Herbert Rowbarge

by Natalie Babbitt

  Changing his clothes for dinner, he put away the black necktie he’d worn to Stuart’s funeral, and that was when he remembered. Opal. Yes, that was it. That was the good idea he’d thought of. And now that he was fully awake, he saw just how good it was. Opal. It solved everything.

  At dinner he said, “Girls, I’ve decided we need to spread the riches around a little. Now that Stuart’s dead, your Aunt Opal’s going to be lonely.”

  “Yes, she will,” said Babe—or was it Louisa? “We were talking about that. Walter’s with you all day at the park and off in his own place at night, and it’s going to be hard for Aunt Opal, being by herself.”

  The twins looked at each other then, and one of them nodded encouragingly. The other leaned toward Herbert, paused, and said, “Daddy, it looks like we’ve all been thinking the same thing. We’ve got so much room here—let’s ask Aunt Opal to move in with us. She can be an awful pill sometimes, but still, she’s Mother’s sister, and we shouldn’t just let her sit there all alone.”

  Herbert twirled the stem of his water glass, pretending to think it over, and then he said, “Well, that would be nice for us, but what would Opal do with all her things? All those doodads and pictures and so on? She’s pretty attached to that mess she’s accumulated. I don’t think she’d want to leave her own house. No, what I was thinking was that one of you should move in with her.”

  They stared at him blankly. And then: “Move in with her? One of us?”

  “Why, yes,” he said, “unless you both want to go, and leave me all alone.”

  “Oh, no, Daddy. But—well—we’ve never been apart before.”

  “Well, but don’t you think you could handle it,” he said, “now that you’re all grown up? It’s not as if you were Siamese twins, you know.”

  Again they were silent.

  “Look,” he said, “it wouldn’t be forever. We’ll try it for a month or two. See how Opal likes it.”

  “But which one of us? How will we decide which one of us?”

  “Well, now, I can’t see that it matters, particularly. Switch off every month, take turns. That way,” he added, beaming at them paternally, “I wouldn’t have to give up either one of you.”

  “Maybe she won’t want us,” Babe said hopefully.

  “Nonsense,” he said. “You said yourselves she’s going to be lonely.” And then he added, skillfully, “I can’t help but think it’s what your mother would have wanted.”

  From this, there could be no recourse.

  Opal did like it. Once again there was someone to beat at backgammon, someone to go to the dry cleaner’s, someone to boss around as she’d always bossed Stuart and couldn’t boss Walter. Someone to talk to on “women’s problems,” too, someone to rub her back. The arrangement stretched out into the summer, into another summer, into years. Babe and Louisa were together at family dinners, they often met in town. And most days they talked on the telephone. But they were not together. It was an agony, but how could they be so selfish as to think only of themselves? Daddy seemed content, and on top of everything else, below and around and through everything else, was what he’d said, what they deeply believed was true: it was what their mother would have wanted.

  Memorial Day, 1952

  “Hello?”

  “Babe, it’s Louisa. You’d better come over. Right away.”

  “Oh, God, what’s happened?”

  “It’s Daddy. He’s gone. Oh, I just knew this would happen!”

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’? Is he—dead?”

  “Oh! No, Babe, I mean he isn’t here! I’d just got him settled down after breakfast—you know, changed his sheets, plumped up the pillows—and I brought the tray downstairs and did his dishes, and then I took the sheets down to the basement and put them in the washer, and when I was coming back up to the kitchen, I heard the car. Babe, he was backing out the car! I ran out to stop him, but it was too late. Oh, Babe, he’s gone down to the park. I just know it!”

  “He’s driving?”

  “Yes!”

  “How could he think of driving, when he isn’t even supposed to be out of bed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Louisa, I’ll get Aunt Opal’s car and be there in five minutes. We’ll go after him. Wait for me in the road.”

  “All right. But hurry!”

  “Go on outside. I’ll be there right away.”

