We Were The Mulvaneys

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Now she was forever calling, "Judd? Where are you? Is that you? Judd?")

  I won't go into the health of the hvestock. If you know farm animals, you know all about that.

  hi these desperate months when he was (a fact I wasn't supposed to know) trying to stave off bankruptcy, my father hadn't time for flirni chores; or was impatient to a point just short of mania if he had to do them. He was breathless, panting, angry. His disheveled graying hair like steel wool, carelessly shaved jaws, a glisten at the corners of his mouth like spittle. His clothes were the same sportily stylish clothes he'd always worn but they were rumpled, as if he'd crushed them in his fists, and in need of laundering or dry cleaning. His boots were mud-spattered, his shoes in need of shining. The glamorous almostnew Lincoln he drove was mud-spattered too. I'd hear him start the engine, turning the key in the ignition in some weird way that made a squealing sound as of protest, as if he'd forgotten the rudiments of driving, or was distracted by malevolent thoughts. Once he stormed into the house where I was doing something in the kitchen, tossed his car keys onto the table and said, glaring at me, "Take the pile of shit, you're welcome to it." S'ammed upstairs and half hour later slammed down again, looking for the keys, of course, and they were exactly where he'd tossed them onto the table, untouched by inc.

  Where always in the past Dad had been courtly to Mom, to the point of embarrassing us kids, now he was indifferent, or rude; or worse. He didn't like her questioning him and grew into the habit of cutting her off in rnidsentence"N o!" he'd say, or "Who wants to know?" Once I saw him shove Mom aside when she'd dated to touch him, just her fingers on his arm. Another time I saw him lean close to her, his boiled-looking face brought to within an inch of her face, and he said something to her in a low, contemptuous voice that made her wince as if he'd kicked her in the stomach. (If I asked Mom afterward what had happened, Morn would say, hurt, "Nothing `happened.' And I'll thank you not to spy on us, young mans")

  This I remember vividly: seeing my father pitching manure in the barnyard, in the awkward, uncoordinated way of a man who's never held a pitchfork in his hands before, and suddenly in disgust throwing the pitchfork against the side of the hay barn with such force that for several fantastic seconds the heavy object actually held, quivering, before falling to the ground.

  I'd just emerged from the stable. I couldn't help clapping-1 guess

  I was a smart-ass, unless I just wanted to pretend that such wild, futile behavior on my dad's part was for laughs as in the old days it might possibly have been. Way to go, Dad! Betcha can't do that again!

  But Dad hadn't heard. Already he'd stalked off, gone to climb into the Lincoln and drive the hell away from High Point Farm and all t had come to mean to him.

  I told Morn, "I'm scared of Dad. I wish he'd go away somewhere by himself and stay."

  Mom said, her eyes welling with tears, "You! You go away if you're not happy in this house."

  News of such incidents I would relay to Patrick, who'd given me a Secret telephone number I could use to call him. (Actually, it was a lab number. Sometimes he was there, and sometimes not, and if not I was to hang up without identifying myself.) "I'm scared of Dad," I said, aggrieved. "I wish he'd go away somewhere by himself and-" Patrick interrupted, in cool Pinch-style, "Look, Judd, our father is just a casualty. He's one of those frogs whose life is sucked out of them without them having a clue what's going on, by a giant water spider."

  Michael Mulvaney Sr. escaped going to Red Bank Correctional Facility for Men but he didn't escape what he'd come to call his fate: to be dragged publicly through shit, to be shit in others' eyes. It was not his belief and would never be his belief that he'd committed any crime when he'd tossed a few ounces of beer into Judge Kirkland's face, still less that he'd committed any crime when, the previous year, he'd slammed Zachary Lundt against a wall-these were "provoked" acts for which he felt not the slightest repentance. He'd paid a fine of $1,500 but this fine was what he called a "mere fraction" of his punishment. For he'd become involved in the hiring and firing of lawyers like an obsessed rnan-hiring the "initial error," as he said, and firing its "compounding." Yet he kept hiring lawyers, and each lawyer Dad hired he had to pay, pay, pay. One week he'd be speaking rapturously of someone from Yewville named Costello, the next week someone from Rochester named Elder; the next week, Costello and Elder were out, and Fenwick, "a real shark," was in. Lawyers terrified my mother because she perceived that they thrived on others' misery; she was the daughter of farmers and could not tolerate a profession that "produces nothing, but only takes." She who hadn't wept when three of our horses were taken away to auction (at least, she hadn't wept in front of me) wept when my father boasted of his legal strategies to her. He was going to sue that hypocrite Kirkland! He was going to sue the Mt. Ephraim Country Club! He was going to sue the Mt. Ephraim police-for false arrest! And the Patriot-Ledger, for libel! Each lawyer provided my father with hope of redressing his terrible hurt; but it was hope lethal to him as solid food to a man whose stomach has shrunken from starvation. There was even a week or so in January 1979 when Dad was initiating a suit against one of his former lawyers charging "legal malpractice" and during this time my parents quarrelled as I'd never heard them quarrel before in my life. My mother was furious that my father was squandering money on lawyers and my father insisted he could win it all back, and more-didn't he have justice on his side?

