Telling Time

by Austin Wright

  No doubt Truro wants to be most careful when he approaches Vertebrate to unlock him—the man is powerful and might make some violent disabling move. The usual way is to toss him the key and make him lock or unlock himself with the gun held to his head. When Truro comes close to inspect the lock, he keeps the revolver, loaded and cocked, pressed into the man’s groin, as if that were a better deterrent than against forehead, and always he is alert to the quiver that might give warning of a sudden kick or swing of the heavy arms.

  Why don’t you just tell me what you want, Mr. Truro? Angel Vertebrate repeats. His confidence has not stood up under confinement, his voice has become a whine, almost a whimper when he repeats the question. The whimper pleases Sam Truro. It makes him grin. You’ll find out, he says. You’ll see.

  Concealing no doubt the perplexity he must feel now that he has caught the fish he wants, has everyone in place, with the police and deputies outside, all waiting for him to demand something. But while they wait for this great thing he is now in the power position to claim, the fact is (isn’t it?) he does not know, neither what he wants nor what he should ask for, he stands in an absolute perplexity as to what to do next. And so he too waits, as for a message that will come if he waits long enough, a message waiting on the rollers of unused time to be rolled into view where he will recognize it when the time comes.

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As read by Patricia

  Who came into the study and said, There you go, snooping in Dad’s papers again.

  We’re doing this because he asked us to.

  May I join you?

  We can’t prevent it.

  It’s a thin file labeled “Family memoranda.” Her mother’s name catches her eye and she reads every word closely.

  August 16,1968

  Dearest Lucy, a note to thank you. No words can express my relief.

  If you had stayed in Chicago, if you had allowed me to move alone to River City, no matter what arrangement we made for the kids, it would have been catastrophe for me, like death, regardless of the career. I don’t want to read this, Patricia says.

  I intend to be humble about your choice. You think I can’t know what you’re going through, the loss, the sacrifice. You’re probably right. I won’t ask you to tell me—ever—what happened. I’ll accept and rejoice in the good fortune you have restored to me. Banish this, Patricia says, my father to my mother. Stop it, both of you.

  And try to promise, with full knowledge how difficult such promises are to keep, that I’ll be better for you henceforth, so there’ll be less cause for history to repeat.

  My gratitude and love,

  Your Thomas

  Another handwritten memo without a date. She tried to read but couldn’t stop the shaky feeling left over from what she had just read and could only skim words off the top.

  Lucy as for the two children let’s break down the questions

  Did anything actually happen? We could ask or spy or try to confront, but my preference

  the biological question? if there were a tangible biological consequence yes that would be radical but if not

  the anthropological question yes, in all cultures, implying an absolute however

  does a violation of the local violate the absolute or only local What are they talking about? Everything she reads makes Patricia quiver on the page. too old for innocent child play

  I find it hard to believe they would actually do such a thing

  your question, what we did wrong too late maybe nothing at all

  some way to help them

  dare tell them what we suspect which could permanently destroy relations with our children

  Be calm, Patricia. Philip and William are deep in their reading and will not notice if you put these pages back.

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As read by Henry

  Who did not want to read tonight until called by Philip: Hey Henry, I found a file on Sam Truro.

  TRURO FILE

  To: Sam Truro

  From: Thomas Westerly, Provost

  This is to inform you that I have personally reviewed the reports of Dean Schultz and the Academic Attainment Committee, and after long and careful consideration have decided to uphold the Committee’s ruling. Your connection with River City University is severed as of today. Dean Wickoff will contact you about the details of your departure from the dormitory and other matters.

  Such a decision is painful not just for you but for all of us. We appreciate your disappointment and frustration. I hope you’ll find the resources to make a new start elsewhere. In any event, I wish you well in your

  Dear Professor Westerly,

  You won’t remember me, but I was a student many years ago at River City University. Imagine my surprise on coming to this island to learn that you had retired here.

  I just wanted to thank you for giving me the most important lesson of my life. You may not realize what positive results can come from harsh negative actions, or perhaps you do since you are the one who has to take such actions and people like me who have to learn the good that lurks within the iron glove.

  In any case, I’m glad I found you, and I look forward to serving you at the Island National Bank.

  Yours truly,

  Sam Truro

  Dear Mr. Truro: (Copy)

  Thank you for your note. I’m delighted that something I did years ago should have had such a positive effect upon your life. I’m sure that it was well deserved on your part.

  I look forward to seeing you at the Island National Bank.

  Sincerely yours,

  Thomas Westerly

  Dear Mr. Truro: (Copy)

  Thank you for speaking to me at the Bank. I’m flattered that you should have moved to the Island because of me.

  I’m certainly glad that I was so helpful to you. My memory has grown vague in recent years but of course I remember you. I always knew you would turn out well.

  Sincerely yours,

  Thomas Westerly

  Talk.

  So he knew Truro.

  What does he mean, most important lesson of his life?

  It means Dad kicked him out on his ass.

  Why this explains everything. Truro followed him and scared the shit out of him.

