The Hour I First Believed

by Wally Lamb

  “Too bad,” I said. “What are clusterfucks?”

  Human traffic jams, she said. The COs tell them to hurry and line up, then they make them wait. It was one of their many ways to make them feel worthless—just what people wrestling with addiction didn’t need. If she had started our visit in a good mood, it sure as hell hadn’t ended that way. My fault pretty much, I figured. I’d wanted to leave since I’d gotten there. She was saying something about rosary beads—how she’d begun praying the rosary.

  “Just like my mother,” I said. “Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed is the fruit at Stop & Shop.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny, Caelum? Or is it supposed to negate the fact that going to mass made me feel uplifted a little bit?”

  “You know what?” I said. “I’m tired. I don’t need this.”

  THAT NIGHT, LYING IN BED, I tried to recall the words of the Hail Mary. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…. How did the rest of it go? Damned if I could remember.

  But in a sudden rush, I remembered something else—something Mo had told me about her ordeal that day at Columbine. As she’d sat inside that cabinet while Klebold and Harris lobbed their bombs and killed their classmates, she’d prayed the Hail Mary, over and over and over.

  Holy Mary, mother of God. Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen…. In a way it had been a kind of death for Maureen that day. And now she was stuck in that hell hole down the road. There were clusterfucks all day long…. With only one tenth of her sentence served, she was already speaking jailhouse slang like a pro. “Now and at the hour of our death.” I spoke the words aloud, and a shiver passed through me.

  ONE MORNING, WHEN IT WAS just the two of us at the kitchen table, Janis asked me if I’d mind driving her over to Oceanside some morning when I taught my class. “Sure,” I said. “Anytime. Why?”

  The official reason, she said, was because Moze was stymied about how to build that Web site and had given her the assignment of locating some techie-type student who might agree to design them something on the cheap.

  “And what’s the unofficial reason?” I asked.

  Her eyes filled with tears. She had lost her work as well as her home, she said. She missed her colleagues and her professors, who were scattered, now, around the country. She e-mailed back and forth with some of them, but it wasn’t the same. She missed sitting in a library with a stack of books and articles—losing herself in her discoveries so that, when she checked her watch, she’d be shocked at how much time had gone by. “So I thought it might make me feel a little better to hang out for a few hours at a college campus.”

  “I’m happy to give you a lift over there, but I think you better lower your expectations,” I said. “I suspect the library at Oceanside Community College is going to look pretty pitiful next to Tulane’s.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “The thing is, helping Moze get his business started? It’s what he wants, not what I want. And if this mail-order thing takes off, I’m afraid I’ll get trapped. That I’ll never get back to the work I love.”

  “None of my business,” I said. “But did you tell him how you feel?”

  She said she’d tried to the day before, but that it had caused a fight. I knew something had. “Selfish bitch!” I’d heard him shout.

  “But anyway, that’s enough about me,” she said. “What do you hear from your wife? I can’t wait to meet her. Is she coming back soon?”

  I took a deep breath. It was time. Past time, really. “Not for another four and a half years,” I said. “Unless by some miracle she gets a reduction in her sentence.”

  Janis looked at me, wide-eyed and confused. “She’s…?”

  “Right down the road,” I said. “In the slammer.”

  Then everything spilled out of me: Columbine, Mo’s addiction, Morgan Seaberry. It was like some emotional levee had finally failed to hold, and all the pain of the last several years had come flooding forward. I mean, I didn’t just cry. I wailed. And when I had quieted down—was back to just sniffling and shuddering—she reached across the kitchen table. “Take my hands,” she said.

  I took them. She squeezed. And her doing that, making that simple gesture, offered me more intimacy than I’d felt in…I don’t even know how long. Never, maybe. It’s hard to explain, my hands in hers. It wasn’t really sexual—had nothing to do with the semen I’d spilt watching that hanging light rock and sway above my head. But…it wasn’t completely nonsexual, either. Like I said, I don’t know how to describe it, except to say it was, what?…Powerful, I guess. Hopeful.

  And then the kitchen door swung open and there was Moze, wearing his checkered baker’s pants, smelling like fried dough. There was flour in his eyebrows and his goatee. “Look what I found sitting on y’all’s back stoop,” he said. He held out his cupped hand for me to see, then opened it.

