Telling Time

by Austin Wright

  They watched, and three deputies raised rifles aiming at the window, while Liz ran up the walk toward the girl, with no sound from Truro, no sight of him. When the girl saw the fat woman, she wiped her mouth and shrank back. They saw the woman hold out her hands, and heard the cicada buzz of her whisper, though not what she said. The child was afraid, cowering. But after a moment she gave Liz her hand and they came down to the street while the deputies kept their rifles on the windows lest the man try to pick them off.

  When they got to the sidewalk, this Liz explained to the deputy Oscar Bedloe, He turned her loose because she got the throwups, poor little thing.

  Best take her to the Hospital.

  Hospital for a tummy ache? I’ll keep her. Hospital can’t give a poor child what she needs.

  Haines will want to question her.

  She went down the street, holding the girl up by the hand, the girl jumping to keep up. He wants to question her, tell him to see me, she said. Her voice was like a power mower.

  PHILIP WESTERLY: To David and Charles

  In the sleepy hospital afternoon while they take turns visiting. He works at the gummy table where Patty was writing before and wonders whom she was writing to.

  Grandmoose is visiting Grandpear and I’m waiting my turn, writing by hand because I don’t have my laptop. David can forward to Charles with apologies.

  What do you know about Grandpear? I remember him young in Chicago where he was a geology professor. My childhood is Chicago and my Chicago is he. He inhabits the Lakeside and the Midway, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Brookfield Zoo, the Aquarium and Art Institute. He taught me the library and took me into his study and as a result I still feel his presence in the order of the alphabet, in footnotes and endnotes and every outline which steps down from I to A to 1. I feel it in the beauty of the physical text, the sweet smell of galley sheets, the economy of proofreading symbols and words like dele and stet. I learned from him the laws of evidence and the ideal of clear writing: bad writing is not just writing, he said, it’s bad thought. Analysis and synthesis, the left and the right, science and the humanities—concepts I tried in my turn to teach you.

  His grandsons should know their grandfather’s career. Some will tell you he made a mistake to leave teaching for administration. You’ll hear things about his presidency at RCU, perhaps you already have. Much of it is biased and unfair. Remember instead his reputation for tact and sympathy. Trust your own impressions to refute the jealous rumors. He was broad minded and true to his principles.

  His troubles came from things beyond his control. A bad appointment to a high position. His Provost, Gene Makrov—I won’t go into it. A deficit problem. A university president has to raise money like a glamorous beggar or salesman. It was against Grandpear’s nature. The last straw was a faculty strike. He was not fired but resigned on principle because he would not take the line the Board wanted him to take.

  He was too sensitive and honest to be an administrator. Too perceptive of the universal ambiguity. Everything I know about morality and character I learned from him. The virtues of civilization? Reason, integrity, sympathy, imagination. Be skeptical of all claims, all assertions, all. Question the culture of the day, but do so with an inquisitive and generous spirit.

  PATRICIA KEY: Letter

  Begun in the hospital waiting room in the afternoon and finished at night on the sunporch under a shaded lamp.

  I intend to tell, though my father’s illness may distract them. Don’t know if I’ll mention you yet. Best to go slow, implicate William first. Then bring you into it, let them get used to that. Only after that will I tell.

  Even with my liberal and tolerant family I need to move carefully. My mother is the question (my father’s wrapped up in fate). Henry will attack whatever I do. Philip is a snob. George is not here. Ann has the right attitudes, which doesn’t mean a thing. They all have the right attitudes. What good is that if a real and living black man shows up and wants into the family? I can’t predict. No one will try to embarrass you though. Not intentionally, I mean.

  This morning I shocked them by going to Mass. They bribed their consciences by going Unitarian. I haven’t told them about God. It will upset them. Spent the afternoon at the hospital. My father glares. His remaining life will be all in the shadow, which is nevertheless as much life to him (with his mind full of the lives he has led) as your life to come on the street or mine with you. What will God do with him? Depends how much allowance He gives to good intention and ignorance.

  I object to your reincarnation theory, however. Why do you want to believe that? Myself, I’d rather not, unless you can explain it better. You say my belief requires reincarnation, but I don’t understand why.

  Is it based on the conservation of souls? Or space: if each living entity has a soul, there’s not enough space for all of them, therefore they must share? Or how wasteful to have so many one-shot souls, like those of small babies or fetuses who die with no time to develop. Or is it a question of what to do with the souls of the dead while they’re waiting around for heaven, so you figure they must go into new bodies? What worries me about reincarnation is what happens to all the recycled souls if the world keeps getting worse? It is getting worse you know. Another thing. My father’s soul when he dies goes into somebody else. Who then will I meet when heaven comes and my reunion with my loved ones, and they’ve all changed into other people? Or animals. Or is it that you don’t believe in heaven and that’s what your theory is about?

  I’m not trying to discredit, I just want to understand.

  Bedtime in a corner of the sunporch where we’ve been assigned to sleep (in separate cots), writing in a little circle of light surrounded by dark. I’ve been listening to Henry, back from a walk. He’s obsessed with a local crime: a man locked his house and took his wife and child hostage, while the police sit outside not knowing what to do. William is out too, probably looking for something that doesn’t exist.