  “All right. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Memorial Day, 1952

  Herbert Rowbarge sits hunched in his bedroom chair, watching while Louisa changes the sheets. She isn’t nearly as good at it as the girl, but the girl always gets holidays off, no matter what. They don’t care about you, servants. He supposes the girl—what is her name?—he can’t in the least remember, but it doesn’t matter anyway, they come and go—he supposes the girl will be spending the day at the park, like everybody else. He wants to yell at Louisa to get the blanket straight, he hates it when the blanket isn’t straight, but he holds himself quiet and glances at the clock on the bureau. My God, almost a quarter after nine. And the christening begins at ten.

  “That’s good enough,” he says to Louisa. “I want to get in now. I’m tired.”

  “All right, Daddy. There, it’s done. Here—let me help you.”

  “Get away from me!” he says. “I can get into bed by myself.”

  He manages it, and she pulls the covers up over him, standing there for a moment afterward, looking down at him with a worried expression. Damn, he says to himself, the blanket’s crooked. Aloud he says, “Well, what are you standing there for? How can I get any sleep if you stand there like that?”

  Louisa picks up the breakfast tray and carries it to the door. “Have a nice nap, Daddy,” she says softly.

  He waits until he hears her footsteps going down the stairs, and then he throws back the covers and climbs out of bed. Upright, he pauses to see how he feels. Um. A little dizzy, maybe, but all right. Really all right. Idiot doctor! Now to get dressed and get down to the park. There’s never been a Memorial Day without him, never a new ride christened without him, and there isn’t going to be one now. He goes into his bathroom and takes his razor and soap out of the medicine chest, and then, closing its mirrored door, he peers at his chin. “Maybe I don’t have to shave,” he thinks. “There isn’t much time.” He rubs a palm across one cheek to test the bristles, and then he catches the eye of his reflection. A powerful rushing sensation down his spine makes him clutch the basin with both hands, and then, oddly, he feels relaxed and swimmy. He smiles at the pale old man in the mirror, and the pale old man smiles back. “I don’t think we have to shave,” he says aloud. “Do you?” His voice seems to come from somewhere outside himself, somewhere far away. “Come on, let’s get dressed. Let’s put our clothes on and get going.”

  In the bedroom again, he drops his pajamas to the floor, pulls on shorts, shirt, and trousers, socks and shoes. And then in the bathroom again, tying his tie before the mirror, he says to the pale old man, “That’s a nice tie. But you don’t look too good. All right, never mind. Let’s go.”

  In the upstairs hall, struggling into his jacket, he pauses and listens. He can hear Louisa splashing water in the kitchen. He starts down the staircase, then pauses again. The sound of the water has stopped. He waits. Good—she isn’t coming out, she’s going to the basement. He goes down to the front door, opens it, and closes it behind him as gently as he can. The outside air is warm, the sun is warm, the smooth tar of the driveway looks soft, like his blanket. He goes around the house to the garage and is relieved to see that the overhead door is up. He has yelled at them a thousand times to put that door down, but now he is glad they always forget. He climbs into the big black car, takes the key from behind the sun visor, switches on the ignition. These Lincolns, bless them—they never fail him. He backs out slowly into the turnaround and heads down the driveway. In the rearview mirror he sees Louisa in the driveway behind him, her mouth stretched wide on a shout,
her arms waving. He ignores her and, speeding up, turns into the road toward town.

  It is lovely to drive too fast toward his Pleasure Dome through this bright May morning. Lovely to have another opening day. Lovely to have a new ride to christen, the first since the Bumper Cars four years ago. The lake, whizzing by beside him, is studded with bright diamonds of sunlight that flash and wink at him. He feels supremely happy, and then, suddenly, supremely dizzy. No! No blacking out, old man. Not today. Work to do. He turns the rearview mirror so that he can see himself in it, and says to his reflection, “Hold on. Hold on.”

