Rhoda

by Ellen Gilchrist

  It became a ritual. They went to the Joyce class and listened to Doctor Wheeler explicate the material which they usually had not read, since the semester had heated up and they were busy writing and exploring the world. Rhoda would read the assignment in the car as she drove to class, get there half an hour early, take a seat and read very fast until Doctor Wheeler came in the door. When she met him on the campus she would tell him about it. “I’m behind,” she would say. “But your lectures are brilliant. I want to hear them.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he would answer. “Just read as much as you can.”

  And every Wednesday night after class Rhoda and Ketch would go to her apartment and make love and drink wine and talk about their work and where they were submitting it and what had been accepted where. As the semester wore on they became thinner and meaner. The anxiety of writing and not being published began to wear on them.

  “I’m writing a short story,” she told him one night. “I know it won’t be any good. I’m just writing it to please Randolph. He said I have to write one to get an MFA.”

  “Oh, what’s it about?” Ketch sat up. This wasn’t right. She was a poet. He was a fiction writer. On this basis they fucked each other. No, it wasn’t right. “I wouldn’t waste my time on that if I was you,” he said. “You’re publishing poems. Fuck Randolph.”

  “Well, I just want to try. It’s pretty funny really. It’s set in New Orleans.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, that’s where I live. Where else would it be set?”

  “I’d like to see it when it’s finished.”

  “Sure. It would be nice if you’d read it.” But Rhoda had seen the jealousy. She knew she would never show him a line she wrote after that. Fuck him, she was thinking. His stories aren’t that good. They’re too violent. No one’s ever going to want to read them.

  In the middle of November they had come to the “Sirens” in Ulysses. “A husky fifenote blew. Blew. Blue bloom is on the gold pinnacled hair. A jumping rose on satiny breasts of satin, rose of Castille. Trilling, trilling; Idolores. . . .” Rhoda’s plans had changed. She was going to have to go home to New Orleans and finish the semester by correspondence. Her youngest son was in trouble and her husband had demanded she return. She was glad to go. She was bored with being a graduate student in a writing program and living in an apartment and doing her own laundry. She was tired of going to classes and writing papers and waiting for her poetry to be published. She was bored with fucking Ketch on Wednesday nights. It was so cold, so pointless, so rude. The week before she had been menstruating, bleeding like a stuck pig from her Lippes Loop. They had gotten drunk and made love anyway. In the morning there was blood everywhere, on the carpet, on the sofa, on the lining of her blue silk kimono. She never threw the kimono away. After being cleaned six times it still showed the bloodstains on the hem. She kept it anyway, out of some sort of abandoned rebellion, to remember how bad she had been and how free.

  “This is a fugue,” Doctor Wheeler was saying. “The sirens sit on a meadow on the bones of sailors. The music is a flight of song. The barmaids are the sirens. Twin sirens, they sing and dance and draw the sailors in. It is one of the most intense parts of the book. Joyce believed he should leave behind him a burnt-out field. . . .”

  “I have to go home Friday,” Rhoda was whispering. “For good. To see about my son.”

  “This Friday?”

  “As soon as class is out. He’s making bad grades, driving my husband crazy. He’s sixteen. I shouldn’t have left him to begin with.”

  “What about your classes? How can you leave?”

  “I’ll do them by mail. Everyone is going to let me. Well, I haven’t asked him yet.” She looked toward Doctor Wheeler, who was lighting one Camel from another. He was leaned over his desk, his artificial leg propped against the desk leg, papers spread out before him on the desk.

  “He’ll let you. He’s crazy about you.”

  “Joyce’s mother was a pianist,” Doctor Wheeler was saying. “His father was a tenor. Joyce himself was both a pianist and a tenor. Everywhere in this chapter, which is a small inset in ‘Scylla and Charybdis,’ of course, are references to preludes, overtures, fugues. Fugue means flight, by the way. Pound disapproved of this episode, wanted it out of the manuscript, but Joyce insisted on it. As the sailors are taken in by the sirens, likewise the sirens are enchanted by the sailors’ voices. It is like a prelude stuck in the middle of ‘Scylla and Charybdis.’ There are so many nice touches. The piano brings in Bloom, for example. In music you can play two themes at once, of course. And everywhere is blue and white, the Virgin’s colors. . . .”

