The Hour of the Innocents

by Robert Paston

  By the time Mrs. Saunders appeared, clutching folders against the wind, the world had emptied. When she turned in the wrong direction, I pursued her.

  Catching up, I called, “Excuse me … Mrs. Saunders?”

  She turned as if to face a pesky student. A quizzical expression followed. Then she darkened. All in a matter of seconds.

  “I know who you are,” she said.

  “Please. How’s Laura?”

  “How dare you? How dare you?”

  “Please, I just need to know how she is.”

  “If you don’t leave here this minute, I’ll call the police.”

  “Just tell me how she is. Is she all right?”

  One tear left each of her eyes. The wind drove them at a diagonal. No one had ever looked at me with such hatred.

  “As if you cared about her. You give a poor, sick girl drugs and pretend you care about the consequences. You belong in prison.”

  “I never gave her drugs. I never—”

  She laughed horribly. “Am I supposed to believe you? And not my own daughter?” Laura’s mother took one step toward me. As if on the verge of attacking. “She told me that you gave her LSD. I was a fool not to go straight to the police, a fool to promise.”

  “I never gave Laura any kind of drugs,” I repeated. The words sounded dead. Beyond that, I could not speak.

  “Liar.” She swept back a wind-loosened strand of hair and her tears came faster. “You’ll never see my little girl again. Never in your life. If you ever come near her, if you ever try to find her, I’ll see that you’re arrested.”

  My folly was immeasurable. Had Laura been there, I would have slapped her for lying. It was years before I understood that she lied to save me from idiotic gallantries.

  With my own eyes brimming and burning, I turned away.

  Footsteps echoed mine. Then Laura’s mother stopped and told my back, “Don’t think you’re going to have any claim on my Laura. There won’t be any child, that’s all been seen to.”

  Wind gusts slapped me as I walked to my car.

  The route home passed near Quakertown. I did what any coward would have done. I stopped and called Joan.

  She was already back from work. I asked if I could take her out to dinner.

  The pause before she replied answered my question. But I let her say the words.

  “Will … I can’t. I’m seeing someone, it wouldn’t be fair. I couldn’t keep waiting and hoping anymore.”

  * * *

  The band came apart, of course. Under Danny Luegner’s spell, Frankie left for Philly. Matty, Stosh, and I honored the remainder of our contracts, with a bass player from Orwigsburg filling in. The kid hoped that the band would go on and take him along. But the Innocents were done. Just as the magic hadn’t been there before Matty came home from Nam, it wasn’t there without Frankie, either. Together, we had been far more than any of us could be in a different lineup. The chemistry of a great band is unique. But the compound proved unstable.

  A few weeks after the Fillmore East debacle, Stosh told us that he was signing on with Luegner, who was putting together a show band to feature Frankie, complete with two girl backup singers. Stosh had been invited to be the drummer.

  I felt betrayed and angry, but it didn’t last. Unlike Frankie, Stosh had come out with it man-to-man. And I couldn’t blame him for wanting to flee the county.

  Frankie had dental surgery to improve his smile. Danny Luegner had fronted him the money to have it done before the show band’s rehearsals started. I could only imagine how Frankie would be enmeshed.

  I could not wish him well. I wanted Frankie to fail and hurt and suffer.

  Stosh told us that Luegner had already booked them into clubs all across the country. After working out the act’s kinks in Ft. Lauderdale, Dallas, and Scottsdale, Frankie Star and the Stargazers were headed to Reno and, ultimately, Vegas. Stosh said that Luegner chose the name because of all the moon-landing stuff that was supposed to happen that summer.

  I tried to talk Matty into starting another band with me, something fresh. There was other talent around. It was worth a shot.

  “I need a break,” he told me. “I’m just going to do fill-ins for a while.”

  He took an accounting job at the Alcoa plant in Cressona. After the band’s last gig, he disappeared every weekend. He was searching for Angela. He never told anyone, of course. But I knew.

  I didn’t want to approach Matty directly on that subject. I called Stosh and caught him at home.

  “How are rehearsals? Everything cool?”

  I could see his familiar shrug at the other end of the line. “Yeah. It’s all right. It’s a gig.”

  “You haven’t run into Angela, have you? Down in Philly?”

  “No. And you don’t need nothing to do with Angela.”

  “I know that. I was thinking of Matty. Do you know if he’s ever tracked down Joyce and that Warlock boyfriend of hers? I thought she might be with Joyce.”

  “She’s not. I seen Joyce. She doesn’t know a thing.”

  “So how’s Red?”

  “She’s all right. Looking forward to getting away.”

  “She’s going with you, then?”

  “Yeah, she decided to risk it. We’ll see what happens. Once we get out there. In Vegas and all.”

  “Well, good luck. Tell Frankie I hope he gets cancer of the throat. And the balls.”

  “Hey, I’ll tell you something, but don’t tell nobody, okay?”

  “What?”

  “Frankie got false front teeth now. Or whatever they call them. He looks like he should be doing toothpaste commercials.”

  “Maybe he will be. Take care of yourself, huh?”