  Coming into town, he grips the steering wheel tightly, confused by a welter of traffic that has suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Ahead, the cars are pulling off along both sides of the road. The parking lot must be full already. His vision blurs, he blinks, and sees something rushing up at him, a group of people walking in the road. He veers sharply to the right to avoid them and sees, too late, the man getting out of a car, the wide-open door. There is a sickening thump, an explosion of glass, a screech of metal, all mixed together in a whirl. The Lincoln lurches. But keeps going. Herbert clings to the wheel. Can’t stop now. Have to get to the park. Must be almost ten.

  Somehow he finds his special parking place, rams the Lincoln into it. The swimmy feeling sways just behind his eyes as he slams the car door, but he shoves his way fiercely through a swarm of people at the Pleasure Dome gates. “Hey, buddy, whatcha think yer doin’?” a man complains as Herbert shoulders him aside, but he keeps going, hurrying along the boardwalk through the noise, the music, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs and dust. Shining giant wheels revolve around him, little cars speed by on oily tracks. Two girls, turning upside down in the cage of the Dipsy-Doodle, shriek as he passes them. He pauses for an instant at the merry-go-round as the lions, tawny, glistening, rising and falling side by side, leap toward him, circle by, disappear. He tries to smile at them, but his face feels funny. It doesn’t want to do what he asks of it. He goes on, stumbling a little, to the end of the boardwalk, and hears at last a loudspeaker, sees a deep circle of people.

  “AND NOW, IN THE ABSENSE OF THE OWNER AND CREATOR OF THE ROWBARGE PLEASURE DOME, MR. HERBERT—”

  “I’m here!” he yells. “I’m here!”

  The crowd turns, parts, lets him through. Walter is standing at the steps that lead down to the row of pretty boats waiting at the mouth of the Tunnel of Love. The lake water, channeled into this narrow canal, slaps gently at the swan-shaped sides of the boats. Between two posts set into the edge of the boardwalk just above the steps, a wide pink ribbon has been stretched and tied in a fat, romantic bow. Walter pauses, drops the hand that holds the microphone. “Uncle Herbert!” he says in an urgent whisper. “You shouldn’t be here! Good Lord, how’d you get here?”

  “I drove,” says Herbert. “I’m going to take the first ride, just like I always do.”

  “But—”

  “Now, listen, Walter, it’s still my park. Make the announcement and let’s get on with it.”

  Walter shrugs. “Well, okay, I guess if you’re all right …”

  “Of course I’m all right,” says Herbert dizzily. His voice sounds funny to him. Thick.

  There is so much noise around them, Walter doesn’t seem to notice. He lifts the microphone. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE’RE IN LUCK AFTER ALL. THE OWNER AND CREATOR OF THE ROWBARGE PLEASURE DOME, MR. HERBERT ROWBARGE, IS HERE TO CHRISTEN THE TUNNEL OF LOVE AND TAKE THE FIRST RIDE. MR. ROWBARGE, IF YOU WILL, PLEASE—CUT THE RIBBON!” The loudspeaker over their heads blares Walter’s words out over the park a fraction of a second after Walter speaks them. Cut-tut the-uh ribbon-bon.

  Herbert reaches for the pair of scissors Walter holds out to him, but his arm feels funny. “You do it,” he hisses. “Come on. Hurry up.”

  Walter cuts the ribbon, and the crowd applauds. Someone in the back whistles. Walter takes Herbert’s arm and guides him down the steps and into the first boat, settling him on its pink-painted seat. “All right,” he says in Herbert’s ear, “one ride and then I’m taking you home.”

  A switch is thrown, and Herbert glides forward into the mouth of the tunnel. At intervals, the other little boats come after him, and soon they are all floating, in that dim and watery place, away from the dust and the noise and the people, farther and farther away.

  A trooper shoves through the crowd, takes Walter by the shoulder. “Where is he?” he says.

  “Who?” says Walter, startled.

  “Mr. Rowbarge.”

  “He’s in the tunnel. He’s taking the first ride. Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Accident. Back on Park Street. Mr. Rowbarge run a man down and didn’t stop.”

  “Oh, my God,” says Walter. “Are you sure it was Mr. Rowbarge?”

  “You bet,” says the trooper. “A lot of people seen him. Everyone knows that Lincoln of his. I looked at it out in the parking lot. Right fender’s all bashed in.”

