by Rick Moody
—Breakfast of Champions is a failure. A flawed, questing work, not at all the work of the man who produced Slaughterhouse-Five, Myers was saying to Neil. Read those earlier books. The sustained period of creativity from Mother Night to Slaughterhouse-Five is.… Well, it’s sustained.
Neil was smiling broadly at this display of hipness from Myers. There weren’t too many New Canaanites who could talk to him in his own brutish tongue.
When Dot Halford came into the room a few minutes later—at twenty past eleven—the three of them, Elena, Neil Conrad, and Wesley Myers, had lapsed into an awkward party silence. The Wesley Myers Elena had met in the diner downtown, several months ago, was gone now. Myers seemed weary and preoccupied. Self-pitying, even. When Dot turned off the television set, it became clear, in fact, that no one in the room was talking, that silence had settled on the room as a whole, one of those statistical silences. The key party was going into its next phase.
Elena noticed the modern art on the wall—a couple squiggles of red and yellow on a white canvas. And the rug pattern—reptiles on pebbles. Pebbles under water.
—Well, Dot said, slurring faintly, teetering on her pumps. Well, we have a little business to attend to now. So if you’re going to stay, let’s please gather in the living room now.
And she led the way.
The key party lacked a comprehensive system of manners. There were things still to be negotiated. No one knew quite what to do, how to follow. Most of those who had no intention of playing had already left. George Clair and his wife had left, most of the old families of New Canaan—the Benedicts, the Bootons, the Carters, et al.—had left. Yet from the rigid uncertainty that swept the room, Elena could tell that Dot’s anxiety and her drunkenness extended to her remaining guests. Of the group gathered around the glass coffee table in the library, six or seven headed for the front hall immediately. For their coats. Those who remained also seemed to be getting ready to leave. They stretched and headed for the bathroom or finished off conversations, though all the while they were intent on that salad bowl in the front hall, that simple, white salad bowl with the keys nestling in it.
The range of uncertainties fascinated Elena. They were gathered there, just after eleven, like some convention of toastmasters. All putting a good face on it. Mark Boland, Maria Conrad, Neil Conrad, Sally and Steve Armitage, Alice and Pierce Sawyer, Ernest and Sari Steele, the Boyles, the Gormans, Janey and Jim Williams, the Gadds, Stephan Earle and his wife, Marie, the Fullers, the Buckleys, Chuck Spofford, June Devereaux, Tommy Finletter, Alicia Monroe. Dot and Rob Halford.
And the Hoods.
Because Elena was a forecaster of difficulties, a seer, she realized the crucial problem of the key party right away. The numbers were uneven. There was an extra guy.
And the pickings were pretty slim. Wesley Myers had slipped out suddenly, out some back door. Why had he been there in the first place? Elena couldn’t imagine whom, of the assembled, she could stand.
Her husband was still there, though, and statistically she might well choose him. He was close by her now, holding her lightly by the shoulders, swaying from side to side.
—Ready to go? Benjamin whispered. I was.… You know, I was thinking I was.… Well, let’s just go, honey. Let’s get out of here. I want to go. I’ve had … enough. Enough of this shit.
A defeated look marred his features. In the lines and around the pouches of his face perspiration collected. He grimaced. He wanted help. But Elena didn’t feel up to it. On other occasions, she had put him to bed. She had changed the sheets when, once or twice, he had actually, in the midst of some drunken episode, pissed in them. She had driven him to the station when he was too hung-over to drive. She had called his secretary at Shackley and Schwimmer to explain away his absences.
—We’re not going anywhere, she said.
Benjamin groaned sullenly. It was an interrogative and preverbal drunken noise.
—That’s right, Elena whispered.
She waved affably at Janey Williams, who was standing across the living room.
—Hi there, Janey.
Janey waved back. Without expression.
Dot had turned on some racy music to go with the event—theme music from the Tribal Love Rock Musical, Hair. Now she dimmed the living room lights. Those thirty-one betrayers gathered round, as though to stay warm. Elena and Benjamin were crowded in by the Armitages on one side and by Maria and her son, Neil, on the other. Certainly the kid would be the one leftover, right? The remainder? Would anyone in this town really spend the night with Maria Conrad’s teenaged son, initiating him into the joy of sex?
