by Marge Piercy
VARIABLE DUPLICATED IN A COMMON REGION
“At least Leon cares for me. He wants me to have my baby. He isn’t trying to pack me off to some grisly abortion mill. My family would have to help us get a decent place and something better for him than that silly interviewing job—”
“You seem to have thought it through,” Vera said meekly. “But didn’t Leon quit that job? I’m sure Paul said so.”
“That’s impossible! Vera, think. What makes you say that?”
“It was weeks ago. We’ve been in such a state what happened over Christmas feels like six months gone. Paul wants to quit school and organize in the black community but he’s scared the draft will get him. Give him the privilege of dying in a colonial war on his fellow skins—I’m quoting. He’s changed, Caroline. He’s silly, of course, full of Our African Heritage and quoting Malcolm but … you should have heard him standing up to his father.”
INPUT INTERRUPTED
She was afraid Vera would go on about Paul. “But what about Leon? What did he tell you?”
“Paul called there the day we left for home, and he called again the day we came back. I know that Paul said Leon had lost his job. I know because he was talking to that cow who lives there, and he said to me, watch, she’ll end up supporting old Leon. What are you planning to do with her if you marry Leon? I hear she cleans the house, but …”
“She doesn’t really live with him. She’s staying there while she looks for an apartment. She’s quite poor.”
“I see.” Vera smiled.
“You don’t believe it?”
ENTRY JAM
“Neither would Paul, I’ll tell you. Did Leon ask you to marry him?”
“Not exactly.”
“How approximately?”
Her hands locked in her lap, she tried to remember. “He said he would help me. That I should trust him …” Her voice trailed off. She felt chilled.
“Caroline, I heard Paul talking to that woman the Saturday we left for Green River. I heard him kidding around and he told her not to get married to Leon before he came back. I know from what he said she’s not staying there like girlscout camp. Perhaps that man really means to help you—I don’t know him as Paul keeps telling me, and frankly I don’t want to. But you better find out what he means by help. Ask him to find her a safer place to stay if he’s serious. You’ve always been taken advantage of by men who aren’t worth your bother.” Vera gave her a rare look of pity.
She felt herself shrinking. Staring at her clasped hands she thought how the veins stood out. She ran her tongue along her teeth. Her mouth felt dusty. “Do you think I’m losing weight?”
“Your face does look thinner. Are you taking care?”
CANCEL JOB****
She cast herself on the cot, one hand on her belly. “What’s the use? Who really cares?” She squeezed till her belly hurt and then in fear let go. “What am I going to do? If I can’t trust him, what will happen to me?”
“All I know is what I heard Paul saying to that woman. When he hung up the phone he started laughing and recited a poem at me he said was D. H. Lawrence. Paul was big on Lawrence last year. ‘The elephant is slow to mate …’ I wouldn’t cut off from Bruce before I knew for sure what’s going on over there.”
“Everything is such a mess! What can I do now?” She would be caught. She would be caught out in the open without anyone. No one would have to take care of her, no one would have to care. “What’s going to happen to me! I wish I was dead!” She went on until the tears began to flow, and finally Vera sat on the cot too and she cried on Vera’s small firm shoulder. “I haven’t slept with that many men, not compared to other girls.” Vera’s cool nurselike hands stroked her. “I’m still pretty, aren’t I? Vera!” She cried and cried until she felt loose inside. Then she became aware Vera was glancing at the clock. It was five after eight. She wanted to beg Vera not to go to her meeting, but she had that terrible bare sense of being caught without shelter and Vera could offer her none that counted.
COMPARE EXIT
They left together. Across the hall a door opened a crack. “Hello, Mrs. Martin,” Vera said, shutting her own door behind them.
In the lobby Caroline averted her head from the sordid courtyard with its broken cupid. Apologetically Vera left her on the sidewalk and scurried away into the wind calling back, “Be careful now what you do! Keep in touch.”
Everyone had someplace to go, someone to go to. That song Rowley sang the second night:
I get full of good liquor and walk the streets all night,
I go home and throw my man out if he don’t act right:
Wild women don’t worry, wild women don’t have no blues.
