The Stories of Richard Bausch

by Richard Bausch

  “No,” he said. “Wait a minute. That’s a lie.”

  They were all looking at him now.

  “Keep it rolling,” one of the television men said.

  “I spent the night in there. I’ve spent a lot of nights in there lately.”

  Silence. Just the sound of the fire engines idling, and then another ambulance pulled off, sending its wail up to the blackened sky of the city.

  “Things aren’t so good at home,” he said. And then he was telling all of it—the bad feeling in his house, the steady discouragements he had been contending with. He was telling them all how he had never considered himself a man with much gumption. He heard himself use the word.

  The men with the pads had stopped writing. The television men were simply staring at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he told them. “It didn’t feel right lying to you.”

  No one said anything for what seemed a very long time.

  “Well,” he said. “I guess that’s all.” He looked beyond the microphones and the cameras, at the crowd gathering on that end of the street—he saw Smitty, who nodded, and then the television men started in again—wanting to know what he felt when he entered the burning bus. Did he think about the risk to his own life?

  “It wasn’t burning that bad,” he told them. “Really. It was just smoke.”

  “Have they told you who was driving the Cadillac?” one of them asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Wilson Bolin, the television news guy.”

  Aldenburg wasn’t familiar with the name. “Was he hurt?”

  “Minor cuts and bruises.”

  “That’s good.” He had the strange sense of speaking into a vacuum, the words going off into blank air. Voices came at him from the swirl of faces. He felt dizzy, and now they were moving him to another part of the street. A doctor took his blood pressure, and someone else, a woman, began applying some stinging liquid to his cheek. “Mild,” she said to the doctor. “It’s mostly smudges.”

  “Look, am I done here?” Aldenburg asked them.

  No. They took his name. They wanted to know everything about him—what he did for a living, where he came from, his family. He told them everything they wanted to know. He sat in the backseat of a car and answered questions, telling them everything again, and he wondered how things would be for a man who was a television newsman and who was driving drunk at seven o’clock in the morning. He said he felt some kinship with Mr. Bolin, and he saw that two women among those several people listening to him exchanged a look of amusement.

  “Look, it’s not like I’m some kid or something,” he said sullenly. “I’m not here for your enjoyment or for laughs. I did a good thing today. Something not everyone would do—not many would do.”

  Finally he went with some other people to the back of a television truck and answered more questions. He told the exact truth, as best he understood it, because it was impossible not to.

  “Why do you think you did it?” a man asked.

  “Maybe it was because I’d been drinking all night.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I’ve been pretty unhappy,” Aldenburg told him. “Maybe I just felt like I didn’t have anything to lose.” There was a liberating something in talking about it like this, being free to say things out. It was as though his soul were lifting inside him; a weight that had been holding it down had been carried skyward in the smoke of the burning bus. He was definite and clear inside.

  “It was an act of terrific courage, sir.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. If it wasn’t me, it might’ve been somebody else.” He touched the man’s shoulder, experiencing a wave of generosity and affection toward him.

  He took off work and went home. The day was going to be sunny and bright. He felt the stir of an old optimism, a sense he had once possessed, as a younger man, of all the gorgeous possibilities in life, as it was when he and Eva had first been married and he had walked home from his first full-time job, at the factory, a married man, pleased with the way life was going, wondering what he and Eva might find to do in the evening, happy in the anticipation of deciding together. He walked quickly, and as he approached the house he looked at its sun-reflecting windows and was happy. It had been a long time since he had felt so light of heart.

  His brother-in-law was on the sofa in the living room, with magazines scattered all around him. Cal liked the pictures in Life and the articles in Sport. He collected them; he had old issues going all the way back to 1950. Since he had come back from the Gulf, Eva had been driving around to the antique stores in the area, and a few of the estate auctions, looking to get more of them for him, but without much luck.

  “What happened to you?” he said as Aldenburg entered. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Where’ve you been today, old buddy?” Aldenburg asked him. “Been out at all?”

  “Right. I ran the mile. What’s got into you, anyway? Why’re you so cocky all of a sudden?”

  “No job interviews, huh?”

  “You know what you can do with it, Gabriel.”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Aren’t you spunky. What happened to your face?”

  He stepped to the mirror over the mantel. It surprised him to see the same face there. He wiped at a soot-colored smear on his jaw. “Damn.”

  “You get in a fight or something?”

  “Right,” Aldenburg said. “I’m a rough character.”

  Cal’s fiancée, Diane, appeared in the archway from the dining room. “Oh,” she said. “You’re home.”

  “Where’s Eva?” Aldenburg said to Cal. Then he looked at Diane—short red hair, a boy’s cut, freckles, green eyes. The face of someone who was accustomed to getting her way.

  “Where were you all night?” she said. “As if I didn’t know.”

  “To the mountaintop,” Aldenburg told her. “I’ve been breathing rarefied air.”

  “Gabriel,” she said, “you’re funny.”

  “You sure you want to go through with marrying Cal here?”

  “Don’t be mean.”

