Masters of Illusions

by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

  Charlie said nothing. That’s because he didn’t think that Henry Maxson did it. He believed that what Henry Maxson said was true. Hightower had no idea that Charlie didn’t believe that Henry Maxson had been describing himself. Chick knew and Margie knew, and her pain at having to face the fact that Charlie’s search was about something else—something she couldn’t grasp—was almost as difficult as coming to terms with the fact that Chick must have known what that something else was. If not, why didn’t Palma tell him to get Charlie to stop? He was supposed to be Charlie’s protector.

  The fire marshal was oblivious to all the family machinations he knew nothing about, and he just went on philosophizing. “You’re right, Charlie. You’ve been right all along. Barnum and Bailey was arson. Some psychotic tried to kill six thousand people, and we just got to meet him, lucky us. Henry Maxson tried to kill them because his brand of arson wasn’t about impressing anyone. It was about raping his father, I guess. Or his mother, who stood by. Destroying people’s happiness the way his had been destroyed. I guess.

  “But shit, so what? The thing is, he’s been found, and he can’t kill anybody else. The point isn’t even that; the point is that we’ve got laws on the books now that weren’t there before. So does the circus. Circus tents today couldn’t burn if you held a blowtorch to them. It’s not going to happen anymore. Isn’t that justice, Charlie? Isn’t what we just witnessed what you’ve been looking for?”

  Margie’s instinct was to jump in and make an excuse for Charlie. But she had to stop doing that. She knew she had to stop if she really wanted to figure out just what it was that made Charlie the brand of angry that he was. She had to decide to love him or not love him, for better or worse. She wasn’t his mother; she had a choice here, so she just sat back and gripped the arms of her seat to hide the tension she felt. She just set herself like concrete and listened to Charlie say, “I don’t know it.”

  “You don’t know what?”

  “That Maxson did it. I’m going to find the kid he saw do it. The same kid Dixie saw.”

  First, there was just the noise of the game. A lot of noise. Someone must have made a great play. Then the detective said, “Who the hell is Dixie?” Margie looked at Hightower staring at Charlie, but Hightower wasn’t really surprised like the detective was. He recognized a brick wall when he saw one. So he stayed philosophical, though his philosophy grew an edge.

  “White people are fools. They strive. And they keep striving even after there’s nothing left to strive for. They watch ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ on TV, and figure there’s more. There ain’t. They could have all the money in the world and they’ll keep trying to get more. Never fucking satisfied. Sorry, ma’am.

  “Strive for something else, O’Neill, if you don’t know how to stop. For something worthwhile. Worth your while and everyone else’s, too. Keep fighting fires. More of them. Perfect job for a white boy because the fires ain’t never going to go out.”

  Charlie said, “That’s right. That’s what I’m going to keep doing. But meantime, I’m not going to quit on this fire. Soon as I finish striving for this, maybe I’ll just be able to concentrate on tomorrow’s fire. Maybe I’ll strive for not finding any more little girls at the bottom of their closets hugging their teddy bears, burned and dead. But all I know is somebody’s going to pay for all the little girls burned in that circus.”

  Margie held on to her seat. Charlie was Charlie. He’d never find who set the circus fire because searching for him was part of his character, just like the fire was part of the city’s character. This was Charlie’s reason for being, just the way her father claimed his wife was his only reason for being. Charlie would be as dead as her father had been in that room in the veterans’ home if he stopped trying to find the person who set the fire, even though he’d just found him. That was it. Period. Charlie would never believe Henry did it, not because of what the animal trainer’s assistant had said almost twenty years ago, but because he plain didn’t want to, and why he didn’t want to was what would keep him striving. And why he didn’t want to was why Margie was going to leave him.

  She really did love him, she knew, but there was no changing Charlie. She’d have to leave him. Her role as a crutch was over. He didn’t need a crutch to do what he was doing. Not anymore. That’s what his mother saw. Get him to stop, she told Margie. Margie wondered if Palma’s words were advice—that she should threaten to leave him so that he’d stop. If that’s what she meant, she was wrong. Nothing would stop him. But Margie would have to leave him to get the resentment that was overwhelming her to desist.

