not want to be depressed. He got back into the Lincoln and drove again around the square to the only Gaitsburg hotel.

  Inside, at the desk, he signed the register for a clerk too bored to look up, and an aged bellhop carried his suitcase up a creaking flight of stairs. The room was neat and simple, but it, too, depressed him.

  “Want the winda open?” asked the bellhop.

  “No,” said Herbert. “Not now.”

  “Yer the boss,” said the bellhop.

  Herbert gave the man a quarter, closed the door on him, and sat down in a chair by the window, looking out. Yes, the town had changed some after all. But the changes were superficial, like new buttons on an old shirt; the fabric still scratched. From the window Herbert looked at Gaitsburg—and thought how much he’d always hated it. He stood up again and went to find a restaurant for supper.

  The Riverboat Inn was almost deserted, its menu dog-eared, but he felt too tired to look for a better place. He sat down heavily at the nearest table and stared at the salt and pepper shakers, trying to remember why in the world he had come back. And then a waitress appeared.

  “Hi there,” she said.

  Herbert looked up at her—pale cheeks rouged with bright disks of color, eyes expressionless despite the animation of her greeting—and he sighed. And then he looked again, more closely. The skin of her face was slack, and drooped a little from the bones, but there was something there—something about the tilt of the nose, the way it seemed to pull on the upper lip to reveal the wide-spaced teeth behind it—something about the elbows sharp below the stiff-starched little sleeves of her uniform. One of those elbows had bruised his ribs repeatedly, long ago. He was sure of it. There was a badge on her pocket, and he peered at it. Yes. “Esther,” he said.

  “That’s right, honey,” she said. “So! What’ll it be?”

  “Esther Conkling,” he said.

  “Say,” she said, suddenly wary. “How’d you know?”

  “I guess you don’t remember me,” he said, feeling foolish. “I’m Bertie Rowbarge, Esther. From the Home.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Jeez Louise!” she goggled. “Bertie! Sure, it’s you, all right. What’re you doin’ back?”

  “Oh,” he said, vaguely ashamed of himself, “I just … I’m just passing through.”

  She leaned on the table and studied him. “You look pretty slick, Bertie. Say!”—she slapped his hand playfully—“remember how I use t’go after you? You was my big heartthrob, remember? Jeez, I thought you was ab-so-lute-ly it.”

  “Well, it was a long time ago,” he said. “How’ve you been, Esther? Didn’t you ever leave here?”

  Her mouth drew down at the corners, pulling the tilted nose with it. “Can you beat it?” she said. “I been here the whole damn time. Carl—that’s my husband—him and me own this joint. We was doin’ okay till ’32, but now, well, business is just god-awful. We can’t afford no waitresses or nothin’. He’s out there now”—pointing to the kitchen—“doin’ the cookin’, and here I am out here. Jeez, that’s the way we started. Well, nothin’ special, at that, I guess. Hard times all over. How about you, Bertie? What you been doin’ all this while?”

  “Oh, well,” he said, suddenly reluctant to tell her about it, “I’m in business up north.”

  “Yeah. Good business. I can see that.” Her eyes softened. “That’s nice, Bertie. I’m glad you’re doin’ good. You married?”

  “I was,” he said. “She died.”

  “Any kids?”

  “Yes, two. Twins.”

  “Ya don’t say! That’s swell. Carl and me never did have no kids. But, Bertie, gee—I’m sorry about your wife.”

  “That’s all right,” he said, embarrassed. “It was years ago.”

  “Well, look,” said Esther, “I better take your order, so’s Carl don’t think I’m goofin’ off too much. But I’ll come back and talk to you some more in a while. We ain’t too busy these days. I guess you can see that.”

  He made a safe selection from the menu, and Esther went off through a swinging door while he sat back, pondering, to wait. Esther Conkling! She had chased him round and round the barn once, and caught him at last, and kissed him. On the mouth. No one had kissed him on the mouth for years now. He wondered if she remembered. Yes, probably she did. My, my. Esther. He pressed at the base of his skull, where a headache was slowly unfolding.

  Later, with dessert, she came and sat at the table and they talked about the Home. It was nice, for once, not to
pretend to be something else. Esther, watching as he tried to eat his pie, said at last, “I kissed you once, Bertie. Remember?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I remember.”