  What do you mean, scared?

  You heard him in the hospital. He wanted to make amends, amends to Sam Truro.

  According to these letters Dad didn’t remember him. He thought Truro was thanking him for a favor.

  Eventually he knew. When he attached the old memo to the letters. Then he knew.

  Does Mother remember him?

  Mother, did you know Sam Truro moved to the Island out of admiration for Father?

  Mother says she never heard of him until Thursday.

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As grasped by Philip

  To: Thomas Westerly

  From: Thomas Westerly

  Re: Consciousness

  According to Makrov, consciousness is mechanistic. No such thing as spirit, because that postulates energy without physical existence, violating thermodynamics. I-ness, identity, self, a mirage, result of multiple activity in the brain, giving an illusion of focus.

  The argument is backed by wish. The author wants a mechanistic explanation, therefore he finds one. Let me propose Westerly’s Theorem: human beings are driven by two opposing wishes. (1) To believe things are what they seem. (2) To believe they are not what they seem. One is to get along in the world, the other to escape it. Science and religion.

  I too. Nature must be inviolable. That’s why I deny God’s intervention and reject heaven, hell, and life hereafter. In any physical way, I mean. That’s why I need a materialistic explanation of consciousness.

  But the other side too. I need more, something else, another view to bring me in out of the cold. If the whole universe, the physical world and everything, were an embodiment of sentience, would Makrov still find that a violation of thermodynamics? Subjective, objective. Neither without the other.

  There must be a fallacy here
and Makrov won’t buy it. There’s always a fallacy somewhere which Makrov won’t buy.

  PHILIP WESTERLY: What to tell

  You could write the reading scene. The study, a corner room in back on the first floor, one window on the garden, the other to the garage. Books and papers, clips, pencils, a file cabinet, table for the printer. William in the leather chair with a manuscript in his lap. Philip in the swivel chair thumbing through file folders. Patty on the straight chair from the kitchen leaning over a file drawer. Others talk in the living room, the old squeak of Aunt Edna, Mother’s soft low tone. Kids on the sunporch. Again Philip hears sobbing at a distance, not sure where nor who.

  The study is alive, animated by him, pages of writing, letters, memos, in which his voice speaks through the type and you can smell him in the paper. You can group and perhaps date his writings by their look. In recent years the computer made austere pages, a heading or typed letterhead, clean text with few typos and no corrections needed. Older pages recall his electric typewriter, the small type, crowded and full, with inked insertions. Some papers bear the River City letterhead. At one time he used yellow paper. Still older writings go back to a manual typewriter with alignment problems and broken letters. Some cards, letters, and notes are handwritten. The writing varies, always small, sometimes neat and well-formed, a kind of elegant printing, and sometimes ugly and irregular and almost illegible. He had handwriting idiosyncracies: his of looked like at, his ing like y.

  Philip is still not detached enough to write about the delicate shocks of his reading. Though most are small, they accumulate, they add up. A sickly feeling, like talking too long about a Relationship. The painfulness of imagining his dignified and capable father, humorous and wise, lying with his head in the lap of a flirtatious girl. Paralyzed by shyness, unable to kiss until she shows him how. Give the man his youth, Philip tells himself, allow him to have been a child once and to have changed and grown.

  The queasy feeling has something to do with secrecy. His father’s request, implying a secret to be destroyed. The notion of secrecy spreads and contaminates Thomas’s otherwise innocent papers. The file cabinet is a fortress of secrecy, its cold steel front and smooth rolling drawers that seal shut with a click.

  Yet everyone has secrets, Philip reminds himself, it’s the human condition. Give Thomas his secrets too, allow him the privacy of his thoughts. The trouble is, he wrote them down. And writing implies an audience. Is that the issue: the hypocrisy in the idea of secret writing? But that’s unfair too, for Philip knows (who better than he?) that not all writing is meant for the world. Sometimes you write for yourself, what no one else must read, so as to know what you think.

  If it’s not that he wrote secrets, Philip thinks next, is it that he didn’t destroy them? He could have done so, or if that’s too much to expect, he could have labeled what he wanted destroyed: PLEASE BURN UNREAD. THANK YOU. Why leave such a decision to his children? It was as if, by asking his children to find a secret worthy to be destroyed, he made sure that everything he wrote was a discovered secret and that every secret was discovered.

  Why should Thomas do a thing like that?

  A certain vanity. A writer’s vanity that wants nothing that passed through his head to be lost. To underscore the difference between Thomas the citizen playing roles, professor and president, father and husband, mentor, guide, and model, and Thomas the writer whose words contain a world. Philip understands this. In fact, he knows it well. He thinks such vanity harmless as well as natural. Many writers have displayed bigger egos without being monsters.

  So why is Philip still troubled? Is it that he doesn’t, after all, want his father to be a writer? Doesn’t want his mind spread out, doesn’t want to know what has passed through his head. What Philip grieves for—is this what he is trying to write?—is the role Thomas learned to play so well, the character he created of himself: the gentle father, mentor, guide, and model.