  If the family disapproves of you, to hell with them.

  HENRY WESTERLY: Narrative

  He has two guns, a carbine and an automatic revolver with six bullets. He sits in the deep chair in the living room by the fire-place—a chair that reclines flat out—carbine on the table by his right arm, revolver in his lap. His wife Georgette and his children, Dinah and Roger, sit opposite. Each is handcuffed to a chain which is padlocked to the radiator stem. They move their hands about, stand up and stretch, but they can’t move away, either to each other or toward him. In this way they spend the days and also—with some modifications—the nights.

  After some time has passed, Roger, Dinah, or Georgette must go to the bathroom: I have to, Daddy. I can’t hold out much longer. So he gets out of his chair with the revolver in one hand, the key to the handcuff in the other, comes over and inserts key in lock, protecting himself by putting the gun to his child’s, or wife’s, head. Warning: Hold still, I have to get the key. These are tricky moments, the coordination of turning the key while holding the gun ready, yet as the hours pass and turn into days he becomes more adept, while they, nervous about his coordination, take care not to upset him.

  One wonders, are these children, this wife, really afraid he will shoot—their daddy, this husband—if they don’t do what he says? According to Dinah they are afraid because he keeps saying he will. Don’t get thinking I’m afraid to, he says, and they know, because he is their daddy, what he says, he’ll do. His wife Georgette tells him he is a bastard and a son of a bitch, but she too does what he says and advises the children, in fact screams at them, to obey. Your daddy is crazy, she says. The son of a bitch is bats, you do just what he says.

  When one goes to the bathroom, he keeps the door open and stands guard with the carbine lest anyone pick that moment for a diversion. Relieved, the child comes back, and once again holding the revolver to her head, he locks her to the chain.

  According to Dinah, they eat regular meals three times a day. Georgette cooks out of cans or serves frozen di
nners long stored in the pantry and freezer. She sneers, What happens when we run out? His answer is calm. If we’re still here, he says, we’ll call the supermarket. She laughs at him. You’ll see, he says. They’ll deliver when I tell them to.

  He releases her to cook. He props himself in a chair between living room and kitchen, where he can see both the children handcuffed to the radiator, and his wife moving around between the sink, the shelves, and the stove. He uses the carbine for this. Does the thought occur to him that she might throw a pan of boiling grease at him? He keeps enough distance, with his rifle ready. She makes the meals as simple and quick as she can, and when they’re ready, he releases the children and they sit at the dining room table. They sit there with the wife, and he sits on a high stool at the end of the room, overlooking them with his carbine. He has his own meal on a shelf next to him, taking care as he eats never to relax his watchfulness. When he drinks his milk, his other hand touches the gun, always ready, and he looks over the top of the glass as he drinks.

  After the meal, she washes the dishes—again under watch— and when she is finished he handcuffs her back in her place. In the long intervals between meals, he keeps the television on. He has put it against the wall between him and them, and they watch the talk shows, soaps, sitcoms, news, and commercials together.

  After the first night, perhaps because the children got so whimpery in their discomfort, he had them bring down the two canvas cots from the attic. This according to Dinah. They set up the cots next to the chairs where they were handcuffed. After this they could lie on the cots or sit in the chairs as they preferred, while remaining handcuffed. At night when they settled down to sleep, he would handcuff their feet together as an additional precaution. His wife says, You son a bitch. She says, You’ve got yourself a divorce, mister, and that’s not the least of it. She says, You just see what you’ve got on your hands when we get out. He grimaces and tightens his lips. All the more reason not to let you go, he says.

  He has the whole house rigged with burglar alarms—every door, every window. To prevent anyone sneaking up from outside. Must have put in the alarms beforehand. Makes you wonder what his wife thought, his neighbors too, and the hardware man, making his house a fortress on this supposedly peaceful island, last outpost of harmonious law-abiding civilization. With what excuses did he justify this paranoia? One thing it proves: he knew what he was going to do before he did it. The burglar alarm lets him sleep too, gun in his lap in the reclining chair and hostages handcuffed hand and foot, knowing it will wake him if anyone sneaks up. What if they come from two sides? Suppose they come from both sidewalk and woods, creeping up to both doors, windows as well? The burglar siren will sound and give him time, if not to shoot the invaders, to shoot his hostages—which is what hostages are for. Just what they want to prevent. So he sits, sure how well he has guarded himself against threats. By now they’ve been at it more than three days—seventy-two hours of siege. Despite his arrangements for sleep, he has grown haggard, his cheeks are sallow and thin, his eyes ringed with black, dark, heavy. His mouth has the sag of despair and bitterness. He waits and waits. Though he has made every arrangement for sleep, he can’t do it.

  He waits in the perfection of his arrangements. His wife has quit her threats. She too is haggard, face stretched, lines deepened. She does what he tells her to, and depends on her eyes to remind him what she has quit saying. When Dinah got sick, she said, Your child is sick, are you going to let her die? And screamed at him. She screeched as loud as she could screech, and he picked up the gun and pointed it at her forehead, trying to say, Shut up! and there was a moment when the children thought he was going to shoot her right there. Then Dinah threw up again, which distracted both parents, and he unlocked her handcuff and took her to the door and pushed her out. Go on, he said, go get someone to take care of you.

