by Andre Dubus
He watched her at the stove. If his father missed the cocktail hour, Paul would be spared while she suffered; and more: he knew by now, after those nights—one or two a month—that when his father came home late for dinner, drunk (she called it tight), gentle, and guilty, Paul sided with him; and in the face of his mother’s pique they played a winking, grinning game of two men who by their natures were bound to keep the sober women waiting at their stoves. He even drew pleasure from it, though as a boy he had loved his mother more than anyone on earth, he loved her still, he had always been able to talk with her, although now he had things to say that she didn’t want to hear: hardly reason enough to make her the sheep he offered for a few warm and easy (not really: faked, strained) moments with his father. But he would probably do it again. Since waking from her nap, she had not tried to speak to him alone; she had kept them with Judith; and her voice and eyes asked his forgiveness.
By seven-thirty, when the roast was done, they had moved with their drinks to the living room: Paul in his father’s chair, his head resting on the doily, on the same spot (from Vaseline hair tonic, two drops a day, and Paul used it too) faintly soiled by his father’s head. His mother, sitting wtih Judith on the couch, was not wearing a watch; but at exactly seven-thirty, she asked Paul the time.
‘All right, he’d rather drink out there with his friends than with his own family. All right: I’m used to that. I’ve lived with it. But not the dinner. He can’t do this to the dinner. Call him, Paul. I’m sorry, Judith: families should be quiet about these things. Paul, call your father.’
‘Not me.’ He shook his head. ‘No: not me.’
When he was a boy in Lafayette she had sometimes told him to call the golf course and ask his father how long before he’d be home. He did it, feeling he was an ally against his father, whose irritation—All right: tell her I’m coming—was not, he knew, directed at him; was even in collusion with him; but that knowledge didn’t help. Also, at thirteen and fourteen and then fifteen his voice hadn’t changed yet, so he was doubly humiliated: when he asked for his father the clerk always said: Yes ma’am, just a second—
‘Then I’ll call,’ his mother said. ’should I call him, Judith, or should we just go ahead and eat without him?’
‘Maybe we could wait another few minutes.’
‘All right. Fifteen. I’ll wait until quarter to eight. Paul, fix your mother a drink. I might as well get tight, then. That’s what they say: join your husband in his vices.’
‘Drinking isn’t Daddy’s vice.’
‘No, who said it was? It’s that golf that’s his vice. I might as well have married a sea captain, Judith, at least then I wouldn’t be out here on my prairie—’
‘You could live by the sea,’ Judith said, ‘and have a widow’s walk.’
Paul took his mother’s glass and pushed through the swinging kitchen door, out of the sound and smell of air-conditioning, into the heat, and the fragrance of roast.
At twenty before ten, they sat down to dinner. His mother set Paul’s plate at the head of the table, but Paul said no, Daddy might come home while we’re eating. He sat opposite Judith. His mother said they should have eaten at eight-fifteen. It took fifteen minutes to drive home from the club, and at eight o’clock she had gone to her room, and slid the door shut in a futile attempt at privacy in a house too small to contain what it had to. They heard her voice: hurt, bitter, whining. And at once—though his mother was right, his father wrong by something as simple as an hour and a half—he was against her. Maybe if she didn’t whine, if she had served dinner at seven-thirty and said the hell with him, the old bastard can eat it cold when he gets home, maybe then he would have joined her. But he knew that wasn’t true either, that it wasn’t her style he resented so much as her vision—or lack of it—which allowed her to have that style and feel it was her due. When perhaps all the time his father, by staying away, was telling her: You shouldn’t have planned this, you are not helping us all but failing us all, and I choose not to bear the pain of it. But if that were true, then his father’s method was cowardly, and his cowardice added to or even created the problem he couldn’t face.
For nearly three hours after the call his mother went on with the recitation of betrayal which was her attack. It was not continuous. Often enough, with the voice of someone waiting for a phone call that will change her life, she was able to talk of other things: guesses about what their new life would be like, what sort of people they would meet at Quantico (all educated, I’m sure; a lot of Northerners too; I hope y’all get along); and it was a blessing there wasn’t a war, Paul was lucky, too young for Korea and now it looked like there would be peace for a long time unless those Russians did something crazy; she said his father had been saved from war too, he had grown up between them, so Paul was the first Clement to be in the service; there had been three Kelleys, her nephews, in World War II, they had all fought and all come home; but no one in the family had ever been a Marine lieutenant. And she spoke to Judith of food prices and ways to save; she offered recipes; and once she mentioned the child: she said she hoped Judith would be able to go back to college after the baby came. Always, though, she returned to the incredible and unpredictable violation of her evening; again and again she told them, with anger posing as amazement, how his father had said they were playing gin and time had slipped up on him, had taken him by surprise, had passed him by. And he had said he was coming. Thirty minutes ago, and the way he drives it only takes ten minutes. An hour ago. With all that drinking from—from four, four-thirty on, that’s when they finish-maybe he was in an accident.
‘Paul, you’d better call and see if he’s left, maybe he’s—’
Around a mouthful of mayonnaised pineapple, Paul said no.
