Ordinary People by Judith Guest
The telephone rings, sharp and insistent, and his stomach knots. He lets it ring. Nine, ten, eleven times. It stops. His father, maybe. He sometimes calls on Wednesdays, to talk over the day, to have him pass a message to his mother. Surely it was him. Who else?
He looks down at his dinner, and quickly looks away. Out of control. Don’t doubt that there will be punishment. It was Stillman’s father, calling from the hospital. His nose is broken, his jaw is broken. And he sees them all again—Truan, Van Buren, Genthe—all watching; the parking lot a huge stage lit up and Mr. Knight telling his father they must expel him. He is dangerous, they cannot have these attacks occurring in the parking lot. No control, it is shameful, terrible—Oh God I didn’t mean to!
He picks up his dinner, goes to the sink with it, and flushes it down the disposer. He stares out the window into the chill February darkness. How many times did I hit him? And how will he be punished? He doesn’t want to think about it: he could punish himself first, but how? You are always. Fucking up. You never mean to. Never mean to doesn’t mean shit.
He picks up his coffee cup and drinks the scalding liquid. It bums his mouth as he swallows it. A hot blur of pain in his throat, in his chest. He stands rigidly at attention, absorbing it, knowing that it is not enough. Not enough. And it wasn’t Stillman, anyway it wasn’t even him but some other fucking bastard I didn’t even know who said it the world is full of fucking bastards so it’s all pointless you can’t fight everybody and what goddamn difference. would it make if you could?
He goes to the laundry room, retrieving his shirt from the dryer. The spots are gone. It is clean, warm, and he slips it on and goes to sit on the couch in the den. He leans his head back. His body feels churned up; brutalized. He needs to move around, but he will not allow this, either; he will allow himself no comforts tonight. Waiting is part of the punishment. So he waits.
23
The distance between people. In miles. In time. In thought. Staggering, when you think about it. Here he is, driving on the Edens, and he catches a glimpse, in the lane to his left, of a passing car. The driver is raising an angry finger at him, behind the double space of window glass separating them. And he is amazed. What has he done to deserve this gesture of contempt? Of course. Glancing at his speedometer, he understands. Thirty miles an hour. You don’t do this on the Edens, drive thirty in a fifty-mile zone, even at eleven-thirty at night: it can get you more than an obscenity, it can get you into an accident. No thanks. No more. The quota is all used up.
Well, he should catch up with the driver. Thank him for the reminder. Really, it was an act of kindness. Only the guy would not understand, would suspect him of playing some kind of game, of trying to get back at him.
Communication. The bridge between the distances. He passes a sign, high off the highway and to his left: Are you on the right road? In the shape of a cross, leaves and flowers entwined around it. That is not communication. That is alienation. Like the car he saw one day on 1-94. A huge sign on top of it: Repent! You can only wonder about the sign-carrier. Who the hell is he and what does he think he’s doing?
So, can there be no communication without contamination ? Without that peculiar message of This is me telling you? In the end that does more to separate people than unite them. People don’t like to be told things. There has to be a way of getting a message across, without setting yourself up as a holy man. But, shouldn’t the need to send the message be proof enough that you are not a holy man?
Doing it again, Jarrett, straighten up, no more circular thinking. Exhausted, disgusted with himself, he leaves the Edens to the faster drivers, turns off on Half Day Road. He looks at his watch. Nearly twelve. He will be home in five minutes and he can go to bed. Leave the rest of the world to the faster drivers—that’s what he ought to do tonight.
He pulls into the driveway, gets out of the car, and opens the garage door. Her car is there; Conrad’s is parked on the circle in front of the house. Good. Everybody safely home and waiting for him. He pulls in, closes the door, lets himself in through the kitchen. The oven light is on; an eerie glow in the dark room. He switches it off and makes his way toward the den, where another light is burning.