—Well, what shall the order be? Dot Halford said with exaggerated calm. Alphabetical? In order of appearance?
—Golf handicap! bellowed Pierce Sawyer. Lowest handicap does the honors.
HA! HA! HA! HA! Nervous laughter.
—Golf handicap? Dot said. Ladies? Isn’t it up to you?
—Oh, I’ll go first, dammit, Maria Conrad said. Let’s just line up and get it over with.
The bowl went around like the wine at Eucharist. The men stood behind hovering behind Dot’s circle of women. A solemn pall overtook the room as Maria reached for that first set of keys. A dark, leather key chain dangled at the end of the prize she selected—an Alfa Romeo key chain. Stephan Earle. Elena realized how weak Stephan Earle must have felt as he came forward, how womanly and weak. He had had someone else in mind. On the other hand, who knew really? Maybe he felt real affection. Everyone applauded as Maria smilingly returned the keys to him and then, taking his arm, proceeded to the guest room, where the coats were piled. Just like that. Even Stephan’s wife, Marie, wished them good luck. She watched her husband leave the way in the Middle Ages wives must have watched ships leave for the spice trade.
And what about Neil? Neil didn’t even seem to notice his mother’s grand exit. And still not a single adult had questioned his presence there. No one had told him to run along. Well, he was, what? Nineteen? Of majority, almost. Dot Halford was already on to the next couple. Her husband was standing off to one side rattling a drink with a sleepy smile on his face. They soldiered on, these pretenders to the Tribal Love Rock Event, like it was a civic duty.
Marie Earle herself went next and took up with Dan Fuller, whose wife then followed (a sort of order was elaborated in this way—the aggrieved party was next in line), taking up with the divorced Chuck Spofford, and this sent the narrative of adultery off on a digression, through the wilds of the divorced. After Chuck, June Devereaux picked Tommy Finletter, who thereafter tossed the baton to his neighbor of long standing, Elise Gorman, who took up with her husband’s old golfing partner, Pierce Sawyer. And Sawyer’s wife picked Tony Boyle, etc. One couple, the Gadds, managed to select each other, and rather than sporting the disappointment Elena might have suspected, they seemed greatly relieved.
The key party proceeded as flawlessly as a bank line. When Elena confronted again her own decision to participate, when she began to think of the practical issues—which house, how would she get a ride back, what if somebody’s children found out—the room was no more crowded than a small dinner party. Mark Boland, Neil Conrad, Janey and Jim Williams, Rob and Dot Halford, Sari Steele, and Benjamin.
Then, somehow, the order became confused. Because there were so many people there who had drunk too much. Because, in the end, it was not a game in which order had much place. So Janey Williams went next. For no good reason. She was simply ready to go and tired of waiting. Elena took note of Benjamin’s agitation. Even in his dull, inebriated state he could see that he would certainly be the selection. He may have wanted to go, or to give the appearance of wanting to go, but now here he was believing in the fates, in chance. The numbers favored him. The record player had turned itself off and the fire in the fireplace had gone out. It was Benjamin’s moment. Dot presented the bowl to Janey, whose delicate hands selected with all the care of a jeweler.
Janey knew their keys well enough. The Hoods’ key ring wit
h the horse on it. Janey had looked after the house on a couple of occasions. She could have found their keys with ease. But Janey selected away from Benjamin Hood. She found the keys and purposefully shoved them to one side, Elena imagined, because she wound up instead with … Neil Conrad.
The teenager! Jim Williams seemed to peruse an old copy of National Geographic as his wife publicly embraced Maria Conrad’s underage son. Jim Williams, smiling mysteriously to himself. When had he arrived at the party, anyway? But the real drama of the moment was created by Elena’s own husband. In that tight circle, he lumbered forth as if to separate Janey and Neil. For a moment, fisticuffs seemed likely. For a moment, Benjamin threatened the teenager with the flat of his hand. Elena felt shame rise in her like adrenaline. Shouts of Hey, hey, Ben, hang on there a sec, and Benjamin gathered himself up, realizing, even in his drunkenness, the enormity of his foolishness. He backed off.
