The Promise of Rest

by Reynolds Price

  Hutch said “Oh no. I’m banking on his mercy.”

  Straw waited a whole mile, then managed the tired start of a grin. “Old-maid alarmist that you are, you would be in the mercy market. What have you ever done that could upset even the crankiest God?”

  Grogged as he still was, Hutch turned and took in the full sight beside him—not the blasted world but the one man driving. “You say I failed you.”

  Straw faced the road. “That’s my complaint, not God’s.”

  Through their years of friendship, Hutch had often misplaced the rock-ribbed fact of Straw’s undamaged conviction of God, a thoroughly handmade spacious God with rules that resembled no other creed’s but that kept a present and active hold on Strawson Stuart. Hutch said “You think old God ever minded the times we had?”

  Straw calmly turned his eyes from the road. “Of course he did. I loved you, Hutchins. Nobody but you, not truly, not then—not God nor woman nor trees nor deer, just Hutch Mayfield. Have you lost that?” Straw faced the road again and righted the car.

  Hutch shook his head at the clean-lined profile of a head that was still as fine as any, on any old coin. “Never lost it, no. I recall every time our two hides touched—right down to the look of the rooms we were in and how the light fell, how the instants tasted. They’re memories strong as any I’ve got and I’m still grateful.”

  Straw said “I’m not just speaking of bodies. I’d have spent my whole life bearing your weight, if you’d said the word.”

  Hutch could smile. “I think you truly believe that. I think you may well believe you wanted that, forty years ago. But don’t forget you were cheerfully mounting married women, virgins and spinsters by the literal dozen, in between our rare good innings together; and I was deep over my head with Ann before you ever stepped into my life.”

  Straw said “I can love anything on Earth with a body heat of eighty degrees, or anything higher, and a calm disposition—I mean it; you know it or knew it years ago.” Then, unexpected, he laughed the laugh of his own boyhood—the laugh that had brought such steady rafts of excellent human bodies toward his own keen beauty and the power of his heart, well before he was grown.

  Hutch saw him even more clearly again, remembered each atom of his face at its best; and not for the first time, he grieved at the choice he’d made against the boy Straw was. Even if the softer man here in the night burned slower and asked for far less worship, Straw was nonetheless a welcome presence—a tangible gift to any close watcher. Finally Hutch thought of the question he’d asked himself years ago; it was still the main question for him and Straw. “But what in God’s name could you and I have done—two thoroughly opposite brands of gent, trapped there in the country in too-big a house with an old Negro man and the rest of our lives to kill while the world snickered at us at the grocery store: two old sissies, harmless as house dust?”

  Straw knew at once. “Aside from the fact that you and I are about as sissy as Coach Knut Rockne, we’d have had everything any man and woman have.”

  “Not live babies, Straw.”

  “To hell with babies—since when did America need more babies? We’re strangling on babies.”

  Hutch said “Steady, friend. We’d have never had children, which is one huge lack in any arrangement that means to last; and worse, we’d have both had male-thinking minds. We’d have run out of things to talk about or to care for in common, and then we’d have just butted skulls round the clock like exceptionally dumb bull elephants. We’d have understood each other far too well before six months passed—all our big and small testosterone traits.

  “Every mystery we’d had for each other would have worn out fast—we’d be as obvious as cheap fireworks. And that would have led to despising each other, then hate, then worse. We’d have loathed what time did to each other’s bodies. And sooner or later, hot as we were, we’d have been sneaking out to cheat each other with every willing youngster in sight till we got so old we were paying for sex in motels and car seats.” Hutch honestly thought they’d avoided just that.

  Straw couldn’t relent. “What would have been worse than you killing me or vice versa? No great loss to anyone but Grainger, and he might not have noticed the absence. Or we could have made a suicide pact—more people ought to take themselves out early and not ruin other people’s outlook on life.” Straw was plainly earnest.

  Hutch had to grin.

  And once Straw glared and failed to stop Hutch, he decided to join him. Their laughter rocked around in the fast car like stones in a bowl. But once they were quiet, Straw said “We failed at our one big chance. Don’t ever again, not in my presence anyhow, try to wiggle your hips and slide past the fact. The two of us together had something a whole lot better than we’ve ever had since; you chose to ignore it and here we stand, two pitiful starved-out men out of luck.”

