Family Linen

by Lee Smith

  Arthur got good and drunk then. He was in the detox place at Princeton for a long time after that, and it was while he was in there sitting on those vinyl chairs and sweating it out that he formulated a plan.

  Verner said he could have his old job back, he thought he’d have a promising future if he’d lay off the ladies and the booze, but Arthur said no. No, he was going to make amends. He was going to make amends to Alta, and this is how he came to give up the only sure thing he ever had and move to Florida. By the time he got back, it was gone. Verner Hess had died, and the rest of them had gotten together and sold the store. Not that he blamed them either. Arthur took what he got out of it and bought a Sun Box. He put a Sun Box in the mall. This is a tanning franchise. You pay so much per hour, you can get a tan all winter long. Arthur thought it would go over big, especially with the college girls. Wrong. He went bust on that one, and then Inez Nation, who was his employee in the Sun Box at that time, took what was left and ran off with the driving instructor. Arthur can’t stand to think about Inez Nation. She was tan all over, and left him in total despair.

  But first, he went down to Florida with high hopes of making amends.

  He went down there to be near his daughters and court his own wife.

  But this was easier said than done. Alta was living with her parents, who hated him, and vice versa, in a bright pink house on a corner in Vero Beach, with palm trees and a chain-link fence around everything. Ruby had bought a Chihuahua and named it Baby. Baby was barking behind the fence. Alta was a secretary in an insurance agency. She had cut off all her hair in a pixie, and refused to give him the time of day. Brenda and Susie were in school down there, where their classes were half in Spanish. Arthur did first one thing, then another. He worked in a men’s shop, he was a maitre d’. Every week, he got the girls for two days, he and Alta worked out the details on the phone. Alta wanted them to see him, she said. Over her parents’ objections. Alta said she knew the father was important, she’d read books.

  Alta wanted them to see Arthur, but she didn’t want to. She talked to him exactly like he was some guy who came up to her door selling encyclopedias, like he was a total stranger. They had come to that point, and passed beyond it, where she didn’t care what he thought. Nothing he said could move her. She just didn’t give a damn. Anybody else would have given up then, and come on back, but Arthur stuck it out for a while. Once you become determined to make amends, you can’t believe that you’re not going to get to do it. He kept thinking she’d change her mind, that she’d remember all those good times, that she’d come back. Arthur still thought she loved him, you see. He believed it. He was banking everything on that. He banked it all. He wore Bermuda shorts and kept his apartment as neat as a pin, for his daughters. Women he had in there, he got them out when it was time for Brenda and Susie to come. He took them to the beach a lot. He took them to Disney World. But they were growing up, they got some eyeshadow, they didn’t want him to kiss them goodnight.

  Then Alta announced, all of a sudden, she’s getting married.

  This almost killed Arthur.

  He knew Alta had been seeing a guy, he was really a jerk. Worked for the post office, wore glasses, looked like Woody Allen. Arthur knew she was seeing this guy but he had continued to hang around, waiting for her to come to her senses.

  So then Alta said she was getting married. She’s taking a civil-service exam, she’s going to work for the post office too, they’re going to sort the mail together. Wearing uniforms.

  Arthur went a little crazy at that time. He stayed up all night drinking and bought a gun. The day of the wedding, he went over to the pink house in the morning to kill the guy, or himself, or somebody. He had the gun in his pocket. Baby started barking behind the fence. Arthur thought he’d kill Baby, at least. But then here came Brenda and Susie running out, all dressed up alike in little pink dresses with bows. For the wedding. “Daddy! Daddy!” they said. They were always so glad to see him. “You all look real pretty,” Arthur said. He never fired a shot, he stood there holding on to the fence and crying until Ruby Wood came out in a big awful purple hat. “Arthur, get lost,” she said. So he did.

  Arthur came home, and got all mixed up with the Sun Box and Inez Nation, and went flat bust and ended up house sitting for his old buddy Fred Bright who has found it a good idea to leave town.

  Arthur needs to get back on the track again, get settled. The girls are coming for a visit this summer, he can’t have them out at Fred’s.

