by Caryl Rivers
As she was leaving, he reached out and touched her cheek, a gesture of intimacy that seemed natural for two people who had become friends, who understood each other. It didn’t matter that he was a man and black and she was white and a woman.
It was only later she realized that no one she had grown up with would have thought his touch anything but scandalous, and she a traitor to her race. Friendship between a black man and a white woman was inconceivable in Belvedere. To whites, Negroes were as alien as Martians would have been. It was her mother who made her remember that. When she drove back to her own house, it was still early, and her mother was finishing her morning coffee. Mary joined her, passing up the coffee but having a glass of juice. Their relationship, on the surface at least, had regained its former shape.
“You were over at the house of that Negro minister again,” her mother said. She spoke the word Negro not with scorn but with some trepidation, as if it were frightening.
“It’s part of my job, Mom. It’s a big story.”
“I know. But people are talking a lot about that young man. They tell me that you ought to stay away from him. They say things about him.”
“What sorts of things?”
“Well” — her mother paused — “they say that when he was on one of those buses — you know, the Freedom Rides — that he was in orgies with white women.”
“Oh, Mom, that’s nonsense.”
“I know that, but people believe it. They know you’ve over at the house where he’s staying a lot, and somebody said…” Her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“At the fire, that terrible night. One of the firemen said that you were … touching that Negro man. I know that isn’t true, but —”
“Yes, I touched him. Of course I did.”
She saw the alarm in her mother’s eyes, and she said, “It’s not like that! Jesus Christ, he was watching two people he knew burn to death. I touched his arm, just to — because he was a person, and he was hurting. Because what happened was so awful. You would have done the same thing, if you’d been there.”
Her mother nodded. “Mary, I understand, but I’m afraid. People are so angry, they’re twisting things. It’s so crazy. Even my friends. They talk about those high school kids as if they were the innocent ones, as if the Negroes had done something to them. They say it’s all the fault of those damn niggers. And they blame the newspaper. I’m afraid someone might hurt you.”
“I’m being careful, I promise. Charlie’s hired a guard at the paper, because of the threats. We’ll be OK.”
Her mother nodded again, but her face was pale and she was twisting her wedding ring, a sure sign she was upset. She said, “Whatever you do, Mary, I’m on your side. Even when I’m scared for you. Remember that.”
“Thanks, Mom. I know that. I always have.”
Her mother handed her the morning copy of the Blade and said, “Did you see this?”
The paper was opened to the obituary page, with the headline LOCAL BUSINESSMAN DIES SUDDENLY.
“Mr. Gutwald? How did it happen?”
“It was a heart attack. He was out trimming the hedges, and he collapsed. Joan found him lying on the lawn.”
“What about the business? What will happen to the business?”
“Joan won’t want to run it. She was always telling her husband they ought to retire and move to Florida. Maybe Bert will take it over.”
“Bert’s in San Diego. Harry says he likes it out there.”
“I hope Harry won’t lose a job again. When he was doing so well.”
“Bert knew Harry in high school. He wouldn’t fire Harry.”
“Well, I hope it works out for the best.”
Before she went to the paper, Mary drove to Jay’s apartment. He was making himself a sandwich. He gave her a broad grin when she came in.
“I got it!”
“Got what?”
“The job. In New York.”
“You got it? You got it! Oh, Jay, that’s fantastic!”
“I start in four weeks. We can give Charlie three weeks’ notice, take our time driving up. Then we can get a place.”
“Three weeks? That’s such a short time. Karen has her nursery group, and I have to look for a job. I haven’t even got my résumé typed up.”
“Maybe Karen could stay with your mother for a couple of weeks while we got settled. Then we could drive back and get her.”
“Are you saying we should get a place together? Now?”
“Why not?”
“I’m not divorced.”
“In New York, who would give a damn?”
“But if we have to go to court, it would look bad.”
“Right, I wasn’t thinking. So we’ll get separate places. Technically we won’t be living together. But we can spend as much time together as we want.”
“Yes, that would be better.”
“Manhattan,” he said. “It’ll be a gas, Mary. You and me in New York.”
For the rest of the week, she spent the morning hours before going to work making an inventory of her possessions. The old skirts from high school, the dresses that were out of style, they could all go into a box for Goodwill. But even as she sorted and packed, it didn’t seem real. Was she really going to do it? Leave Belvedere, her marriage, the first job she’d ever had, where it was safe?
“I will,” she said. “Yes, I will.”
Other people did it, they just walked out and started fresh, someplace else. She had told a lie when she was eighteen years old. Did she have to pay for it the rest of her life? She picked out clothes for New York, trying to make herself believe it. It had been so fresh in her mind the first day they talked about it. It had seemed to hover in the air, like a mist, so real she could touch it. Now it was receding, and she had to bring it back. She clenched her teeth and grimly packed her wardrobe for New York.
