The World According to Garp

by John Irving

  They stared at her.

  "Please," Garp said to them. He turned away from them so they wouldn't see him crying, but Duncan probably knew, and surely Helen knew. Walt probably didn't catch it.

  "A fight?" Walt said.

  "Come on," Duncan said to him; he took Walt's hand. Duncan pulled Walt out of the bedroom. "Come on, Walt," Duncan said, "or we won't get to see the movie."

  "Yeah, the movie!" Walt cried.

  To his horror, Garp recognized the attitude of their leaving--Duncan leading Walt away, and down the stairs; the smaller boy turning and looking back. Walt waved, but Duncan pulled him on. Down and gone, into the bomb shelter. Garp hid his face in his clothes and cried.

  When Helen touched him, he said, "Don't touch me," and went on crying. Helen shut the bedroom door.

  "Oh, don't," she pleaded. "He isn't worth this; he wasn't anything. I just enjoyed him," she tried to explain, but Garp shook his head violently and threw his pants at her. He was still only half dressed--an attitude that was perhaps, Helen realized, the most compromising for men: when they were not one thing and also not another. A woman half dressed seemed to have some power, but a man was simply not as handsome as when he was naked, and not as secure as when he was clothed. "Please get dressed," she whispered to him, and handed him back his pants. He took them, he pulled them on; and went on crying.

  "I'll do just what you want," she said.

  "You won't see him again?" he said to her.

  "No, not once," she said. "Not ever again."

  "Walt has a cold," Garp said. "He shouldn't even be going out, but it's not too bad for him at a movie. And we won't be late," he added to her. "Go see if he's dressed warmly enough." She did.

  He opened her top drawer, where her lingerie was, and pulled the drawer from the dresser; he pushed his face into the wonderful silkiness and scent of her clothes--like a bear holding a great trough of food in his forepaws, and then losing himself in it. When Helen came back into the room and caught him at this, it was almost as if she'd caught him masturbating. Embarrassed, he brought the drawer down across his knee and cracked it; her underwear flew about. He raised the cracked drawer over his head and smacked it down against the edge of the dresser, snapping what felt like the spine of an animal about the size of the drawer. Helen ran from the room and he finished dressing.

  He saw Duncan's fairly well finished supper on Duncan's plate; he saw Walt's uneaten supper on Walt's plate, and on various parts of the table and floor. "If you don't eat, Walt," Garp said, "you'll grow up to be a wimp."

  "I'm not going to grow up," Walt said.

  That gave Garp such a shiver that he turned on Walt and startled the child. "Don't ever say that," Garp said.

  "I don't want to grow up," Walt said.

  "Oh, I see," Garp said, softening. "You mean, you like being a kid?"

  "Yup," Walt said.

  "Walt is so weird," Duncan said.

  "I am not!" Walt cried.

  "You are so," Duncan said.

  "Go get in the car," Garp said. "And stop fighting."

  "You were fighting," Duncan said, cautiously; no one reacted and Duncan tugged Walt out of the kitchen. "Come on," he said.

  "Yeah, the movie!" Walt said. They went out.

  Garp said to Helen, "He's not to come here, under any circumstances. If you let him in this house, he won't get out alive. And you're not to go out," he said. "Under any circumstances. Please," he added, and he had to turn away from her.

  "Oh, darling," Helen said.

  "He's such an asshole!" Garp moaned.

  "It could never be anyone like you, don't you see?" Helen said. "It could only be someone who wasn't at all like you."

  He thought of the baby-sitters and Alice Fletcher, and his inexplicable attraction to Mrs. Ralph, and of course he knew what she meant; he walked out the kitchen door. It was raining outside, and already dark; perhaps the rain would freeze. The mud in the driveway was wet but firm. He turned the car around; then, by habit, he edged the car to the top of the driveway and cut the engine and the lights. Down the Volvo rolled, but he knew the driveway's dark curve by heart. The kids were thrilled by the sound of the gravel and the slick mud in the growing blackness, and when he popped the clutch at the bottom of the driveway, and flicked on the lights, both Walt and Duncan cheered.