  At the same time Dad seemed to have no illusions, and no hope. By day, cold sober, he had no hope. He was a man going through the motions of attacking others, a man with no hope. He seemed to have forgotten Marianne entirely, what had been done to her that was the cause of all our trouble, his excited focus was a small circle of men in Mt. Ephraim who'd wronged him, and continued to wrong him. He warned me, "As soon as you're involved with the law, son, they've got you. Like a rat trapped in a corner by dogs. Innocent or guilty, you're going to be punished because you have to hire a lawyer, and as soon as you hire a lawyer you're going to pay, pay, pay. It doesn't matter if you're innocent and you win-you lose. You pay, pay, pay."

  In the end, in spring 1979, High Point Farms would be sold thousands of dollar below the realtors' suggested price, to pay my parents' debts, thirty-two thousand dollars of which were legal debts.

  After Christmas, Mom and I drove to Kilburn to visit with Marianne. Again, my sister hadn't been invited home for the holidays. I did most of the driving in Mom's Buick station wagon and kept hearing Patrick's voice Judd you're the only person I can trust in the world Judd you're the only person I can trust in the world beneath Mom's nervous chatter.

  Three hours and forty minutes driving to Kilburn in the extreme southwest corner of New York State, most of the trip along two-lane country highways (sometime stuck behind snowplows moving at twenty miles per hour); almost that long again, driving back home that evening. Mom was anxious about staying overnight in Kilburn-

  "At this time of year, you can't tell what the weather might do." It was a snowy windswept landscape, the air bright and glittering with cold. No immediate snow was predicted but Mom envisioned the two of us snowbound in Kilburn, trapped until the spring thaw.

  I wondered if she'd told Dad where we were going. If he would notice we'd been away. If she and Dad ever discussed Marianne at all.

  The former inn, painted mint-green with white trim, that was the Green Isle Co-op hadn't changed much since Motn's and my last visit. There were Christmas decorations in all the windows and, in the front room which was a combination parlor and office, a lopsided evergreen tree trimmed with handmade paper, tinsel, and cloth ornaments in primary colors. The mood of the Co-op at 11:20 A.M. of a weekday was busy, bustling, even frantic-people rushing about, up and down the stairs, a telephone ringing and a dog barking excitedly. This was an atmosphere hospitable to my mother who wandered inside, smiling and calling, "Marianne? Marianne?" until someone yelled, "Marianne! Visitors!" and Marianne appeared out of the rear of the house where she'd been working in the kitchen, wiping h
er hands on her apron. She wore baggy khaki pants, a redplaid flannel shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows, an oversized stained apron. When Marianne and Mom hugged they began to cry in a soundless way you'd almost mistake for laughter; then Marianne hugged me, her thin, surprisingly strong arms around me as I stood self-conscious, embarrassed-a clumsy kid of sixteen not knowing what to do or say. "My goodness, Judd, you keep growing! You've actually grown inches!" Marianne cried breathlessly. Her bones seemed light as a sparrow's and her hair was cut shorter than mine; her skin looked sallow, grainy. But her eyes, glistening with tears, were my sister's beautiful eyes-I almost couldn't bear to look into.