  “Yeah, you, too. Hey, I didn’t ask. You got anything going yourself?”

  “Nope.”

  “Something’ll turn up, man.”

  “Say hello to Red for me.”

  “Yo, that reminds me. You ever hear anything about that Laura girl, the one who went batshit? Red brings her up sometimes. Fuck knows why.”

  “Tell Red that she knows as much as I do. Enjoy Vegas.”

  * * *

  I tried to put my own band together. But my heart wasn’t in it. Plenty of musicians wanted to get something going, but the best players I could assemble were back at the Destroyerz level. I marched through a series of rehearsals, fighting the realization that I just could not go through it all again.

  I called Matty and begged him to reconsider. He was the only one left who had the magic, who might have made the months and years of playing dives and hoping for a break worthwhile again. The only place I could reach him was down at the Alcoa office. He told me that he didn’t have time to talk.

  I heard that he was rarely at home, that he kept a clean shirt in his car so he could return from one of his forays just before work began. But if he was obsessive, it paid off. He found Angela.

  I never learned where she had been. I didn’t see her myself. All I heard was that Matty had found her, that she looked like the wreck of the Hesperus, and that they were living in a rented half a double in Girardville.

  I didn’t dare stop by.

  My mother put her house up for sale. We saw each other when she passed through Pottsville to sign some papers and decide which possessions she wanted to take along into her new life.

  “I’m sorry your band didn’t work out,” she told me. Over a lousy club sandwich at the Necho Allen. “Have you considered applying to a better university?”

  “Penn State’s fine.”

  “It’s not for serious people, Will. You know that.” She still had a demure tan and looked years younger.

  “How’s Florida?”

  “Oh, I’m not wild about it, really. But I like the place in Connecticut. I’m sure you’ll see it sometime. Are you going to miss the house?”

  “No.”

  She touched her lower lip, lightly, with her napkin. Her manners never failed her. “I’m glad to hear it. I was concerned.�
��

  “What are you going to do with the Chrysler?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it. Do you want it?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  “I’ve told Barry Levenger you can have anything you want that belonged to your father. Anything at all.”

  “He was supposed to fix my license revocation.”

  “He probably couldn’t.”

  “He didn’t think it was important.”

  “Listen, Will … don’t hold anything against him. Please. Anything from the past, I mean. He’s not the worst of them. He looked out for me. And for you. Anyway, take your time. Pick out anything you want. I don’t expect a house like that is going to sell the instant it goes on the market.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  She opened her purse and clicked it shut again. After trying on a pair of expressions that didn’t work, she just said, “I don’t know if I should ask this or not … but do you still see that girl? Laura?”

  “No. She’s history.”

  A motherly smile came and went. “Well, I think that’s for the best. You know I felt something wasn’t quite, I don’t know, not quite normal about her.”

  “You were right. She wasn’t normal.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re over her. You don’t see that blond woman anymore, do you? The one who was in the house?”

  “No. You were right about her, too.”

  “Mothers have an instinct. Oh, you made me forget. What I meant to tell you about Barry Levenger. I’ve given him instructions. When the house is sold, you’re to have ten thousand dollars. You really should have something from it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I wish you’d put it toward your education. A better school, I mean. But that’s up to you. Roger and I would help you, you know. If, for instance, you decided to go to law school.”

  I laughed. “I won’t be going to law school.”

  She counted out the bills to pay the check, then calculated how many coins to strew atop them. It was always 15 percent, even in the bad years.

  “Mom? I hope you’ll be happy. I want you to be happy. I love you, you know. And not just because of the ten thousand bucks.”

  She put on her “Confucius say” face, a countenance I remembered from the good times.

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “It’s all just so hard sometimes. Isn’t it? Should I drop you at that apartment of yours?”

  * * *

  Danny Luegner had the gall to phone and ask if I wanted to write songs for the rock bands he managed.

  * * *

  Matty showed up on a sodden midspring day. He was reluctant to leave the mat just inside my door, shy of making a mess.

  Words still came hard for him. He glanced around, as if he had never been in my apartment before. Then he asked, “Putting a new band together?”

  I had just about given up on the idea. When I found myself back onstage at the Legion Post where the Destroyerz had struck the first chord on so many Saturday midnights, it seemed too pathetic.

  “You interested? Matty, we could put a band together the minute you wanted to.”

  “No. I didn’t mean that. I was just asking.”

  “Sit down, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I’m all wet.”

  “You ought to carry an umbrella. Now that you’ve gone corporate. Take off your jacket, man.”

  He wore a short-sleeved shirt with a narrow tie. A plastic pocket protector held a squad of pens. His hair was still longish but trimmed up to his chin.

  “Want some coffee?” I asked.

  “Have any milk?”

  “Brokhoff’s white, or Guers chocolate?”

  “Chocolate, if that’s okay.”

  I went into the kitchenette. “Matty, you need to be playing. This is crazy. You might be the best guitarist I’ve ever heard.”

