To Sail Beyond the Sunset (46 page)

I got to the house about two, then supervised where things went while carrying a sandwich in my hand. It was after five by the time the van left and still later before the house was arranged—if you can call it arranged when the back yard was strewn with cardboard cartons and clothes were dumped on beds and books were simply shoved into any bookcase to get them off the floor. Was it Poor Richard who said that “Two removes equal one fire?” Yet this was an easy move.

By eight I got some supper into them. We all were quiet. Priscilla was still sullen.

After supper I had us all move into the family room for coffee—and a toast. I poured thimble glasses of Kahlua…because you can’t get drunk on Kahlua; you’ll get sick first. I held up a glass. “Here’s to our new home, dears.”

I took a sip; so did Donald. Priscilla did not touch hers. “I don’t drink,” she said flatly.

“This is not a drink, dear; it is a ceremony. For a toast, if one does not wish to drink it, it is sufficient to lift the glass, say, ‘Hear, hear!’ and touch the glass to your lips, put it down and smile. Remember that. It will serve you well at other times.”

“Mother, it is time we had a serious talk.”

“All right. Please do.”

“Donald and I are not going to be able to live here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sorry, too. But it’s the truth.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Don’t you want to know why we are leaving? And where we are going?”

“You will tell me if you wish to tell me.”

“It’s because we can’t stand being treated like prisoners in a jail!”

I made no answer. The silence stretched out, until finally my daughter said, “Don’t you want to know how you’ve been mistreating us?”

“If you wish to tell me.”

“Uh… Donnie, you tell her!”

“No,” I objected, “I’ll hear from Donald any complaint he has about how I have treated him. But not about how I have treated you. You are right here, and I am your mother and the head of this house. If you have complaints, make them to me. Don’t try to fob it off on your brother.”

“That’s it! Orders! Orders! Orders! Nothing but orders, all the time…like we were criminals in a prison!”

I recited to myself a mantra I learned in World War II:
Nil illegitimi carborundum
. I said it three times, under my breath. “Priscilla, if that is what you mean by orders, nothing but orders, I can assure you that I won’t change it. Any complaints you have I will listen to. But I won’t listen to them secondhand.”

“Oh, Mother, you’re impossible!”

“Here is another order, young lady. Keep a civil tongue in your head. Donald, do you have any complaints about my treatment of you? You. Not your sister.”

“Uh…no, Mama.”

“Donnie!”

“Priscilla, do you have any specific complaints? Anything but a general objection to taking orders?”

“Mother, you—There is no point in trying to reason with you!”

“You haven’t tried reason as yet. I’m going to bed. If you leave before I get up, please leave your latchkeys on the kitchen table. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Mama,” Donald answered.

Priscilla said nothing.

Priscilla did not come down for breakfast. “She said to tell you she doesn’t want any breakfast, Mama.”

“Very well. Fried eggs and little sausages this morning. How do you want your eggs, Donald? Broken yolks and vulcanized? Or just chased through the kitchen?”

“Uh, however you have yours, I guess. Mama, Priss doesn’t really mean she doesn’t want breakfast. Shall I go up and tell her that you said she has to come to breakfast?”

“No. I usually have my eggs up and easy but not sloppy. Suits?”

“Huh? Oh, sure! Please, Mama, can’t I at least go up and tell her that you said breakfast is ready and she should come eat?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have not said that and I do not say it. The first child to try a hunger strike on me was your brother Woodrow. He lasted several hours but he cheated—he had stashed vanilla wafers under his pillow. When he finally gave up and came downstairs, I did not permit him to eat until dinnertime, which was several hours away. He did not try it again.” (But he tried everything else, with lots of imagination!) “I don’t coddle hunger strikers, Donald, or tantrums of any sort…and I think no government should. Coddle hunger strikers, I mean, or people who chain themselves to fences or lie down in front of vehicles. Grown-up tantrums. Donald, you’ve objected to my orders twice this morning. Or is it three times? Are you catching this from Priscilla? Don’t you have it through your head yet that I do not give unnecessary orders, but those I do give, I expect to have carried out? Promptly and as given. If I tell you to go jump in the lake, I expect you to return wringing wet.”