  He has communicated with the outside world once or twice by shouting out the window, but generally he avoids this because of the danger of a sharpshooter trying for a quick one to the brain. He makes his demands mostly over the telephone, talking to the secretary at the bank where he used to work. He knows his demands are ridiculous—he must know, how could he not? Suppose they do give him money and safe conduct— what would he do then? Would he know what to do? Would he be satisfied? So he sits and waits while his wife sullenly watches, no longer repeating what she used to say: This is the end, brother. You really blew it this time, man. As he waits he thinks, trying to remember, if he can, what he originally had in mind.

  The above is Henry Westerly’s reconstruction as he walks the harbor Sunday night, made on the basis of conversations and gossip in the shops and streets during the day just past. He thinks of it as writing, but he doesn’t know who to write it for.

  PHILIP WESTERLY: To his father in the hospital

  You didn’t say what to do if others want to help. Last night I let Ann join me because I couldn’t think how to stop her. Tonight Patricia too, and now we’re three searching your papers for whatever you want to protect us from.

  To himself: Why am I scared? Secrecy implies scandal, bribes, vulgar affairs. But what is the danger here? I know my father. Forty-six years established should survive the shock of a secret file. Yet the father I loved was an image always correctable against the original while the original lived. What will prevent some escalating deformation if that original dies?

  There are many reasonable and innocent grounds for secrecy. A man in Thomas’s place, professional and patriarchal, would have confidences. The real question, Philip, is this. What’s wrong with you that needs such perfection in a father?

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As read by Philip Sunday evening, while Ann and Patricia also read.

  MY BIOGRAPHY

  The present moment (watching the keys on the keyboard making words while out the window on a hazy recently raining midday a white pickup truck has been sitting for a long time in my neighbor’s drive) is all memory kept alive by the future it contains. My neighbor’s drive, saturated with future because I know that unless I die or am called to lunch, I will continue to see it just the same five minutes from now. Whereas my memory of Circle Avenue where I was born has no future in it, so that’s past. Elimination of the future is what turns present into past.

  My biography, then. Let it remember the future that kept the present present in the past. Where can I find this past future? In people. In places. That’s where the future lives if you can remember it.

  But in a person the future is adversary, an opposing consciousness you have to reckon with. A place invites, a stage where things will happen. So write my biography about places, free of people, free of time, a memoir of futures.

  In this present present the future sputters in my screen. I am sixty-four years old, said to be at the top of my career. I sit at my computer by my study window, looking at the street on a bright and hot day. The haze has burned off. The pickup truck is gone. Parked cars reflect the sun in a knify silver glare. A man in shorts has the back of his compact station wagon open, working on it (he’s gone now too). A small breeze stirs leaves, I hear a sparrow or two (but the birds are quieter now, the molting season, all birds are depressed, they say). The papers on my desk flutter. I am wearing shorts, to which I changed late this morning after pulling vines and weeds. I have poison ivy on my arms, and the remains of a bee sting itching at the base of my thumb.

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As read by Patricia

  Self-evaluation:

  My primary identity has always been geologist teacher appropriate for a candidate high university administrative. Institute of learning learning learning the highest value reading and study nature and man. Regard writing understand the professoriat, faculty inside out, faculty mission, the Pursuit and Transmission of Knowledge, what men (and women) men and women, people, have learned, what they know: science. Have known: history. Thought: philosophy. Felt: art. Science leavened by humanities.

  My putting this academic devotion to intellect first not disregardful of th
e executive importance of university presidency, or that I am ignorant disregardful of an institutional institution, a great organization of a number of complex and diverse. A business. My experience as Provost, following experience as Dean, began experience as Department Chair. Surprising even myself of native talent, which have used native intelligence to develop, organization, staff, people skills. People skills.

  Every member of the staff, from the top down to the lowest, janitorial, secretarial. Custodial, bookkeeping, long range projections.

  On that particular occasion, not to boast but simply by way of, I gave orders to money raising, as said the whole job of a university president a salesman, obviously a presidency has more important duties of leadership such as I have suggested in the first part of this but clearly not to negate the importance of which I believe my experience shows I am capable of and willing to perform to my highest capacity.

  TESTIMONIALS TO THOMAS WESTERLY: As read by Ann

  Just to thank you for your support beyond the line of duty I never expected.

  Please forgive a mere student from writing a letter for the extraordinary kindness which caused a total turn around of my career prospects and choices.

  He came, he saw, he understood.

  Misunderstood. Quite contrary to the common stereotype of university brass, intelligent and understanding.

  Lord God, how you’ll be missed.

  I speak from the bottom of my heart.

  I have to tell you no one in this otherwise rather dreary little university can match you, you alone made this worthwhile to me and raised above the level of the ordinary.

  Do not believe the bad things people have said about you. I know better.

  I write this from the bottom of my heart.

  Honor, respect, admiration, even, dare I say this? love.

  From the depths of my heart.

  Who taught the beauty of the rocky earth on which we play.