  “I’m going to play,” he said quickly. “I’m just taking some time off.” He accepted the glass, drank half of the contents, then wiped his mouth and chin with the back of his hand. “That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “Maybe you haven’t heard? Angela’s back. I’m taking care of her. She’s been sick.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She’s getting better. It takes time. She was in a hospital. For malnutrition. And other things.”

  “Is she off the speed?”

  He nodded. “She’s all done with that, she’s clean. She’s getting better. It’s just that her system’s messed up. It takes time.”

  “Is there something I can do to help?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you.” He finished the chocolate milk, as if bolstering himself with a shot of whiskey. “She doesn’t see people. I mean from the old crowd. Or anybody, really. She doesn’t want to see them. She’s embarrassed.” He struggled, wary of jinxing life with speech. “Angela doesn’t look the same. I mean, she will. But it’s a slow process.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “She doesn’t want to see people. Not right now. Not yet. But she’d like to see you. I thought … maybe you could visit her sometime? During the day, while I’m at work? It’s hard for her, I think. She gets bored. The TV’s not enough.”

  I didn’t want to see Angela.

  “Sure,” I said. “But you’re up in Girardville, right?”

  He nodded again. “At the far end of town.”

  “The problem is they pulled my driver’s license. For six months.”

  “For what?”

  “Speeding. Ninety-five or something like that.”

  “You never drive fast.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Will? Could you visit her tomorrow afternoon? I know she’d like to see you. She said so. She always thought the world of you. She still does.”

  “Matty, I just told you. I have no way to get there. The East Penn buses don’t run up that way.”

  “If I picked you up? Right at lunchtime? If I leave the Alcoa at noon, I could swing by and drive you up and drop you off. I could be back in the office by one.”

  “That’s precision swimming, man.” The prospect of being trapped in Girardville, a rat-hole mining patch, with Angela for an entire afternoon filled me with dread.

  “Will you do it, though? For Angela?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve got an afternoon class. But I can cut it. Sure. If she’d really like to see me.”

  “I’ll beep the horn. I should be here around ten after or so.”

  “I’ll wait outside.”

  “You don’t have to do that. It’s supposed to rain again.”

  “I won’t rust.”

  He rose, a huge figure in the compact room, and drew on his wet jacket.

  “I’m grateful,” he said. “And I’m sorry about everything else.”

  I waved it away. Bygones. “Hey, have you heard any rumors about Frankie getting busted? I heard he got popped with some serious dope. Chemicals.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Matty told me. “I don’t hear from Frankie.”

  “If it’s true, though, there goes his Tom Jones act. He’ll do time.”

  “Frankie’ll manage. His old man will get him a lawyer.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Frankie always manages.”

  Matty paused to construct his next announcement. The pain of the effort showed around his mouth.

  “Angela’s getting a divorce. We’re getting married. When she’s better.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “It won’t be a church wedding. It can’t be. We’re going to go away.”

  “That’s great. I mean, you getting married.”

  “Yes. I guess it is.” He was blushing.

  “Matty?”

  He turned from the door.

  “I’ll do anything I can to help. But I want you to promise me something. That you’re going to play music again. I don’t mean with me. Just play.”

  He smiled. “I�
�ll always play music. I play now. For Angela. She likes it when I play for her.” He looked at his cuff, as if he could read his watch through the fabric. “I better go. Dinner and all.”

  “Give Angela my best. See you tomorrow.”

  He hesitated for one last moment. “There’s some other stuff we need to talk about. But that can wait.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Matty just dropped me off. They were living in one of the smaller company houses, little more than a shanty. It still had tar-paper siding, and the front porch railing lacked a couple of spindles. My mother would not have set foot inside the door.

  Matty’s warnings had prepared me to find a plague victim. But Angela still looked like herself, if frail and marred and chastened. When she let me in, she moved to hug me, then stopped. But she lost control of her smile. She was missing a tooth.

  The house smelled of frying.

  “I made up some pierogies,” she said. “When Matty told me you were coming over. You always liked Hunky food, ain’t?” She smiled but managed to keep her lips close together. “Our cooking and our girls, if I remember anything.”

  “They seemed to go together.”

  She looked me over. “If I was still at the salon, I’d take you in and give you a trim.”

  “Maybe you’ll have your own salon.”

  “Not on your life. You’re never going to catch me stuck in with a pack of bitches like that again. Come on in the kitchen, eat something and get warm. You been out in the rain.”

  I had been. Waiting for Matty to pick me up. I followed her. The kitchen was cleaner than I expected of Angela, as if it had just been scrubbed down.

  Her looks were gone, but they had been going for months. What startled me was the caution of her movements, the bent shoulders and the old-lady timidity of her hands. Before things went wrong, she had always been lively and quick, the sort of girl who, born into other circumstances, would have played lots of tennis. Now she looked as if she could use a cane.

  “I fried them, since I didn’t have no sour cream.” She turned from the stove, summoning the ghost of her old Angela smile. “Christ, I bet you’re going to correct me now. I was supposed to say, ‘I didn’t have any sour cream.’ I guess I’m in the shit.”

  “I don’t have no idea about that,” I said.