Conrad is asleep on the couch, sitting up, his head back, hands in his lap. The television set is off. Cal stands a minute, looking down at him, his mind blank, thinking nothing, thinking only that he is very tired, so tired that he must get to bed immediately, or he will be flat with exhaustion again tomorrow. If he can help Ray clean up the worst of the work, he will not feel so guilty about leaving.
He sets his briefcase down and takes off his coat. He touches Conrad’s shoulder, gently. “Hey.”
He snaps upright, his eyes open; blinking. He rubs a hand over his mouth. “Wait,” he says. “Wait a minute.”
Cal smiles. “Okay.”
But he is still not awake, staring vacantly ahead, confused and dazed. Waking up has always been a painful process for him, ever since he was a baby. A struggle. Sometimes he would spout gibberish, staring intently, the words formed from unknown syllables of a dark and primitive language. They would ask him questions: “What are you talking about? What do you want?” And he would answer, but not in any tongue they could understand. They would laugh and tease him about it the next day. He didn’t believe it; never remembered anything. “What did I say?” he would ask. They would try to make the sounds, but it was a dialect known only to him, only at the edge of consciousness.
He is conscious now, shading his eyes with his hand against the light. “Time’s it?”
“Twelve.”
“You just get home?”
“Yeah. What’re you doing down here?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Cal laughs. “I see that.”
“Time’s it?”
He turns away to hang up his coat. “I just told you. Twelve o’clock. Let’s go to bed, okay? I’m bushed.”
“Wait a minute,” he says. “I need to talk to you.”
A note of urgency in the voice. He turns back; drops his coat on the arm of the chair. Oh, shit. “What’s the matter?”
He is wiping his hand nervously again across his mouth. He does not look at Cal directly. “Something happened today. At school. I got in a fight.”
“A fight?” He sits down in the chair. “Who with?”
“Just a guy. You don’t know him. Kevin Stillman.”
“Sure I know him. Diver on the swim team, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. I forgot. You’d remember him, yeah.”
“What was the fight about?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. He’s just a jerk, but I didn’t —I shouldn’t have—I know that’s no excuse ...”
“What happened?” Cal asks. “Did you get hurt?”
He looks up, then. “Me? No.” He takes a breath and lets it out nervously. “I think I hurt him, though.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I don’t know, there was a lot of blood. His nose—”
“Was he on his feet?”
“Yeah. I mean, not at first, but he was when I left. Lazenby took him home, I think.”
“Joe was there?”
“Everybody was there,” he says. “Everybody from the swim team. I stayed to watch the meet. Then I hung around for a while. They were all coming out of the locker room. That’s when it happened.”
“And it wasn’t about anything?”
He shrugs. “I guess it was about how he bugs the shit out of me, and I bug the shit out of him.”
“Well, now you know it,” Cal says. “Maybe you won’t have to fight about it any more, huh?” He rubs the back of his neck with his hands. “I called you around seven. You weren’t here. I wondered where you were.”
“I was here.”
“Why didn’t you answer?”
“I don’t know.” He looks at the floor, his hands folded between his knees. Cal sees the start of a small mouse under his left eye. “I thought it might be somebody else.”
“Who?”
He won’t look up, won’t say what he is thinking.
“Relax,” Cal says. “He’s all right.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” he says. “It was just a fight. Guys have been getting in fights since school was invented. Think about it. Think about the last fight you were in.”
“I was never in one,” he says.
“What?”
“I wasn’t. This is it. The first one.”
“You’re kidding. I can’t believe that.”
He shakes his head.
Cal looks at him, thinking hard. “Listen, a bloody nose is nothing. I’m telling you, he’ll be there tomorrow. Nothing to worry about. Once, I broke my finger in a fight, knuckling a guy on the head. Doctor told me next time to use a baseball bat.” He laughs, remembering, and Conrad looks up at last, grins faintly.
“You’re not mad, then?”
“Mad? No,” he says.
