An Amateur's Guide to the Night
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Praise for An Amateur’s Guide to the Night
“The writing is cool and detached, controlling a breathtaking compassion. Her subjects and characters, mostly family members, are right out of life. An Amateur’s Guide to the Night continues Robison’s practice of penetrating the heart. There is not one story in this collection that does not evoke an emotional response . . . It’s an intimate, enriching experience.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“These thirteen stories are glimpses from a moving train into lit parlors, dinettes, bedrooms and dens. Though the rider sees only fragments, he can intuit essentials from posture, from motion, and see the space that characters inhabit. Think of Robison as the engineer, blowing the whistle, calling the stops and starts; invisible when you want to ask her why we’re stalled here in the middle of nowhere, between stations, jobs, relationships and decisions. Like Ann Beattie, Robison shunts the reader off the mainline to a limbo where everyone waits for something to begin or end. As narrative, the stories are inconclusive; as commentaries on the way Americans live now, they’re absolute and final.”
—Los Angeles Times
“It’s my hope that An Amateur’s Guide to the Night will win her the readership she deserves. No American short story writer speaks to our time more urgently or fondly than Robison.”
—DAVID LEAVITT, The Village Voice
“Hip, deadpan, it’s-cute-to-be-crazy stories from the author of Days and the novel Oh!—with vague grim undercurrents beneath the bright little pop-artish sketches of disaffected youngish people.”
—Kirkus Reviews
ALSO BY MARY ROBISON
Believe Them
Days
Oh!
One D.O.A., One on the Way
Subtraction
Tell Me
Why Did I Ever
An Amateur’s Guide to the Night
Copyright © 1981, 1982, 1983 by Mary Robison
First Counterpoint paperback edition: 2019
First published in the United States in 1983 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Robison, Mary, author.
Title: An amateur’s guide to the night / by Mary Robison.
Description: First Counterpoint paperback edition. | Berkeley, CA : Counterpoint, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018033436 | ISBN 9781640090897
Classification: LCC PS3568.O317 A6 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033436
Cover design by Jenny Carrow
Book design by Jordan Koluch
COUNTERPOINT
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318
Berkeley, CA 94710
www.counterpointpress.com
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West
10987654321
For My Mom:
Hey, Betty Reiss!
Contents
The Dictionary in the Laundry Chute
An Amateur’s Guide to the Night
The Wellman Twins
Coach
You Know Charles
I Am Twenty-One
Smart
Yours
Falling Away
In Jewel
The Nature of Almost Everything
Nothing’s It
Look at Me Go
The Dictionary in the Laundry Chute
ED WAS IN THE BEDROOM, BARBERING HIS HAIR with scissors, when his wife, Angela, wheeled in a vacuum cleaner and moved it around, catching some of the clippings that were clumped on the carpet.
“Aghh, this stuff’s all over my neck,” Ed said over the noise. “I gotta take a shower.”
“I should quit, too,” Angela shouted. She straightened up and snapped the toggle switch on the vacuum cleaner. “I need a blouse ironed for tonight.”
She wheeled the sweeper into the hall, where she stooped to extract the electric plug from the wall socket. “Come on, you,” she said, jerking the cord.
Ed had pulled off his polo shirt. He wadded it and dusted his throat and shoulders. “What’s tonight again?” he said. “I forgot.”
“Honey, we’ve talked about it,” Angela said from the hall. “Dr. Grosh is coming over as a favor to me. He’s going to have a little session with Margaret, and then together we’re going to see if we can’t get her to eat something. What do you think I should fix, by the way? I mean, for dinner.”
“I don’t know,” Ed said.
“Well, what do you feel like eating?”
“Nothing. I’m not hungry lately,” Ed said. “Maybe Sid Grosh should wave his magic wand over me, too, while he’s at it.”
Angela came and leaned on the doorjamb with her arms crossed. “It’s nothing to joke about,” she said.
“I’m serious,” Ed said. “I think there’s something wrong with me. My heart. My pulse bangs in my ears when I climb steps or come up that hill from the fifteenth green. And whenever I close my eyes anymore, I see nothing but bright pink.”
“One person at a time,” Angela said. “And I’m sorry if this sounds callous, Ed, but right now it’s Margaret I have to worry about.” Angela went back to the vacuum cleaner and began winding the electric cord around its handle. “Though if anybody can work a miracle with that girl, Dr. Grosh can. He helped us through the time she came back from Lake Point with the whole side of her Rabbit smashed in.”
“I wish someone could have helped the car,” Ed said.
“He got Margaret calmed down and back on earth and got her sleeping,” Angela said.
“Yeah,” Ed said. He undid his belt buckle, dropped his trousers, and stepped out of them. “I just pray we’re not putting too much pressure on Margaret. This is still her first week out of the whatever-you-call-it.”
“Sid Grosh isn’t pressure,” Angela said.
“Well, good,” Ed said, flapping his slacks to shake off the hair.
Angela was backing the sweeper around. She straightened its wheels and aimed it for its parking place, in the back of a utility closet.