‘Well, all right, youth is callous, you know he was in an accident before, he was lucky it was so clearly the other man’s fault, because he had been drinking, he had played golf that day, and then we went out to eat with the Bertrands. He’s a wonderful driver, Judith. But how could—oh, that miserable man, we’ll have to go get him. He won’t be able to drive.’
‘Paul thought they wouldn’t have to, that surely his father would weave in, blinking, flirting with Judith in his deep, mellow drinking voice, averting his eyes from the woman whose face showed years of waiting not only for him but for all that she wanted—money, prominence, perhaps even love: or perhaps only that, and was it impossible, and if so, who had made it impossible?—and dealing her a series of bourbon-thickened apologies, renunciations, promises. But it didn’t happen. At ten-forty the dishwasher was doing its work, the women had wiped and swept every crumb from the table and floor, sponged every spot of grease from the stove, and drunk second cups of coffee. Then his mother said: ‘Oh that man. I’m going to bed, I’ve had a lovely evening with you two anyway; Paul, give me a kiss, and you and your wife go get him.’
‘Why don’t we just leave him alone?’
‘He’s been drinking for seven hours, he’s got to come home.’
‘He can handle it.’
‘All right, I won’t go to bed, I’ll go alone, and we’ll leave his car at the club all night for everyone to see in the morning, if he doesn’t have any pride, why should I care, his friends would think it’s funny, oh look there’s old Paul’s car; I wish that damn company had never got him into the club, I don’t know if Paul told you this, Judith, but his company pays the dues, we don’t have that kind of money; when they transferred him from Lafayette he said he wouldn’t come unless they got him into the club and paid his dues, because there’s no golf course here, and they did it, it’s all they’ve ever done for him all these years, and I wish they’d never done that—’
Paul was about to say But think how unhappy he’d be, when he realized that was precisely what she meant, and perhaps not only for vengeance but also to cut off all his avenues of escape and force him to find happiness for her and with her, or find none at all.
‘—well, I’m used to it, I don’t care
, I’m past caring now—’
‘Mother.’
‘—in Lafayette he left me and married the golf course, and now he’s married to his old country club, he might as well bring a bed—’
‘Mother, we’ll go.’
‘No, you don’t have to, I can—’
‘Go to bed, if you want. We’ll go.’
The shells of the parking lot were white in the moonlight. Paul stopped beside his father’s car in the shadow of palmettos and told Judith she might as well wait outside, because his father would be in the locker room. She said she’d wait at the wharf, and he touched her hand, then slid out of the car and went slowly to the front door, where he paused and looked out at the lake; on that wharf he had first kissed Judith. Then he went in, past loud men with their wives at tables in the bar, into the locker room. The four men sat at a card table between rows of tall green wall lockers; his father’s back was turned. Mr. Clay looked up and said:‘Young man you know, Paul.’
His father turned, the reddening of his already sun-red face starting up at once, with his grin; then as he beckoned to a chair he began to cough, that deep, liquid body-wrenching cough that Paul had heard for years, a cough from about four hundred thousand cigarettes and two or three lies his father told himself: a holder helps, filters make a difference, sometimes switching brands. Now he came out of it, patted his chest and swallowed while his eyes watered; his voice was weak: ‘Hi, Son. Have a seat and we’ll get you a drink.’
‘Judith’s waiting outside.’
‘Oh? Did your momma come out too? We could buy ’em a drink, couple of good-looking women, we could handle that—’
‘She’s home.’
‘Oh.’ He looked at the cards on the table, took a drink from his bourbon and water. ‘Did you drink all that beer?’
‘Just about.’
‘You all packed and ready?’
‘Yep.’
‘This boy would like to be called Lieutenant by you old bastards. Second lieutenant, United States Marine Corps. He’ll do my fightin’ for me.’
‘He can do something else for you too, you old hoss.’
‘When do you leave, son?’ Mr. Clay said.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ He looked at Paul’s father. Then he stood up. ‘Well, I’m going home and boil me an egg.’
‘Me too,’ another said. ‘Before y’all win my house and bird dog too.’
His father rose, grinning, lighting a cigarette, and Paul tensed for the cough, but it didn’t come; it was down there, waiting.
They walked through the bar, his father weaving some, his shoulders forward in a subtle effort to balance his velocity and weight.
‘Judith’s down at the wharf.’
‘Oh?’ Then the cough came. Paul stood watching him; he thought of his father collapsing: he would catch him before his face struck the shells, carry him to the car. His father brought up something from deep in his body and spit. ‘Okay, good. We’ll go see Judith at the wharf.’
They crunched over shells, then walked quietly on damp earth sloping to the wharf, then onto it, walking the length of it, their footsteps loud, over the lapping of waves on the pilings and the shore. Ahead of them, at the wharf’s end, Judith’s moonlit hair was silver.
‘Hi, darling,’ his father said, and put his arm around her; Paul moved to the other side, and the three of them stood arm in arm, looking out at the black water shimmering under the moon.
‘I wanted to see it before we left,’ Judith said.
‘Is this where y’all did it?’
He felt Judith stiffen then relax, and then he felt her hugging his father.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it’s where we first kissed.’