  Again Hutch felt the need to smile. There might be more than a gram of truth in Straw’s tirade, but any chance they’d have had at a life was so far gone as to look like the smudge on a summer-night sky of the farthest star. So Hutch smiled and said “I’ve been grateful to you every minute I’ve known you.”

  Straw said “That won’t buy me a dry dip of snuff.” He’d never dipped snuff and soon realized it, which caused him to laugh again. There were few better laughs on the whole East Coast.

  9

  IN another half hour they’d crossed the jammed George Washington Bridge and in twenty more minutes were standing in a dark narrow hallway at the black steel door to Wade’s apartment. The rooms Wade had shared for a decade with Wyatt were high in a well-kept building in the upper nineties over Riverside Drive, a neighborhood that had seen better times quite recently. The scattered filth, the broken heaved pavement, the rattled abandoned men and women posted every few yards with lost or frantic or merely dead eyes were plainly the normal state of things now.

  Hutch hadn’t stood here in at least four years, a little longer maybe; but surely it hadn’t been this rejected by all human care. Forget it, nothing but nuclear holocaust could mend this now, do your own hard duty. He’d even dreamed, more than once in recent months, of standing at Wade’s door, paralyzed to move; and now that he’d actually come, something balked him. His hand refused to reach toward the bell.

  So at last Straw touched it—no audible ring. He pressed it longer—still no answer.

  They waited more than a minute. Nothing.

  Then the elevator door behind them opened on a single rider, a tall young woman.

  When she saw Hutch and Straw, she stayed in the elevator but held the door open. The landing was maybe twelve feet by nine. The woman was no more than five feet from Hutch, and their eyes met at once.

  Hutch first noticed her height and color. She was maybe six feet tall. Her skin was the shade of dry beach sand; and her hair was abundant and strong as horsetail, a lustrous natural black and long with the deep-set waves of a forties movie star. Warm as it was, she wore a black raincoat halfway to her shoes.

  A quick automatic smile crossed her lips, then she went nearly grim with her dark eyes wide. She held a paper bag of what seemed milk and bread, and she still didn’t move.

  Hutch said “My name is Hutchins Mayfield. Do you know my son Wade?”

  That brought her out of the elevator, though she pocketed her keys again.

  Silence seemed so much a part of her nature that Hutch told himself she must be mute. He asked an easy Yes or No question. “Have you seen him this morning?”

  She shook her head No, then finally said “I’m Ivory Bondurant.”

  An appealing voice, unmistakably black in its complex harmony. And Bondurant had been Wyatt’s family name, though at closer range this woman looked ten years older than Wyatt, the last time Hutch had seen him at least. She’d be in her early forties then, remarkably preserved. Hutch extended his hand.

  She took it lightly, meeting his eyes.

  Hutch introduced Strawson and said “We rang two minutes ago—no answer yet.”


  Ivory agreed, as grave as before. “Did Wade expect this?”

  What’s this? Hutch wondered but he said “Yes, I spoke with him late last night—twice in fact.”

  She persisted. “I put him to bed at ten last night; he didn’t mention visitors this morning.”

  Hutch drew out his wallet, found his driver’s license with the small photograph and held it toward her. “I’m who I said. We’ve come to get Wade.”

  Self-possessed as she was, for a moment Ivory was shocked and she showed it. Her eyes and mouth crouched. But she refused the license, brought out her keys and stepped toward the door.

  Hutch touched her arm to slow her. “What should we know?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We’ve heard Wade’s blind. He mentioned Wyatt’s death. He sounded confused.”

  Ivory’s shock was relenting; she studied Hutch’s face, then gave a smile that was startling in its force. “Mr. Mayfield, all the above is correct. Your son has a ghastly disease that we’re all but sure he got from my brother Wyatt. My brother took his own life when that was established—shot himself downstairs in the street ten weeks ago. Wade Mayfield is on his way to being nearly as bad off as any starving child on television. But come on in; it’s clean anyhow.” Her sentences made a real shape in the air; she let the shape hang in place for a moment like a carefully drawn, remorselessly perfect Euclidean figure. Then she opened the door and stood aside to beckon the men in.

