“Surely not always?” said the bench, looking mildly interested.
“Your Honor,” said the city’s attorney with some urgency, considerably less weariness in his voice. “Perhaps it would be best if we proceeded with the witness now?”
“Mr. Devereaux?”
“Your Highness?”
“‘Your Honor’ is probably the usage you want, Mr. Devereaux. Do you have any objection to our proceeding with the evidence now?”
“Call Officer Maguire!” trumpeted Harry and sure enough, as though by magic, the man Maguire materialized. But he would need careful handling; he sat on the stand with a nervous angry air, an air of feeling totally in command and badly out of place, both at the same time. “In your opinion, Officer Maguire, did my client show any sign of guilt upon apprehension? Any hint of wrongdoing?”
“Sure you did. You were peeping right in the young lady’s window there.”
Here Harry was reeled in briefly, and instructed that before he went ahead with his cross-examination he must first allow the prosecution a word with its witness. So he was forced to audit Maguire’s unimaginative and halting account of the ‘facts’ before he could have at him again.
“Now, Officer, you do concede that my client made no attempt to escape, nor even to mitigate?”
“I had you dead to rights, you little devil.”
“Do you affirm or deny that my client, at the time of apprehension, appeared shameless, guiltless, aimless?”
“He was too drunk to run, Judge! I’m telling you—”
“That’s fine, Officer Maguire, no need to worry now. Mr. Devereaux, we are all glad to see you having some fun, but the court does have other business. I must ask you to leave off your pursuit of metaphysical guilt and stick to the statutes just briefly—the statutory definition of guilt and innocence. Have you anything to argue on that score?”
“I might. But I have begun to feel that a jury trial may prove necessary to my case. I am sure that twelve of my peers, twelve honest men and true, would at once see the absolute normalcy of my alleged behavior. The true givers of the law—”
“I’m afraid we don’t hold jury trials for misdemeanors. And, please. If you are considering a plea of temporary insanity—if you have that one cranked up in the bullpen?—it won’t wash for the same reason. Why don’t we just fine you and let it go at that. Wouldn’t that be fair?”
“Fair? If you had been there that night, with me at the window, Your Honor would know this was no criminal act. The farthest thing from it. You would see it was a good thing, a very nice thing, it was part of my sex life, it was okay.”
“It was not okay, Mr. Devereaux. This Court fines you one hundred dollars as a first offender. Please make arrangements to pay before you leave the building, and please try not to involve anyone in your sex life without their knowledge and approval in the future. Understood?”
“No,” said Harry unwavering. “On behalf of my client I shall appeal, and I shall further instruct my client to pay no fine until every path of appeal has been exhausted.”
So it was that Harry, in his forty-third year to heaven, spent a little time in stir, drying out.
She was neither young nor pretty; she wasn’t even that nice. Plus, he had caught an undercurrent of disapproval coming from her even as she listened and bought the drinks. It occurred to him that hers was the behavior of a degree candidate in the social sciences, out doing a spot of nasty research for her thesis.
Still, it was time to choose between retreat and escalation, time to weigh in such factors as the hour (late) and the weather (worst of January) against the woman’s lukewarm willingness and somewhat marginal appeal. And more perhaps from habit than inclination, Harry chose to sail ahead into the wind. He juvenesced as pathetically as possible and launched straightaway into the account of the open boat, Cape of Good Fortune, lovely wife Laura, and the bright tiny jewel of his heart Hannah.
Truth is he had just achieved a trace of momentum—and momentum comes hard where never is heard an encouraging word—and had even strained his artifice for a touch or two new (with her ultimate breath the child had asked if this, death, meant her next birthday would never take place …) when the degree candidate shot him down like a brittle skeet.
“I happen to know your ex-wife, Harry,” she announced, with an ugly triumphant game-ending flourish. “I know Laura, she’s a friend of mine. I know Hannah, too, the jewel of your heart who you didn’t have the decency to phone at Christmas—or for the five months prior to Christmas, either.”
And Harry started to fall, flat and hard and totally broken, like that skeet. But no: he had his pride, he was not such an easy target. He might have explained (for what could she know, Little Miss Entrapment, all smug and false, about the difficulties he faced, the twisting of so many rusty blades in his poor dyspeptic belly) but pride stopped him there too. Instead he breathed.
“Ah,” he said, finally. “You know my wife. I hope you will remember me fondly to her next time you see her, and let her know I’ll be by soon to say hello in person.”
Then he stood unsteadily and swivelled, reached back for his drink with a grace below grace, and repaired to a neighboring table, altogether jaunty in the face of despair.
Fishing for Gorillas
Chapman did not exactly wake up, since he was not exactly asleep. Exact sleep was something that had eluded him lately. Still, there was a transition to be handled, from the warm oblivion of his bed to the cold oblivion of the kitchen, and quickly, if he hoped to have ten precious minutes of tranquility.
It was not to be. Chapman had dug out two socks of the same approximate color, but the coffee was just starting to percolate when the first sputtering sounds filtered down the hall from Bessie’s room. He knew there was no riding it out, for any delay would only cause a terrible momentum to gather, the sputters expanding to howls, the howling to a bestial roar.
