by John Barth
“How about a blood test and a urinalysis?” he asked.
I produced a urine specimen, but declined the blood test.
“How’s the old prostate? Been keeping her empty?”
“No trouble,” I said.
“Sure raised hell that one time, didn’t it? I swear I wanted to cut her out for you, Toddy; you wouldn’t have had another twinge. But that screwball Hodges—remember him? the resident?—he was having a feud with O’Donnell, the surgeon, that year, over politics, and wasn’t letting anybody get cut. Goddamn Hodges! I swear he’d have tried to amputate a leg with his damn internal medicine! What a bunch!” He made some notes on an examination form and slipped it into an envelope. “Here y’are, lad, the whole sad story. How about a little old needle biopsy? Have a look at the old infection. Make you dance and holler.”
“Let it go,” I said, and began dressing.
“No needle? How am I supposed to know what’s what? How about an X ray, raise your bill a few bucks?”
“Drop the paper off any time after today,” I said, accepting from Marvin another light for my cigar, which had gone out. “Please keep everything under your hat, Marv.”
“I don’t blame you,” Marvin said, walking me to the door with his arm across my shoulders. “I’d be ashamed, too.” We shook hands. “Well, hell, Toddy. Don’t wait so long next time. And listen, if the old prostate commences to hurt you, I’ll cut it out. You ought to keep check.”
I smiled and shook my head.
“What do you say? Come down to the hospital Monday for an X ray, and I can take her right out, clean as a whistle.”
“Wait till Monday,” I said. “But don’t hold your breath.”
We said goodbye, and Marvin went back to lie on the examination table for a nap. He was (I’m late saying it) a beefy little man with sparse blond hair, flushed skin, and tiny red veins in his cheeks. His arms and hands were so full of meat that it seemed as if the skin of them were ready to burst, like overboiled frankfurters. It would be pleasant to be able to go on and say of Marvin’s great hands that, awkward as they appeared, the moment they were slipped into surgeon’s gloves they assumed the deftness and delicate strength of a violinist’s. This is the sort of thing one usually hears. But the truth is that those clumsy-looking hands, once slipped into surgical gloves, remained rather clumsy, depending as they did from slightly clumsy arms and ultimately from a somewhat clumsy brain. The truth is that the magnificent Hopkins does not infallibly produce faultless medicine men; the truth, alas, is that in fact I should be markedly reluctant, even were I not opposed to it on principle, to allow my excellent friend Marvin to incise me with his not-altogether-unerring knives. The fact of affection needn’t preclude objectivity.
XV. that puckered smile
One doesn’t move on without giving that tight smile, Betty June’s puckered smile, some further attention. Mere drunkenness and pain are no excuse for my not having realized, until she was upon me with the bottle, that I had done to Betty June a thing warranting murder at her hands (I am, by the way, reasonably confident that it was Betty June in the Calvert Street whorehouse, although I was certainly drunk). She wanted to kill me, I see now, for having laughed that time in my bedroom.
Here’s how I understand it: that morning in 1917 she had learned that Smitty Herrin, to whom she had unreservedly humbled herself, had all the while been married to Mona Johnston, from Henry Street, and had made Mona pregnant. In desperation, Betty June had come to me and had attempted—unconsciously, I daresay—to reassert her wounded ego by humbling me with the gift of her body, a lean receptacle for my innocence. But in the throes of intercourse I had laughed, so violently as to unman myself, and couldn’t even stanch her injured tears for very helplessness. She had assumed that I was laughing at her, at some ridiculousness of her, although this was not particularly true. And then—what? Smitty and I both enlisted, he was killed, and she became a prostitute. Ordinarily, perhaps, it would have been possible for her to rationalize her behavior, first as a patriotic gesture and later as gaining a livelihood from “the oldest profession”—but she had my laughter in her ears to remind her, every time she unhooked her one-piece gown for a new customer, that there was something ludicrous about her and about what she was doing. For many sorts of people, and Betty June is one of them, this suspicion would be nearly intolerable. So: seven years later, when she’s doubtless so deeply enmired in the business and all its attendant vices that she can’t very well escape, seven years later I show up party-drunk at her whorehouse—looking prosperous and smug to her, no doubt—accept her as my whore without a word, and only later, after permitting her to massage my body, refer with vague regret to the time I laughed at her.