  Marianne seized our hands and led us upstairs to her room on the third floor, talking excitedly. Her room was one we'd seen before but now she had a new roonimate, a girl named Felice-Marie who smiled but didn't exchange more than a half dozen words before she made her escape. "What a-an attractive girl-" Mom said breathlessly, though Felice-Marie was heavyset, dark-browed, rather sullen. Marianne said, "Oh yes Felice-Marie is a wonderful person. She's a speech therapy major, I've learned so much from her." It was that radiant high school enthusiasm that ricochets off surfaces, dazzling and feverish and not to be examined closely.

  The room Marianne shared with Felice-Marie was smaller than her room at home, with only a single window; a straw-colored woven rug on the floor, fishnet curtains, a mix of furniture of the kind you see at garage sales, strewn across someone's lawn. There was a yeasty, not-very-fresh smell. Clothes on hangers, crowded on a rod in a corner of the room. Except for a few books here and there, and a spiral notebook on the windowsill, it didn't look much like a room shared by two college students. And there, on Marianne's bed, on her hand-knit quilt, was Muffin blinking up at us, tawny eyes widened and luminous. Marianne cried, "Muffin! Look who's here!" Mom cried, "Muffin! Do you remember us?" Mom embraced the cat, who'd begun to purr deeply. "He hasn't changed at all, Judd, has he?" Mom asked. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her smnile was wide, teeth-baring, tense.

  In fact, Muffin had lost weight. His fur was sleekly white and colored in patches but the flesh of his belly hung slack and his backbone was prominent.

  While Mom and Marianne chattered together I sprawled on Marianne's bed petting Muffin, stroking his belly as he rolled over onto his back. He purred, purred. What solace in animals, I thought. What refuge. Muffin nudged his head against me, tried to burrow beneath my arm. There was something frantic in his affection. I wondered-could he smell his lost brother Big Torn on me, or any of the other cats? Was the entire world of High Point Farm evoked in his cat-brain by my smell, quick and ephemeral as a bubble?

  Marianne would not yet know the farm was to be sold. Would she? I heard her ask shyly about "things at home" and Mom murmured "Oh you know-everything happens at once!" And Marianne asked about Dad and Mom said quickly, "Oh you know Curly!-his left hand doesn't know what his right hand is doing, I swear." She laughed, a sound of fond exasperation.

  Curly! No one had called my father that in years.

  I knew from Patrick that he'd told Marianne about the terrible things that had been happening: Dad's arrest at the Country Club, the ugly publicity, the lawyers; the two-year suspended sentence and probation and the fifteen-hundred-dollar fine. The Mulvaney family turned inside out for everyone to contemplate.

  Marianne smiled weakly, and looked at me, but I was scratching Muffin under the chin, I wasn't going to butt in.

  Adroitly then Mom changed the subject, asking Marianne about her college courses, and Marianne said vaguely yes she was learning so much-but she'd had to drop one of the courses, American history, she hadn't been able to keep up with the work. Next semester, though, she vowed-she wouldn't let herself fall behind, not by a single assignment. "Well, good!" Mom said brightly. "We can't all be like your brother Patrick, a whiz kid who doesn't have to study to get all A's."

  Marianne had to hurry downstairs to frnish preparing the midday meal, as it was called, where we'd be guests of course, but before she rushed off Mom explained awkwardly that we wouldn't be staying the night in Kilburn and Marianne said, hurt, "Oh, but I thought- you were planning to, this time? There's a choral concert some of us are singing in-at my church-I told the minister my mom and brother were coming, and-" Mom said hurriedly, "Yes, honey, but it's the weather, you know-you just don't know what weather this time of year will do. And, well-" her voice faltered, her eyes searched Marianne's face, "-we're expected back home tonight."

  Marianne tried to smile, biting her lower lip. "Well. Next time you visit us, then"

  "Absolutely!" Mom beamed at us all, Muffin included.