  “My short story was accepted by Intro,” she said. “So that’s nice. I didn’t tell you that, did I?”

  “What?”

  “Randolph sent it to Intro and they took it. It’s going to be the lead piece.”

  “Intro?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We better be quiet.”

  She watched him seethe. Intro was the epitome for a writer in a writing program in 1976. It was the springboard. New York agents read it. Intro could be the start of a real career. Ketch had five stories on his desk right now that had been turned down by Intro.

  “This is a song from an opera,” Doctor Wheeler was saying. “Oh, my Delores. Later they will toast the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Joyce hated Rome and thought it inhospitable. Rift in the lute. Well, it’s getting late. Be sure and get up to page four hundred for next week.” He stood up, began to gather his papers, laid a cigarette down on the edge of the desk where it teetered precariously, messily smoking. Rhoda went up to him and began to have a conversation about her leaving and he shook his head from side to side and up and down and agreed that she should go home and take care of her son. “I’ll miss you,” he said. “I was looking forward to your paper.”

  “Oh, I’ll write it. I can’t wait to write it. I can’t tell you how much I’ve loved this. I’ll always feel like something passionate and critical was interrupted in my life. Something important.” She looked into his thin sweet face, his clear good face. Ketch was behind her, standing near the door. The other students were gone. There were only the three of them. I want to follow you home, she felt like saying. I want to sit up all night and talk to you.

  Ulysses had himself tied to the mast not to miss their singing, Doctor Wheeler was thinking. Sound of the sirens, sound of the sea.

  “Mail it to me when you write it,” he said. “What episode would you like?”

  “Oh, ‘Penelope.’”

  “Of course. You’ve finished the book then?”

  “No. I’ve always known it. I had a recording of it by Siobhan McKenna when I was young. I may know it by heart.”

  “Then do that. I’ll look forward to reading it.” He waited.

  “Come on,” Ketch said. “We better go.”

  They went out the door and down the long hall and the marble stairs and out into the parking lot. “Let’s walk to my house,” she said. “For old times’ sake and go up to the cemetery. I can walk to school tomorrow. I like to.”

  “Okay. If you like.” They began to walk down the sidewalk in the direction of the gravel road behind the buildings. It was a cloudy night. A waning moon rode the spaces between the clouds. It was cool but not too cold. Ten o’clock on a Wednesday night. The campus was deserted. They walked without talking up to the cemetery and stopped under a maple tree by a large granite tombstone with a kneeling angel and lay down upon the grave, upon his coat, and fucked each other without mercy.

  When it was over he got up and buttoned his pants and stood leaning on the tombstone waiting while she stood up and shook off his coat and gave it back to him. He put it on. She took his arm and they walked down the hill to her apartment.

  “Why does this remind me of the poets versus the fiction writers baseball game?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Well, I’ve got to be going now. Joanne’s waiting for me.” He lef
t her then and she went inside and sat down at her typewriter and went back to work on a poem she had started that morning.

  At any moment you may meet the child you were

  There, by the Sweet Olive tree.

  If you turn the corner by the faucet

  He will come around the other way

  Carrying your old sandbucket

  And your shovel

  You may notice the displeasure in his eyes,

  A sidelong glance, then he’ll be gone,

  Leaving you holding your umbrella

  With a puzzled look, while the spring day

  Drops like a curtain between the clocks

  And the dialogue you rely on stops.

  Doctor Wheeler walked up the dark steps to his house. His cats were waiting beside the door. “Darlings,” he cooed. “Simonedes. Dave. Well, wait a second. Let me find the key.” He laid his papers on the wooden porch floor, found the key in the pocket of his jacket, turned it in the latch, and went into the darkened room. The cats followed him. He walked back out onto the porch to collect his papers. Above the house the maple trees stood guard. Doctor Wheeler knew them in every weather. Had seen them bent double by wind. Had known them in lightning, rain, snow, or when fall turned them saffron and gold, as they had been only a week ago. They were fading now. Winter was coming on.