“I’m going to make things happen” she had said to him. It seemed half a lifetime ago. The gray wool — basic, but too old? No, it was classic, and it fit well. Take the gray wool.
She spent the nights at Jay’s apartment, leaving early in the morning so she could spend time with Karen. Her mother worried that people would not approve, but it did not matter anymore what people thought. They knew, to hell with them. When she was with Jay, the future seemed inevitable. The feel of him, the smell of him, kept her doubts at bay. One night, when Sam and Roger were away, they made love on the kitchen floor and in the shower and in the living room. She was insatiable; she couldn’t get enough of him.
“Go easy on me, woman, I am only human.”
“I am Drusilda, woman warrior, and I want to do feelthy things to you.”
I knew I should never have told you about that.”
“Drusilda loves the sword of Spartacus.”
“If I keep this up, my balls are going to drop off from sheer exhaustion.”
“Spartacus has such nice balls.”
“Cut that out! Get your hands off my body. Jesus, I used to believe you were shy.”
“I was. You debauched me.”
“You debauched easy, you have to admit.”
“Umm. Drusilda wonders what an orgy would be like. Have you even been to an orgy?”
“Me? Oh, sure. I have one every week with the Worthy Matrons. We fuck squirrels. They’re fast little buggers, you have to be quick to get them, but they’re nice.”
“Do people really do it with sheep? I read that they do.”
“This is a hell of a conversation. I personally have never fucked a sheep, but out in the boonies, where there’s nothing for miles and miles, I guess they pass the time by fucking sheep.”
“Jay tell me about New York.”
“They fuck rats in New York. No sheep there.”
She poked him. “That’s disgusting.”
“You think a squirrel is hard to catch, you ought to try a rat. You have to aim just right. Fucking roaches is a re
al challenge, though.”
“Oh, ugh. That makes me sick to think about it!”
“The roaches don’t like it much either.”
He laughed, and she cuddled next to him, and they were quiet for a while. Then he asked, “Mary, what’s happening with Harry?”
“He’s trying to buy the business. I guess he needs a loan. His father could lend him a few thousand, but not enough.”
“How much would it be?”
“Forty thousand.”
“Could Harry raise that much?”
“Bert wants to sell it to him. It’s a sound business, and Harry’s been running the branch, so he knows the ropes. I think he could get a loan.”
“Sounds like it. Well, we’ll be out of here soon enough.”
“That’s right. We will be. Do they have good schools in New York?”
“Good as here, I guess.”
“Karen’s going to be starting first grade. I’d like to be sure she gets in a good school, not in a bad neighborhood.”
“I’ll ask the editor. He has a couple of kids, so he probably knows.”
“That would be great.”
“You and me, in a couple of years when we’re both making some dough, we could have a kid, huh?”
“Yes. I want to have a baby with you, Jay. But I want to keep working, too. I couldn’t stop now, just when I’m finding out what I can do.”
“No sweat. If we’re both making enough money, we can swing it. I want to get some money saved up. I saw what happened to my mother and father. I don’t want to be on the edge like they were, not ever.”
She had been thinking about having a baby with him, had wished for the heaviness in her womb that meant life was stirring. Sigmund Freud pounced on that one.
You say “anatomy is destiny” is old hat, my dear, but look what you are doing.
It was a … passing thought.
You were going to wrap up your diaphragm and leave it in the drawer.
No, I really wasn’t. It was only an idea.
Just like a woman. Trap him with pregnancy.
I wouldn’t do that
Oh no! “I’m pregnant, Harry. ”
I was only a kid.
You thought that if you were pregnant, you would have to leave Belvedere. You are scared you haven’t got the guts to do it on your own. As I wrote in The Ego and the Id —
Oh, shut up.
You must admit, I score a point now and then.
One thing was for sure, at least she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. If there was going to be a baby with Jay, it was going to be when they both wanted it. Her diaphragm stayed in her purse.
She tried to fill the time away from Jay with Karen and with work. She kept hearing reports about Harry. He had been meeting with different businessmen, but he had only been able to scrape up fifteen thousand dollars. Everybody liked Harry, wanted him to succeed, but they were cautious.
One afternoon she got a call from her mother’s cousin, a vice president of the Belvedere bank. He was the one who had arranged for the sale of half ownership of the drugstore after her father died, and helped them keep the house. He asked her to come to his office.
“Mary, good to see you. It’s been a long time.”
“Hello, Jim. How’s Ann?”
“She had that angina, but she’s doing fine. You know, I keep thinking of you as a girl, but you’re all grown up. A journalist. Your mother’s very proud of you.”
“She’s my number-one fan.”
“Mary, I want to talk about the loan to Harry, Now, I know he had some problems, but he’s straightened himself out. It isn’t easy to do that.”
“No, and he’s doing a wonderful job.”
“He’s asked us for a forty-thousand-dollar loan, to buy the Gutwald business. Bert wants to sell.”
“It would be a great investment for the bank, Jim. And Harry would run it well.”