And in backing off he tripped over the coffee table. Here at last was a story with beginning, middle, and end, a story that local scandalmongers could repeat with relish. Benjamin went down heavily, as if it were natural for him to be prone on the Halfords’ shag rug. He settled there resolutely. Elena made no move to help him—she was chilled with dismay—and the Halfords didn’t hurry either. Jim Williams looked up casually from his magazine. Benjamin Hood lay on the floor, muttering. An indistinguishable whisper of complaints about Shackley and Schwimmer, about his past, about New Canaan. Elena paid no more attention than anyone else. Or she tried.
But when Benjamin gulped back the first salvo of some intestinal disturbance, Elena felt she had to do something.
—C’mon, darling, she said, and she crouched over his back—because he was now kneeling wobbily by the edge of the modular seating unit. Come on, you’ve got to go to the bathroom. Let’s go.
She could smell the vomit on his breath, and his eyes were like the bloody foam at the end of a bad shaving episode. She didn’t have time to feel humiliated. His face was raw with sadness.
—Dot? she said. May I install him in your bathroom? Won’t be a minute. I’m sorry, I really am.
—Not another word, Dot said. It wouldn’t be a party without him.
With a lavender cocktail napkin, Dot Halford crouched to wipe up the last of an Irish coffee that Benjamin had taken with him on the way down. Only a small, gluey clump of rug tentacles was left to betray Benjamin Hood’s fall.
Mark Boland helped Elena lift him to his feet, at which point Benjamin disdained—in incoherent, alcoholic grunts—any further help. He hurried himself to the bathroom coughing ominously. When Elena turned her attention back to the game, halfheartedly now, guiltily, but also angrily, Neil Conrad and Janey Williams were gone. In fact, Mark Boland seemed to be suddenly on his way out with Dot herself. They had managed to sanctify this bond quietly, on the margins of all the other activity. The game was accelerating, to accomplish its task without further mishap. People were pairing off without even consulting the bowl. Because there were only the four of them left now. Rob Halford and Sari Steele turned to Jim Williams and Elena, who found themselves alone standing together, and smiled.
—We didn’t actually put our keys in at all, Rob said. But you won’t spread it around?
He guffawed loudly.
—It’s my party. And Dot isn’t.… Hey, we’re just going to slip upstairs for a little while. Would you guys like a cup of coffee or something before we go?
Jim looked at Elena. Elena was looking back.
They sized each other up. The decision, for Elena, was about like buying an expensive household item. A new hi-fi or a new dishwasher. She was valuing Jim strictly on the basis of design stylings.
—Rob, we’ll fix it for ourselves, she said. You two go on and get acquainted. We’ll let ourselves out the front door.
Then Elena and Jim Williams were alone in the Halfords’ living room. Real holiday carnage marred the earthy and arty look of the premises. There were half-empty beer bottles everywhere, and these were filled with the ends of cigarettes, Virginia Slims, Kents, Larks, Winstons. Disposable plastic cups had been stuffed with the lavender cocktail napkins and scraps of hors d’oeuvres. Elena was stunned by the number of empty liquor bottles at the bar. The cushions from the polyurethane modular-seating unit had been scattered on the floor, near where Benjamin had stretched himself out, and there was a trail of slush and grime leading in from the front door. Wood smoke and cigarettes and pot had gotten into the curtains and upholstery. The room had an outdoorsy stench to it.
The last coals hissed and popped in the fireplace.
—Well, Jim Williams said, I have to say I don’t have much faith that my keys are still in that bowl. Doesn’t seem entirely safe, you know? Leaving your house keys around?
The salad bowl sat on the floor, next to one wall.
—Let me, Elena said.
Ceremoniously, she retrieved the bowl. As though the act had profound spiritual significance. She dipped her hand in. Two sets of keys remaining there. One set, of course, was her own. But she avoided these keys, just as Jim’s wife had. At first it was a simple act of generosity—she was getting his keys for him—but somewhere on her way across the room she was playing the game, the key party game. Wistfully, she was playing. Resignedly, but by the time Elena handed him the dull, leather key chain, she was also hoping.