“She’s got the blues,” Ed said, and Angela made a little jump and gasped.
“My God, you startled me!” she said. “I thought you were in the bathroom.”
“Don’t you think that’s it?” Ed said. “What you and I would call the blues?”
ED HAD SEATED HIMSELF AT HIS DAUGHTER’S VANITY table. He had his navy bathrobe on over an untucked white shirt and a pair of dark slacks. His bare feet were filmed with talcum powder. He sat at the vanity table and bobbed his head around, examining his haircut in Margaret’s mirror.
His daughter was curled up in the corner, on her bed, with her back against a foam bolster pillow. She was twenty-two, but her face looked puffy and middle-aged. Her hair was dry and wiry, with a zigzag center part. She had one leg drawn up and was embroidering with bright-colored thread on the knee of her jeans.
“Stop whistling,” she told her father.
“Him?” Ed pointed at his reflection and said, “Stop whistling” to the mirror. He glanced around to see if Margaret was smiling.
She wasn’t, and Ed continued to tip his head. “Why do I have to look li
ke that?” he said.
He got up and went over to Margaret’s bed. “What do you think of your new dad?” He showed her his haircut.
“Fine,” Margaret said.
“But cheap,” he said, “right? For doing it myself.”
“No,” she said. She relaxed her knee and scooted down on the bed. She got onto her side and stared at the doorknob of her clothes closet.
“Well, your mother says I’m cheap,” Ed said. “And maybe I am—about certain things.” He plopped onto the bed by Margaret’s feet. “But I never cut corners when it comes to you, do I?” He reached over and massaged one of her ankles until she snapped the foot away, saying, “Quit.”
“Have I ever? Have I once cut any corners when it came to my daughter?” he said. “Tell me if I have. You can tell me.”
“Are you nuts?” Margaret said.
“Okay, okay,” Ed said. He started whistling again.
Margaret glared at him.
He kept on whistling. He got off the bed and strolled over to a study desk where there was a small hi-fi set. “What do you know?” Ed said. “My records.”
He got down on his hands and knees on the sculptured carpet and hefted twenty-some long-playing albums from under the table. He propped the albums against the wall and began flipping through them, sitting on his feet. “Do you mind?” he said to Margaret’s strained face. “A couple of these are records of mine that your mom said she’d pitched out a long time ago. This one’s mine.” He set aside a Fred Astaire album. “It’s got ‘A Foggy Day’ on it. Did you ever listen to ‘A Foggy Day’? I love that song. This one’s mine, too.”
“Raggedy Ann?” said a man’s voice from outside the bedroom door.
“What on earth?” Ed said. He turned on his kneecaps and looked at the door.
“It’s Dr. Grosh,” Margaret said. She sat up. “He calls me that because I’m Margaret Anne. Come on in, Sid.”
“Oh,” Ed said.
He smiled for Dr. Grosh and stayed standing on his knees to shake hands. “It’s good of you to come, Sid. Forgive the bathrobe. I got lost in some old records here with Margaret Anne.”
“I’m a little early, as usual,” Dr. Grosh said. He laughed deeply and winked at Margaret. He was in his forties but had a kid’s face drizzled with dark freckles. His hair was wet, and he wore a black blazer with a pair of muted-plaid pants. There were beads of rainwater on his polished shoes.
“Cats and dogs out there?” Ed said.
“Well, there won’t be any flooding in any but the lowest underpasses,” Dr. Grosh said. “And we need the April showers. But it slows one down on the road, if one has any sense.” He winked again at Margaret, who was nodding seriously as she listened.
“The weather mixed me all up today,” Ed said. He clutched the skirt of his robe and got to his feet. “It was so godawful pretty this afternoon, I closed the shop up ahead of time to get in some golf. But before I got halfway home—”
“What’s your business, Ed?” Dr. Grosh said.
“Optometry,” Ed said. “I’m with Dr. Cravy out at the old mall. Wife says you could tell it a mile away because of my lousy posture. You know, from hunching over the grinder all day— which I don’t really do, of course. And then it’s funny, too, that no one in the damn family even wears glasses.”
Ed smiled and waggled his head at the album he was holding in his left hand.
“Eating?” Dr. Grosh said to Margaret.
“She isn’t,” Ed said. “That’s one of the main reasons why I think Angela got you over here, Sid. To see if we can get some good hot food down Margaret Anne here.”
“I was asking Margaret,” Dr. Grosh said quietly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ed said. “Lordy, what’s my problem? It’s time I got out of here.”
He moved carefully to the door. He was trying to close it noiselessly behind him when Dr. Grosh said, “Ed?”
“Yes?”
“We may want to have our supper up here in the bedroom, Margaret and I.”
Ed opened the door a little. “No sweat,” he said. “You just persuade Margaret to eat it. You do that, and I don’t care if you build a bonfire up here and roast franks. I mean it.” He shut the door.
IN THE HALLWAY, HE STOPPED AND FLIPPED OPEN the laundry chute. He crouched under the small door and called, “Angela!” He tried again, a little louder, and then he got a cigarette from his robe pocket, lit it, and waited, holding up the door.