Don’t you agree that this is probably how it was? I can’t account otherwise for her murderousness (yet I must say, though I can scarcely explain it, that if I hadn’t mentioned the matter, I believe Betty June would have gone through with the intercourse I had paid for). The remarkable thing, it seems to me, is not at all that she wanted to kill me—even simple shame at being thus discovered could account for that—but that I failed to realize it at once; that I missed the obvious implication of that puckered smile.
And this is what I wanted to say, because I consider it fairly important (hell, even urgently important) to the understanding of this whole story: quite frequently, things that are obvious to other people aren’t even apparent to me. The fact doesn’t especially bother me, except when it leads to my not jumping clear of dangerous animals like poor Betty. The only likely explanation I can imagine is that out of any situation I can usually interpret a number of possible significances, often conflicting, sometimes contradictory. Why, for instance, could it not have been that Betty June, after seven years of prostitution and various unfortunate experiences, had come to see, as I did, the essential grotesqueness of the whole business—the very four-letter verb for which is wittily onomatopoeic—and upon encountering me had decided to demonstrate her agreement by a rousing good copulation, at which we’d both laugh long and loud? Or, less dramatically, why could it not have been that she’d forgotten the affair in my bedroom, and was smiling merely at my drunkenness, or in anticipation of scorching me with isopropyl alcohol? Or, less kindly, that observing my helplessness she was smiling at the thought of earning seven dollars for giving me nothing more voluptuous than a rubdown? I’m not especially defending myself: very possibly another person would have seen factors in the situation that would preclude all these alternatives; or, possibly, another person wouldn’t have imagined these alternatives in the first place. I honestly believe that to most men (and to any woman) Betty June’s intentions would have been obvious. To me they were not.
On the other hand, things that are clear to me are sometimes incomprehensible to others—which fact occasions this chapter, if not the whole book.
XVI. the judge’s lunch
Harrison and I were in the habit of lunching at a confectionery store on Race Street, beside the old opera house. It was run by an orphan’s court judge, an engaging fellow who refused, for purely aesthetic reasons, to serve hot platters: he disliked the smells of cooking in his store. This integrity alone would have attracted me to the place, but the proprietor had a host of such opinions; like me, he was in the habit of giving sound, unorthodox, and not infrequently post facto reasons for his behavior, which reasons he was wont to articulate at length to his regular customers in a loud voice, for he was slightly deaf.
It was to this place that I walked after leaving Marvin. Race Street was afire with dusty sunlight, and few people were out. A number of unclean children were playing tag on the wide cracked steps of the opera house, swinging over and under the brown brass rail that led up to the shuttered box office. On both inner walls of the arcaded façade, crusty with weathered architectural gingerbread, were plastered posters advertising Adam’s Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera.
Not until I’d actually entered the confectioner’s—until the Judge, sm
all, dapper, bald, and boutonniered, greeted me and I remarked politely that he looked like a million dollars—did I remember that, should I choose, I was in a position to make my friend Harrison worth nearly three million. It may seem incredible that such a thing could simply slip one’s mind, but it very nearly did. I believe that if the Judge hadn’t prompted my remark, I’d have forgotten the matter entirely, perhaps until too late. And I was glad I remembered it.