  On his palm was a praying mantis.

  chapter twenty-one

  September 18, 1886

  My Dear Lillian,

  I am writing this from the Hartford station, where we will be delayed for how long we do not know. It seems the train we were to have boarded has collided with a runaway bull between Springfield and here and a derailment has resulted. This is according to the ticket agent, who grows more cross with each would-be sojourner’s inquiry and who has, by the way, a most unsightly goiter. The delay vexes Grandmother. She has been out of sorts all morning because of the rich food we were served last night and because she leaves Hartford without the firm promise of a letter of support for the ladies’ prison from “the Great Twain,” as she has taken to calling Mr. Clemens. Grandmother pronounces him “vainglorious” and “clever by one-third of what he supposes himself to be.” When I reminded her a few minutes ago of what she has many a time reminded me—judge not lest ye be judged—her response was a rude harrumph.

  As for me, I say let New Haven wait. I am content to sit here on this wooden bench and relive with these words the most glorious evening of my life! I must write it all down lest I forget even a moment. Was it all a dream, Lil? It would seem so, save for the proof I have that it was not. I have never before pilfered a thing and vow never to do so again. Yet it is a small enough token, which I hope our hosts will never notice. I should not like the Clemenses to think ill of me. Am I wicked, Lil? For I am happier to have the proof of my enchanted evening than I am conscience-stricken for having taken it. This morning, I have a thousand times fingered the soft thing with its deep blue eye, which I have hidden between these pages. It thrills me to do so. You stole, too, Lil, and so perhaps would understand my sin, whereas a certain ancient paragon who sits and sulks two seats away would pronounce me reprehensible and wicked. If Lizzy Popper’s ladies’ reformatory were ever to become a reality, she would probably make me its first penitent!

  Yesterday certainly did not begin as wonderfully as it concluded. First there was the trying train ride to Hartford—that hideous man hawking his filthy wares and Mr. Tatty Suit gaping at me as if I were a mannequin in a storefront window. Then there was the jostling crowd. Upon our arrival at the Hartford station, Grandmother took my arm and told me to stay close, saying she would not like to lose me in the throng making its way to the dedication ceremonies. Lillian, I have never seen such numbers in one place as those assembling at Bushnell Park. The decrepit aged had come, and newborn babes gotten up in patriotic garb, and every age between. Most prominent were the honorees—those thousands of veterans who had saved the Nation in the days before you and I were born. Many were mangled or maimed. Most wore their old uniforms and badges. Bushnell Park was a swirling sea of faded Union blue!

  Grandmother and I arrived at the easterly end of the park in the company of Mrs. Twichell and several of her brood, the bottoms of our skirts soaked from the wet ground after yesterday’s deluge. Tents had been erected and an early lunch was being readied for the veterans, who would march with their former co
mpanies. At one long table, young ladies from the High School put out sandwiches, grapes, and doughnuts—a ration of each on each plate. At another station, a big steam boiler heated barrels of water in which floated bags of ground coffee—enough for the thousands who had come to be honored. Alas, even in the midst of the morning’s bustle, I was not to be spared Grandmother’s plaguing. I had not eaten breakfast before we left New Haven, and my empty stomach had begun to snarl. To quiet it, I took one of the doughnuts from one of the plates and was promptly scolded. “Those are not for thee!” the Old Girl chided. It was humiliating to be upbraided like a child in front of Mrs. Twichell and her daughter Harmony, and I would have treated her to a sharp retort had a clumsy horse not caused a clamor at that very moment. The poor beast had become tangled in a tent rope and crashed to the ground not five feet in front of us. With the attention thus drawn away from me, I took a large bite from the doughnut and disposed of the remainder beneath a table.

  The Memorial Arch is an imposing structure, Lil—a work of art deserving of all the attention it has received. When Grandmother first laid her eyes upon it, even she was moved to tears. Fashioned of Connecticut brownstone, it consists of two medieval towers connected by a Roman arch into which have been carved friezes in the Greek style on both the north face and the south. The former tells the story of the War—farmers turned into soldiers, General Grant surveying his men, and so forth. The latter tells the story of the Peace that followed when the North prevailed. In it, the City of Hartford, embodied as a goddess, welcomes home her returning warriors. The structure spans the bridge under which flows the Park River. This same river passes behind the Clemens manse, as I later learned. Mr. Clemens’s nickname for it is “the Meandering Swine.” I know not why.