They started back, still arm in arm; holding Judith, Paul was guiding his father. Judith said: ‘Will you be all right?’
‘That car responds to me, darling. You can come with me, though, for company; one of y’all.’
They left the wharf and started up the gentle slope. When they reached the shells Judith said: ‘Okay.’ Paul was looking straight ahead, at the palmettos before the shadowed colonial front of the club. He felt his father looking at Judith.
‘How come my bride doesn’t know I got to get drunk to tell my boy goodbye? We had our first kiss on a porch swing, his momma and me. That’s where we courted in those days. Maybe that’s why nothing happened.’
‘What did happen?’ Paul said.
They crossed the deep shells. He thought his father had not heard, or, hearing, hadn’t understood. But when they reached the company car, his father said: ‘God knows, Son.’ Then he opened the door and got in.
Judith waited, looking up at Paul. His father started the engine. Then Paul turned quickly away, toward his own car, Judith got in with his father, and he followed them home, watching their heads moving as they talked. The house was quiet, and they crept in and went to bed.
In the morning they were together for about an hour. The talk was of the details of departure, and their four voices called from room to room, from house to car, and filled the kitchen as they ate cantaloupes and bacon and eggs. No one mentioned last night; it showed on no one’s face. At the door he kissed and embraced his quietly weeping mother. ‘There goes our last one,’ she said. ‘We should have had more.’ He looked through tears into his father’s damp eyes, and they hugged fiercely, without a word. He did not look at them again until he had backed out of the driveway: they stood in their summer robes, his father’s hand resting on his mother’s shoulder. They waved. His father coughed, his lifted arm faltering, dropping; then he recovered, and waved again. Paul waved back, and drove down the road.
Leslie in California
WHEN THE ALARM rings the room is black and grey; I smell Kevin’s breath and my eye hurts and won’t open. He gets out of bed, and still I smell beer in the cold air. He is naked and dressing fast. I get up shivering in my nightgown and put on my robe and go by flashlight to the kitchen, where there is some light from the sky. Birds are singing, or whatever it is they do. I light the gas lantern and set it near the stove, and remember New England mornings with the lights on and a warm kitchen and catching the school bus. I won’t have to look at my eye till the sun comes up in the bathroom. Dad was happy about us going to California; he talked about sourdough bread and fresh fruit and vegetables all year. I put water on the stove and get bacon and eggs and milk from the ice chest. A can of beer is floating, tilting, in the ice and water; the rest are bent in the paper bag for garbage. I could count them, know how many it takes. I put on the bacon and smoke a cigarette, and when I hear him coming I stand at the stove so my back is to the door.
‘Today’s the day,’ he says.
They are going out for sharks. They will be gone five days, maybe more, and if he comes back with money we can have electricity again. For the first three months out here he could not get on a boat, then yesterday he found one that was short a man, so last night he celebrated.
‘Hey, hon.’
I turn the bacon. He comes to me and hugs me from behind, rubbing my hips through the robe, his breath sour beer with mint.
‘Let me see your eye.’
I turn around and look up at him, and he steps back. His blond beard is damp, his eyes are bloodshot, and his mouth opens as he looks.
‘Oh, hon.’
He reaches to touch it, but I jerk my face away and turn back to the skillet.
‘I’ll never do that again,’ he says.
The bacon is curling brown. Through the window above the stove I can see the hills now, dark humps against the sky. Dad liked the Pacific, but we are miles inland and animals are out there with the birds; one morning last week a rattlesnake was on the driveway. Yesterday some men went hunting a bobcat in the hills. They say it killed a horse, and they are afraid it will kill somebody’s child, but they didn’t find it. How can a bobcat kill a horse? My little sister took riding lessons in New England; I watched her compete, and I was afraid, she was so sma
ll on that big animal jumping. Dad told me I tried to pet some bobcats when I was three and we lived at Camp Pendleton. He was the deer camp duty officer one Sunday, and Mom and I brought him lunch. Two bobcats were at the edge of the camp; they wanted the deer hides by the scales, and I went to them saying here, kitty, here, kitty. They just watched me, and Dad called me back.
‘It wasn’t you,’ Kevin says. ‘You know it wasn’t you.’
‘Who was it?’
My first words of the day, and my voice sounds like dry crying. I clear my throat and grip the robe closer around it.
‘I was drunk,’ he says. ‘You know. You know how rough it’s been.’
He harpoons fish. We came across country in an old Ford he worked on till it ran like it was young again. We took turns driving and sleeping and only had to spend motel money twice. That was in October, after we got married on a fishing boat, on a clear blue Sunday on the Atlantic. We had twenty-five friends and the two families and open-faced sandwiches and deviled eggs, and beer and wine. On the way out to sea we got married, then we fished for cod and drank, and in late afternoon we went to Dad’s for a fish fry with a fiddle band. Dad has a new wife, and Mom was up from Florida with her boy friend. Out here Kevin couldn’t get on a boat, and I couldn’t even waitress. He did some under-the-table work: carpenter, mechanic, body work, a few days here, a few there. Now it’s February, a short month.
