“When you get back home,” I said, seeing nothing complex about it.
“Listen,” Charley said. “This is all in your mind. You're out of your head. You're a psycho. Anybody who'd write a thing like that about his sister is a psycho; let's face it. Don't you know that? Haven't you ever faced the fact that you're a warped, stunted, asshole type?”
An orderly or a nurse—or someone—came along the corridor. Charley raised his voice and yelled at them.
“Get this asshole out of here! He's driving me nuts!”
I voluntarily got up and left. I was glad to get out of there. All the way home on the bus I was shaking with anger and disbelief; it was one of the worst days in my life, and I knew I'd never forget it as long as I lived.
As the bus was passing through Samuel P. Taylor Park, the idea came to me to appeal to a disinterested person. To put this whole situation, my efforts and Charley's response— the whole business, before them and let them impartially judge if I hadn't done what was absolutely right.
First I thought of writing a letter to either the San Rafael Journal or to the Baywood Press. I even went so far as to begin composing, in my head, such a letter.
But then I thought of a better solution. Unrolling my presentation, I carefully went over it, editing out some of the phrases that Charley had called my attention to. Then I rolled it up again and wrote Claudia Hambro's name and address on it.
When the bus reached Inverness Park, I got off and walked up the road to Mrs. Hambro's house. Without making any noise that would disturb anyone in the house, I slipped the pages of the presentation under the door. Then I left.
After I had gotten almost all the way to Inverness—walking took much more time than using the bus—I suddenly realized that I hadn't put my own name on the presentation. For a moment I halted and toyed with the idea of going back. But then I realized that Mrs. Hambro would know who it was from; there would be a telepathic communication between her and me, as soon as she saw the presentation. And, in the presentation itself, there were Fay's name and Nat Anteil's name, of course. So she would have no trouble discovering who had left it.
Cheered up, I reached the house with rapid steps. I had actually opened the front door and started inside before I remembered, all at once, that in a month the world was coming to an end, on a date that I had decided, and that all these people, Charley and Fay and Nat Anteil and Gwen— all of them would be dead anyhow. And so in a sense it did not matter. It did not matter whether I got the facts to Charley or not. It did not matter what Charley did as a result of knowing those facts. Nothing any of them did mattered. They were just so much radioactive dust, the whole bunch of them. Just handfuls of black, radioactive, ashy dust.
That realization, that picture of them, stayed in my mind vividly for days after that. I could not get it out of my mind, even if I wanted to; several times I tried to think of something else, but that picture came right back.
13
One afternoon, when Nat Anteil drove over to the Hume home, the two girls greeted him excitedly as he parked his car.
'One of the sheep had a lamb!” Bonnie shouted, as he got out of the car. “She had a lamb just a couple of minutes ago!”
“We saw it through the window!” Elsie shouted at him. “The Bluebirds saw it; we were baking bread and we saw four black feet and I said, Look there's a lamb, and it was. Mommy said it's a female lamb, it's a girl lamb. They're out in back on the patio looking at it.” The girls skipped and raced along beside him as he went through the house and opened the back door on to the patio.
In an iron and canvas patio chair Fay sat in her yellow shorts and sandals and halter, sipping a martini. “One of the ewes gave birth,” she said, over her shoulder. “While the Bluebirds were still here.”
“The children told me,” he said.
She continued to gaze out over the field, past the fence and the badminton net. After a moment he made out the sight of the ewe. She lay on her side, like a great bag of gray and black. He could not see the lamb. The only motion was an occasional twitch of one of the ewe's ears.
'That means they're agitated,” Fay said. “When they twitch their ears. It's a sign of distress in sheep.”
Presently the ewe struggled to her feet and he saw a tiny black spot on the grass. It was the lamb. The ewe nudged it, first with her nose and then with one of her hoofs. The lamb arose, shaking, and the ewe nosed it toward her sacks of milk.
