“It taught me,” he said, “to value my existence and not to throw it away; it taught me to play it safe.”
Groaning, Bonny sat up; she rearranged her clothes, buttoned her blouse back up. What a contrast this man was to. Andrew Gill, who always made love to her right out in the open, in broad daylight, along the oak-lined roads of West Marin, where anyone and anything might go past. He had seized her each time as he had the first time—yanking her into it, not gabbling or quaking or mumbling … maybe I ought to go back to him, she thought.
Maybe, she thought, I ought to leave them all, Barnes and George and that nutty daughter of mine; I ought to go live with Gill openly, defy the community and be happy for a change.
“Well, if we’re not going to make love,” she said, “then let’s go down to the Foresters’ Hall and listen to the satellite.”
“Are you serious?” Barnes said.
“Of course.” She went to the closet to get her coat.
“Then all you want,” he said slowly, “is to make love; that’s all you care about in a relationship.”
“What do you care about? Talking?”
He looked at her in a melancholy way, but be did not answer.
“You fruit,” she said, shaking her head. “You poor fruit. Why did you come to West Marin in the first place? Just to teach little kids and stroll around picking mushrooms?” She was overcome with disgust.
“My experience today on the playground—“ Barnes began.
“You had no experience,” she interrupted. “It was just your goddam guilty conscience catching up with you. Let’s go; I want to hear Dangerfield. At least when he talks it’s fun to listen.” She put on her coat, walked quickly to the front door and opened it.
“Will Edie be all right?” Barnes asked as they started down the path.
“Sure,” she said, unable at the moment to care. Let her burn up, she said to herself. Gloomily, she plodded down the road, hands thrust deep in her coat pockets; Barnes trailed along behind her, trying to keep up with her strides.
Ahead of them two figures appeared, turning the corner and emerging into sight; she stopped, stricken, thinking one of them was George. And then she saw that the shorter, heavier man was Jack Tree and the other—she strained to see, still walking as if nothing were wrong. It was Doctor Stockstill.
“Come on,” she said over her shoulder, calmly, to Barnes. He came, then, hesitantly, wanting to turn back, to run. “Hi,” she called to Stockstill and Bluthgeld; or rather Jack Tree—she had to remember to keep calling him that. “What’s this, psychoanalysis out in the dark at night? Does that make it more effective? I’m not surprised to learn it.”
Gasping, Tree said in his hoarse, grating voice, “Bonny, I saw him again. It’s the Negro who understood about me that day when the war began, when I was going into Stockstill’s office, Remember, you sent me?”
Jokingly, Stockstill said, “They all look alike, as the saying goes. And anyhow—“
“No, it’s the same man,” Tree said. “He’s followed me here. Do you know what this means?” He looked from Bonny to Stockstill to Barnes, his eyes rubbery and enlarged, terror-stricken. “This means that it’s going to start again.”
“What’s going to start again?” Bonny said.
“The war,” Tree said to her. “Because that’s why it began last time; the Negro saw me and understood what I had done, he knew who I was and he still does. As soon as he sees me-“ He broke off, wheezing and coughing in his agony. “Pardon me,” he murmured.
To Stockstill, Bonny said, “There’s a Negro here; he’s right. I saw him. Evidently he came to talk to Gill about selling his cigarettes.”
“It couldn’t be the same person,” Stockstill said. He and she went off to one side slightly, talking now between themselves.
“Certainly it could,” Bonny said. “But that doesn’t matter because that’s one of his delusions. I’ve heard biin gabble about it countless times. Some Negro was sweeping the sidewalk and saw him go into your office, and that day the war began so he’s got them connected in his mind. And now he’ll probably completely deteriorate, don’t you think?” She felt resigned; she had been expecting this to happen, eventually. “And so the period,” she said, “of stable maladjustment is drawing to a close.” Perhaps, she thought, for us all. Just plain all of us. We could not have gone on like this forever, Bluthgeld with his sheep, me with George … she sighed. “What do you think?”
