by Kasi Blake
Chapter 14
I was just pulling on my black pea-coat to head out to lunch with Charles when the phone rang. Charles’s voice sounded tight and rushed. “So sorry, something came up,” he stated. “I can’t make it tonight. How about tomorrow afternoon?”
“Sure,” I agreed, my curiosity piqued. It seemed that Charles had an unusual number of emergencies in his life. What was going on?
I dialed Jason’s number and in a moment he had picked up. I informed him, “Charles has bailed again.”
“Good,” he replied. “I would rather be there when you two meet, just in case. I’m not sure I trust any of these men.”
I smiled at that. “I’m sure I’m perfectly safe in the middle of a restaurant,” I pointed out. “Little chance of him slipping arsenic into my veal marsala while I’m looking out the window.”
I could hear the hesitation in his voice. “Still, I would feel better if I was there. Is he going to try for tomorrow?”
“Yes, in the afternoon. Are you free?”
“Absolutely. I will see you then,” he agreed.
There was a noise in the background, and his voice was apologetic. “I’m sorry, the meeting is starting up again. I need to go.”
“Of course, you have fun,” I assured him. “This will give me time to get some more raking done before tonight’s virtual book club.”
“Enjoy your evening,” he offered, and then there was a click.
I breathed in the relaxation of having a surprise block of free time. The outdoor world called to me with its velvety soft voice, and in short order I was once again clearing away the carpet of leaves from the soft grass below. My compost bins were growing ever higher. But I knew by spring they would be rich with fresh earth, ready to begin anew in my gardens.
Finally the light began to fade, the birds settled down into their nooks for the evening, and I came inside. As the microwave hummed to make my tea water, I drew in a deep, cleansing breath.
Maybe it was a chance to treat myself. With the first snow come and gone, the first fire was long past due. I headed down into the basement, grabbed a log from the stack, and brought it upstairs. I checked the flue, then cleared a few items which had somehow gotten stacked in front of the fireplace area. Once the log was lit, I pulled the iron-chain curtain in front of the fireplace, then moved into the kitchen. I shook half a bag of salad mix into a large bowl, added some raspberry-walnut dressing, and a few olives. I poured a large glass of water and brought my meal back into the living room.
There. Just right.
A chirp sounded, and I smiled. I reached over to the laptop and hit the answer button.
Kathy smiled at me from the screen. “Fancy seeing you again so soon,” she chuckled. She waved her copy of An American Tragedy in the air. “And you can see I’m all ready!”
Another chirp, and Anne had joined us. She was a brilliant woman in her eighties who had a PhD in biology. I waved at her. “Hello there, Anne!”
The third chirp came, and I chuckled. We were certainly a timely group! Simone was soon there with us. She was about ten years older than me, blonde and curvaceous.
I took a bite of my salad and looked across the group. “All right, then, who wants to begin?”
Anne perched her glasses on her nose. She had taught college nutrition for many years, and she thrived on structure. “I will start with the summary. An American Tragedy, a 1925 novel by Theodore Dreiser. The story followed a man who clawed his way up from nothing, accidentally impregnated a poor woman, then decided to kill her in order to be free to pursue a rich heiress.”
Simone leant forward. She made her living as a hypnotherapist, helping her clients with a variety of issues. She often offered great insight into the characters we read about.
“I like it,” she began. “It definitely seemed worth all the acclaim it’s earned over the years. I suppose I had expected the book to be fairly short. I imagined it would start with him meeting the woman, for example. Instead, Dreiser had taken us back to the very beginning. We met the anti-hero Clyde Griffiths when he was young and formative. He and his three siblings were moved around from place to place by their strictly religious missionary parents. They were dirt-poor, scrounging for pennies, and Clyde was acutely aware of just how many social and material goods he was missing out on.”
Anne chimed in. “In modern times we often think of it as normal to view characters through the lens of psychology and sociology. What was their childhood like? What was the culture around them like?” She tapped the book. “However, back in 1925, this was not necessarily the norm. Freud was just developing his theories. Dr. Spock was barely out of diapers himself. Dreiser’s other writings had been panned or even banned for being too realistic and revealing.”