You see, although Eustacia’s information assured me that I could win the case (all that was necessary was to secure from Equity an order holding up the appeal until the missing portions were accounted for. The thing could be complicated indefinitely, and after the coming elections, when Joe Singer had replaced Rollo Moore on the appellate court bench, I was confident that the Circuit Court judgment would be reversed)—although the thing was in my hands, by no means did it necessarily follow that I would do anything about it. Very possibly I would decide to keep the new information secret, let it die that day with me instead of giving it to young Jimmy Andrews or Mr. Bishop to work with after my death. For one thing, remember that I was a fairly thoroughgoing cynic at the time, especially concerning money; also—nothing cynical about this—I believed Harrison was undeserving of the money unless he overcame his former weakness. It was my opinion that in order for him to be worthy of the inheritance, he had to demonstrate a strength of character that would make the loss of it unimportant: a pretty lofty opinion for a cynic. At any rate, I decided not to mention Eustacia’s letter right away.
I was a few minutes late; Harrison was waiting for me, talking to the Judge. We went back to our table.
“Janie dropped out to the plant just before I drove in,” he said. “What are you needling her for?”
“Needling her?”
“That note you sent her this morning,” Harrison said mildly. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“I do now,” I smiled. “I’d forgotten.” I gave my order to the girl who came to our table; Harrison had already ordered. “I wasn’t entirely joking, Harrison. Cap’n Osborn’s got a couple more years, at the most, before he dies. Suppose you were in his place: wouldn’t you like a fine send-off like Janie? Hell, he couldn’t do anything to her. Are you angry?”
“I wasn’t before,” Harrison grinned, “because I thought you were just being nasty. But if you’re serious about her showing herself to the old buzzard, I probably ought to get mad.”
I held a light for his cigar. He was doing fine so far.
“Well, if you want to,” I laughed. “But Janie handled it pretty brightly, I think. Did she tell you about her note?”
“No.”
“She said she’d do what I asked if I’d agree to let Marvin Rose look at me, to see why I’m such a pansy. Her very words.”
Harrison chuckled, a little relieved. “Fair enough,” he said. “What did she mean, pansy? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“You may ask, but a little more softly next time. The fact is, I spent most of last night looking out my window, and the rest of the time reading a book.”
Harrison looked concerned. “You getting senile?”
“Quitting while I’m still ahead, maybe.” I smiled. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think Marvin found anything especially wrong with me, at least not below the belt. I was just up there.”
Harrison’s peace of mind vanished. “You did what she said?”
“Yep.”
The girl brought our lunches: a bacon and tomato sandwich and iced tea for Harrison, and a chopped olive and Swiss cheese on rye for me, with iced coffee.
“Well, what now?” Harrison asked. “I don’t know what to say. You sure do change your mind about things.”
I shrugged. “It’s not your problem; it’s Jane’s. Cap’n Osborn won’t know the difference either way.”
Harrison started to object, but then he changed his mind and bit into his sandwich instead.
“All right,” he said, talking with his mouth full. “I won’t worry about it.”
“Good man.”
Harrison then changed the subject and talked idly about a possible strike of his cucumber picklers. His mouth was still full, and there were three little flecks of mayonnaise on his lower lip. As he spoke, an occasional crumb blew over to me. I admired two things: the casual bad manners that one often encounters in finely bred animals like Harrison, and the fact that his description of the labor difficulties in his plant suggested neither a pro-union bias from his Marxist days nor an anti-union bias from his present position. He was interested in the situation, but rather cynical toward both the union leaders, who were making him out to be a slave driver, and his own administrative staff, who advocated firing the lot of them and hiring “new niggers” in their places. It seemed to me that cynicism, although he was not entirely at home with it yet, became him a great deal more than had his earlier saintliness. I listened with some interest, regarding his still-handsome face (he was forty-three, I guess, and Jane in her early thirties) and the little drops of mayonnaise, which he finally licked away.
We finished our sandwiches and smoked for a while, enjoying our drinks. The Judge’s store wasn’t air-conditioned, but he had three big old ceiling fans, and the place was light and cool.
“Oh, by the way,” Harrison said, “Jane wasn’t in when your secretary called this morning, but the maid took the message, and then apparently you were out when Jane called back. She says she’ll drop Jeannine off at your office at three, if that’s not too early. She’s coming uptown to the hairdresser’s around then.”