He grinned at me. “Where is the nearest lake?”

“What? Swope Park, I guess. Unless we count a water hazard at the golf club. Or a landscaping pond at Forest Hills. But I don’t recommend disturbing either corpses or golfers.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Oh, certainly, some at least. Donald, I don’t mind that Priscilla chooses to skip breakfast this morning, as I need to talk with you without having her hanging over you and putting words in your mouth. When do you two plan to leave? And where do you plan to go, if you don’t mind telling me?”

“Shucks, Mama, that was never serious. How can we leave? No money, and no place to go. Except back to Aunt Marian and we won’t do that. We’ll never go near her again.”

“Donald, just what is it you find so poisonous about Aunt Marian? Six years ago you both elected to stay with her when you could have come with me. What happened? Did she punish you endlessly? Or what?”

“Oh, no! She hardly ever punishes anybody. Sometimes she would have Pop work us over. Like this last hooraw with Gus.”

“What happened there? Gus is a year older than you are and bigger…or was the last time I saw him. You said, ‘He had her down and was giving her a bad time.’ How bad a time? Was he raping her? Or trying to?”

“Uh… Mama, I’m in a prejudiced position. Jealous, I guess.”

“So I would guess, too. Was it really rape? Or—What is it you young people call it today? They were ‘getting it on’?”

He sighed and looked hurt. “Yeah, they were. I—I got sore.”

I patted his hand. “Poor Donald! Dear, are you beginning to realize that you aren’t doing yourself any good by falling in love with your sister? Or doing her any good? You are probably harming her even more than you are harming yourself. Do you see that, dear?”

“But, Mama, I couldn’t leave her there. Uh, I’m sorry we didn’t come with you six years ago. But you were so strict and Aunt Marian wasn’t, and—Oh, I’m sorry!”

“How was Marian about housework? I am about to assign each of you your share of the work. But Priscilla seems to be clumsy in the kitchen. Yesterday she filled the freezer, dumping stuff in any which way, then didn’t turn it on. I just happened to catch it or we could have lost the whole load. Did she take her turn at cooking along with Mildred and Sara and whoever is the right age now?”

“I don’t think so. No, I know she didn’t. Granny Bearpaw does all the cooking…and doesn’t like having anyone else in her kitchen.”

“Who is Granny Bearpaw?”

“Aunt Marian’s cook. Black as coal and a hook nose. Half Negra, half Cherokee. And a swell cook! Always willing to fix you a bite. But you had better ask for it from the door. If you step inside, she’s likely to wave a frying pan at you.”

“She sounds like quite a gal. And it sounds like I’m going to have to teach Priscilla to cook.”

Donald made no comment. I went on, “In the meantime we must get transcripts and get you two into the city school system. Donald, what would you think of going to Westport High instead of Southwest? Say yes and we might find you a jalopy, four wheels of some sort, so that it would not be too difficult. I really don’t want you in the same school Priscilla is in. She hasn’t any judgment, dear; I’m afraid she would get into fights with other girls over you.”

“Yeah, she might. But, Mama, I don’t need to go to Westport.”

“I think you do. For the reason I named.”

“I don’t need to go to high school. I graduated in June.”

I had lived with children all my life; they had never ceased to surprise me.

“Donald, how did I miss this? I had you tagged for next year, and I don’t recall receiving an announcement.”

“I didn’t send out any…and, yeah, I was classed as a junior this past year. But I’ve got the required hours and then some, because I took summer session last year to make sure I got all the math they offered. Mama, I figured on being ready to go either way…didn’t decide to graduate until May, when it was too late for the yearbook and all that jazz. Mr. Hardecker—he’s the principal—wasn’t pleased. But he did check my record and agreed that I had the option of graduating at the end of my junior year if I wanted to. But he suggested that he just arrange to issue my diploma quietly and I should not attend graduation or try to convince the Class of ’52 that I was in their class since I wasn’t in their yearbook and didn’t wear their class ring and all the rest. I agreed. Then he helped me apply for the schools I was interested in. The really good technical schools, I mean, like MIT and Case and Cal Tech and Rensselaer. I want to build rocketships.”