Kathy’s smile grew. “This is where my love of history got to come in. Dreiser based his story on the actual 1906 drowning-murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette. This sensational story was followed as closely by the public as the OJ Simpson trial was in 1985. By using this lurid source material, Dreiser hooked the readers’ attention and showed them why background did matter.”
Simone nodded. “The unveiling of Clyde’s youth, and the great hurdles and traumas he encountered along the way, helped readers understand Clyde’s mentality in later years. Clyde was not simply an ‘evil man.’ Rather, he was a human being, with all the jealousies and fears and desires that many of us have. In his case, a combination of his difficult childhood, his encounters with a less-than-warm society, and of course his own choices amidst that chaos guided him to an unfortunate path.”
Juliet hopped onto the futon to sit at my side, and I petted her as I chimed in. “It became clearer by the page that he was losing the ability to hold out against the lures of money, beautiful women, and risk. As so many reality shows tragically demonstrate, people often make reckless decisions when life-changing wealth is dangling before them. They lose their moral bearings when an ‘ideal’ partner could be theirs forever.”
I sighed. Clyde’s story was not new or even unique. What made the story powerful was that we saw how he slid into this crevasse. We understood how the high walls made it challenging – if not impossible – for him to change his way.
The fire crackled and popped, its gentle warmth easing out into the room.
I looked to my friends. “I’ll be right back.”
A flurry of waves sent me on my way. I brought the empty salad bowl and glass into the kitchen, then decided on a special treat. I had bought pinwheels a while back – an intoxicating combination of marshmallow, chocolate, and crunchy cookie base that harkened to my youth. I took one, poured a gently curved glass of tawny port, balanced my blue-glass plate with its single pinwheel treasure, and I settled back down before the fire.
Kathy was talking. “I loved all the historical details during the rising-star chapters. The culture of the factory where Clyde seduced Roberta, the young, innocent worker who he supervised. We think of women in those days as being almost prudish, but she welcomed him into her life nightly, hoping against hope that he would marry her.” Kathy nodded her head. “And then I loved the descriptions of Clyde attending parties with the social elite, fox-trotting with the elegantly decorated butterflies, making his plans to wed one and solidify his position in society.”
Simone sighed. “It seemed so simple to Clyde. What he had always dreamed about was right there in front of him. He didn’t even have to stretch out to grab it. It was simply sitting there, a luscious peach hanging on a tree, its fuzzy surface warm in the summer sun. And all he needed to do was turn his back on his inconvenient obligations.”
I took a long sip of my port. No wonder so many journalists had called the Alice Sherman drowning in 1935 “An American Tragedy.” One story neatly mirrored the other. Had Newell Sherman read this book? Had it inspired him to finally take action, and reach out for the seventeen year old girl who drew him so strongly?
Anne’s brow creased. “Morgan? Have we lost you over there?”
; I shook myself out of my musings. “I’m sorry. It just seemed so intertwined with this situation I’m in. Think of the four men who surrounded Eileen, transfixed by her musical voice, coral lips, and rose-blushed cheeks. She had become a woman beyond reality to them. Would they be driven to twist from their moral compass as a result?”
Simone nodded. “Undoubtedly at some level each of us eventually faces a similar cross-roads. Two roads diverge. We have an opportunity to do something which calls strongly to our soul – and often all it requires is a subtle turning.” She gave a soft smile. “Not even a ‘bad act’ necessarily, but rather the slipping off of an obligation, a hesitation before returning a phone call, an excuse made to something one had agreed to.”
She waved a hand. “And then there was the other side of things. How many times did we obligate ourselves to do a task when we really didn’t want to? How many times did we say ‘yes’ out of a sense of guilt or duty or pressure to put forth a certain appearance to others? So many steps in our lives can be laid out for us by others. Our parents point us toward a certain profession as we’re growing up. Our friends label us with a character trait or flaw. The world around us attempts to lay out steps for us, and often it is easier to follow that path than to strike out in our own direction.”