  He went back into the house and lit the fire and fed the cats and sat down in his armchair. Homer was on the table by the chair. He picked up the book and held it to his chest, patting it as though it were a child. Finally, when he had almost fallen asleep, he reached up above him and turned on a lamp and opened the book at random.

  The old nurse went upstairs exalting,

  with knees toiling, and patter of slapping feet,

  to tell the mistress of her lord’s return,

  and cried out by the lady’s pillow;

  “Wake,

  wake up, dear child! Penelope, come down,

  see with your own eyes what all these years you longed for!

  Odysseus is here! Oh, in the end he came!

  And he has killed your suitors, killed them all

  who made his house a bordel and ate his cattle

  and raised their hands against his son!”

  He closed the book and pressed it back into his chest. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and took out a crumpled package of cigarettes and turned off the lamp and lit the cigarette and sat in the dark looking into the fire and smoking.

  Going to Join the Poets

  Rhoda left the house on Webster Street early in the morning on a November day. Teddy may have already left to go to school. Maybe the school bus had picked him up to take him to Metairie Park Country Day School and maybe it had not. She didn’t mother him anymore. Eric mothered him. He was all that Eric had because she was almost never there. It was a marriage that had failed. She wouldn’t have a child for Eric and he wouldn’t fuck her anymore. Not that sex between them had ever made either of them happy. It had always been a tortured, patched-up affair. Because they didn’t love each other. She loved his money and he loved her cousins getting them into the tennis club. He loved Faulkner. Had written his paper on Faulkner in undergraduate school. Now he was living Faulkner. He was in the middle of a Grecian Faulkner tragedy.

  After Rhoda drove off in the new green car, the green Mercedes she had bought with the bonds her father gave her, Eric got Teddy up and made breakfast for him and walked with him to where he caught the bus.

  “Your mother’s going to be gone awhile,” he said. “Let’s have some fun while she’s gone. Let’s go out on the boat. Invite some of your friends.”

  “Sure.” Teddy turned to his stepfather. Trying to decide how to make him feel better. Teddy felt responsible for Eric. “She’ll be back, Eric. She always comes back.”

  “Yeah, I know. Look, there’s Robert Skelton hanging out the window looking at you.” Eric patted Teddy on the arm. They were the same height now. Every month Teddy grew another inch. He was fifteen years old. Had grown so tall, so sweet, such a sweet young man, such big brown eyes. Eric’s heart melted when he looked into those eyes.

  Teddy climbed aboard the bus and joined his friends. They waved to Eric. They all loved Eric. He was the best of the best. The best parent any of them had.

  The bus drove off down Webster Street in a cloud of black exhaust. Eric walked back to the house to get the dogs and take them for a walk. Three Old English sheepdogs, an outrageous collection of dogs, an unbelievable problem on a fifty-by-one-hundred-foot lot in uptown New Orleans.

  The day was cool and fresh. The dogs went crazy when they got outside the fence. They ran everywhere, jumping and turning, making their low muffled sheepdog barks. They overwhelmed Eric, licking him and jumping up beside him. They trembled, waiting to run to the park, in the cool of the morning, waiting to jump into the lagoon and swim out through the lily pads, chasing the geese and ducks.

  Aboard the bus Teddy went to the back where the dealing was being done. Robert had a bottle of pills he had stolen from his physician father. David Altmont had a small amount of marijuana. Crazy Eddy had a bottle of whiskey in his lunch box. He was too crazy. He was going to get them all in trouble. Teddy had the sheet of Windowpane he had bought the day before at Benjamin Franklin. “I tried it last night. I want to save most of it for the weekend, but I’ll sell ten hits. For cash. I’m not giving this stuff away and I’m not trading.”

  In the front of the bus the kids who weren’t into dope yet looked straight ahead. They pretended not to notice what was going on behind them. “You kids sit down back there,” the bus driver yelled. “Sit down and behave yourselves.” Teddy took a seat next to his best friend, Robert. “We can go out on the boat this weekend if you want to,” he said. “Eric’s going to take me. Momma’s gone.”