  A lot of people have told him, “Arthur, you ought to swear out a warrant, you ought to be reimbursed.” But he just hasn’t got the heart for it. He is in despair. He imagines bloodhounds, chasing them through a swamp. He can see Inez Nation right now, tripping along through mud in her high heels. He hasn’t got the heart. Also, Arthur has to say, fuck it. If his own wife Alta prefers to look for cocaine all day long with her new husband in Vero Beach, Florida, then fuck it. That’s what he says. His girls are close to his heart. If Alta or any of them ever try to keep him from seeing his girls, he will kill them, they know that. His girls and him are in it together for life. But as for the rest of it, just fuck it, Arthur says.

  In his state of total despair, Miss Elizabeth dying is one more thing. He couldn’t get his mind around it, for a fact. She’d been a thorn in his side for years. “Arthur, how could you?” is all she said. He remembers her falling asleep in the glider on the side porch, waiting up for him to come home. After a while he used to stay at Nettie’s. Nettie pulled into the hospital parking lot about the same time Dr. Don came sliding in, in his new yellow BMW. Dr. Don looked grave. He put his hands on Arthur’s shoulders and squeezed. “Arthur,” he said. Don has been in seminars, you can tell. How to touch other men. Arthur didn’t give a damn anymore, his Mother was dying. Candy told them when they got off the elevator. Candy’s a toucher, too. She ran her hands over Arthur’s hair, his collar, straightening. Candy always makes you feel better. “The preacher is here,” she says. “The young one, that Mother liked.”

  Miss Elizabeth was in Intensive Care. They couldn’t go in. Not that Arthur would want to, either. He’d just as soon let the dying go alone. He’s got a bad heart, himself. Arthur looked around the waiting room, outside of Intensive Care: Nettie, Lacy, Dr. Don, Myrtle, Candy, Sybill, and his niece Theresa, Myrtle and Don’s daughter. Lacy winked at him, he’s always liked Lacy, a pretty little thing with troubles of her own now. Sybill and Nettie were smoking. The preacher was a young thin guy who looked intellectual, like he was in some kind of pain. Everybody was sitting in molded aqua chairs beneath the fluorescent lights. Arthur didn’t care for the lights, himself. It seemed to him after a while that they were humming, and then that they were humming louder. He hated it the way they hummed.

  “Does anybody want anything from the machines?” Lacy asked. “Coffee or anything?” She winked at Arthur again.

  “No, honey,” Candy said, and Sybill said, “No, thank you,” in a hard tight voice like a goddamn queen. Arthur remembered how they all used to have to mind her, when they were kids. Later she told on them. Lacy went off down the hall, looking like a girl herself. The lights were hurting Arthur’s ears and he couldn’t figure out how any of them had grown so old. All these old children. He could see them again on the hillside, having apple wars. He could close his eyes right now and see Verner Hess. Who he loved. Who was not his daddy, that he never knew. Candy was crying. Candy’s old too, Arthur realized, soft and wrinkled, kind of like me, we were the two who refused to amount to a hill of beans. Lacy ate a Hershey bar. Myrtle was crying too, her makeup running around her eyes. Dr. Don gestured, talking to the preacher. Who was Episcopal, maybe you call them a priest. Mother had nothing to do with born-agains. The last time Arthur saw his mother, she said he needed a haircut and that he had been for her a source of constant pain. Two of Mother’s old lady friends, Miss Elva Pope and Miss Lucy Dee, came in crying. The jig was up. Some of Myrtle an
d Don’s friends, these fancy young marrieds from Argonne Hills, showed up. The lights got louder. Sybill was walking back and forth, she was grinding her teeth. Arthur thought of his girls, raising their hands to answer questions in Spanish. They’ll pierce their ears, like Spanish girls. The lights were killing him. Sybill walked back and forth, grinding her teeth. A big pretty nurse with her gray hair pulled back in a bun ducked in and out, in and out of Intensive Care, closing the door behind her. Although in total despair, Arthur enjoyed her looks. Her hips moved smoothly beneath her uniform, like the movement of horses across a field. Her big white shoes squeaked slightly. Another nurse and several more doctors went in and out. Lacy was crying and Candy was patting her. It’s funny how it’s clear when it’s all over, you know it even though nobody’s said. “Can we turn off some of these lights please?” Arthur asked then but nobody said.