  "What movie are we going to see?" Duncan asked.

  "Anything you want," Garp said. They drove downtown to have a look at the posters.

  It was cold and damp in the car and Walt coughed; the windshield kept fogging over, which made it hard to see what was playing at the movie houses. Walt and Duncan continued to fight about who got to stand in the gap between the bucket seats; for some reason, this had always been the prime spot in the back seat for them, and they had always fought over who got to stand or kneel there--crowding each other and bumping Garp's elbow when he used the stick shift.

  "Get out of there, both of you," Garp said.

  "It's the only place you can see," Duncan said.

  "I'm the only one who has to see," Garp said. "And this defroster is such junk," he added, "that no one can see out the windshield anyway."

  "Why don't you write the Volvo people?" Duncan suggested.

  Garp tried to imagine a letter to Sweden about the inadequacies of the defrost system, but he couldn't sustain the idea for very long. On the floor, in back, Duncan kneeled on Walt's foot and pushed him out of the gap between the bucket seats; now Walt cried and coughed.

  "I was here first," Duncan said.

  Garp downshifted, hard, and the uncovered tip of the stick-shift shaft bit into his hand.

  "You see this, Duncan?" Garp asked, angrily. "You see this gearshift? It's like a spear. You want to fall on that if I have to stop hard?"

  "Why don't you get it fixed?" Duncan asked.

  "Get out of the goddamn gap between the seats, Duncan!" Garp said.

  "The stick shift has been like that for months," Duncan said.

  "For weeks, maybe," Garp said.

  "If it's dangerous, you should get it fixed," Duncan said.

  "That's your mother's job," Garp said.

  "She says it's your job, Dad," Walt said.

  "How's your cough, Walt?" Garp asked.

  Walt coughed. The wet rattle in his small chest seemed oversized for the child.

  "Jesus," Duncan said.

  "That's great, Walt," Garp said.

  "It's not my fault," Walt complained.

  "Of course it isn't," Garp said.

  "Yes, it is," Duncan said. "Walt spends half his life in puddles."

  "I do not!" Walt said.

  "Look for a movie that looks interesting, Duncan," Garp said.

  "I can't see unless I kneel between the seats," Duncan said.

  They drove around. The movie houses were all on the same block but they had to drive past them a few times to decide upon which movie, and then they had to drive by them a few more times before they found a place to park.

  The children chose to see the only film that had a line waiting to see it, extending out from under the cinema marquee along the sidewalk, streaked now with a freezing rain. Garp put his own jacket over Walt's head, so that very quickly Walt resembled some ill-clothed street beggar--a damp dwarf seeking sympathy in bad weather. He promptly stepped in a puddle and soaked his feet; Garp then picked him up and listened to his chest. It was almost as if Garp thought the water in Walt's wet shoes dripped immediately into his little lungs.

  "You're so weird, Dad," Duncan said.

  Walt saw a strange car and pointed it out. The car moved quickly down the soaked street; splashing through the garish puddles, it threw the reflected neon upon itself--a big dark car, the color of clotted blood; it had wooden slats on its sides, and the blond wood glowed in the streetlights. The slats looked like the ribs of the long, lit skeleton of a great fish gliding through moonlight. "Look at that car!" Walt cried.

  "Wow, it's a hearse," Duncan said.

  "No, Duncan
," Garp said. "It's an old Buick. Before your time."

  The Buick that Duncan mistook for a hearse was on its way to Garp's house, although Helen had done all she could to discourage Michael Milton from coming.

  "I can't see you," Helen told him when she called. "It's as simple as that. It's over, just the way I said it would be if he ever found out. I won't hurt him any more than I already have."

  "What about me?" Michael Milton said.

  "I'm sorry," Helen told him. "But you knew. We both knew."

  "I want to see you," he said. "Maybe tomorrow?"

  But she told him that Garp had taken the kids to a movie for the sole purpose that she finish it tonight.

  "I'm coming over," he told her.

  "Not here, no," she said.

  "We'll go for a drive," he told her.

  "I can't go out, either," she said.

  "I'm coming," Michael Milton said, and he hung up.