—Oh, I don’t think so, Jim said. It’s been a discouraging evening.
—You couldn’t have hoped for much better when you came up the walk, Elena said. And that’s the truth.
—Somehow it was different in my imagination when I thought about it. Actually, I didn’t think about it at all, really.
Williams was wearing plaid pants—kelly green field with red and yellow lines crisscrossing—and a striped shirt. Maroon stripes on white. A big collar wide open at the neck, spread out upon the wide lapels of his tweed jacket. Tan patent-leather loafers with heels. He had facial hair. Sideburns, and a large mustache that he stroked contemplatively as they spoke.
They sat. On the modular-seating unit.
—Do you want coffee or something? Williams said.
—If we can do it quick, she said. Maybe they have one of those filter jobs.… Did you come down from the city? Was the weather—
The weather was awful, and Jim Williams had heard gloomy forecasts about the effects of the sudden twenty-degree drop in the temperature that was expected. His conductor, on the train out, had grim prophecies.
—Well, if it’s going to be so cold, Elena said, as they combed the kitchen looking for the coffee, the half-and-half, and the drip apparatus, you might as well—
—Look, Elena, he said, the fact that we’re … neighbors, you know, close friends, well, it sort of makes this a little strange, don’t you think?
Well, they didn’t have to share their feelings on the subject of infidelity. They both had experience. A complex of feelings had passed through Elena since early evening. The tough job of naming feelings seemed overwhelming. It was a job for social workers, for the professionals at Silver Meadow. Her feelings, they would say, had a Reichian name. She could locate them in an orgone accumulator.
—My husband is passed out in the bathroom. I’ve been married to him for seventeen years and I don’t have any intention of going in there to pick him up. This is one night I’m just not doing it. Come what may.… He’s not my profession.… Do you know what I mean?
Jim Williams didn’t say anything.
—So what I’m proposing is that since your wife has gone off with a boy, and since you are standing here alone, I’m proposing that you and I just do what makes sense. Stay warm. Pass some time. That’s all. It’s not elegant—
They were looking at their hands, looking at their coffee cups, looking at the lacerations in the very wood grain of the chopping board—celery ends stacked upon it; they were looking at the bowl of dip and the cellophane wrap crumpled next to it. They were looking around the room at refrigerator magnets and salt cellars and church ke
ys and the stems of freshly cut flowers in the sink and bottle caps and a lone spice jar marked marjoram.
—I’m already married, you know, Elena said. I don’t have any use for you in the long run. If that’s what you’re worried about. If you don’t want to talk about it ever again, you don’t have to. Now don’t make me feel as though I’m being too forward, okay? Don’t make me feel that trying to persuade is unbecoming. Because I can tell it’s not the furthest thing from your mind.
A long, silent communion between the two of them.
—What the hey, Jim said. Let’s go for a drive.
And then she hesitated.
—Okay. Okay. Should we clean up around here first? Elena said. Do you think it’s all right—
—Nah, he said, that wasn’t in the contract.
But they walked around the first floor turning off lights. Elena didn’t pay any attention to the sound of running water in the bathroom there—where not so long ago Mark Boland had stared at the panties knotted around her bony legs—or to the light that still shone beneath the door there. They turned off the appliances in the kitchen, the lamps in the dining room, in the den, and back in the living room. They pushed the sculpture in the foyer back into the open space by the guest room, where Dot usually kept it. They helped each other into their coats.
Outside, everything had changed. Meteorologically, the phenomenon, which occurred rarely in that part of the Northeast, went like this: rain, sleet, and snow, propelled by subfreezing winds—warmer temperatures aloft and freezing temperatures at ground level—began to harden instantly on trees, rooftops, power lines, and other surfaces. The ice built up on every surface. (The worse such storm in thirty years, according to Mike Powers, spokesman for Connecticut Light and Power. Stamford Advocate, November 23, 1973, p. A1ff.) Moving up the East Coast, the low-pressure system spread from Virginia to Maine and from four hundred miles out on the Atlantic Ocean to Pennsylvania.