  “You’d better come in now.” The taller, gray-faced doctor threw open the door. They jostled each other, crowding into the room. Arthur wouldn’t go in, he couldn’t stand to see it, he’s got a bad heart. He would remember his mother dressed up for church, standing at the end of the walk waiting for Verner Hess to come around in the car. The lights hurt his head too bad. He should have been here when Verner Hess died but he was not. He should have gone to work for Verner right away and left the help alone and stayed married to his own sweet Alta and raised his girls. It’s too late to make amends. Too late to make amends to Alta or Mother, or Verner either. People will die on you. Arthur wondered where his own father lay, if he was buried, or where he lived. Arthur wondered if his father ever thought of him.

  “Don’t you want to go in there?” the big nurse asked. “She’s breathing her last.” The nurse had a gap between her front teeth.

  “I can’t stand to see it,” Arthur told her, “and I wish you would cut off the goddamn lights.” Which she laughed at. And then went over and cut off some of them. This was not such a bad-looking big old nurse.

  Then there came a big commotion from Intensive Care and everybody was screaming and crying and Arthur knew it was over at last. Her two doctors bent from the waist in the hall right outside the door, like penguins. Sybill was screaming the loudest. “She can’t die,” Sybill screamed. “She can’t die, she has to tell me, I have to know. She has to wake up and tell me, I’ve been waiting,” and Candy was patting her.

  “Know what, honey?” Candy asked.

  “I have to know if she killed him,” Sybill was screaming. “I have to know. She has to tell me,” Sybill screamed. “She can’t just die.” Everybody stared at Sybill, Candy and Myrtle still crying while Sybill screamed. “She’s got to tell me! She’s got to tell me!” Sybill kept screaming this stuff. Arthur couldn’t believe it. Sybill, who would be a pretty middle-aged woman if she’d keep her mouth shut and act right, looked terrible. Eyes all bloodshot, her whole face blotchy and red.

  Two little girls, candy-stripe volunteers, started to giggle, up the hall. They thought Sybill had lost her marbles. Maybe she had. People will lose their marbles, in the instance of death. People will shit in their pants. It’s awful. Some young nurses got Sybill by the arms although she was trying to fight them off and get back in the room, beating at the nurses with her fists. In times of crisis, people will go off their heads. Arthur’s been off his own head for years now. It’s been one crisis after another. Sybill was screaming. “She killed him and put him down there. In the well. I saw him, I saw his face.”

  “For God’s sake,” Myrtle said. Myrtle leaned back against the green tile wall and then her head dropped over to one side and she slid down the wall real slow in the most ladylike faint you could ever imagine.

  “Hey, hey!” cried her husband, Dr. Don. “Hey, hey! Right here!”

  “Mama, Mama,” said pretty Theresa, who for once had lost her cool, and a little old white-haired nurse came running right over to Myrtle.

  Death is a desperate hour.

  Sybill had really lost her marbles this time.

  “Elevate her feet,” said the little nurse. Somebody turned on the rest of the goddamn lights. Lacy started crying real loud, like a kid, Myrtle was lying flat on her back on the floor with her feet propped up on a stack of towels. “She can’t do this to me,” Sybill wailed. “She can-NOT do THIS to ME!” Candy looked at Sybill and then slapped her once, hard. “Ooh! Ooh!” squeaked Miss Elva Pope and Miss Lucy Dee, scurrying out. They carried, for some reason, umbrellas. Arthur realized he was laughing.

  He looked for the big pretty nurse. Mother is dead, he tried to think, but so far this meant nothing. “I have to know,” moaned Sybill, sitting at last in a chair. Arthur looked around for Nettie, old buddy old compadre, to see if she was also getting a kick out of Sybill’s fit, but what he saw then brought him up short.