  People told Margie her father used to wear immaculate white spats when he courted her mother. Ever since she could remember, her father hadn’t cared what he was wearing.

  Margie looked over at Charlie. He had a nice profile. Henry Maxson’s profile was lumpy and unnatural. Charlie’s had those soft eyelashes. Henry had no eyelashes left. Margie wanted to shake Charlie and scream at him: Henry did it, Henry did it—Henry killed my mother! Henry’s threat to burn me hurt you because he already did burn me. And now you can’t get your revenge.

  But she didn’t scream anything. It would do no good. She would leave him instead. She could do it, but she’d have to call Martha first for help.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Margie and Martha met in New York at a sushi bar halfway between Grand Central and Penn stations. Martha had taken the Metroliner from Washington, where she was a law student at Georgetown. She had a bag of work with her that she’d gotten done on the train. Margie had read a book on the train from Hartford. They had a nice cozy booth and started with Kirin beer on empty stomachs. With all the catching up that went on, they had another beer before the sushi came. And a third with the sushi, which was when they got down to business.

  Martha hiccoughed when she said, “Mom, I love Dad.”

  “I know you do.”

  “So it’s difficult to be objective.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “And Dad loves me. He loves us. He would never hurt us. He would never hurt you.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m telling you all these things you already know to get warmed up. So stop saying ‘I know.’”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m saying all these things so that I can say what you haven’t thought about, even though you probably know it.”

  “Know what?”

  “Listen, Mom. Because of those two things—because he really does love you and because he’d die before he’d hurt you—because of that, you can feel free to leave him.”

  Martha meant to know the law, the unwritten as well as the written, and she also had decided to cut right to the charge and give her mother the truth. She said, “Even when the truth is a relief, it still hurts.” Margie wondered how her daughter’s generation figured these things out before they grew up. Where did they find them out? Who told them?

  Margie said, “You’d have never made it in L’Aquila.”

  “Where?”

  “Where honor is better than coping.”

  “Honor is a way of coping.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Dad. We’re talking about Dad. You’re worried about his coping with what you have to do. Naturally, he’ll feel bad.”

  “He’ll feel real bad, sweetie.”

  “But not nearly as bad as you’re feeling right now.”

  Yeah. Margie dipped a piece of raw fish into soy sauce and ate it. Her Uncle Pete used to scoop oysters out of the creek at Chalker Beach with a crab net. He’d open them with a jackknife, then they’d look for pearls, and then he, Little Pete, and Margie would eat them. They’d had to promise not to tell Aunt Jane. “Martha, why would a woman leave a man who loves her?”

  Martha went into discourse as she wielded her chopsticks like she’d been born holding them. And who the hell taught her that? “There’s just one reason a woman leaves a man who loves her. Or who doesn’t love her, for that matter. Beca
use she doesn’t love him.” Martha paused, but then changed her mind. She wouldn’t give her mother a chance to say something about Italians. “That’s not to say she didn’t once love him. A whole lot, even.” She practically swallowed a shrimp whole.

  “Chew, Martha!”

  “I’m chewing. You don’t owe somebody just because he loves you. Since love should never be demanding—I learned that in a class about Hindu philosophy”—Margie thought, Yale!——there’s no need to feel that you owe someone. Now I know that’s not what you believe, not being a Hindi, but we’re talking here about owing someone your whole life. See, sometimes the picture gets too big, and you can’t see a damn thing.”