  As he came, Hutch watched her unbutton her black coat. Beneath it, she wore a blood-red linen dress. He recalled that Mary Queen of Scots had dressed identically for her own beheading, astonishing all the bystanding henchmen of her murderous cousin Elizabeth of England.

  The room was empty or it looked so at first. The spare but handsome chairs and tables that Hutch remembered—the buffalo rug, the banks of records and tapes and playing machines: all were simply gone. A few dog-eared books stood by the baseboard, a sickly fern, a worn-out butterfly chair from the sixties, a radio playing what seemed to be Handel, a huge crumbled cork dartboard still bristling with darts. Hutch had bought that for Wade’s ninth birthday, a gift that had seemed to displease the boy; yet here it was, a plucky survivor. Even the wood-slat blinds at the windows were gone; and the river was plain to see—the filthy Hudson, still iron-blue and stately in the visible pace of its final surrender to the sea.

  Ivory entered and locked the door behind them. When she saw the two men’s baffled stares, she said “They sold the things, piece by piece, for pittances.”

  Hutch was speechless.

  But Straw said “Surely they had some insurance to help them along—”

  Hutch realized he’d counted on the same thing. He only said “Surely—”

  But Ivory said “Wade has a policy that covers more than half. But Wyatt’s insurance canceled him out when they knew he was ill incurably. Then they were both hard up in no time. It broke my heart.”

  Hutch took the three words as a hopeful break in Ivory’s daunting mastery here. “I understand you’ve been through hell.”

  “I didn’t know I was out of it yet”—her great smile again.

  Hutch said “I’ll lighten your load today.” He thought that was the literal truth; but once it was out, it sounded too grand.

  Ivory heard the same sound. “Are you sure, Mr. Mayfield? You don’t know me—”

  “Miss Bondurant, I didn’t know you existed. Why did I come here so many times in the past decade and never see you?”

  Ivory’s voice lowered and hurried to say “They didn’t want you to know about me.” But then she calmed herself. “I didn’t live here when you used to visit. I was married then.”

  Hutch said “Thank God you’ve been here lately. We clearly owe you a great debt of thanks. Tell me anything else I should know.”

  She looked to Straw. “Can you believe this?” Her eyes narrowed down to contain their fury, but somehow she’d managed to gentle her voice.

  Straw said “I never believe anything my eyes or ears tell me.”

  She said “Lucky man. Stay put where you are. The world up here’s a torture factory.” Then she abruptly smiled, “Tell your boss he’d need a very long year of time if I told him half of what he ought to know.”

  Hutch accepted the strike; his only reply was to turn away to the window again.

  But Straw touched Hutch’s shoulder and said “This man is nobody’s boss, believe me; he’s a sick man’s father. Where have you put Wade?” Straw’s eyes were among the rare eyes in Manhattan that could meet Ivory’s blistering stare, instant for instant.

  She finally whispered “Brace both of yourselves, hard, and step through that door.” She pointed to a shut door off the main room.

  When Hutch balked again, Straw took the lead. At the door he looked back at Hutch, who was pale as tallow on a white plate. Straw bent, being taller than Hutch, and pressed his lips against his friend’s taut forehead. Then Straw opened the door, a wall of stifling air fell on him, he stepped inside. The space was dark; a torn sheet was stapled across the one window. Straw said “Old Wade, your godfather’s here.”

  From somewhere in the hot brown air, a young voice said “Oh Godfather, I owe you a favor. Take a chair, sit down, exterminate me.” What seemed an attempt at a laugh grated out.

  Hutch’s hand had found the switch for an overhead light.

  The white glare rocketed round the space, then gradually showed another sparse room—no chests or tables, one rocking chair that had been on Wade’s great-grandmother’s porch the night she eloped and started her branch of the Mayfield family, nothing else but a mattress on a rolling frame and bleached blank sheets.

  It took a long moment before Hutch could see that—pale as the sheets—a body was lying on them, naked. Maybe forty or fifty pounds too thin. A chaos of bones, white skin thin as paint, tangled islands of dark chestnut hair, a skull that was helpless not to grin. Hutch thought Christ Jesus but he also smiled and held in place.