Anne nodded. “It works both ways. How many times, then, do we end up on a rocky, unkempt path which doesn’t lead us to where we really want to go? And then, when that perfect cobblestone walkway appears, leading to what we desperately dream of, are we too stuck in the ruts to be able to shake ourselves loose?”
Kathy leaned forward. “In Dreiser’s story, Clyde had a dream - what many would call the ‘American Dream.’ He had grown up scrounging for bread, shivering at night, and wishing he could have a pair of shoes he could be proud of. His parents wouldn’t send him to school. He had little assistance beyond the brain in his head and the drive in his heart.”
She tapped her fingers on the book before her. “His progress in life came from his own initiative. He lobbied hard to get a job and pursued improvements at every corner. He didn’t complain. He put his head down and focused on doing the best he could.”
Simone’s eyes met ours. “So where did he go wrong? Yes, he broke the rules about dating an employee – rules that often seemed they were made to be broken, considering how often this happens in real life. He was fond of her and she of him. Certainly he pressured her to go further than she wanted and shouldn’t have.”
Anne resettled her glasses. “So, in a way, she was also caught up in her own pursuing of the American Dream. In the 1920s, much as in 1906 in upstate New York, a woman planned for marriage and family. If a young woman took a job, it was thought that this task was just a temporary situation, a way for her to build some independence and pay her own way until she found a man to support her.”
Kathy nodded. “Right. So Roberta was on her own path to her dreams. She came to this factory job with the expectations of her family riding on her shoulders. She would move up in the world, find a suitable husband, and have him support the extended family.”
Simone chimed in, caught up in the discussion. “She honestly fell for Clyde. He was handsome, smart, stable, and had a good job. His connections with the wealthy owners gave her great hope for rising high above her family’s run-down farm. Yes, he had said he didn’t want to marry her – but they were still in the beginning stages of courtship. She had faith that over time he would grow to love her and want her forever. That was what she saw as her American Dream.”
My thoughts flicked back to the 1906 drowning in New York, and I took another sip of port. A woman with dreams, a man with dreams, and they were like a set of Ukrainian stacking dolls, laid out in a row. The smaller doll looked longingly at the next doll size up – while that doll had his own eyes turned even further up the chain. And the woman he sought barely noticed him, because her own eyes were seeking out something better.
My mind slid forward to the tragic drowning in Sutton in 1935. Again, Newell Sherman was a man with a strict religious upbringing. He was a choirmaster and a scout-master. When the perfect dream had come along, how desperate had the longing been within him?
And then, in 1968, there was young Eileen, her eyes shining with hope for the quintessential American goal, that of becoming an actress and using her presence to inspire millions. The four men who surrounded her had their own dreams as well. To speak before the Supreme Court, to stride the streets of Wall Street, to navigate the Saigon River, and poor Sam who simply wanted any say over his life. Had their dreams become tangled like a loose skein of yarn? When one person pulled hard to get free, had the rest knotted up, never to be pried loose again without a sharp cut?
My voice ground out of me. “I know somehow all of this is connected together. There is some thread I am missing. Some answer which leads, through dark shadows, to John Dixon lying beneath a grey November sky.”
Three sets of eyes stared at me from my screen.
I blushed. “I’m sorry, guys. I guess I’m just wrapped up in this.
Anne gave me a fond smile. “That’s a sign of your caring heart, Morgan.” She leaned back in her chair. “It is said that there is nothing new under the sun. Babylonian courts struggled with issues of betrayal, greed, jealousy, and revenge. Philosophers in ancient Rome complained about the inattentiveness of their youth. Unmarried couples in the Middle Ages were scolded by the church for being too wild and free. Have we really not learned anything in three thousand long years about finding peace, serenity, and joy in what we had in life?”
We all nodded to each other.
I took the last bite of the pinwheel and looked down at the empty plate. It seemed that we still faced the same challenges our ancestors had. We struggled with moderation, with investing our precious energy into what was truly important in life. We were forever struggling to set aside instant gratification for values that survived the eternal subtle etchings of a desert wind into a rippled sandstone bluff.