A Fan's Notes (35 page)

“
I know,
”
I said.

Then he forced two wadded, filthy, and oily dollar bills into my hand and began anticipating for me all sorts of objections his sister, and especially his brother-in-law, might have to taking him in. I did not want to take the money. But I did. I thought it would give him, at least momentarily, some surcease from the hopelessness of his situation, thinking, as he would, that having been given the money I couldn
’
t
“
forget
”
to make the call. Requiring such glib verbosity, such pleading cries to often all-but-deaf ears, I didn
’
t in the least want to make it. But I had no choice whatever. Having once been in Avalon Valley, one never leaves the place and finds oneself, consciously or otherwise, forever obligated to those wretched men weeping their fierce tears in the night. I took the train to New York, fingering the oily bills in my pocket all the way. Getting two dollars
’
worth of quarters, I put the call through from Grand Central.

It was at the far end of the rush hour, about seven in the
evening, but the closed booth was compact and soundless and
I heard the ringing as clearly as though I were calling next door. The sister answered. She had a good, pleasant, and either sultry or timid voice; and I conjured an image of an attractive, perhaps sensual woman quite at home in a starched apron in a cheerful kitchen. In the background I heard a dog bark, a little girl shriek (
“
Dumbhead
’
s after the cat!
”
), the canned laughter of the inevitable television set, and once— distinctly and from some remote corner of the house—the cascading rush and gurgle of a toilet flushing. Coming down on the train, I had planned my pitch pretty well. Rather than risk her thinking me just another loony, I explained to her that my name was Earl Fredericks, that I was an attorney at law, that I had recently been visiting a client at Avalon Valley, and that there I had met her brother who had asked me to telephone her. Couching my language in what I deemed impressive-sounding legal jargon (gleaned from Avalon Valley
’
s
“
clubhouse lawyers
”
), I explained to her the problems connected with her brother
’
s ever getting out without her assistance, throwing in a lot of lunatic phrases like
“
the state takes the position that
”
and
“
the courts hold that your responsibility is negligible,
”
summing up by explaining that all that was really necessary was that she affix her signature to the most innocent of papers and feed her brother and give him carfare to look for work.

As I talked, I was very proud of myself. She had not once interrupted for explanations. All she had done was come in with those peremptory yeses, uh-huh
’
s, and / see
’
s, indicating that she understood and sympathized with me completely. Incredible as it seems to me now, I got the distinct impression that on finishing my heavy monologue she was going to say, ever so gaily, that she
’
d be pleased to help in whatever way she could.

She fooled me. What I had not been able to isolate in her voice was not sultriness but timidity, a family trait, I had no doubt.

Silent for a long time when I finished, she then excused herself and began calling upstairs to her husband, asking him to pick up the extension. Having anticipated this, I wasn
’
t unduly worried until the husband, instead of picking up the phone immediately, began calling back downstairs and asking what it was about. Twice she called back her brother
’
s name, but she did so with such unsettling timorousness that I could scarcely hear her myself and thought,
“
Uh-oh, the poor bastard
’
s name must be forbidden in Rochester.
”

George (for that was the husband
’
s name) obviously heard her though.
“
Who?
”
he suddenly shouted into the phone; and when she sheepishly repeated the name into her downstairs extension, he said,
“
Oh, Christ!
”
—spoken not in a groan that gave me hope, a here-we-go-again thing, but with such absolute loathing that I all but dropped the receiver.

Up to this point, as I say, I had been pleased with the sane and reasonable timbre of my voice; but now, having to begin my tale all anew for George, and a George whose hostility was heated, I began, alarmingly, to disintegrate. My voice grew more quavering, clammy perspiration began running freely down my sides, my hands grew so slippery that it proved a monumental effort to hold the receiver, and I had to keep shifting it from one hand to the other, intermittently drying my free hand on my trousers. The inflexibility of George
’
s eardrums seemed palpable. Like his wife he kept saying yeah, though unlike her he spoke not with any comprehension but with the staccato .and impatient yeah-yeah-yeah
’
s of a man not hearing a word being said. Worse than all this, the television had with each moment seemed to grow louder, mocking. And I began to think that George had purposely turned the volume up, that he used it, this squawking idiot box, to keep himself utterly removed from the pain of life.

“
He
’
s a no-good bastard!
”
George suddenly shouted.

“
Pardon?
”
I said. The blood rushed to my face, and I felt as humiliated as if I were confronting the man in his own living room.