  “What the hell?” Cal said, gazing at him. “You got a problem, Gabriel, maybe you should just say it out.”

  “No problem in the world on this particular day,” Aldenburg told him.

  “Something’s going on. What is it?”

  Aldenburg ignored him and went calling through the house for his wife. Eva was in the bedroom, sitting at her dressing table putting makeup on. “Keep it up,” she said. “You’ll lose your job.”

  “They wanted me to take the day off,” he said. “Fact is, they were proud to give it to me.”

  She turned and looked at him. “What is it?”

  “You see something?”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, do you?”

  She turned back to the mirror. “Gabriel, I don’t have time for games.”

  “This is serious.”

  She said nothing, concentrating on what she was doing.

  “Did you hear me?”

  After a pause, she said, “I heard you.”

  “Well?”

  Now she looked at him. “Gabriel, what in the world?”

  “Want to watch some TV?” he said.

  “What’re you talking about. Look at you. Did you get in a fight?”

  “I had a rough night,” he said.

  “I can see that.”

  “Look into my eyes.”

  Diane came to the doorway of the room. “Cal and I are going over to my place for a while. I think we’ll stay over there tonight.”

  “What a good idea,” Aldenburg said.

  Diane smiled, then walked away.

  Eva gazed at him.

  “Look into my eyes, really.” He stood close.

  She said, “You smell like a distillery. You’re drunk.”

  “No,” he said, “I’m not drunk. You know what happened?”

  “You’ve been drinking at this hour of the morning.”

 
; “Listen to me.”

  She stared. He had stepped back from her. “Well?” she said.

  “I saved human lives today.” He felt the truth of it move in him, and for the first time paused and looked at it reasonably in his mind. He smiled at her.

  “What,” she said.

  “You haven’t heard me,” he told her. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Gabriel,” Eva said. “I’ve been thinking. Once again, I had all night to think. I’ve done a lot of thinking, Gabriel.”

  He waited.

  “Quit smiling like that. This isn’t easy.” She gathered her breath. “I’m just going to say this straight out. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I’m—I’m splitting.”

  He looked at her hands, at the mirror with her back and shoulders in it, at the floor with their shadows on it from the bright windows.

  “Diane has room for me in her house. And I can look for a place of my own from there. After she and Cal are married—”

  Aldenburg waited.

  His wife said, “It’s a decision I should’ve made a long time ago.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Haven’t you been listening?”

  “Haven’t you?” he said. “Did you hear what I just told you?”

  “Oh, come on, Gabriel. This is serious.”

  “I’m telling you, it happened,” he shouted.

  “Gabriel—” she began.

  He went back to the living room, where Cal and Diane were sitting on his couch. Diane had turned the television on—a game show. They did not look at him when he came in. They knew what had been talked about, and they were feeling the awkwardness of it. He went to the door and looked out at the street. The sun was gone. There were heavy dark folds of cloud to the east. He turned. “I thought you were going over to your house,” he said to Diane. He could barely control his voice.

  “We are. As soon as Cal finishes this show.”

  “Why don’t you go now.”

  “Why don’t you worry about your own problems?”

  “Get out,” Aldenburg said. “Both of you.”

  Cal stood and reached for his cane. Aldenburg turned the TV off, then stood by the door as they came past him. “Look, if it makes any difference,” Cal said to him, “I argued against it.”

  Aldenburg nodded at him but said nothing.

  When they were gone, he went back into the bedroom, where Eva had lain down on the bed. He sat on the other side, his back to her. He was abruptly very tired, and light-headed.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” she said.

  He said, “Would it make the slightest bit of difference?”

  “Gabriel, you knew this was coming—”

  He stood, removed his shirt. He felt the scorched places on his arms. Everything ached. He walked into the bathroom and washed his face and hands. Then he brushed his teeth. In the room, Eva lay very still. He pulled the blankets down on his side of the bed.

  “I’m not asleep,” she said. “I’m going out in a minute.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and had a mental image of himself coming home with this news of what he had done, as if it were some prize. What people would see on TV this evening, if they saw anything, would be Aldenburg telling about how unhappy life was at home. No, they would edit that out. The thought made him laugh.

  “What,” she said. “I don’t see anything funny about this.”

  He shook his head, trying to get his breath.

  “Gabriel? What’s funny.”

  “Nothing,” he managed. “Forget it. Really. It’s too ridiculous to mention.”

  He lay down. For a time they were quiet.

  “We’ll both be better off,” she said. “You’ll see.”

  He closed his eyes, and tried to recover the sense of importance he had felt, scrabbling across the floor of the burning school bus. He had been without sleep for so long. There was a deep humming in his ears, and now his wife’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.

  “It’s for the best,” she said. “If you really think about it, you’ll see I’m right.”

  Abruptly, he felt a tremendous rush of anxiety. A deep fright at her calmness, her obvious determination. He was wide awake. When he got up to turn the little portable television on, she gave forth a small startled cry. He sat on the edge of the bed, turning the dial, going through the channels.