  Speech-making preceded the review of regiments by Mayor Bulkeley. Grandmother’s friend Mr. Twichell arrived at the speaker’s platform in grand style, riding atop the old warhorse which he had ridden all those years ago and which was taken out of its pastoral retirement for yesterday’s event. The day’s chief orator was General Hawley, who spoke poignantly in remembrance of those who had fallen on Land and Sea. I stayed with him for the first several minutes of his address, but when his remarks wandered from the battlefield to the discovery of Connecticut by Thomas Hooker in sixteen-hundred-and-I-know-not-when, my attention began to wane. Instead of listening, I found myself watching a small band of boys who were skylarking unperturbed on the riverbank and pestering the ducks. Colonel Bissell then addressed the crowd. It was he who had insisted Lizzie Popper be denied a seat on the dignitaries’ platform for the sin of being a member of the fairer sex, and it was all I could do not to hiss and boo the man. When Bissell made the formal presentation of the memorial to the City of Hartford, the applause was thunderous!

  After the speech-making, shots were fired and the parade commenced. Such a display of pageantry, music, and flag-waving I have never before witnessed. For as many times as Grandmother has spoken of the Terrible War, I had always regarded it as much a part of ancient history as the rise and fall of the Roman Empire or the campaigns of Napoleon. Yet now that I have witnessed yesterday’s review of the regiments, the war comes closer. It was a right and noble thing for these men to have freed the darkies and preserved the Union. When I am home again, I shall go to the parlor and gaze anew upon the memorial busts of Uncle Edmond and Uncle Levi, who gave their lives to the righteous cause. Perhaps it was Grandmother’s slain sons whom she was remembering when the sight of the Arch made her cry. But what of our papa, Lillian? I know he did not serve in the war, but I know not why, or why Grandmother has remained so steadfastly tight-lipped on the subject. Perhaps someday when I meet my benefactress, the mysterious Miss Urso, she will avail me of the details. Until then, I remain in the dark about our late paterfamilias. But now I must continue to tell you of my most amazing day.

  Following the festivities, Grandmother and I returned to the Twichells’ home on Woodland Street in the lovely Nook Farm neighborhood where the Clemens family and Mrs. Stowe also live. Whilst Grandmother met with Reverend Twichell about the ladies’ reformatory, Harmony took my hand and spirited me away to Farmington Avenue so that I might meet her friend Susy Clemens. Susy is the eldest of Mr. Twain’s three daughters. Passing Mrs. Stowe’s home next door, it was as if my heart would stop. I had been hoping against hope that the great authoress might be one of those who would dine with us at the Clemens home that evening. Alas, I learned from Harmony that Mrs. Stowe’s husband had succumbed last month and she remained in seclusion. Indeed, all the windowshades were drawn, and the house was as still as a painting.

  Not so the Twain home, where there is hustle and bustle outside and in. The house is splendid, not at all the queer-looking thing I had expected from its description as “part cathedral and part cuckoo clock.” It is built of brick and wood and trimmed handsomely in black and red. There are turrets, porches upstairs and down, and a glass-roofed conservatory so that plants can be brought indoors and enjoyed in wintertime. When Harmony and I arrived, Mr. Twain himself was outside with Susy and her sisters, Clara and little Jean. They had a bottle of soap bubble water and it was with this that they were amusing themselves, Susy and Clara blowing bubbles and Jean chasing them. The bubbles were a beautiful opaline color in the late afternoon sun, and to see them made me feel light-hearted and gay. Mr. Twain blew bubbles, too, filling his with smoke from his cigar. When these burst, they released small puffs of blue.

  Harmony introduced me to Mr. Twain. Because he has traveled the world, I extended my hand and said, “Enchantée, Monsieur,” to which he answered, “And parlez-vous to you, too, Mademoiselle. Your French is magnifique, but how’s your arithmetic?”

