He heard himself say: “Do you remember when we took Charlie to nursery school the first time?”
“Yes. He cried and you wanted to take him back with us. You didn’t want to let him go, Bart. ”
“And you did.”
She was saying something disclaiming in a slightly wounded tone, but he was remembering the scene. The lady who kept the nursery school was Mrs. Ricker. She had 292
a certificate from the state, and she gave all the children a nice hot lunch before sending them home at one o’clock. School was kept downstairs in a madeover basement and as they led Charlie down between them, he felt like a traitor; like a farmer petting a cow and saying Soo, Bess on the way to the slaughterhouse. He had been a beautiful boy, his Charlie. Blond hair that had darkened later, blue, watchful eyes, hands that had been clever even as a toddler. And he had stood between them at the bottom of the stairs, stock-still, watching the other children who were whooping and running and coloring and cutting colored paper with bluntnosed scissors, so many of them, and Charlie had never looked so vulnerable as he did in that instant, just watching the other children. There was no joy or fear in his eyes, only the watchfulness, a kind of outsiderness, and he had never felt so much his son’s father as then, never so close to the actual run of his thoughts. And Mrs. Ricker came over, smiling like a barracuda and she said: We’ll have such fun, Chuck, making him want to cry out: That’s not his name! And when she put out her hand Charlie did not take it but only watched it so she stole his hand and began to pull him a little toward the others, and he went willingly two steps and then stopped, looked back at them, and Mrs. Young said very quietly: Go right along, he’ll be fine. And Mary finally had to poke him and say Come ON, Bart because he was frozen looking at his son, his son’s eyes saying, Are you going to let them do this to me, George? and his own eyes saying back, Yes, I guess 1 am, Freddy and he and Mary started up the stairs, showing Charlie their backs, the most dreadful thing a little child can see, and Charlie began to wail. But Mary’s footsteps never faltered because a woman’s love is strange and cruel and nearly always clear-sighted, love that sees is always horrible love, and she knew walking away was right and so she walked, dismissing the cries as only another part of the boy’s development, like smiles from gas or scraped knees. And he had felt a pain in his chest so sharp, so physical, that he had wondered if he was having a heart attack, and then the pain had just passed, leaving him shaken and unable to interpret it, but now he thought that the pain had been plain old prosaic good-bye. Parents’ backs aren’t the most dreadful thing.
The most dreadful thing of all is the speed with which children dismiss those same backs and turn to their own affairs-to the game, the puzzle, the new friend, and eventually to death. Those were the awful things he had come to know now. Charlie had begun dying long before he got sick, and there was no putting a stop to it.
“Bart?” she was saying. “Are you still there, Bart?”
“I’m here.”
“What good are you doing yourself thinking about Charlie all the time? It’s eating you up. You’re his prisoner.”
“But you’re free,” he said. “Yes.”
“Shall I see the lawyer next week?”
“Okay. Fine.”
“It doesn’t have to be nasty, does it, Bart?”
“No. It will be very civilized.”
“You won’t change your mind and contest it?”
“No.”
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“I’ll . . . I’ll be talking to you, then.”
“You knew it was time to leave him and so you did. I wish to God I could be that instinctive.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Good-bye, Mary. I love you.” He realized he had said it after he hung up.
He had said it automatically, with no feeling-verbal punctuation. But it wasn’t such a bad ending. Not at all.
January 18, 1974
The secretary’s voice said: “Who shall I say is calling?”
“Bart Dawes.”
“Will you hold for a moment?”
“Sure.”
She put him in limbo and he held the blank receiver to his ear, tapping his foot and looking out the window at the ghost town of Crestallen Street West. It was a bright day but very cold, temperature about 10 above with a chill factor making it 10 below. The wind blew skirls of snow across the street to where the Hobarts’ house stood broodingly silent, just a shell waiting for the wrecking ball. They had even taken their shutters.
There was a click and Steve Ordner’s voice said: “Bart, how are you?”
“Fine. ”
“What can I do for you?”
“I called about the laundry,” he said. “I wondered what the corporation had decided to do about relocation.”
Ordner sighed and then said with good-humored reserve: “A little late for that, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t call to be beaten with it, Steve. ”
“Why not? You’ve surely beaten everyone else with it. Well, never mind. The board has decided to get out of the industrial laundry business, Bart. The Laundromats will stay; they’re all doing well. We’re going to change the chain name, though. To Handi-Wash.
How does that sound?”
“Terrible,” he said remotely. “Why don’t you sack Vinnie Mason?”
“Vinnie?” Ordner sounded surprised. “Vinnie’s doing a great job for us. Turning into quite the mogul. I must say I didn’t expect such bitterness-‘
“Come on, Steve. That job’s got no more future than a tenement airshaft. Give him something worthwhile or let him out. ”
“I handy think that’s your business, Bart. ”
“You’ve got a dead chicken tied around his neck and he doesn’t know it yet because it 294
hasn’t started to rot. He still thinks it’s dinner.”
“I understand he punched you up a little before Christmas. ”
“I told him the truth and he didn’t like it. ”
“Truth’s a slippery word, Bart. I would think you’d understand that better than anyone, after all the lies you told me.
“That still bugs you, doesn’t it?”
“When you discover that a man you thought was a good man is full of shit, it does tend to bug one, yes.”
“Bug one,” he repeated. “Do you know something, Steve? You’re the only person I’ve ever known in my life that would say that. Bug one. It sounds like something that comes in a fucking aerosol can.”
“Was there anything else, Bart?”
“No, not really. I wish you’d stop beating Vinnie, that’s all. He’s a good man. You’re wasting him. And you know goddam well you’re wasting him.”
“I repeat: why would I want to ‘beat’ Vinnie?”
“Because you can’t get to me.”
“You’re getting paranoid, Bart. I’ve got no desire to do anything to you but forget you.”
“Is that why you were checking to see if I ever had personal laundry done free? Or took kickbacks from the motels? I understand you even took the petty cash vouchers for the last five years or so.”
“Who told you that?” Ordner barked. He sounded startled, off balance.
“Somebody in your organization,” he lied joyfully. “Someone who doesn’t like you much. Someone who thought I might be able to get the ball rolling a little in time for the next director’s meeting.”
“Who?”
“Good-bye, Steve. You think about Vinnie Mason, and I’ll think about who I might or might not talk to.”
“Don’t you hang up on me! Don’t you-”
He hung up, grinning. Even Steve Ordner had the proverbial feet of clay. Who was it Steve reminded him of? Ball bearings. Strawberry ice cream stolen from the food locker.
Herman Wouk. Captain Queeg, that was it. Humphrey Bogart had played him in the movie. He laughed aloud and sang:
“We all need someone to Queeg on,
And if you want to, why don’tcha Queeg all over me?”
I’m crazy all right, he thought, still laughing. But it does seem there are certain advantages. It came to him that one of the surest signs of insanity was a man all alone, 295
laughing in the middle of silence, on an empty street filled with empty houses. But the thought could not still his humor and he laughed louder, standing by the telephone and shaking his head and grinning.
January 19, 1974
After dark he went out to the garage and brought in the guns. He loaded the Magnum carefully, according to the directions in the instruction pamphlet, after dryfiring it several times. The Rolling Stones were on the stereo, singing about the Midnight Rambler. He couldn’t get over what a fine album that was. He thought about himself as Barton George Dawes, Midnight Rambler, Visits by Appointment Only.