I was a little disturbed, not at the change of hours (I had planned to take Jeannine to see the showboat at four), but because my instructions to Mrs. Lake—to call Jane—were the second thing I’d forgotten in a few hours. No, come to think of it, I’d had three lapses of memory: Eustacia’s letter, my note to Jane, and my request to Mrs. Lake. This was a serious matter, for it could be taken as a sign of nervousness, of apprehension at my decision to destroy myself that day. I was of course not indifferent toward the resolution, but my feeling was more one of pleasure at having found the final solution to my problem than one of commonplace fear. And, pleasure or fear, I marked it an indication of imperfect control to be so touched by my feeling as to make unusual slips of memory on what I’d decided was to be a quite usual day.
“I thought I’d take her down to see the showboat when it pulls in,” I said. “How’s her tonsils?”
“All right, I guess. Anyhow it wasn’t tonsillitis. Marvin came out and looked at her throat yesterday, and said it didn’t look like he’d have to take them out, unless we wanted him to go ahead and get it over with. It was her throat that was infected, and her tonsils just swelled up on general principles. I don’t know what Jane’s decided. Both of us had tonsillitis when we were kids.”
“Better leave them in,” I suggested. “Mine used to swell up every now and then, whenever I had a sore throat, but it never amounted to anything.”
There was a certain tactlessness in this remark, as I’ll explain presently, and I made it for that reason, with nonchalance. Harrison took the cigar from his mouth and studied its ash.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Marvin’s a little quick with the knife. Once when I was in law school and he was interning, he was all set to make a eunuch out of me.”
Harrison replaced the cigar in his mouth and drew on it as we got up from the table.
“That would’ve been too bad,” he observed, and put a quarter down for the girl. Then he fetched his straw and mine, and we walked through the front of the store. Have I described Harrison? Not being a writer by trade, I sometimes neglect these details. He was heavy-weighed perhaps two hundred pounds—and still well-built, though he showed signs of going to fat from lack of exercise. His features, which had been chiseled when I first knew him, had begun to round off a little, and his cheeks and belly no longer looked hard, as they had when he played much tennis and rode horses. He still had a good head of ti
ghtly curled blond hair, contrasting nicely with a complexion as much flushed as sunburned (I daresay his blood pressure registered somewhere between mine and Marvin’s), and his eyes, teeth, and arms were excellent. Very wealthy-looking fellow, Harrison, and very clean and handsome. The thin, consumptive communist would justifiably loathe him, but the properly nourished parlor communist would be made uncomfortable by his charm. Those particular aspects of Harrison relevant to this story have made him look less engaging than he really was—I can’t dwell on him, of course, for it’s not his story. Let me repeat, if I’ve mentioned it before, that he was by no means either a fool or a weakling. He was a reasonable, generous, affable, alert fellow. I might even say that if this were a rational universe and if I could be any person I chose, I should not choose to be Todd Andrews at all. I should choose to be very much like my friend Harrison Mack.
“How’s the pickle business, Todd?” the Judge called to me as we stepped out on the sidewalk, where he spent much of his time watching the town. He referred, of course, to the disputed will, which case he had followed with great interest. “You gentlemen in the money yet?”
Ordinarily I’d have enjoyed explaining the new development to him, for although he was not professionally trained, his mind was quick and sure, and he’d have appreciated the maneuver. But of course I could not.
“Nothing new, Judge,” I said loudly. “Depends on how the war goes, maybe.”
“Well, I doubt it’ll go good for the Loyalists,” he declared. “They’ve been holding their own lately, but it can’t keep up. They’ve got the Russians, but Mr. Franco, he’s got the Germans, and like it or not, the German’s a better soldier than the Russian is. The German might be dumb, but he’s dumb like a smart dog. Old Russian, he’s dumb like an ox.”