“Bessie, Bessie, I’m right here,” he said, scooping her in his arms and hushing her softly. Almost at once she subsided, to sobbing, then to a decrescendo of gasps and glottal hiccoughs, finally a rhythmic labored breathing: she was awake.
“I dreamed a gorilla,” she said.
“The same way?”
“Yes. We were fishing, like at the lake that time, and you said watch out behind me when I threw the hook, and then I felt him tugging—”
“Did you pull him up this time?”
“A little. I saw his big gorilla head come out of the water and then you came for me.”
“Well he’s gone now,” said Chapman, stroking her narrow little back. She understood about dreaming, that there was no gorilla, the gorilla was not real—but neither was he altogether unreal. Traces of him would remain until the jolt of cold fruit juice, hot hit of milky tea.
They raced down the hall now to stop the coffee from burning, and he settled her into her chair.
“Flakes or Pops?” he asked.
“Krispies.”
“No Krispies, Bess. Remember? We finished them.”
“You can get more.”
“I know, queenie, but so far I didn’t, so there we are. Flakes or Pops?”
“Opameals.”
“No oatmeal either. If you really want some hot cereal, I can make you farina.”
For some reason she assented to this, and Chapman put the water up to boil, then sliced into a melon for her. She gnawed two wedges thoughtfully before asking,
“Are antelopes called antelopes because they eat cantaloupes?”
“Yes, Bess.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He was looking at the paper now, not with the sort of mindless enjoyment he preferred, but with anxious glances, almost furtively. Even this modicum was soon denied him, for she had coaxed the farina onto her lap. “Messy Bessie,” she said, philosophically.
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I did not!” she laughed hotly, amazed he would give voice to such a bizarre notion. “
It burns my leg.”
She appeared thoughtful again as he tidied her up, rinsing the nightgown and draping it on the shower rod to dry. At least he hadn’t dressed her yet.
“Will my mama die?” she said, as he was pulling the undershirt down over her head. When her face came through the hole, he kissed it. She had asked this already.
“No, angel, she won’t die.”
“Will she walk home from the hospital when she’s ready?”
Nan had said this, of course—that she would just walk home from the hospital when she was good and ready—but it was a grimly conjectural business. The doctors simply did not know what was wrong with her, why her legs could not move. They were very reassuring in tone, but it could not be reassuring that such faith had no apparent medical basis.
“I dreamed we were all fishing once, you and me and Mama. Fishing for fish!”
“You never told me that one,” he said, pretty sure this was invention, and that she no longer cared to risk an answer to her question, still hanging in the air.
“I forgot,” she shrugged.
“Okay, little one, you’re almost set to go. It’s late, so I think we’ll let Mrs. Cowden brush your hair.”
“I want you to brush my hair.”
“Mrs. Cowden is a lot better at brushing hair.”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“Yes you do, and do you know where we’re both going tonight, right after we finish dinner?”
“To Mama?”
“Correct. So let’s get the day rolling, and before you know it, I’ll be coming back to get you.”
He came back to get her on the late side, nearly six, so they wolfed down hot dogs and beans (and ginger ale instead of milk, because Tuesday is the cow’s day off) and then they drove across the river to the hospital with a bag of books and a clutch of jonquils that made Bess think the books smelled good.
They parked and raced up the hospital steps into the high, hushed foyer. Bess was disappointed to find the gift shop locked and dark, but she recovered at once and went sliding off down the long corridor to Nan’s room, nearly gaining the doorway before she remembered the books and flowers, and that she had wanted to be the one to present them.
Nan looked up pleased. Her face was pale, sallow, but her smile always gave it some life. Whether from the white light of the hospital or the disease itself, her blue eyes looked gray and washy.
“What luck! I was hoping you guys would come see me tonight but I was about to give up.”
“It’s only quarter after seven,” said Chapman, exaggerating slightly. He kissed her forehead and tasted the unnatural coldness. It often felt as though she had just broken a fever and dried off, leaving the skin luke-cold.
“I give up easily. How’s your day?”
There was no answer, for Bess now moved in and joined Nan in the bed. She worked the incline button until she had the bed curved like a worm, then bit into some toast on Nan’s tray with unhappy results.
“I’m afraid that’s been there a while,” Nan said, hugging her.
“It’s yuk!”
“I’m sure.”
“I know what crumbs are, Mama.”
“Do you really?”
“Uh-huh. Crumbs are crumbs!”
“Well you’re no dope, are you lovey?”
She looked over at Chapman with a glow, as if to say, She’s doing fine, you’re pulling both oars, but Chapman shrugged her off. The oars had to be pulled, of course, and beyond that there was no telling …
Nan shuffled the mail he had brought and found a letter they had been waiting for, from the insurance company. She read it and cursed them.
“It doesn’t matter,” he smiled. “I’ve come across the perfect precedent for simply ignoring the bill.”
“That we can’t possibly pay it?”