  Helen checked the time. It would be all right, she supposed, if she could get him to leave quickly. Movies were at least an hour and a half long. She decided she wouldn't let him in the house--not under any circumstances. She watched for the headlights to come up the driveway, and when the Buick stopped--just in front of the garage, like a big ship docking at a dark pier--she ran out of the house and pushed herself against the driver's-side door before Michael Milton could open it.

  The rain was turning to a semisoft slush at her feet, and the icy drops were hardening as they fell--they had some sting as they struck her bare neck, when she bent over to speak to him through the rolled-down window.

  He immediately kissed her. She tried to lightly peck his cheek but he turned her face and forced his tongue into her mouth. All over again she saw the corny bedroom of his apartment: the poster-sized print above his bed--Paul Klee's Sinbad the Sailor. She supposed this was how he saw himself: a colorful adventurer, but sensitive to the beauty of Europe.

  Helen pulled back from him and felt the cold rain soak her blouse.

  "We can't just stop," he said, miserably. Helen couldn't tell if it was the rain through the open window or tears that streaked his face. To her surprise, he had shaved his mustache off, and his upper lip looked slightly like the puckered, undeveloped lip of a child--like Walt's little lip, which looked lovely on Walt, Helen thought; but it wasn't her idea of the lip for a lover.

  "What did you do to your mustache?" she asked him.

  "I thought you didn't like it," he said. "I did it for you."

  "But I liked it," she said, and shivered in the freezing rain.

  "Please, get in with me," he said.

  She shook her head; her blouse clung to her cold skin and her long corduroy skirt felt as heavy as chain mail; her tall boots slipped in the stiffening slush.

  "I won't take you anywhere," he promised. "We'll just sit here, in the car. We can't just stop," he repeated.

  "We knew we'd have to," Helen said. "We knew it was just for a little while."

  Michael Milton let his head sink against the glinting ring of the horn; but there was no sound, the big Buick was shut off. The rain began to stick to the windows--the car was slowly being encased in ice.

  "Please get in," Michael Milton moaned. "I'm not leaving here," he added, sharply. "I'm not afraid of him. I don't have to do what he says."

  "It's what I say, too," Helen said. "You have to go."

  "I'm not going," Michael Milton said. "I know about your husband. I know everything about him."

  They had never talked about Garp; Helen had forbidden it. She didn't know what Michael Milton meant.

  "He's a minor writer," Michael said, boldly. Helen looked surprised; to her knowledge, Michael Milton had never read Garp. He'd told her once that he never read living writers; he claimed to value the perspective he said one could gain only when a writer had been dead for a while. It is fortunate that Garp didn't know this about him--it would certainly have added to Garp's contempt for the young man. It added somewhat to Helen's disappointment with poor Michael, now.

  "My husband is a very good writer," she said softly, and a shiver made her twitch so hard that her folded arms sprang open and she had to fold them closed at her breasts again.

  "He's not a major writer," Michael declared. "Higgins said so. You certainly must be aware of how your husband is regarded in the department."

  Higgins, Helen was aware, was a singularly eccentric and troublesome colleague, who managed at the same time to be dull and cloddish to the point of sleep. Helen hardly felt Higgins was representative of the department--except that like many of her more insecure colleagues, Higgins habitually gossiped to the graduate students about his fellow department members; in this desperate way, perhaps, Higgins felt he gained the students' trust.

  "I was not aware that Garp was regarded by the department, one way or another," Helen said coolly. "Most of them don't read anything very contemporary."

  "Those who do say he's minor," Michael Milton said.

  This competitive and pathetic stand did not warm Helen's heart to the boy and she turned to go back inside the house.

  "I won't go!" Michael Milton screamed. "I'll confront him about us! Right now. He can't tell us what to do."

  "I'm telling you, Michael," Helen said.

  He slumped against the horn and began to cry. She went over and touched his shoulder through the window.

  "I'll sit with you a minute," Helen told him. "But you must promise me that you'll leave. I won't have him or my children see this."

  He promised.