She sang it softly, seeing him with his big hands on the guitar looking strong and sensual, and tears burned briefly behind her eyes. At last a cab droned through the falling snow.
She curled up in the backseat burrowed into her collar. Even if Leon did marry her he was not of Bruce’s caliber. Was he really the best that she could do? She gave the cabbie Bruce’s address. Moving till she could glimpse herself in the rearview mirror, she gave herself a weak smile. Nimbus of hair. For an instant she saw her face gray and luminous on Leon’s screen. Dreams, dreams twice he had sucked her into them. Cheating her. Deep inside a slow pain beat. She crept further into her coat.
PROBLEM EXCEEDS MEMORY
She could remember the wild electric kick when she realized at her coming back party that she could have Rowley. She’d watched him for a year. He was strong, he was masculine, he had a direct warm roughedged manner that always made her think about bed, but she had never been able to get his attention. That night after she’d finagled to get him invited, he had come in with Anna—still that woman—she had felt cast down. But he had not acted with Anna and then in chatting she had become aware that she could take him away. She had felt alive then, triumphant and utterly woman. Somehow she had felt that the ring she got from Bruce was a magic thing that would now bring her what she wanted. With Rowley she would have felt safe. Why couldn’t he! But there was something animal about him, yes, and after all he lacked many of Bruce’s … qualities.
DATA CHECK
Bruce would not be pleased to see her without warning but she must find out where they stood. Bruce came of a good family but his father was a failure. His company had been bought out and he was only a minor official. Bruce’s mother wrote him weekly in a fine script with straight margins. She had met his parents briefly before he had gone to Green River with her and given her the ring.
Bruce was ambitious. He did well but he spent more than he made, though he did invest. That was one of his subjects with her father. Whatever he bought—the Jaguar, the stereo, designer chairs, sportjackets tailored from selected bolts of Scottish cloth—he took wonderful care of until he got something better. He fretted over his things but he had wonderful taste. Mostly. He read dreadful books.
After all, he didn’t ask for his ring back. Perhaps he was still willing. Bruce had something that her father had, and Leon and Rowley both lacked: authority. He was handsome and really they had more in common and that’s what marriage was built on, everyone said.
END BLOC COMBINE
Just after eleven as she unlocked her door the phone rang. She let it ring. Once she had gone to bed it started again. Finally she could no longer ignore it.
“What happened?” Leon barked so loud she held the phone out from her ear. “Did you tell him?”
“We had a wonderful talk! Absolute communication.”
Silence. Then, “What does that mean? You break it off?”
“The splendid part was, it isn’t necessary. He was completely understanding and supportive. He pointed out that, after all, we can’t know it isn’t ours, and—”
“You said you hadn’t slept with him.”
“Not just lately, but you never know for sure. And I do love him and except for all this turmoil, I’d never have doubted.”
“Kid, what are
you marching into? You don’t love him. You’re running scared into marriage with somebody you don’t care for and never will.”
“Leon, I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. You don’t know Bruce but if you did, you’d adore him. He’s very mature. Now we’ve disagreed and had misunderstandings, but tonight we really worked things out.”
“What does that mean?”
“We realized one of our sources of conflict was that when Bruce went out to Santa Barbara on business, I felt that proved he didn’t love me, and I wanted to test his feelings.”
“Who cooked that one up? This guy doesn’t love you. Why does he want you so bad?”
NO ENTRANCE IN THIS MODULE
“Let’s chat another time. I’m absolutely dead.”
“Goddamn it, listen!”
“Don’t yell at me, Leon. You’ve been a real friend, but I have to think of my future and my baby—”
“This afternoon, that was friendliness? Come off it. You know what we had together and what we can have again—”
“Darling, if you misunderstood I’m dreadfully sorry—”
“I misunderstood nothing. I can still feel your body—”
BLOCK
“Don’t be difficult, Leon-love. You’ve been a friend to me all these past hard weeks, don’t spoil it now.”