  “Where’d she go?” Robert liked Teddy’s mother. She was always nice to him and talked to him about his father.

  “To Arkansas. She’s gone up there to find an apartment. She’s going to be gone all winter.”

  “Where will you stay?”

  “With Eric and Grandmother.”

  “So where’d you get the Windowpane?”

  “They made a batch at Benjamin Franklin last week. It’s good. I had a good time last night.” He pushed up the window of the bus and stuck his arm out to shoot the peace sign to some kids in a car. He was in a good mood. Nobody was going to bother him this week. The coach was letting him suit up for the game on Saturday morning. Ellie Marcus was going to let him see her Friday night. It was okay. If only he could stay away from his grandmother, he’d be all right.

  Rhoda pulled out onto the Bonnet Carré Spillway and speeded up. Hammond, then Brookhaven, then Jackson, then Vicksburg, and Raine would be waiting to drive her up to Arkansas. Well, I’m not in love with him, she was thinking. I just want him to show me how to get there. Arkansas. My God! I don’t even know where it is. And I won’t feel guilty. It’s Eric’s fault, goddammit. He shouldn’t have stopped fucking me. I can’t have a baby. It would kill the children if I did that. It would kill me. She shuddered, thinking of it.

  It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. She had loved them with all her heart and they were breaking her heart. Especially the oldest, Malcolm, who was so beautiful it seemed the sun came out when he walked into a room. Now he was gone, God knows where. Walking like a god among the hippies. Her golden son, the one who was going to swim the channel for her. She tightened her mouth, speeded up, took a curve doing ninety. It didn’t matter. To hell with them. She’d do it herself, would be a poet, would have her name everywhere. Fools’ names and fools’ faces, always seen in public places. But it wouldn’t be like that. It would be like Anne Sexton. Women would weep when they read her poems, would be fused together and save themselves because of it. She slowed down. Tears were welling up in her eyes, the tears she shed every time she thought about the day she started writing. It had happened because of a poem she read. She had gone on her bike to the Tulane
track to run. Then she had changed her mind and gone to the Maple Street Bookstore instead and bought a book of Anne Sexton’s poems. A posthumous book. 45 Mercy Street. She had ridden over to the track and sat down upon a bench and started reading. “I am torn in two, but I will conquer myself. I will take scissors and cut out the beggar. I will take a crowbar and pry out the broken pieces of God in me.” Then she started crying.

  She came around the last curve of the Bonnet Carré Spillway and out onto the long flat bridge across the marshes. Up ahead was the high span of the bridge at Pass Manchac, then the farmlands would begin, then Mississippi, her home. Then Vicksburg, and Raine would be waiting for her, her lover, her one and only love, the one who never stopped loving her no matter how long it was or what she did. Because she was as bad as he was. Because someday she would be as strong. Someday she would overpower him, but she did not know that yet. All she knew now was that he owed her favors and she was going to collect one.

  She went to the motel where she had arranged to meet him and got a room and called him and sat down upon the bed to wait. Then he was there, with his exotic smell so terrible and real, so far away from the Chi Omega sorority and anything to do with modern poetry. It was a smell for Homer and the Greeks, for Odysseus, Julius Caesar, the Kha Khan. “How’ve you been?” she asked him.

  “I’ve been great, baby. How about you?”

  Then she took off her clothes and lay down upon the bed with him and tried to remember how to be his baby. Yes, she thought, I do not love him anymore but I will fuck him before I use him as a chauffeur.

  Later she cried, because he could always make her cry. Maybe she really wanted to kill him. After they made love they went into the motel dining room and had dinner and then he left her and went back to his house and slept with his wife.

  In the morning he came and got her and drove her up to Arkansas, to his state, past the small town where he had been a hero, past towns where he had fucked every other cheerleader, past plantations that belonged to men who paid to shake his hand, past Little Rock, where his sister had died in a dirty hospital, and on up to the northwest Arkansas hills, which did not belong to him or anyone, which were going to belong to Rhoda now, because that was what she wanted.