“What, Ed?” Angela’s muffled voice was coming from the chute drop just off the kitchen.
“Can you hear me?” Ed said. “There’s a pair of pants or something stuck about halfway down. I’m not quite dressed yet, honey, but you might want to know that Sid thinks he and Margaret ought to eat up here in her bedroom.”
“He does?” Angela said disappointedly.
“He didn’t say for sure,” Ed said, “but that’s the way it looks. Now get your head out of the way for a minute. I’m going to drop the dictionary down to see if I can get the chute clear.”
“WILL YOU LOOK AT THIS?” ANGEL A SAID TO ED, AND she showed him a plate with some scraps of roast beef and a baked potato.
Ed made a praying gesture and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Hallelujah!” he said.
“She ate everything but the fat,” Angela said. “Look at this.” She hurried to the rattan dinner tray she had just brought down from Margaret’s bedroom and took Ed an empty mug and a parfait glass. “The coffee and the mousse,” Angela said. “Gone!”
“Are you sure Sid didn’t eat Margaret’s for seconds?” Ed said.
Angela shot him her angriest look.
They were in the kitchen. Ed was finishing his meal at the circular breakfast table.
“He’s giving her a sedative later so she can finally get some rest,” Angela said.
“Food, sleep,” Ed said. “Tomorrow we’ll have a new Margaret.”
Angela went to the sink and pulled out the dish rinser. She began to spritz the plates from the dinner tray. “He’s testing motor mechanisms now, and asking questions,” she said. “You’re to take him some more coffee when it’s perked.”
“Right,” Ed said.
He loosened his tie knot and unbuttoned his collar. He got up and at the kitchen counter he stood behind Angela with his hands on her shoulders. She moved away and bent over to load plates on the rubber racks of the dishwasher.
“I’m actually excited,” Angela said.
“It’s the light at the end of the tunnel,” Ed said, “and you. Even you’re all lit up.”
Angela was wearing a starched blouse with a new straight skirt—at least, new to Ed—and a string of cultured pearls.
“What were they doing when you went upstairs?” Ed said.
“Margaret was following Sid’s finger with her eyes, and without moving her head,” Angela said. She looked up at Ed and beamed. “We all got to laughing—Margaret, too—about how funny her Rabbit looked last summer after she bashed it up. Like an accordion. We couldn’t help it, we just got the giggles.”
“Wowie,” Ed said.
“I know,” Angela said. “Margaret giggling.”
Ed brought his dishes to the sink to rinse them.
HE WAS ARRANGING COFFEE CUPS AND SAUCERS ON the rattan tray to take upstairs when he heard Angela say, “Well, look who’s coming to see us.”
He turned as his wife hurried to Margaret, who was standing in the kitchen doorway with a pink baby blanket around her shoulders. Angela hugged Margaret and kissed her cheek. Margaret was blinking in the kitchen light—her eyes large, her face blank.
Dr. Grosh followed the two women into the room. “We’ve had a little medication,” he said.
“Well, you’re just in time for coffee,” Ed said. He pulled up the knot in his tie and drew a straight chair from the table for Margaret. Angela eased her daughter into the chair.
“For pity’s sake,” Margaret said, her words dragging a little. “I’m not dying or anything.”
Dr. Grosh moved behind Margaret and then frowned at Angela and shook his head no. Aloud, he said, “I gave her the routine spiel for crazy nuts and then I promised her another crack at your chocolate mousse. That was actually what did it.”
“Well, hell, Sid—it’s all gone,” Ed said.
“Not to worry,” Dr. Grosh said. “We can live without it.”
“Without it,” Margaret said.
“Is she all right?” Ed said.
“She’ll be wonderful,” Dr. Grosh said. He was still behind Margaret, and he began massaging her shoulders. “Didn’t I hear a rumor about coffee?”
Ed was using both hands, hunting in his jacket pockets for his cigarette package.
“Ed?” Angela said, meaning he should serve. She’d drawn up a chair and was sitting, covering one of Margaret’s hands with both of her own.
Ed poured coffee and put out milk and sugar. Dr. Grosh had taken the chair on the other side of Margaret, so Ed ended up with a seat facing the three of them.
“It’s hot, and I don’t want you to have too much,” Dr. Grosh told Margaret. He put his arm over her shoulder and held his cup under her nose.
Angela leaned forward and watched Margaret sip coffee. “That’s my girl,” Angela said.
“Mom . . .” said Margaret.
Ed found his Lucky Strikes in the breast pocket of his shirt. “Jeez, it was a gunky winter,” he said, lighting his cigarette. “You know? And this spring hasn’t been so good up to now, either. You know, Margaret?”
“Not so good,” she said.
“But the thing is, to stick in there and we’ll maybe think about school again,” Ed said. “Maybe even summer semester. All right, Sid?”
“The thing tonight is sleep, and the thing tomorrow is to eat more,” Dr. Grosh said.
“Amen,” Angela said.
Ed said, “Oh, of course. Of course, that.”