“I’m on my way over.”
“No! Please.”
“We’ll hash this out before you make a worse mistake.”
“Leon, listen, everything’s straightened out. Bruce will marry me, it’s all right!”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“No! Leon, no!” But he hung up. Oh, he was unfair. She did not want to see him, she could not. No one took her condition into account with their incessant demands. Her impulse was to dress and run out. Suppose she ran into that mad Leon on the street? Cabs took forever to arrive in the snow. Leon would be yelling at her and pressuring her and twisting her words out of shape, just when she had everything set again. He would blur the lines of everything, he would soften her into a fake child, his harsh but persuasive voice would hypnotize her into his cocoon. She could not bear it.
ZERO SUPPRESS CODE
She called the doorman, telling him she was going to have a visitor she definitely did not wish, and would he be a darling and tell the young man who would ask for her that she had just gone out? Don’t let him in. Thank you terribly. Fortunately she’d given the doorman a good bottle of scotch for Christmas.
She crept back into bed but fidgeted and could not sleep. The room rustled and shifted. Finally she got up and checked the windows, particularly onto the fire escape, and set a tilted chair against the knob of the doublelocked halldoor. Wheeling the TV in she got back in bed to watch a fifties Western. A great drag but it soothed her. As she watched she worked on her cuticles.
Then the phone started ringing. She leaped up and ran into the bathroom, turning on the water full force. She thought she could hear the phone going on and on, but when she shut off the water and listened the apartment was silent. She shivered with rage. How dare he persecute her. His face danced before her, ugly, grinning. He needn’t think she would endure everything. She wasn’t defenseless! If only she hadn’t used up her tranquilizers.
EDIT DUMP
She had just gone to bed when the phone started again. “That idiot! That idiot!” At last she took all the extra blankets from her closet, tore open her recent laundry and buried the phone. As she watched the movie she could hear it ringing from time to time but tiny and lacking urgency, like the voice of an insect. Slowly she began to relax. After all what could Leon do? He could not touch her. Pretending to be her friend and then turning on her the moment she didn’t agree with him.
She would phone her parents tomorrow and say they’d decided to marry soon. Mother would botch everything but thank god, Bruce was reliable. He would not let things be spoiled. It would be hectic and grisly, but then it would all be over.
JOB NO **** IS COMPLETE
Vera
Tuesday, January 6
Poor silly Caroline, in over her head. Better off married. Merely to picture Caroline embedded in a house made her look safer. A baby, a husband, and an electric carving knife: what more could she ask? Caroline had been a sweet, soft, generous child and with her own children she might quiet into that again, could be.
The little shrimp Petey, fuzzy and flatnosed, was waving his hand and making a pitiful screwed up face. Raisinface. “Teacher, I got to go. Teacher!” She gave him the pass. In the meantime Ronnie and Jason were up shoving each other, knocking heads like angry rams. “Miss Jameson, he call me a bad name!” She had to walk into the aisle to quiet them. Francine tugged on her skirt. “Teacher, my book tore.” There was a general murmur by now and something fell behind her. Time for reading anyhow.
Pictures in the reader showed yellowheaded pinkskinned children chatting with friendly toystore men and grocers, visiting Grandfather on the farm with pigs (oink oink) and cows (moo moo) on the train (choo choo). They lived in a white house on acres of aching green grass with a dog Spot and Mother and Father. “Jack will help me,” said Father. “Yes, I will help Father gladly,” said Jack. “I want to help, too,” said Joyce. They all played happily ever after under the koolaid leaves. “Paul will run the farm after me,” said Father. “In a pig’s eye,” said Paul, “screw the family traditions.” “It is your duty,” said Father. But Paul was opting for tougher duties. His new confusion.
Nancy cracked her bubblegum. Vera made her spit it in the big wastebasket. Afterward, she had Nancy open her mouth. Sure enough, half the wad was secreted between the child’s upper gum and cheek. Back to the wastebasket. Nancy’s sullen slanted eyes glowed in her thin face. You stole from me, they accused. My gum, my sweet gum. Who knew where Nancy had found it? She never had anything, not a pencil to write with or a penny for Christmas seals or a button to close her sleazy rayon jacket against the winter wind. She was tall for eight with good muscle tone and a quick stubborn mind.