  "Give me the keys," Helen said. His look of baleful hurt--that she didn't trust him not to drive off with her--touched Helen all over again. She put the keys in the deep flap pocket of her long skirt and walked around to the passenger side and let herself in. He rolled up his window, and they sat, not touching, the windows fogging around them, the car creaking under a coat of ice.

  Then he completely broke down and told her that she had meant more to him than all of France--and she knew what France had meant to him, of course. She held him, then, and wildly feared how much time had passed, or was passing there in the frozen car. Even if it was not a long movie, they must still have a good half hour, or forty-five minutes; yet Michael Milton was nowhere near ready to leave. She kissed him, strongly, hoping this would help, but he only began to fondle her wet, cold breasts. She felt all over as frozen to him as she had felt outside in the hardening sleet. But she let him touch her.

  "Dear Michael," she said, thinking all the while.

  "How can we stop?" was all he said.

  But Helen had already stopped; she was only thinking about how to stop him. She shoved him up straight in the driver's position and stretched across the long seat, pulling her skirt back down to cover her knees, and putting her head in his lap.

  "Please remember," she said. "Please try. This was the nicest part for me--just letting you drive me in the car, when I knew where we were going. Can't you be happy--can't you just remember that, and let it go?"

  He sat rigid behind the steering wheel, both hands struggling to stay gripped to the wheel, both thighs tensed under her head, his erection pressing against her ear.

  "Please try to just let it go at that, Michael," she said softly. And they stayed this way a moment, imagining that the old Buick was carrying them to Michael's apartment again. But Michael Milton could not sustain himself on imagination. He let one hand stray to the back of Helen's neck, which he gripped very tightly; his other hand opened his fly.

  "Michael!" she said, sharply.

  "You said you always wanted to," he reminded her.

  "It's over, Michael."

  "Not yet, it isn't," he said. His penis grazed her forehead, bent her eyelashes, and she recognized that this was the old Michael--the Michael of the apartment, the Michael who occasionally liked to treat her with some force. She did not appreciate it now. But if I resist, she thought, there will be a scene. She had only to imagine Garp as a part of the scene to convince herself that she should avoid
any scene, at any cost.

  "Don't be a bastard, don't be a prick, Michael," she said. "Don't spoil it."

  "You always said you wanted to," he said. "But it wasn't safe, you said. Well, now it's safe. The car isn't even moving. There can't be any accidents now," he said.

  Oddly, she realized, he had suddenly made it easier for her. She did not feel concerned anymore with letting him down gently; she felt grateful to him that he had helped her to sort her priorities so forcefully. Her priorities, she felt enormously relieved to know, were Garp and her children. Walt shouldn't be out in this weather, she thought, shivering. And Garp was more major to her, she knew, than all her minor colleagues and graduate students together.

  Michael Milton had allowed her to see himself with what struck Helen as a necessary vulgarity. Suck him off, she thought bluntly, putting him into her mouth, and then he'll leave. She thought bitterly that men, once they had ejaculated, were rather quick to abandon their demands. And from her brief experience in Michael Milton's apartment, Helen knew that this would not take long.

  Time was also a factor in her decision; there was at least twenty minutes remaining in even the shortest movie they could have gone to see. She set her mind to it as she might have done if it were the last task remaining to a messy business, which might have ended better but could also have turned out worse; she felt slightly proud that she had at least proved to herself that her family was her first priority. Even Garp might appreciate this, she thought; but one day, not right away.

  She was so determined that she hardly noticed Michael Milton's grip loosen on her neck; he returned both hands to the steering wheel, as if he were actually piloting this experience. Let him think what he wants to think, she thought. She was thinking of her family, and she did not notice that the sleet was now nearly as hard as hail; it rattled off the big Buick like the tapping of countless hammers, driving little nails. And she did not sense the old car groaning and snapping under its thickening tomb of ice.

  And she did not hear the telephone, ringing in her warm house. There was too much weather, and other interference, between her house and where she lay.

  * * *

  --

  It was a stupid movie. Typical of the children's taste in films, Garp thought; typical of the taste in a university town. Typical of the entire country. Typical of the world! Garp raged, in his heart, and paid more attention to Walt's labored breathing--the thick rivulets of snot from his tiny nose.