  Then Martha was the second person after Palma to say the word divorce. Martha went ahead and slipped it in. “I’ll tell you, Mom, it’s really incredibly fascinating when couples are getting divorced. If a man loves a woman who doesn’t love him anymore, he fights to make her love him. He’ll berate her, bully her, or keep telling her how much he’s done for her, or accuse her of being out of her mind, and he just won’t give up until she comes back to him, or until she’s no longer there, at which time he goes on berating anyone who will listen. Of course, if she does give in, and comes back—defeated, I’d have to call it, or maybe exhausted—he’ll insist everything’s just fine again, and think he’s wonderful for keeping the marriage together. Men think that if a woman isn’t yelling and screaming, she’s happy as a clam. So on top of not loving him anymore the woman who goes back loses all respect for her husband because he’s so content to be happy with an empty marriage.”

  “That’s not how Dad would act.”

  “Mom, I’m just giving you the average scenario so you’ll have something to compare your own to. So listen, when the woman is tough, and leaves, the husband always needs so much help. Those guys are pathetic. But guess what?”

  “What?”

  “The unhappy, suicide-talking little fellas marry someone else before a year’s up. It’s easy to find another woman to berate, apparently.

  ‘But Mom, when it’s the other way around—when the man leaves—when a woman still loves a man who doesn’t love her anymore, she’ll be just as kind and as sweet as she can be, figuring if she acts like a good girl, he’ll realize how wonderful she is and take her back. And let me tell you, if you’re a lawyer, that translates to a refusal on the wife’s part to fight for what belongs to her. So not only does she end up with no husband, she ends up destitute. So now she comes back to her lawyer, a year later, too late, naturally. She’s trying to pay for home and hearth while her ex-husband is at the Guadaloupe Club Med with some bimbo. She still can’t understand why he went through with the divorce—after all, she’d been so nice—but now it hits her that he’s also completely ripped her off. She’s there with all the bills and he’s got his C-card—too stupid to know that he’s not young enough to be a yuppie.”

  “What’s a C-card?”

  “Certification to have your tanks filled.”

  “What tanks?”

  Martha laughed. “I’m teasing you, Ma. Scuba tanks.”

  “Oh.”

  “You can never trust a man with a C-card. He spends more time blow-drying his hair than you do.”

  “I can’t imagine Jacques Cousteau blow-drying his hair.”

  “We’re not talking about real divers, here, Ma.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Something that hurts too much to talk about.” Martha sighed. “Where’s the waiter?” Two more beers arrived, the waiter only a second behind them for this next round. “Mom, you and Dad aren’t a couple of jerks. Maybe I’m telling you about the typical divorce so that you’ll know that… so you’ll know that… Oh, shit, I don’t know.”

  Margie watched her daughter struggle not to be stern. Margie said, “You know so much, baby. You really do.”

  “No, I don’t.” Martha wiped a finger across her empty plate and licked off the soy-sauce drippings. “It’s just that I’ve got this streak of blarney I must have inherited from that famous shit of all times, my evil Irish grandfather.”

  “God I wish that man had died a hell of a lot sooner.”

  “At Dad’s birth, for example?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You blame him for Dad’s obsession?”

  “Yes. I blame him for abusing your father and his other children. If emotional abuse is what led to Dad’s obsession, then that’s what I blame him for.”

  “Why do you suppose Uncle Mike and Uncle Frank aren’t obsessive?”

  “Martha, is obsession what we’re dealing with here? Dad’s not really obsessive. I mean, he certainly isn’t about anything else.”

  “I suppose. But then again, how would we know that? He doesn’t do anything else.”

  “Yes he does. He does what men do. He watches TV, he goes to firemen parties, he reads the paper, we go see a movie.”

  Martha sighed again. “Well, let’s face it, Mom. Maybe you’re just bored.”

  “Why would you say such a thing, Martha?”

  “I’m sorry. I got frustrated with you.”

  “You’re never bored when you’re with someone you love. Sometimes I sit and just watch him watch TV. He’s a good person. He’s good to me. He’s always been good to you.”

  “I know that. But so what? What’s that got to do with what we’re here for? You’ve gone along with his very weird behavior and you don’t want to do that anymore. No more denial, Ma. Let’s deal with that instead of love.”