“I shouldn’t have gone out of control like that,” he says. “I shouldn’t have blown up.”
“You never blow up,” Cal says; then corrects himself. “Hardly ever. I can count all the times you’ve blown up. You owed yourself. So, forget it.”
Not just to comfort, it is the truth. A disposition like an angel’s, Ellen used to say. Sunny and sweet, he never got mad. And that wasn’t good. Everybody has resentments, everybody has anger. He was one who kept everything inside. Cal has learned a thing or two from Crawford: razoring is anger; self-mutilation is anger. So this is a good sign; he is turning his anger outward at last. But something bothers him still. “You don’t want to tell me what it was about?”
Conrad shrugs. “I told him he was a crappy diver. The guy’s got no sense of humor.”
He undresses in the dark, listening to the silky rush of her breathing. Regular and smooth. She falls asleep in seconds. Another thing to be layered protectively over with logical reasons, so as not to come upon it in an unguarded moment: she did not stop in the den on her way to bed. Maybe she assumed the light had been left on for him. She must not have looked in his room, either; or she would have noticed that he was not in bed. He had asked on their way upstairs, “Did you hear your mother come in?” Conrad had said no.
Wouldn’t she think it strange, him sleeping on the couch at whatever time she had come in? Wouldn’t she have wakened him to ask—at least—What the hell is wrong with her?
24
“Okay, I guess we’re off. You’ve got. the number, haven’t you?”
He helps his father load the last of the suitcases into the trunk; slams the lid down. “Yeah. Have fun. Play good.”
“I’ll try.” His father reaches for his wallet. “Let me give you some money.”
“You already did. This morning, remember?”
“You sure that’ll be enough?”
“Plenty.”
His mother comes out of the house, carrying her coat. She is wearing a dark green dress, banded with white at the throat and wrists. Her hair falls loosely, hiding her face, but he knows the expression she is wearing: a look reserved for airports and other public places—remote; responding only to inner sounds today. They are a complete contrast in attitudes: his father jokes with ticket agents, starts conversations with other passengers. On the plane he will talk to the stewardesses, ask them where they are from, how they like their work. His mother will remain cool and aloof, as if she is alone on the plane. It is not her fault. She can’t help it if she is afraid of strangers.
“Good-by, Mother,” he says.
“Good-by,” she answers. “Be nice to your grandmother.”
She gets in the car, shutting the door. Sun glints off the side window, obscuring her from his view. That’s it. She is afraid of strangers. Why hasn’t it ever registered before?
“The flight gets in Wednesday at four. You wait here, okay? We’ll go out for dinner.”
“Okay.”
His father smiles at him. “Listen, don’t let her push you around too much. Five days, you can stand it for that long, can’t you?”
“Right.”
He looks at his watch. “You heading over there pretty soon?
“As soon as you get out of the driveway.”
His father gives him a helpless grin. He can’t resist organizing. Likes things nice and neat. “You got plans for this weekend?” he asks.
“I thought I’d cruise through town, run a few red lights, smoke some hash, get a couple girls in trouble, nothing special, why?” He smiles. “Quit worrying. You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m not worrying. Just take care, okay?”
“I will. See you Wednesday.”
He waves them out of the driveway, then goes upstairs to his bedroom to get his own suitcase, thinking with longing of the comfortable silence of the empty house, of playing the stereo in his room and eating salami sandwiches, drinking beer, coming and going as he pleases but this wouldn’t work. His father wouldn’t go under those conditions and he had told him no, he wouldn’t mind staying with his grandmother and grandfather, in that house on Green Bay Road that reeks with the too-sweet smell of her perfume, so that even the walls seem coated with it. It will cling to his clothing when he leaves. He loves his grandmother, but talking to her is like being on a loaded quiz show; her questions defy answering. “Have you completely lost your senses?” is one of her favorites. She uses it on his grandfather like a weapon; a whip to keep him in line. With him, the words are gentler, but the technique is the same. Maybe that is where his mother learned that there is danger in revealing too much; in giving his grandmother ammunition.