Stockstill said, “I wish I had some Stelazine, but Stelazine ceased to exist on E Day. That would help him. I can’t. I’ve given that up; you know that, Bonny.” He sounded resigned, too.
“He’ll tell everyone,” she said, watching Bluthgeld, who stood repeating to Barnes what he had just told her and Stockstill. “They’ll know who he is, and they will kill him, as he fears; he’s right.”
“I can’t stop him,” Stockstill said mildly.
“You don’t particularly care,” she said.
He shrugged.
Going back to Bluthgeld, Bonny said, “Listen, Jack, let’s all go to Gill’s and see this Negro and I’ll bet he didn’t notice you that day. Do you want to bet? I’ll bet you twenty-five silver cents.”
“Why do you say you caused the war?” Barnes was saying to Bluthgeld. He turned to Bonny with a puzzled expression. “What is this, a war psychosis? And he says the war’s coming back.” Once more to Bluthgeld he said, “It isn’t possible for it to happen again; I can give you fifty reasons. First of all, there’re no hydrogen weapons left. Second—“
Putting her hand on Barnes’ shoulder, Bonny said, “Be quiet.” She said to Bruno Bluthgeld, “Let’s go down, all of us, together, and listen to the satellite. Okay?”
Bluthgeld muttered, “What is the satellite?”
“Good lord,” Barnes said. “He doesn’t know what you’re talking about. He’s mentally ill.” To Stockstill he said, “Listen, Doctor, isn’t schizophrenia where a person loses track of their culture and its values? Well, this man has lost track; listen to him.”
“I hear him,” Stockstill said in a remote voice.
Bonny said to him, “Doctor, Jack Tree is very dear to me. He has been in the past very much like a father to me. For God’s sake, do something for him. I can’t stand to see him like this; I just can’t stand it.”
Spreading his hands helplessly, Stockstill said, “Bonny, you think like a child. You think anything can be obtained if you just want it badly enough. That’s magical thinking. I can’t help—Jack Tree.” He turned away and walked off a few steps, toward town. “Come on,” he said to them over his shoulder. “We’ll do as Mrs. Keller suggests; we’ll go sit in the Hall and listen for twenty minutes to the satellite and then we’ll all feel a good deal better.”
Once more Barnes was talking with great earnestness to Jack Tree. Let me point out where the error in your logic lies. You saw a particular man, a Negro, on Emergency Day. Okay. Now, seven years later—“
“Shut up,” Bonny said to him, digging her fingers into his arm. “For God’s sake—“ She walked on, then, catching up with Doctor Stockstill. “I can’t stand it,” she said. “I know this is the last of him; he won’t survive past this, seeing that Negro again.”
Tears filled her eyes; she felt tears dropping, escaping her. “Goddam,” she said bitterly, walking as fast as possible, ahead of the others, in the direction of town and the Foresters’ Hall. Not even to know about the satellite. To be that cut off, that deteriorated … I didn’t realize. How can I stand it? How can a thing like this be? And once he was brilliant. A man who talked over TV and wrote articles, taught and debated …
Behind her, Bluthgeld was mumbling, “I know it’s the same man, Stockstill, because when I ran into him on the street—I was buying feed at the feed store—he gave me that same queer look, as if he was about to jeer at me, but then he knew if he jeered I’d make it all happen again, and this time he was afraid. He saw it once before and he knows. Isn’t that a fact, Stockstill? He would know now. Am I correct?”
“I doubt if he knows you’re alive,” Stockstill said.
“But I’d have to be alive,” Bluthgeld answered. “Or the world—“ His voice became a blur and Bonny missed the rest; she heard only the sound of her own heels striking the weedy remains of pavement beneath her feet.
And the rest of us, we’re all just as insane, she said to herself. My kid with her imaginary brother, Hoppy moving pennies at a distance and doing imitations of Dangerfield, Andrew Gill rolling one cigarette after another by hand, year after year … only death can get us out of this and maybe not even death. Maybe it’s too late; we’ll carry this deterioration with us to the next life.