“You sound like your brother Woodrow.”

“Not quite. He flies ’em; I want to design them.”

“Have you heard from any of your applications?”

“Two. Case and Cal Tech. Turned me down.”

“There may be good news waiting for you in Dallas. I’ll check with your father—I must call him today anyhow; I have yet to tell him that you two wanderers showed up here. Donald, if you are turned down this year for the schools you have applied to, don’t lose hope.”

“I won’t. I’ll apply next year.”

“Not quite what I meant. You should go to school this year. Dear, it is not necessary to go to one of the world’s top technical schools for your lower-division courses. Any liberal arts college with high scholastic standards is okay for lower division. Such as Claremont. Or any of the so-called Little Ivy League. Or Grinnell College. Lots of others.”

“But this is August, Mama. It’s too late to apply anywhere.”

“Not quite.” I thought hard. “Donald, I want you to let me promote you to eighteen; we’ll start by getting you a Missouri driver’s license that shows that age for you, then we’ll get you a delayed birth certificate when you need one. Not soon, unless you need a passport. Then you’ll go to… Grinnell, I think”—one of the committee for my doctorate was now dean of admissions there and I had known him rather well—“for one or two years. Make up your mind just which engineering school you want and we’ll work on getting you into it next year or the year after…while you work hard for top grades. And—”

“Mama, what am I going to use for money?”

“My dear son, I am ready to go to almost any expense to get you separated from your sister before you two get into real trouble. I won’t pay for an abortion, but I will pay for your education over and above what you can earn yourself, working part time. Which you should do for self-discipline and for your own self-respect. At Grinnell a male student can often wash dishes in a sorority house.”

I went on, “Those cornfed coeds are luscious; I’ve seen them. But you may not notice them too much as I want to submit your name to the Howard Foundation, and ask for the Iowa list of the youngest age group.”

“But, Mama, I’m not anxious to get married and I can’t support a wife.”

“You don’t have to get married. But are you totally uninterested in meeting a select list of girls about your age, all of whom are healthy, all long-lived—as you are—all desirable girls by all the usual criteria…and all of them guaranteed not to scream if you make a polite, respectful, but unmistakable pass at her? And won’t get indignant—What kind of a girl do you think I am?—when it turns out you have a fishskin or c Ramses in your pocket.

“Son, you do not have to do anything whatever about your Howard list. But if you get horny or lonely or both, shopping your Howard list surely beats hanging around bars or attending prayer meetings, all the preliminary work has been done for you. Because the Howard Foundation does indeed want Howards to marry Howards, and spends millions of dollars to that end.”

“But, Mama, I can’t possibly get married until I’m out of school. That’s five years away, at least. I need an M.S. A Ph.D. wouldn’t hurt.”

“You talked to your sister Susan yesterday. Did you wonder how Susan and Henry were able to go to college, right straight from their wedding? Quit worrying, Donald. If you will just pick a college not too close to Kansas City, all your problems can be worked out. And your mother can quit worrying.”

Priscilla blew all her fuses when she learned that Donald was going to go to school somewhere else. We kept her from knowing about it until the last minute; the day she registered at Southwest High was the day he left for Grinnell. Donald packed while his sister was at school, then waited until she got home to break the news. Then he left at once, driving a Chevrolet so old that it could not be used on a control road; It had no bug.

She threw a fit. She insisted that she was going with him. She made silly noises about suicide. “You’re deserting me! I’ll kill myself, I will! Then you’ll be sorry you did this to me!”

Donald looked glum but he left. Priscilla went to bed. I ignored the fact. Threats of suicide are just another tantrum to me, blackmail to which I will not submit.

Besides, if a person wants to take his own life, it is (I think) his privilege. Also, if he is dead serious about it, no one can stop him.

(Yes, I am a cruel and heartless scoundrel. Stipulated. Now go play with your dolly somewhere else.)

Priscilla came downstairs about ten
P.M.
and said that she was hungry. I told her that dinner was long over but that she could fix herself a sandwich and a glass of milk—which she did, and then joined me in the family room…and started in on recriminations.

I cut her short. “Priscilla, you will not sit there and call me names while eating my food. Stop one or the other.”