“It's already nursed,” Fay said. “I shut the dog in the bathroom, so if you go in there don't let it out. Last year that god damn dog killed all the lambs. She found them when they were just born. They evidently still had the blood on them, and she apparently thought they were just meat.”
“I see,” he said. He sat down on a wicker chair to watch with her. The two girls, after hanging around a while, went off on their tricycles.
Fay said, “It looks to me like she's going to have another. See how fat she still is.”
“Don't you think it's just the milk?” he said.
“No,” she said.
Later, at sunset, while he was bringing the girls' tricycles indoors, he saw the ewe lying on her side, again. This time the rear part of her shuddered rhythmically, and he realized that Fay had been right. He went indoors to the kitchen. At the stove Fay was mixing a salad.
“You were right,” he said. “She's in labor.”
Fay said, “It'll be born dead. If there's more than an hour lapse between births the second one is always dead.” She left her salad and went to get her coat.
“Maybe not,” he said, knowing nothing about sheep but wanting to say something to cheer her.
Taking the lantern—the sky had become dark and stars were appearing—they walked out across the pasture, to the ewe. Now she had gotten up and was cropping grass. Her lamb lay nearby, its head up.
“I'll call the vet,” Fay said.
She telephoned the vet and talked with him for a long time. Nat wandered about the house, glancing out now and then at the field. Now he could see only the outline of the eucalyptus trees far off, along the highway.
Appearing from her bedroom, Fay said, “He says to call him back in an hour if nothing happens. He said possibly we could get her to walk around; that might speed up the birth. But he agrees that if it's this long there isn't much chance.”
They had dinner. And then, before clearing the table, they again put on their coats, got the lantern, and went out on to the field.
The light flashed first on one ewe, then another. “No,” Fay said, continuing to walk. “Flash it over there,” she said, pointing.
In the light he saw the ewe standing up, trailing behind her a web of black. The web, sagging like a cloth hammock, led to a pool of wet black in the grass. To him it looked like refuse, something voided. But Fay, walking toward it, said in a flat empty voice, “It's a dead lamb. A big lamb.” Bending down she said, “A perfect lamb. Looks like a male. It must have just been born.” With both hands she began to strip the bloody, wet web from it. Mucus trails covered the lamb's face. “A male,” she said, turning the lamb over.
“Too bad,” he said, feeling no emotion, only a physical reaction, a revulsion to the blood and mucus web. Not wanting to touch the thing he hung back, now feeling guilt.
Fay reached into the dead lamb's mouth and opened its jaws. The she began pressing its rib-cage, again and again. “It's still warm,” she said. “Usually I come out and find their stiff bodies. This one was too big. It took five hours. He was cut off too long.” Now she had lifted the lamb by its hind legs and was slapping it. “You do this with baby puppies,” she said. “No,” she said. “It's hopeless. Too bad. A perfect big buck lamb. Isn't that strange? It gets so far, five months growing, and then it dies. What a shame.” She continued to massage it and clean its face and slap at it. The ewe, with her surviving lamb, had gone farther off. “They know when it's dead,” Fay said. “Sometimes they'll nuzzle it for an hour, trying to get it on its feet. She knows this
one is dead. She isn't trying to get it up.” Now she stood up. “Look at my hands,” she said. “Blood all over them.”
He said, “You want me to put it in the garbage can?”
“It'll have to be buried,” she said.
Now he did not feel so squeamish. He picked it up by its hind feet. How heavy it was. Carrying it before him, he walked back toward the house. Fay came a step or two behind, flashing the light for him.
“Probably she could only have nursed one anyhow,” she said. “We've brought them in when they were too weak to get up, and washed them and dried them and fed them Karo syrup and water and sent them back out. We never got a buck lamb. They're so fragile. There's always a good chance a buck lamb will die—they're too big to get out.”
Using the pitchfork and shovel he dug a hole near the cypress trees, where the soil was moist.
“Anyhow,” he said, “you still have the other one.”