“Yes, I think so too. But there’s Harry’s record.”
“You mean the drinking?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s all over. He’s been cold stone sober for nine months. He’s running the Frederick branch.”
“You and I know that it’s behind him. But I wasn’t able to convince the other officers of the bank. He has an arrest record for drunk and disorderly, and he was fired from a job for drinking. You can understand why the officers are hesitant.”
“But the business is worth even more than that potentially. If anything happened the bank wouldn’t lose money. The business is just going to go up in value.”
“Yes, but we don’t have to take the risk. There’s a franchise operation with a sound credit rating that wants to buy. The bank isn’t in the business of risking capital.”
“What about other banks? Out of town.”
“They’d run a check. The arrest record would surface.”
“What about Harry’s father? He’s well known in town. Give the loan to him.”
“He’s over sixty-five and retired. We don’t give loans to people that age.”
She was quiet, frowning.
“But there is something.”
She looked up.
“This is an unusual situation. We, the bank, that is, we like to see local businesses in local hands. We don’t want outsiders running things — certain people, if you know what I mean. The franchise that wants to buy is Jewish owned. Not that we have anything against Jews, but you understand.”
She looked at him, blankly.
“So I’ve talked to the officers, informally, of course, and persuaded them to give the loan in your name.”
She stared at him in amazement.
“Now that’s something we wouldn’t usually do. We don’t give loans to women unless they have a real good business, hairdressing or something. But we all know you, you’re something of a celebrity in town. If the business were in your name as well as Harry’s, the officers would agree to a loan.”
“Jim —”
“You’d be a steadying influence on him, we know that. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s going to be a good businessman. You’ve made a man of him.”
“No, it wasn’t me. It was Harry, he did it all by himself, it wasn’t me at all.”
“Every young man is entitled to sow some wild oats, but Harry damn near ruined himself for good. I know how difficult it was for Betty and Ralph. But to have a daughter-in-law like you, that’s a blessing. I know you’ve been separated for a while, but when I talked to your mother a while ago, she told me you were getting back together. Did him good, the separation. Sometimes a young man needs a shock like that to straighten him out.”
She had the sensation that the walls were closing in on her, that the air was escaping, and there was none left for her to breathe. She looked around, as if in panic, for a way out.
“The bank would be taking a chance on the two of you. But we know you. People say that banks are cold-blooded, all we think about is money, but that’s not true.”
New York hovered in the air, tantalizing. Her heart was pounding wildly. She felt as if she were about to faint.
“We’ll take a chance when it seems that, in the end, we’ll profit by it. We’ll take a chance on people we know, like you and Harry.”
She felt that she was looking at him through a long tunnel, and everything was very small, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, but very clear and sharp. There was no chance for Harry if she turned down the loan. No one else would give him money. And if she took the loan, she was tied to him forever. She would live out her life in Belvedere, and she would never know what she might have been someplace else. New York was speeding away from her, growing tiny in the distance. She would never get out of Belvedere, never break free — she had known that all along. She would never do it, never leave; New York was a speck, speeding away.
“We’re getting divorced!” She blurted it out, hearing the pani
c in her own voice.
Her mother’s cousin leaned back in his chair. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”
“We tried, but we got married too young. We —”
“I see. I talked to your mother, and she seemed to think things were going well.”
“She wanted to believe that.”
“Well, of course, that changes things.”
“Jim, he ought to have the loan. Please, he’s worked so hard, he’s done so well.”
“I’m glad to see there’s no hostility between the two of you. That’s always best.”
“Jim, please, make them reconsider. The business is sound, it’s been going for twenty years. You wouldn’t lose anything. Harry is so good at this. Please, you can persuade them.”
“Well, of course, I’ll try.”
“If the franchise bought it, could Harry still be the manager?”
“They have a special patented process. Most of their personnel come from the home office. It’s possible, of course, that they might make an exception for Harry.”
When she walked out of his office, her whole body was shaking. There were other banks, there had to be a place where Harry could get a loan. Had to be.
I’m pregnant, Harry. I’m pregnant.
The words had coiled through her life from the night she said them to this moment. She had shaped his life, bent it to her with a lie. Was he what she had made him?
It’s what women are for, Mary, taking care of things.
No, it wasn’t fair. She didn’t owe him the rest of her life, years that would stretch out ahead of her, long and bleak and barren. It wasn’t fair.
She thought about New York, tried to dredge it up from the recesses of her mind, searched for it. Found it, tried to hold on to it. A peculiar thing happened.
It looked just like Belvedere.
“I hate him!” he said. “It’s not her, it’s him!”
The others all looked at each other, not knowing what to say.
“He dazzled her, you know? She’s like me, never been out of Belvedere. He’s been around, probably went to some fancy college. Sophisticated. Has money to throw around. Took her to the Washington Hotel. Christ, the Washington! He’s going to use her, and then dump her. They’re all like that, those guys.”