  Nettie was out of the whole thing, over by the far window smoking, looking out toward the hills. Arthur went over there and touched her shoulder. She whirled around. Arthur had his face fixed to grin, he was thinking Get a load of Sybill. You could hear her all over the place. People were coming to stand in the doors of the rooms, to hear her. It was awful. Just then the big nurse came walking down the hall wearing a red sweater, you could tell she was going off duty. “Excuse me, ma’am, but I wonder if you’d care to take a little spin with me, go out for a drink perhaps? I am in shock, as you can see.” Arthur said this to the nurse. A person in despair has got nothing to lose, and he was never the kind of man to let a woman just walk on by. “Goddamn it, Arthur, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You haven’t even got a car,” Nettie said. “I’m not myself,” Arthur said to the nurse, “as you can see. Perhaps some other time.” The nurse was laughing. “For future reference,” she said, “the name is Mrs. Palucci.” Sybill yelled, “How can we find out now? How can we ever know?” “How do you spell that?” Arthur asked. The lights were real loud. Mrs. Palucci passed on by. Arthur looked over at Nettie thinking she might be amused in the end by Sybill, Nettie’s a tough old bird, but Nettie’s little black eyes were as sharp and as bright as cinders, as glowing coals. Nettie’s eyes were terrible. She said, “Elizabeth is lost.” Nettie looked past Arthur, past Sybill, down the crowded hall, beyond the hills. “Oh Jesus,” Nettie said.

  It must have been a hundred degrees that afternoon. Her own beauty shop swam, for a second, in her eyes as she came out, turned back, and locked the door. Her mind was a jumble, her mother was dead. But it calmed Candy, coming back from the hospital to her shop, closing up, it always did. She dropped the key in her pocket and looked up to see Don waiting for her, his BMW parked at the curb. Don looked exhausted, the way she felt.

  “Listen, Candy, are you sure you want to do this?” he asked abruptly, and Candy looked him in the eye and said, “Yes.

  “I’ve done it before,” she said.

  Don stood sweating on the sidewalk, looking at her. “That was different,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” Candy said. But she appreciated him coming down here, when he had so many other people and things to tend to—he had gotten Myrtle home, and in bed, and had seen to all the rest of them too, she reckoned, and made all the arrangements—after all of this, he had come to see her. After he’d gotten Dr. Grey to give Sybill a shot for her nerves and told her to hold her tongue. In those words, that’s what he’d said, “Hold your tongue!” Candy had heard him. Candy had slapped her, earlier, and told her to shut her mouth, and got no place at all. But an old maid will mind a man. And Sybill wanted somebody to shut her up anyway, you could see that. Sybill in her whole life had never acted the way she did that afternoon. She never had. Candy remembered Sybill sitting inside with Mother while all the rest of them went out to play in the snow. Sybill didn’t want to get wet, or cold, or dirty. She wouldn’t eat snow cream either. She thought it might have germs. Later, she wouldn’t learn to jitterbug. So Sybill couldn’t be happy, screaming the way she was screaming that afternoon.

  She had gone somewhat cra
zy, if you asked Candy. Now this is okay, and natural. Candy has heard it, and seen it, before. Sybill is not any better than anybody else when push comes to shove. If you’re not crazy sooner, you’ll be later, is the way Candy looks at it. Little kids who are so wild will make Phi Beta Kappa and grow up to be brain surgeons. Tony was this way. He used to smoke cigarettes when he was eleven, now he’s in law school. She can’t take any credit. That’s the way things are. People who have done it right all their lives will go off their heads in their thirties and forties. A man might go out for a pack of Winstons and never come back, for instance, or go out in the woods to live in a solar teepee. Candy’s seen it all. The line of work she’s in, she’s seen it and heard it all. Life is long and wild and there is usually a point where it makes you crazy. That’s natural.

  So Candy for one was glad to see Sybill act like a real person for a change. It was funny, though, slapping her—funny in the sense of weird. It made Candy realize that it’s been years since she touched Sybill, years. She does everybody else’s hair, even Miss Elizabeth’s. But Sybill left, and now she gets hers cut up in Roanoke, so that’s that. That’s fine. Only if it was Candy, she’d feather it around the face, to soften her, and layer the back and sides. She’d give Sybill a Spun Sand rinse to blend in the gray. Sybill’s face felt funny to her hand. She shouldn’t have slapped her. The trouble with Candy is, she’s always done exactly what she feels like, that’s just the way she is.

  She’s never not done anything. But she should have let Don handle Sybill. Leave it up to a man. This reminds her of when the kids were little and she was raising them herself, sometimes she felt like some man could walk in off the street, any man at all, the garbage man or a guy from the water company, and tell them to do something or other, anything, and they’d say “Oh sure” and do it. Right away. They’d just say “Oh sure” and do it, when she’d been telling them to do it for half an hour. Not that she told them much. But that’s not what she means, that’s not the point. A man’s the point. Any man at all. It used to make her so mad, but there it is.