  “My arithmetic?” I asked, somewhat confused.

  “Oui,” said he. “If Pierre buys a horse for two hundred francs and Jacques buys a mule for a hundred and forty, and the two enter into a partnership and decide to trade their creatures for a piece of land that costs four hundred and eighty francs, then how long will it take a lame Frenchman to borrow a silk umbrella?”

  “An umbrella, sir?” I said. Now I was greatly confused, but Susy laughed and said, “Pappa, you mustn’t tease poor Miss Popper so.”

  “Oh? Mustn’t I?” said he. “Then please, Mademoiselle, forgive me.” And with that, he bowed to his waist and returned to his bubble-blowing.

  Little Jean approached me next to report that at her aunt’s house, where the family summers, there are ten cats. She named each, and curious names they were: Pestilence, Famine, Soapy Sal, and so on. “Sour Mash is Pappa’s favorite,” Jean announced. “He calls her his tortoise-shell harlot.”

  “Yes, well,” Mr. Twain mumbled, somewhat chagrined, I think. He said he must be getting inside to see if the butler had any chores for him to do. Susy said I mustn’t mind her father. “Mother has tried her best to civilize him, but the cause is hopeless,” said she—in jest, I suppose. Susy is fairhaired, rosy-cheeked, and pretty. Her eyes, behind spectacles, have an eager look. She says she has tried the mind cure for her nearsightedness but it did not take.

  Once inside the Clemens home, my own eyes were dazzled! The walls and ceiling of the entrance hall are painted red and patterned in dark blue. The paneling is stenciled in silver. There is also a closet with a telephone inside. I have read of these contraptions but had never seen one. Jean whispered to me that the telephone, when it is not working properly, makes her father speak bad words, and that each time he does, he must pay a penny to her mother.

  Susy led me through the drawing room—one of the most splendid I have ever seen with its settees and drapes of celestial blue. My eyes would have liked to linger on the array of fine things displayed, but it was on to the kitchen to meet Susy’s mother, who was reviewing the details of the coming dinner with the family’s colored cook. Here is a queer thing: the Clemens kitchen is located at the front of the house, not the rear. Susy said her father had insisted the architect design it thus, so that the servants could look out o
n the daily “circus” passing by on Farmington Avenue.

  As for Mrs. Clemens, she is the picture of loveliness and grace—the kind of mother any girl would adore. She said she was pleased to make my acquaintance, and that she was very much looking forward to meeting Grandmother, as she admires her work on behalf of the downtrodden. Susy was excited about the evening, too. This was to be the first time she would be seated at table at one of her parents’ dinner parties. Usually, she is confined to the top of the stairs with her sisters and obliged to eavesdrop from on high.

  Susy, Harmony, and I proceeded from the kitchen to the upstairs schoolroom. Susy and Clara have a tutor, a Miss Foote, and Mrs. Clemens instructs them in the German language. Harmony also studies German, and both girls said they were quite envious of me because of my French studies at Madame Buzon’s school. We three had a delightful conversation about literature. Harmony’s favorite writers are Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Mrs. Stowe, and Mr. Twain. Susy’s are Shakespeare, Swinburne, her father, and Christina Rossetti. She was most impressed with my recitation from memory of stanzas from Miss Rossetti’s “Goblin Market.” In ten minutes’ time, we had become fast friends, and Susy said she wished I lived closer—that if I did, she would cast me in the theatricals they perform downstairs in the Clemens library for the enjoyment of their Nook Farm neighbors. “Does Mrs. Stowe attend?” I inquired. Susy and Harmony said she had done so once. “What is she like?” I asked, and these were the words they used to described her: “quiet,” “dignified,” and “gentle-natured.” Harmony said she has read Uncle Tom’s Cabin many times, and that Little Eva’s sad passing never fails to bring her to tears. I said the same.

  Susy, Harmony, and I played a jolly game of charades and also a game of whist, for which I have discovered a talent. Thank goodness Grandmother was not there to disapprove, as she thinks card games are “a bridge to wickedness.” Harmony and Susy said both their mothers play whist, and also bridge and bezique. Oh, how I long for a modern mother!