“
He
’
s a no-good bastard!
”
George cried from what passed with him for a heart. He seemed in a perfect paroxysm of rage.
“
Never sends the kids so much as a card at Christmas!
”

Frankly, I was by then so totally unmanned by George
’
s inordinate anger that I could scarcely find my voice and kept clearing my throat. When finally I could speak, I said,
“
Well, he
’
s been sick, you know? He told me to send his sister and the kids his love. That
’
s what he said,
‘
Give them my love.
’
“

After that I just rambled on, losing all coherence, attempting to appeal to their sense of family, their decency, their humanity. The sister was still on the downstairs extension, and it was she I was trying to reach. Very painful to me as I talked was the memory of that timid, balding, popeyed little man. He was one of those who had made his grim confession at the AA meetings; and I was remembering that above all the others he had moved me with the groping, sheepish, and awful sincerity of his tale—so much so, in fact, that frequently my eyes had sought the floor in refuge from his pain. Above all, I recalled that his tale had been full of the airy and alcoholic dreams of gestures he had wanted to make on the side of life, not the least of which had included great, extravagantly wrapped gifts for these very nephews and nieces.

“
Look,
”
I said,
“
he
’
s probably in his heart given more to your kids than you
’
ll ever know.
”

“
Couldn
’
t have him in the house,
”
George said. He seemed to be talking around a cigar; there was not a shred of equivocality in his voice.

“
/ know, I know,
”
I said, remembering that the man had anticipated this objection for me.
“
He said something about a room over the garage!
”
Then I volunteered, as though it were my idea:
“
He could stay there!
”
I was helping out, ar ranging, solving problems, showing everyone how limpid things were, simple as mud.
“
He could stay there!
”

“
No dice,
”
George said.
“
Couldn
’
t have him around the kids—and that
’
s all there is to it.
”

The television was still blaring on, louder. The program was one given over to frolicsome domesticity and starring Lucille Ball. In the hospital I had often watched the show in the company of Snow White and had laughed myself silly, not at Miss Ball but at Snow White
’
s running and one-sided conversation with her, most of which had to do with Snow White
’
s suggestions on how Miss Ball might please him sexually. In the show, Lucy had done wonderfully witty things like look cross-eyed in mockery of the world
’
s ugly. Invariably she had had a scene where, by blacking out her teeth, she had smiled to expose a wide expanse of gums. More often than not she was feigning madness, palsy, or idiocy; and she must have had America rocking in the easy comfort that it was neither so zany, so lunatic, nor so ugly as she. But it did not seem so hilarious to us at Avalon Valley; and only Snow White
’
s unrelenting and wildly droll derision of her had made it bearable. Snow White explained it to me once. Unlike Chap lin, he said, who was always with his tramp, or Breughel with his peasant, Miss Ball
’
s farce was conducted on an incredibly cheap level and one never doubted that she was no more with us than was the rest of the world out there.

Thinking of that explanation, I suddenly bellowed into the receiver:
“
For Christ
’
s sake! What
’
s he gonna do to the fucking kids that the television isn
’
t already doing? Corrupting them! Putting their brains to sleep! Ruining them, brother, ruining them!
”

I had to laugh at what George said next. His voice reflected hurt.
“
What kind of a way is that for a lawyer to talk?
”

“
Look, I
’
m sorry,
”
I said, and just as suddenly I was sorry.
“
Really sorry. Look,
”
I pleaded,
“
give the guy a goddam chance. If it doesn
’
t work out, all yuh gotta do is call the authorities and, bam, he
’
s back in the goon garage!
”

I decided now to play my ace card.
“
How do you feel about it, Mrs. X?
”
I said.
“
He
’
s your brother.
”

That was my fatal mistake. For George was aware of what he unquestionably deemed his wife
’
s weakness concerning her brother.

“
Never mind how she feels about it,
”
he said.
“
This is my goddam house, he
’
s not getting in here, and that
’
s all there is to it!
”

The extent of his own anger must have embarrassed him. Suddenly he added, considerably more quietly, and obviously trying to get me to hang up,
“
This call is costing you money, isn
’
t it, counselor?
”
He then imitated something like a deferential chuckle, as though telling me that he could appreciate my generosity in making the call but that no useful purpose was being served by continuing it.

The reference to money was the final indignity. For a moment I thought I might disintegrate with humiliation and loathing. I was by then doubled up into a hot, fetus-like ball, with my eyelids down, scorching my eyeballs, the sweaty receiver gripped fiercely between my shoulder and cheek, and my head slumped over and lying heavily against the plastic-covered advertisement on the front interior of the booth. Time was running out and I was trying to think of some monstrously brilliant stroke that might salvage the situation. Then it occurred to me that the sister was weeping, quite terribly; and those tears, dribbling no doubt into her chalk-white Princess telephone, told me as nothing else could that any further appeals were futile and that she had not the tenacity of character to stand up to George and demand that she be per mitted to help her brother. I had, I thought, some vague notion of what she was experiencing. A family—her family— was breaking up before her eyes, and she was beginning to undergo that terrifying isolation that has become so common to the American. The weeping had gone to sobs, and the sobbing was quite horrible. Certainly she sensed that if she did not help her brother now he would be forever dead to her, and she was, in some dim, excruciatingly painful way, beginning to suffer the vast loneliness of those who do not at any price keep the family together. Because I had botched it so badly by losing my
“
legal detachment
”
and getting involved, I felt like bawling, too. I thought I had best hang up before I did so. But I had to leave George with something. It was the voice of the inside calling to those on the outside.