  “The ride only takes a few minutes,” says Walter, “so he’ll be out pretty soon. Good Lord. How awful. Is the man he hit all right?”

  “You kidding? Ambulance is on its way, but he’ll never make it to the hospital. Prob‘ly dead already. Face all cut up. Lincoln hit him in the back while he was gettin’ out of his car. Shoved him through the window of the door.”

  “Oh, my God. Who was it? Someone from here?”

  “No, kid with’im said they come down from Sandusky for the day. Kid said the old guy’s name was Schwimmbeck—Otto Schwimmbeck.”

  “Never heard the name before.”

  “No. Pretty bad for the kid. Said he was the old guy’s grandson. Maybe twelve or fourteen.” The trooper pauses, and then he adds, impressed, “Jeez! Door on that Buick damn near snapped right off.”

  “Wait,” says Walter. “Here come the boats.”

  The water at the heart-shaped mouth of the Tunnel of Love breaks into bubbles, a low wave rushes forward. And out from that dim and watery place come the little boats, out into the sunlight one by one. In the first boat slumps the figure of the owner and creator, Herbert Rowbarge, the eyes closed, the hands palm-upward on the seat, the face relaxed and blissful.

  “Uncle Herbert!” cries Walter.

  But Herbert doesn’t hear. He has floated deep into the mirror and found his only love, and they are gone.

  Thursday, June 5, 1952

  Babe and Louisa Rowbarge stand in the hall of their father’s house, knee-deep in suitcases, cartons, and shopping bags. Three coats are draped across one suitcase, hangers still caught in the shoulders, and on top of these is a stack of paperback mystery novels tied up with a bathrobe belt, and a tall rubber boot from which the cords of a heating pad and a curling iron twist like living vines.

  “Where’s the other boot?” Louisa asks.

  “I don’t know,” says Babe. “I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

  Louisa surveys the mess and says, hopelessly, “I had no idea we had so much stuff at Aunt Opal’s.”

  “Well,” says Babe, “there was the closet, of course, and the bureau, and all our things in the medicine chest, remember, and then there were the two bookshelves and our pictures, and … well, five years’ worth. That’s a long time. You can pile up a lot in five years.”

  “I guess so,” says Louisa. She bends and pokes in the nearest shopping bag, retrieves a book of crossword puzzles, and flips through the pages.

  “There’s lots in there that isn’t done yet,” says Babe defensively.

  “Oh, no, Babe, that’s all right,” says Louisa. “I think you did exactly right, bringing everything. It’s just that we’ll have to put it all away before supper, because if we don’t, Daddy’ll …” She catches herself and they look at each other and then look away.

  “Well!” says Babe. “I’m starving.”

  “Yes, let’s eat,” says Louisa. “Fawn made tuna salad and iced tea. She said to tell you she was sorry she couldn’t stay to welcome you back, but it got too late.”

  “I k
now,” says Babe. “I didn’t think it would take me so long to pack up.”

  “It was nice of Walter to lend us his car,” says Louisa. “How long can we keep it?”

  “He wants it back tomorrow afternoon,” says Babe. “So we’ll have to decide what to do.”

  “I guess so,” says Louisa.

  They wade away from the mess and soon they are eating at the dining-room table. Louisa has lit the candles and Babe has poured them each a little glass of wine. They are stiff with each other, and uncomfortable, and talk very little at first, but soon the wine begins to warm them and Louisa puts down her fork. “Babe,” she begins, “I don’t know how to say this, but … well, the thing is …”

  “I know,” says Babe. “You don’t feel anything. Neither do I.”

  “What’s the matter with us?”

  “There’s nothing the matter with us,” says Babe. “Probably it just hasn’t sunk in yet.”

  “Actually,” says Louisa, “I do feel something. What I feel is I’m really upset because I don’t feel anything.”

  “I know,” says Babe. “It’s all right. Don’t worry.”

  “I thought the house would feel empty. You know? But it just feels like it has more … air in it somehow.”