  “Deal with the hurting part?”

  “That’s right. You’ve changed into a different person than what you were when you first got married. You feel like starting up again—trying something different. There’s just nothing you can do about the fact that he isn’t.” Martha picked up her beer glass and put it down again. “I need tea.” The pot arrived. She said to her mother, “Of course, you could talk to him.”

  Margie poured her own tea. Martha’s attempt had left more tea on the table than in her cup. Margie did no better. “Believe it or not, I have talked to him. A little. I’m not going to change him. But Martha, the obsession thing was part of him when I met him. I married him for better or worse. How could I change my mind about the worse part?”

  “You can change your mind because you’d just turned eighteen when you made that ridiculous promise. You didn’t know what worse might be. You couldn’t predict how you’d be when you grew up. People change. People need to renegotiate their marriage every few years.”

  “What’s that? The party line?”

  “Yeah.” She grinned. That grin in court would someday put juries in her back pocket. Margie didn’t say that, though.

  “Want some more tea, Martha?”

  Martha’s grin dissolved. “Why now, Mom?” She waited a little longer than usual to see if Margie would respond. She knew her mother would need time. So after a few moments, Margie filled in the pause.

  “Martha, Miss Foss was right. She just didn’t use the right words on me.”

  Martha said, “Miss who?”

  “My high school guidance counselor. I didn’t go to college because she didn’t tell me the truth. She was mean-spirited.”

  “What was the truth?”

  “That I was already smart enough to know that the horseradish was no place to be. That the problem was that I wouldn’t admit it.”

  “Jesus, Mom, fill in, okay?”

  Margie filled in. Then she said, “She could have helped me face the truth.”

  “Miss Foss was probably the only counselor for the senior class.”

  “No. For all the girls at Hartford High.”

  “Then she didn’t have time. That and the fact that she was frustrated with you. So she had to hand you the party line.”

  “Martha, what do you think educated people end up with that I don’t have?”

  Martha thought. She had no ready answer this time. Then she said, “My friends who didn’t go to college stayed eigh
teen. They stopped in their tracks. Not going to college is a safety net. You get to stay a kid. You get to be lazy; you don’t have to think anymore. It’s a crutch, not being educated. If you go and make a mistake in your life, everyone will say, ‘What did she know? She got married right out of high school.’ The more you learn, the more mature you’re expected to act.”

  “Is that what happened to me, then? To my life?”

  “Yes, that’s what happened. But it’s not necessarily a permanent condition.” She waited. Margie said nothing. “Mom, your batteries are charging up. Probably because your life is half over. You want the second half to be different. Happens all the time. The chief cause of divorce in the middle-aged.”

  “But Martha, I’m not completely uneducated. I read so much. I read all the time. I love to read. I’ve learned a lot.”

  “You read for entertainment. War and Peace is not the same as your kill-the-baby books.”

  “When the Bough Breaks, you mean?”

  Martha laughed at her mother. “Exactly. Actually, I envy you. You’ve got the right attitude. I’ll bet Tolstoy just wanted to entertain us.”

  “Martha, I want to stay serious.”

  “Sorry. Listen, Mom, do you ever think about what an author is trying to say to you about human nature?”

  “I didn’t think authors were trying to tell me anything about human nature.”

  “Oh, Mom.”

  “Wait. Yes, I did. Once. I went to see Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I wrote to the playwright. I asked him if the play meant that God was dead. If George, the history professor, ate the telegram that said the son was dead as a way to show the audience that the evidence was swallowed up by history. The son being the son of God. So that nobody could really prove whether God was dead or not.” Margie grew animated. She loved to storytell. It had been a long time. “Then there were these two other characters in the play—a science teacher and his dumb little wife. And I figured the dumb little wife was someone like me, and that she wanted to have a baby and couldn’t so she put her faith in her husband instead of God—the husband being science. Well, anyway, he wrote back and told me I was the only one who got his message.”