  “What’re you doing?” she murmured. “Haven’t you heard anything?”

  “Listen,” he told her. “Be quiet. I want you to see something.”

  “Gabriel.”

  “Wait,” he said, hearing the tremor in his own voice. “Damn it, Eva. Please. Just one minute. It’ll be on here in a minute. One minute, okay? What’s one goddamn minute?” He kept turning the channels, none of which were news—it was all cartoons and network morning shows. “Where is it,” he said. “Where the hell is it.”

  “Gabriel, stop this,” said his wife. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Scaring you?” he said. “Scaring you? Wait a minute. Just look what it shows. I promise you it’ll make you glad.”

  “Look, it can’t make any difference,” she said, beginning to cry.

  “You wait,” he told her. “It made all the difference.”

  “No, look—stop—”

  He stood, and took her by the arms above the elbow. It seemed so terribly wrong of her to take this away from him, too. “Look,” he said. “I want you to see this, Eva. I want you to see who you married. I want you to know who provides for you and your goddamn hero brother.” When he realized that he was shaking her, holding too tight, he let go, and she sat on the bed, crying, her hands clasped oddly at her neck.

  “I can’t-” she got out. “Gabriel-”

  “Eva,” he said. “I didn’t mean—look, I’m sorry. Hey, I’m—I’m the good guy, honey. Really. You won’t believe it.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding quickly. He saw fear in her eyes.

  “I just hoped you’d get to see this one thing,” he said, sitting next to her, wanting to fix this somehow, this new trouble. But then he saw how far away from him she had gone. He felt abruptly quite wrong, almost ridiculous. It came to him that he was going to have to go on being who he was. He stood, and the ache in his bones made him wince. He turned the television off. She was still sniffling, sitting there watching him.

  “What?” she said. It was almost a challenge.

  He couldn’t find the breath to answer her. He reached over and touched her shoulder, very gently so that she would know that whatever she might say or do, she had nothing to fear from him.

  RICHES

  Mattison bought the lottery ticket on an impulse—the first and only one he ever bought. So when, that evening, in the middle of the nine o’clock movie, the lucky number was flashed on the television screen and his wife, Sibyl, holding the ticket in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, put the coffee down unsteadily and said, “Hey—we match,” he didn’t understand what she was talking about. She stared at him and seemed to go all limp in the bones and abruptly screamed, “Oh, my God! I think we’re rich!” And even then it took him a few seconds to realize that he had the winning ticket, the big one, the whole banana, as his father put it. Easy Street, milk and honey, the all-time state lottery jackpot—sixteen million dollars.

  Later, standing in the crowd of newspaper photographers and television people, he managed to make the assertion that he wouldn’t let the money change his life. He intended to keep his job at the Coke factory, and he would continue to live in the little three-bedroom rambler he and his wife had moved into four years ago, planning to start a family. Their children would go to public schools; they were going to be good citizens, and they wouldn’t spoil themselves with wealth. Money wasn’t everything. He had always considered himself lucky: he liked his life. Maybe—just maybe—he and Sibyl would travel a little on vacation. Maybe. And he said in one television interview that he
was planning to give some to charity.

  A mistake.

  The mail was fantastic. Thousands of letters appealing to his generosity—some of them from individuals, including a college professor who said she wanted time to complete a big study of phallocentrism in the nineteenth-century novel. Mattison liked this one, and showed it to friends. “Who cares about the nineteenth century?” he said. “And—I mean—novels. Can you imagine?”

  But he was generous by nature, and he did send sizable checks to the Red Cross, the United Way, Habitat for Humanity, and several organizations for the homeless; he gave to the March of Dimes, to Jerry’s Kids; he donated funds to the Danny Thomas Foundation, Save the Children, the Christian Children’s Fund, Project Hope, the Literacy Council, the Heart Association, the Council for Battered Women, DARE, the Democratic Party, the Smithsonian, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, the Library Association, the American Cancer Society, and the church. They all wanted more. Especially the Democratic Party.

  He kept getting requests. People at work started coming to him. Everybody had problems.

  His two older brothers decided to change direction in life, wanted to start new careers, one as the pilot of a charter fishing boat down in Wilmington, North Carolina, the other as a real estate salesman (he needed to go through the training to get his license). The older of them, Eddie, was getting married in the spring. They each needed a stake, something to start out on. Twenty thousand dollars apiece. Mattison gave it to them; it was such a small percentage of the eight hundred fifty thousand he had received as the first installment of his winnings.

  A few days later his father phoned and asked for a new Lincoln. He’d always hankered for one, he said. Just forty thousand dollars. “You’re making more than the football players, son. And with what you’re getting at the Coke factory—think of it. Your whole year’s salary is just mad money. Thirty-eight thousand a year.”

  Mattison understood what was expected. “What color do you want?”

  “What about my father?” Sibyl said. “And my mother, too.” Her parents were separated. Her mother lived in Chicago, her father in Los Angeles. Mattison was already footing the bill for them both to fly to Virginia for Thanksgiving.