She said nothing.
“It was impressive,” he said, “to see you go and start removing that stuff from it without hesitation.” Like a farm woman, he thought. And in her shorts and sandals and blue cord coat. No fluttering or squeamishness … she had gotten that firm quality that he thought so much of. The quality that he knew existed in her, one of her best. It would come out, of course, in a situation like this. It had never occurred to her to hang back.
She said, “I should have breathed in its mouth. But I couldn't bear to. With all that mucus. I guess I better phone the vet back and tell him what happened.” Leaving the Iantern propped up for him, she went off into the house.
After he had finished burying the lamb, he washed his hands at an outdoor tap and entered the house after her. The girls had gone off to their rooms to watch tv. On the dining room table the dinner dishes remained where they had been, and he picked up some and carried them to the sink. He wondered where Jack was. Probably in his room; her brother had stayed out of sight, by himself, whenever he came over to be with Fay. He did not even eat with them.
“I'll do that,” Fay said, appearing. “Leave them.” She lit a cigarette. “Let's sit for a while in the living room.”
“Where's your brother?” he said, as they seated themselves.
“At Claudia Hambro's. A meeting of the group. Special emergency session.” She smoked meditatively.
“Are you depressed?” he said.
Beside him, she stirred about. “A little. More just think-mg.
“The business about the lamb would depress anybody,” he said.
“It isn't the lamb,” Fay said. “It was seeing you getting ready to do the dishes. You shouldn't do that.”
“Why not?” he said.
“A man shouldn't do things like dishes.”
He said, “I thought you wanted me to do them.” He knew how she detested the dishes; she always got someone to do them for her, if not her brother then himself.
“I never wanted you to do them,” Fay said. She stubbed out her cigarette. “You should have said no.” Getting restlessly to her feet she began to pace. “Mind if I pace?” she said, with a quick, mechanical smile, almost a grimace.
Perturbed, he said, “You ask me, but you want me to refuse. You want me to say no to you.”
“You shouldn't let me get you to do things. It's wrong— the man should be the stronger one. He should exert his authority. The man is the ultimate authority in a marriage.
The woman follows his lead … how's she supposed to know what's right and wrong if he doesn't tell her? I expect you to tell me. I depend on you.”
He said, “And by doing things for you, things you asked for, I've let you down.”
“You've let yourself down,” she corrected. “So I suppose yes, you've let me down. The best way to help me is to be yourself and do what you know is right. I'll respect you more if you assert your moral authority. The children need that.”
He said, “It's wrong for the children to see a man doing the dishes?”
“Doing anything the woman tells him. They should see him telling the woman what to do. That's the principle I see in you—a deep moral authority. That's what you bring to this house. We all need that.”
“And by that ‘deep moral authority,’ “ he said, having difficulty breathing, “you mean my taking a firm stand and opposing you. Well?” he said. “Suppose I do oppose you? What will you do?”
“Respect you,” she said.
“No,” he said. “You won't like it. Don't you see the paradox? If I do what you say—”
She broke in, “That's right. Shift the responsibility to me.”
“What?” he said.
Fay said, “I'm at fault.”
He stared at her, not following her fluctuation of mood. “No,” he said finally. “This is something we're involved in mutually. That's what we should strive for, a mutual sense of responsibility and authority. Not one of us manipulating the other.”
Fay said, “You manipulate me. You try to change me.”
“When?” he demanded.
“Right now. You're trying to change me now.”
“I only want you to see the contradiction in what you want.”
“I see,” she said. “I see that you resent me.”
Nat said, “You want to fight, don't you?”
“I'm just tired of your covert hostility,” she said. “I wish you'd be honest. I wish you'd express your hostility directly instead of in these devious ways, these pious pedagogic ways.”
For a time he was silent.
“You can go,” she said. “Any time. You don't have to stick around here. Why should you? This isn't your home anyhow. This is my home. This is my house, my food, my money. What are you doing over here anyhow? How'd you get in here?”