  Promptly at noon a gong sounded and Mom and I trooped downstairs and into the dining room for a cheerful, noisy, confused meal at a long table with as many as twenty-five people (their numbers kept shifting as people arrived, departed). Marianne introduced Mom and me and one by one around the table the members of the Co-op gave their names and said "Welcome!" and "Happy holidays!" Even as these smiling strangers, young men and women in their twenties, called out their names, I was forgetting their names, awkwardly self-conscious in their midst. They were so friendly. They were so inquisitive. Morn was in her element in such boisterous company, jumping up every few minutes to accompany Marianne back into the kitchen, insisting upon helping serve the meal even as others cried, "No, no! Mrs. Mulvaney, you're a guest." Mom basked in the attention, loving every moment. It was clear that Marianne was much liked by her friends but she seemed oddly shy; it would have been easy to overlook her. But not Mom, who announced to the table, "When I was a young mother, mealtimes at our house-we have a farm, in Mt. Ephraim-mnaybe Marianne told you-were wild, I mean wild. At harvesttime there'd be as many at my table as- right here! We had our own babies of course and visitors would come to the farm with their babies and I remember one Sunday sup- per we had three high chairs at the table-or was it four, Marianne?" Laughing then, slapping her hand against her forehead like a TV comic, "Oh!-Marianne wouldn't know, she was one of the babies."

  I was starved and ate everything that was passed to me. Steaming-hot lentil soup with walnuts, fresh-baked buttermilk bread. Some chalky-pale cheese that hadn't much taste, and some runny white yogurt that had even less. There was spinach macaroni, there was a rice-and-vegetable casserole. Mom kept exclaiming how delicious everything was, asking who'd baked the bread (Marianne) and who'd made the lentil soup (a thickset boy named Birk) and was the spinach macaroni made on the premises (it was, by a girl named Edie) and she promised to send the Co-op some raspberry preserves she'd canned, and some Bartlett pears from her orchard. So much did Mom talk, and so exuberantly, she scarcely touched her food, just pushed it around her plate and at a strategic moment switched her plate with mine, which was not only empty but had been wiped clean with chunks of buttenmik bread. (This was something I'd seen Morn do with Dad's plate lots of times. Like at our old July Fourth cookouts, where Dad would clear his plate in five minutes, eating and talking simultaneously, and Mom would unobtrusively switch plates with him and Dad would continue eating and talking, taking no notice he'd been given a new plate, more food.) The more Mom talked, the more Mom performed for the Co-op, the more sullen I became. I was sixteen years old and in some ways mature for my age but in other ways still a young, callow kid. I seemed to be seeing Mom through Patrick's eyes. She's a casualty, too. She's sad, pathetic. Not to be blamed. Not that Marianne wasn't oveijoyed-she was. It was obvious how she loved us, her mom and kid brother. Not that Marianne's friends didn't like Mom, obviously they did, laughing at herjokes, flattering her with questions about the farm. Almost, I expected Mom to stand up, hands on her hips, and start whistling.

  For the visit, Mom was wearing wool slacks and one of her old hand-knit sweaters she'd acquired at a secondhand shop, heavy as a ski sweater, with ribbed shoulders and a starburst design in bright orange and green-it reminded inc of Number Four's football jersey. For a festive touch she'd added chunky turquoise earrings and dabbed rouge onto h
er cheeks. As long as she kept talking, laughing, a girlish glow in her face, she looked young, but when she was quiet, her face in repose was lined. I guess she'd lost weight, too. The heavy sweater disguised her thin arms, flattened chest. Seeing her through strangers' eyes I saw that her hair wasn't what you'd call carroty-colored any longer, but a dull grayish brown. Her eyes were pale blue and startling but had a tendency to shift out of focus as if she was distracted in the midst of talking. There was even a faint purplish bruise on the underside ofherjaw and it went through me like a knife blade Dad did that.

  It wasn't a thought I could hold on to. The table was being cleared for dessert, platters of date-nut brownies (baked by Marianne that morning) were being brought in, pots of herbal tea. And Abelove, the Co-op director, had just hurried in, late for the midday meal, no time for the midday meal, but taking time to shake hands with Marianne's mom and kid brother-"Welcome to Kilburn! Great to see you!" Abelove was like one of our teachers at the high school, a youngish guy exuding "personality." He was in his midthirties maybe, stockily built, a round head and thick neck and pale blond hair, goatee and shimmering locks to his shoulders like a blond Jesus Christ. The kind of guy you resent like hell until he singles you out for attention, lets his hand fall on your shoulder (as he did with me calling me "Judd" as if we were old friends, and equals), at which point you melt and go crazy for him. When he praised Marianne for her "tireless spirit of optimism" in the Co-op I saw my Sister's eyes film over with tears of gratitude.