  “I sure was gone on you,” she sighed. She paused, and then said, carefully, “Say, Bertie, you got a place to stay tonight? I mean, we got an extra room over at our place, and after we close up, at eight, Carl’s goin’ bowling. He won’t be back till midnight. And—well—the thing is, Bertie, I still think about you a lot—I don’t know why—you’d think I’da got over you by now—but I always thought if I ever got half a chance …” She paused and took a deep breath and looked at him imploringly. “Well—and here you are, right here, and you look so good, Bertie. I just changed the sheets this morning and … I wish you’d come, Bertie. It’d be nice, y’know? I’d be real good to you, and—what the hell, we’re all grown up, and since you’re not married now or nothin’, how about it?”

  “Why, Esther!” he said, astounded.

  She grinned, and flushed a little. “I know. It ain’t exactly my style, either, as a matter of fact. But Carl won’t never know the difference. And—it’s just for old times’ sake, Bertie. Just to get you outa my system.”

  He was touched, and faintly roused, by this appeal. It had been such a long, long time. Maybe it would be better not to be alone. Just for tonight. He looked at her, and the eyes looking back at him were misty and full of memories. But … well … he looked at the hand that had reached out to touch his sleeve. The nails were bitten to the quick, the knuckles were rumpled and grimy. And all at once his head was flooded with realities: his own room at home, his own fresh sheets, the shining silver backs of his brushes laid just so on his bureau top. The present flowed in cleanly all around him and he was Herbert Rowbarge once again. These hands of Esther’s on his body—the notion made him shudder, and his headache widened. He pushed away the half-eaten pie. “Esther,” he said, “I’m sorry.” He heard the coldness in his voice, but—well—that was the way he felt.

  She stood up, shoving her chair back sharply. “Yeah. Well. It was just an idea.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Forget it. Okay?” she said stiffly. “You always was a jerk, anyways.”

  He paid his bill quickly and left.

  Outside, he searched for a drugstore, found one, and went in. His temples were pounding now, and he wanted a headache powder badly. The druggist leaned across the counter and frowned. “Well!” he said. “You here again? Didn’t expect to see you again.”

  “What?” said Herbert.

  “Don’t tell me,” said the druggist. “You’ve got another headache.”

  “I’ve got a headache, yes,” said Herbert, surprised. “How did you know?”

  “You ought to see someone about that,” said the druggist, spooning a measure of soft white grains into a glass of water. “Too many headaches could be a sign of something.”

  “A sign of what?”

  “See a doctor,” the druggist repeated. “That’s my advice.”

  “I don’t get headaches that often,” said Herbert defensively.

  “Two in a day,” said the druggist. “That’s too many. Take it from me.”

  Herbert paused, and then he said, “Oh—I see. You’re thinking of somebody else. I’ve never been in here before.”

  “It’s not smart, putting off the doctor,” said the druggist disapprovingly, ignoring this disclaimer. “Pretending it isn’t there won’t make an illness go away.”

  Herbert drank down the mixture with a shiver and gave the glass back to the druggist. “How much?” he said.

  “Same as before,” said the druggist. “Five cents.” He squinted reflectively at Herbert. “Eyes can do it, you know,” he said.

  “Do what?” said Herbert. He was almost beginning to enjoy this conversation.

  “Bring on a headache,” said the druggist sagely. “You drive clear down from the lake, that could do it. Eyestrain from driving.”

  “The lake?” said Herbert, taken aback.

  “Lake Erie,” said the druggist. He leaned across the counter again and peered at Herbert closely. “Didn’t you say you’re from Sandusky? Say, are you all right?”

  Herbert threw up his hands helplessly and laughed. “I’m not from Sandusky,” he said. “I’m from Mussel Point. You’ve got me mixed up with someone else, I tell you. I’ve never been in here before.”

  “Okay, okay, suit yourself,” said the druggist with a shrug.

  Herbert left a nickel on the counter and went to the door. “See a doctor,” the druggist called after him, “and stay off the roads.”

  There was still a little daylight left, and Herbert stood on the sidewalk wondering what to do with it. Maybe he should motor out there now, to the Home, and take a look at it. Or—get it over with; go in and talk to Mrs. Frate. Mrs. Frate? My God, she wouldn’t still be there. Someone else would have taken over. Still—well—all right. He would do it now. Why not?