He could not believe he was hearing what he seemed to hear.
“You know you dislike me,” Fay said. “You've hinted at it in a thousand different ways. You feel I don't take responsibility; you feel I'm demanding and self-centered and childish, always wanting my own way, that I'm not mature, that I don't really love you—I just want to use you. Isn't that right?”
Finally he said, “To—some extent.”
“Why can't you stand up to me?” she said.
“I—didn't get involved with you to ‘stand up to you,’ “ he said. “I love you.”
To that, she had nothing to say.
Nat said, “I don't understand. What's all this about?” Getting to his feet he came toward her; he wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her. “Why are you in this state?”
“Oh,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder, “it's something Doctor Andrews said today.” She put her arms around him. “He said that whenever I talk about you I don't really depict anything. As if I never really see you. As if nobody's really real to me. It was so much like something you said—maybe it's true. God, if I thought for one moment it was true—” Drawing away, she gazed up at him. “Suppose it's true, what Charley's always said about me, and I never accepted. That I've degraded him and used him and absorbed him to get what I want. I was so spoiled as a child … I always got what I wanted. And if I didn't I had tantrums. And he had to get drunk and come home and hit me; it was the only way he could fight back.” She stared at him starkly. “And I made him sick. And—possibly I want him to die because I'm through with him; I don't have any further need for him. And I deliberately involved you with me, broke up your marriage—without any concern at all for Gwen, or even for you, so that I could get you because you're good husband material and I need a new husband, now that I've used up the old one. And if you do stay with me, I'll treat you the same way as I treated him. It'll be the same thing over again; you'll be running my errands for me, and doing my chores for me—I'll degrade you, and then you won't have any other resource but to get drunk and hit me.” She ceased talking, then, and stood, gazing past him absently.
“I'll never hit you,” he said, stroking her dry, short hair.
“Charley never hit anybody before me,” sh
e said.
“The thing is,” he said, “that you and I can talk. We can discuss this. We verbalize in the same way. He doesn't.”
She nodded.
“We can express our resentments. The way you're doing now. We can deal with them directly.”
“Let's face it,” Fay said. “I'm clumsy and vulgar. Why do you want me?”
He said, “Because you're an intelligent, brave woman.” Stroking her, he said, “You remind me of a pioneer woman.” He was thinking of her with the lamb, now.
“You don't think I'll make you into a domestic servant?” Pulling away from him she went to get a log and kindling for the fire. “That's what I want, an army of men; decorators to paint things, paint the house, gardens, electricians, men to cut my hair, remodel the kitchen—add a new room on the house when I want a room to work in, to work on my clay in. Would you build me a room to work in? Where I can have a wheel?”
“Sure,” he said, smiling.
“Suppose I ruined you,” she said. “Made you give up any hope of going on to school. Put a financial responsibility on you that tied you up for the rest of your life … supporting me and the girls, and I'd want to have more children, as soon as possible. Incidently, did I tell you about my diaphragm?”
“Yes,” he said.
She went on, “Force you to stay in the real estate business when you actually want to—” She hesitated. “Go on into a profession. Whatever it is.” Her eyes twinkling, she said, “What did you say you wanted to be?”
“Maybe a lawyer,” he said.
“Oh god, then you could sue me,” she said.
“I want to marry you,” he said. “I want to divorce Gwen and marry you.”
“What'll we do with Charley?”
“Can't you ask him for a divorce?” he said, feeling the tension everywhere in him.
Fay said, “It's wrong. I know it's bourgeois of me—it shows what a bourgeois nogoodnick I am. I just feel divorce is wrong; a marriage is for life.”
“Well,” he said, feeling futile, “then that's that.”
“I guess that's misplaced loyalty,” she said. “But I can't help it. When I married him I married him for better or worse; I took those words seriously.”
Confessions of a Crap Artist Page 14