Petey was taking too long. She peeked out the halldoor and noise spurted through the class. “Ow!” “Quit that!” “Hey, look at me!” “Who got my ruler?” There he was fooling around the drinking fountain, compressing the stream with his thumb to make it arc out and pee on the floor. As he saw her he came running. She hopped in for a moment. Bob was slashing at Jimmy with a ruler. She should not have let Petey go—the whole class was due in twenty minutes—but if he got upset he peed in his pants. When she swung around, Nancy was making a face. Mouth frozen instantly, eyes dropped. Soon they would not drop. The gum.
The door banged open and in came Jason’s older brother with a message about a change in lunchroom forms. Jason giggled and craned around to see if everyone knew it was his brother and he stuck up his finger Fuck You at Ronnie. Some kids called at him.
The room smelled always. She thought it smelled like anxiety, old murky odor of failure sweated from the baseboards. Every desk was occupied and more shoved against the back and between rows—and there were five absent. The kids had helped take down Christmas decorations and cut white tissue snowflakes for the windows. On the bulletin board were drawings of firemen to be collected into booklets on Our Neighborhood Helpers. The widening social horizon.
The afternoon stretched like an enormous waitingroom, as long and dark and dingy as the halls of this vast rotting school. Mary Ellen was sucking her finger again. His head down on his desk, Terry at ten was the oldest and biggest. Ronnie was drawing. Petey looked like he might be playing with himself. Maybe a third of the class stared dully out the empty windows. Whatever happened Paul must not end doing something halfway true, for it would destroy him. That speaker last night on welfare: regimented rot. Tall thin-faced man with probably some Indian in him. Rich voice with muscles in it. From some black nationalist group.
As she put the pass away she saw her unfinished lesson plan. The principal, Mr. Burns, had spoken to her again. Selfrighteous pink fink. The kids hated the
school. They learned right away it did not belong to them: it had them, they were condemned to it for years to be bored and tortured and teased and lied to—here as outside, as that speaker had said. She’d gone to the meeting mainly to please Betty Hamilton who had a couple of girls in the upper grades. Betty went to galleries with her so she went to Betty’s meeting. Betty kept asking her wasn’t Harlan Williams wonderful and on and on till she figured out that Betty had a secret huge middle-aged crush on him. If she didn’t leave off thinking about him, she could stop laughing at Betty.
Terry was frankly asleep. He was always tired, sagging on his big frame. She woke him. “Would you be my captain for boys today, Terry?” Jimmy gave her a reproachful pout. Teacher’s pet. She regarded him with that mockery she saved for whatever she really liked. Uncanny in arithmetic. Intuition. Would it survive?
Terry shambled forward. Single file, boys in line, girls in line, march. They shoved and giggled and tumbled after. Half the teachers acted as if they hated the kids in the halls: like her mother walking down the street in Green River with them, hand gripping, wringing small hand. Show them you’re a lady. Things had to end somewhere their long queasy spiral. Let the others complain.
She leaned on the doorframe, keeping an eye as they straggled past. Mary Ellen’s dress was unpinned and she fixed it. Flo had a new purple bruise on her upper arm she was showing off to the girls in line. How starkly depressed Paul had been. Ultimately she thought his ego would save him but she tended to underrate his suffering: as she had the time he’d fallen off the shed roof leading an expedition up Everest. When he just lay there wailing she had lost her temper and made him get up. His leg doubled. The bloody bone poked through.
She clasped herself. So hard to be a kid. Carla was standing out of line buffeted by the girls as if she were a heap of rags, withdrawn, shoulders hunched, eyes half shut. “Come on, Carla, don’t you have to go?” Let herself be pulled along. She had not spoken in three weeks. Her arms were covered with scabs. She had sent Carla to the school nurse and the school nurse sent her back with a note, This child scratches herself.