  THOMAS WESTERLY: As read by Philip

  WYOMING 3

  If you knew the truth about me, Penny Young said once, you’d be shocked. I knew this much. Sex in the forties came in levels, like classes in school or ranks in the army. A ladder of erogenous zones from nothing to all the way. Climbing the ladder was a ritual, my knowledge of which was hearsay. The only thing I knew directly was the lip to lip, which she taught. I had heard about the rest from talk and books. Open mouth and tongue, which I thought was a French refinement not standard in this country, followed by a graded sequence of bodily parts. These could be pauses on the way up or terminal points beyond which one chose not to rise.

  The ladder was a device to regulate the horsing around of the young. Later generations abandoned it, reducing the whole thing (if the media are right) to two terms: Foreplay and Fulfillment. The levels previously discriminated were collapsed into Foreplay, whose merely preparatory function was defined by its name. It would be silly to set your standard, the limit beyond which you would not go, as a certain level of Foreplay. Therefore to these younger young there is no such thing as a ladder but only one question: Yes or No, On or Off. Sexual behavior has become, like the rest of the age, digital.

  But in the forties there was a ladder, and my big question after the trip was where on the ladder she drew her lines, the question of her standards. She said I would be shocked. This seemed to imply that she was ahead of her time: digital-positive, though she was enough a child of her time to go lip to lip with me through four states without disgust. I did not want to believe it. Her various fiancés, what lines did she draw with them? Never having seen her draw a line, I couldn’t guess. I hoped she had a limit of some kind. Almost any would do.

  Rumors reached me through college friends, including one reported to have said she improved his batting average one hundred percent. The previous summer at the beach, batting average. Interpret the metaphor. It was hard to curb my own tendency to think digitally. Yes or No. Digitally speaking, there seemed to be no explanation for her but Yes. Which might be the true meaning not only of engaged but of flirt. None of this mattered until after the trip, for while it was going on I was under a spell. Later the digital conclusion seemed so obvious it started a memorable argument in my soul, a debate between me and an imagined Penny Young, whose replies I created for her. The debate went on until I gave up, because I always lost. As a result of that argument, I was forever after a more tolerant and liberal person.

  The object of the argument was to persuade her not to screw Jule Foss, Harrison Glade, or anyone else. The first reason was that it was wrong innately. Good people don’t do it. I cited ancient tradition derived from God and his Commandments, which unfortunately I regarded as either metaphor or superstition. So I abandoned that and argued on the basis of character, the looseness of character without standards, setting a low value upon itself. The trouble with that was that I thought her character fine, so I cited instead the Good of Society which regulates customs for the sake of children and social harmony. No use, every Society has its others, nonconformists and shamans and rebels, societies for people like Jule and Harrison as well as fast Mimi and your writers and artists and forward-looking souls who have different social imperatives and who say no if not in thunder then quietly. But what if you got pregnant? Or, what will your lovers do when they find out? What of the dangerous habit of wantonness, the fatal restlessness it will introduce into your marriage causing jealousy and fights and divorce and divided homes, distressed children, misery and despair? She had an answer for every argument, all right there in my head. All my arguments collapsed into one. I wanted her for myself. Be grateful for her free spirit, without which there would have been no kiss, perhaps no trip. I felt no rancor in her presence. It was only later, when her vivid presence was replaced by its vivid lack, that I was frustrated, angry, censorious.

  A time came when instead of worrying about her lovers I wondered how far I could have gone myself. If I had been less bashful, moral, nice, or whatever I was. The signs she gave, how she held my hand, t
he offer to change my bandage in her room, which I ignored. What did I miss?

  I imagined. If, after the sweet dry kisses, I put my hand on her breast. Would she have stopped me after her long struggle just to make me kiss? But if she permitted that and I then slipped the same hand up her leg, would she have drawn a line to say, I was only flirting? That’s not what I meant, not what I meant at all.

  The retrospective thought gave me a thrill. Could I have had her if I had dared? I imagined the room in the tourist home. She would fix my bandage. Kiss again. Find an excuse to lie on the bed. Help me out of shyness, teaching. A simple clear cut digital Yes.

  The problem was the Thomas Factor. The distortion of an experiment caused by the nature of the experimenter, in this case the influence of my own peculiarities upon her. To the question of what she’d have done if I had responded more aggressively, the Thomas Factor replied: I would never have had those opportunities if I had responded more aggressively.

  According to the Thomas Factor, if she had tried to seduce me, I would have been too shocked to respond. If I had been bolder, if I had been a fully confident male like Turley or Jule Foss, she would not have been interested. The older I got the more likely it seemed that my charm for her had been not my soul or my character, but only that perishable Thomas Factor itself, which was a challenge to her. Charming timid boy, what’s left if you take the timidity away?

  My speculations always took the same route: I could have had her, except that if I could have, she would not have had me, and therefore I could not have. Which confirmed this piece of philosophy: since it didn’t happen, it couldn’t have happened, which makes speculation pointless.