Seated across from him at dinner, she eyes him sternly. “You’re letting your hair grow, aren’t you?”
“I don’t let it, Grandmother, it just does it. All on its own.”
“Well, I hope you’re not turning into one of those hippie freaks. Howard, he needs some more meat.”
“No, thanks. I’ve had plenty. No more.” Hippie freaks. She is ten years behind the times. On everything. In fourth grade she wondered why they didn’t wear short pants to school; in junior high, why they had abandoned rubber boots and raincoats.
“Where’s your appetite?” she demands. “How can you put on weight, eating like that? At least have more potatoes and gravy.”
He allows her to refill his plate, even though he is full, doesn’t really mind her bossing him around. Last year, when the hole was closing over his head, there were no lectures, no words of criticism from anyone. He reads this as a statement of his good health. Today he is capable of improvement.
“How were your grades last semester?” she asks. He answers with his mouth full, a feeble attempt to assert himself. “Not bad. Two C’s, a B, and an A.”
She clicks her tongue against her teeth, shaking her head.
His grandfather says, “Ellie, please. Let him eat.”
“I’m wondering,” she says, “what ever happened to all those A’s? I remember you getting all A’s and at the same time you were playing golf, swimming, taking guitar lessons, tennis lessons—”
“Sounds like I was overprogramed.”
She sniffs. “Overprogramed. What’s that? Keeping busy is not being overprogramed, Conrad. What are you doing with all your time?”
“Nothing much,” he says.
“Ellie, for pete’s sake—” his grandfather says. Too late. She is already launched into the lecture of the Easy Life and he half-listens, as he pushes the peas and carrots around his plate.
“... and you have absolutely no worries whatsoever about food, or clothing, or shelter. You are so protected, you can’t even imagine what it was like in the old days, I mean, you should just thank your lucky stars every night—”
“My what?” he asks. “My lucky what?”
She stares him down. “You heard me. I don’t believe you properly appreciate your advantages, Conrad. Being born into a good family. Having a head on your shoulders—”
“Is it fair to
Her lips fold in. “All right. Make fun. It’s the thing you do best anyway.”
He grins, coaxing a smile from her at last. “Thanks. It’s nice to be good at something.”
That night he picks Jeannine up at work. The sign in the bakery shop window says CLOSED, but the woman behind the register smiles and motions him to come inside. He remembers what Jeannine told him the first time he came to pick her up: that the woman warned the rest of the girls to keep an eye on him while she got to a telephone. She thought he was planning to stick up the place. “He has a furtive look,” she had said.
He liked that image of himself as the bakery rip-off man: the girls cowering behind the counter, in front of the neat, brown loaves of bread, the sticky-sweet cinnamon buns. Everything waiting for his greedy hands. “Okay, girlie, get those danish twists off the counter and into the bag, no funny business!”
Jeannine waves from the back room. “Be right out.”
“How about a cookie?” the woman asks.
“Sure. Thanks.”
He takes it, even though he is not hungry; he is stuffed, from dinner. Still, it is rude to refuse. Like refusing her friendship, her trust.
“Want the rest of this?” he asks in the car.
“Ugh. No. I don’t think I’ll eat another cookie as long as I live. Your parents get off all right?”
“Yeah, they left.”
“How is it going?”
“Oh, fine. I got real tough with the old lady right away.”
“I’ll bet.” She slides over closer to him, squeezing his arm.
“What’ll we do? Good movie in Lake Bluff. Starts at nine-fifty.”
“I should go home first. Just to let her know.”
They ride the rest of the way to her house in silence, her hand on his arm, the soft purr of the heater backing up the music on the radio. As they round the corner, she suddenly sits up very straight in the seat. “Damn,” she says. “Oh, damn.”
A black Buick is parked in the driveway.