“No, this is an Oscar Wilde story.” (Chapman had quite a few Oscar Wilde stories.) “Wilde doesn’t pay his tax bill on time, so naturally the London tax collector appears at his front door to ask for the money. Wilde declines. The tax man is somewhat at a loss. He steps into the great hall, gestures at the lavish appointments, and says, ‘But sir, you are the householder here? You do sleep here?’ ‘Ah yes,’ Wilde sighs, ‘but then I sleep so badly, you know.’”
“Can I ride the wheelchair?” asked Bess, overcome with boredom at the first incursion of grown-up talk.
“I like the story,” said Nan to Chapman.
“Sure,” said Chapman to Bess. “Just be sure to stop at all the red lights—and write home, you hear?”
“Silly Papa.”
“Where were we?” said Chapman, as they watched her spinning toward the nurse’s station, where she knew she could count on some attention and candy.
“She seems so gay. She was never this charming when I was healthy.”
“I think she’s all right. She still has the animal dreams, though—usually the gorilla.”
“Well it has to come out somewhere. And it is all pretty obvious—”
“Is it?”
“Sure. The unpleasant surprise, the dismay and the fear …”
“Surprise, dismay, fear. And here I was, treating it as your ordinary fishing vignette.”
“I know, Chaps, but still it’s true. And it’s probably very therapeutic for her, too.”
“Gee, maybe we should enroll her at the Institute Of Gorilla Therapy, for a week of really intensive surprise and dismay. And you know, I’m almost positive the Advanced Dismay Seminar makes a field trip right here, to this very hospital.”
Though Nan smiled at his lame academic humor, Chapman could see how weary she was, how slack at the core. The most impressive part of all this was that she actually had her sense of humor intact, and her poise. She had not given way to fear. Yet she must be very fearful, how could she not? After months with no feeling in her legs, months without knowing why there was no feeling, she had to wonder why not worse—why not her neck, her brain, why not death? The doctors were “optimistic” but then so were the chambermaids, whose opinions on the medical posture were neither more nor less relevant. And somehow Nan sat through day after day of it, cheering up the gloomiest of the nurses, ploughing through her Trollope novels one after another, shrinking by another pound or two each week. Perhaps she cried more when no one could see her, or felt the fear at night, in the dark; perhaps she desperately craved the morning light after all those hours alone with her own intelligence, but there was never the faintest suggestion of giving way. Instead, she worried about him.
“Really. You should get to a movie or two. Something.”
“I will, but listen, they’ll kick us out soon. Tell me what’s been going on. Is there anything new?”
“Another day, another intern. My forty-fifth life history and examination. I’m a learning post, Chaps. This one had a wristwatch like a hockey puck—and he was extremely thorough in checking out my breasts.”
“Oh Christ. Nothing new at all?”
“Not really. They want more blood on Thursday, if you feel like going through that one again.”
They fell silent together, four hands touching. Chapman looked up at the clock. Then Bess wheeled in with two young nurses in tow, and asked if she could do puzzles.
“In a minute. Come visit with me first—I won’t see you again for a few days.”
“Why not?”
“Cause you won’t be here, that’s all. So come curl up with me.”
“You smell funny,” said Bess, with just a hint of cruelty.
“I do? Well, sit on the chair, then, and tell me what this Papa has been feeding you.”
“Beans and lemon soda,” she said, aggressively.
“Hot dogs and beans,” Chapman shrugged.
“Yes, but lemon soda?”
“Cow’s day off. Anyway, it was ginger ale.”
“What else has he cooked, Bessie?”
“Nothing!”
“What the dear girl means is that she has eaten nothing. I’ve done i
t all—broiled burgers, boiled birds, fried fishes—”
“Yuk,” said Bess, to the fish.
“I’m telling you,” said Chapman, “it’s like watching the Miss Infantile Neuroticism Pageant at every meal. Folks, did you know that I.N. kills more parents than any other childhood disease?—”
“Hush. You don’t know how most children are.”
“I don’t? You do?”
“Two for two, Chaps. But neither of you knows how good you have it. Taste this,” she said, indicating her tray, where sat the untouched fillet of cardboard in a congealed tan gravy.
“Thanks, no.”
“The worst part is that all the nurses are so nice, and they want me to eat so badly. Ginny brought me some lunch today.”
“How’s Ginny?”
“Fine, terrific. We had fun arguing about something that either did or didn’t happen twenty years ago.”
“What happened, Ma?”
“Well, your Aunt Gin says it didn’t happen. But it isn’t a story you would like, honey.”
“Tell the story, Ma.”
“If you insist, O my best beloved. Gin was about ten and I was twelve or thirteen, and we were riding a bus to Vermont, where the Barnwells had rented a lake cottage. Ginny always got sick on busses and she was about to throw up—”
“Keep going, silly.”
“—so I said I’d ask the driver to stop. Being her big sister and all? Absolutely not, she says, not one word about this to anyone. So I told her that was dumb, the driver wouldn’t mind a bit, probably had to stop all the time. Absolutely not, says Gin, and a few minutes on down the road she unzips her precious little blue suitcase and neatly regurgitates right into it—and that means throw up, O best beloved, right in with Stuffy the Bear and her seersucker sunsuit—zips it back up and gazes out at the scenery as though not a thing had happened.”
“That’s gross. Aunt Gin didn’t do that.”
Eccentric Circles Page 7