  Straw went forward though, knelt by the mattress, took the thin shoulders lightly and bent to kiss the skull.

  Wade whispered “Hearty thanks” and tried to say more, but his voice broke up. His eyes looked normal, they both stayed dry and fixed on Strawson, he’d still to meet his father’s gaze.

  Hutch reminded himself He can’t see this; he stepped onward then and knelt next to Wade. His hand went out to the head and smoothed the sweaty hair.

  Wade’s eyes found him then and, so far as they could show feeling at all, they looked surprised and gratified. He said “I’m pleased to see you, sir.” When his lips closed again, the print of the teeth was stark through the skin.

  Helpless, Hutch smiled. “Do you see me?”

  “Not to know who you are, but I recognize your outline.” Wade stopped as if he’d never speak again and both eyes shut. Blinded, he put up a finger and traced the line of Hutch’s head on the air. Then he looked out again and said “You’re giving off too much light.” What seemed like another try at laughter rose and quit.

  And a dry unwilling laugh escaped Hutch. “Son, I’m in deeper dark than you.”

  By then Straw had found a tan bedspread and laid it on Wade, up to the chin.

  Wade’s eyes had stayed shut; he was barely breathing—asleep or in some private trance.

  Straw felt for a pulse in the throat and faced Hutch. “Let’s get this child packed.”

  Hutch confirmed the pulse for himself, then stood and followed Straw back to the front room. There they could hear low sounds from the kitchen. Again Straw led the way, Hutch behind him.

  To Hutch at that moment, Straw’s upright back was a sight as necessary as air, the slim last promise of a chance at survival.

  Ivory, vivid still in her red dress, was warming milk on a low gas flame. She’d already made toast, buttered it and laid it in a deep blue bowl.

  Hutch saw she was making old-fashioned milk-toast, a thing his father had craved when sick. It seemed another small promise o
f strength, the hope of home.

  Ivory said “If you gentlemen haven’t had breakfast, I’m sorry to say this is all I’ve got—I make milk-toast for Wade twice a day. There’s a coffee shop two blocks due east.”

  Straw said “We’ve eaten”; and as if on signal, he and Hutch both stroked the grizzled stubble of their chins.

  Ivory opened a drawer and Hutch could see a small scattering of white plastic cutlery—knives, forks, spoons. He recalled his grandmother Mayfield’s silver, ornate and heavy in the hand as a club. She’d left it, dozens of pieces, to Wade when he was a child. He’d stored it at home; and it hadn’t been more than eight or nine years since Hutch himself had packed it carefully and brought it north, on his normal spring visit, hoping it might help propitiate Wyatt, who was already fending off Wade’s kin. Surely silver hadn’t survived the great sell-off?

  Ivory had seen Hutch glance at the drawer. “Sorry, Mr. Mayfield, that went also—every silver piece the two of them owned. Wyatt had some too.”

  In these blasted rooms, like swamped lean-to’s to Wade’s own fragile bones, that was no loss at all. Hutch thanked her again. Then he wondered Why thanks? Thanks for what? Why’s she still here?

  As if mind reading, Ivory said “I’ve been the treasurer, the past six months, for my brother and Wade. It’s all accounted for in that book there, by the day and to the penny.” She pointed to a composition book on the counter—blue back, green spine.

  Hutch took a momentary writer’s pleasure in the sight of a well-made waiting blank book; then he said “I had no idea he’d run out of funds. He told me his firm paid him disability.”

  “They did, Mr. Mayfield—they still do—but this plague eats money faster than people. And I told you Wyatt was completely bereft weeks before he died. Wade carried him gladly; he can still swear to that.”

  Hutch said “I don’t doubt that for an instant.” Still he rightly felt small. He’d had no thought of theft or deceit; he had none now. It was almost the only cardinal virtue he claimed to possess—a genuine despisal of money, though he’d mostly had enough. This woman had apparently kept Wade alive for the past ten weeks since her own brother buckled and quit—Wade was a likable gifted man, no mystery there, none greater than the sight of human kindness, always a shock. Hutch said “What finally got Wyatt down?”