  The Lincoln consumed the single mile too easily. Arriving before he was ready at the foot of the hill where the Home stood, Herbert braked and pulled the car over to the side of the road. Well, there it was. The long, upcurving driveway, the three tall pines, the heavy, solid old building, its gray stone almost blue in the twilight. The best Home in the state, they’d often been told, and now, staring at it, Herbert thought to himself that it wasn’t a bad-looking building; in some ways it looked like a mansion, with its wide veranda and commanding gaze across the valley. But it wasn’t a mansion. It was a Home.

  He noticed, then, a car in the driveway, parked at the steps leading up to the veranda—a big blue Buick. The Buick was as new and shiny as his Lincoln; in the half-light, its chromium gleamed. Well, probably just someone leaving off a box of toys or something. Still, the Buick disturbed him. I’d look like a damned fool barging in there now, he thought. I’ll wait till they go away.

  There was no other sign of life. No lights yet in the windows, no sound of children’s voices. Without the Buick, the whole sweep of hill and buildings would have looked abandoned. He watched it all flatten as the light faded, till at last, through the square of his windshield, it looked like a picture from an album—a picture of some place that was gone now, done with. Like the past. The Home of his fragmentary memories, dim though it was, was clearer in his head than this. For this Home he could conjure up no feeling, no stab of recognition. It was nothing but a building on a hill.

  It came to him then that he didn’t care a straw whose son he was, and never had. Whoever he’d been when he came to the Home, he was someone else now. His gaze roamed the hilltop—the barn, the fields, the old stone building proper—and tried one final time to find a self there, to see and feel it all again. But there was nothing. It must have happened, he supposed, but to some other person. Esther Conkling had kissed a grubby little no one of a child behind the barn, not him. He was a grown man. He was Herbert Rowbarge. He must remember, when he got back, to tell Dick not to call him Bertie any more.

  Then, in the stillness, he heard the Home’s big door bang shut. The figure of a man in overcoat and hat stood for a moment on the steps, a dark silhouette against the last of the sunset. The figure stood there slumped and thoughtful and, Herbert thought, a little sad. Well, so what—a Home was a sad place. Any Home. At last the figure moved slowly down to the Buick, opened the door, and climbed in. Headlights flared, the car rolled forward down the driveway, its powerful motor droning. The headlights’ glare swept into his eyes, blinding him, and he put up his hands to his face. Then, reaching the road, the car turned north, away from him, away from Gaitsburg. Herbert dropped his hands and watched till the red of the taillights disappeared around a curve.

  It was gone. He could go in now, if he was ever going to. Well, was he? No. The loneliness of the man on the steps had touched him somehow, reminded him of his own loneliness; and suddenly he wanted badly to leave this dead and disconnected place, leave and go home to Mussel Point, to the Pleasure
Dome. Remembering his house, the park, the lions on the merry-go-round, he decided he would go home first thing in the morning—and never leave again.

  He started up the Lincoln and switched on the headlights, and at once a sense of now, of life, suffused him. On the dashboard a golden glow sprang up behind the dials. Needles quivered, bright reflections winked on every polished surface, and as he backed the car around, it purred, then roared appreciation as he shifted into gear. Almost happily, he swung into the road, and realized that his headache was gone. He shouldn’t have come down to Gaitsburg. It hadn’t solved anything at all. But—well—at least it had recalled to him what he was now, and where he belonged. If he was going to give in to the madness, better to do it there. But he didn’t feel the madness just now. Instead, he felt strong and solid, sitting behind the wheel. He pressed his foot on the accelerator and the Lincoln leapt forward.

  This feeling of solid strength, solid respectability, was good. Into his head came a fragment of something he had read somewhere: “Everyone likes and respects a self-made man.” At the thought he laughed aloud. There never was, he said to himself, a man so self-made as me. And, humming, he rolled back into Gaitsburg for the final time.

  Wednesday evening, May 28, 1952

  Louisa Rowbarge carries the remains of a chocolate cake out to the kitchen. “Dessert was so-o-o good, Fawn,” she says to the woman washing dishes at the sink. “And the ham was just perfect.”

  “I wrapped the rest up careful for your dinner Friday,” says Fawn. “I got the day off, y’know.”

  Louisa nods. “Memorial Day,” she says. “Will your family all be together?”

  “Yep,” says Fawn. “All but Lorraine. She’s still down to Zeenie”—by which she means Xenia, some fifty miles south—“on that kidney stone.” Lorraine is a practical nurse and is often away on cases, the details of which Fawn bestows on Babe and Louisa at the least sign of encouragement.