We Were The Mulvaneys

by Joyce Carol Oates

  It's basically an uneasy position, to be grateful to an elder. Patrick wasn't sure he liked that position at all.

  As Patrick spoke, at what would be their final conference, in January, Herring appeared to be listening with a growing air of discomfort. Patrick had turned up at Herring's office with a sheath of unnumbered sheets of paper covered in close-typed paragraphs and equations, diagrams, and graphs; he was unshaven, eye red-rimmed and gritty from lack of sleep. He'd rushed ahead on a new subtopic before he'd discussed, with Herring, the chapter he'd handed in the previous week. (He could see his earlier work, marked in red, on Herring's desk, waiting to be returned to him. Oh but what did he care about that, he'd all but forgotten that.) Patrick's reading in mathematical game theory was enormously exciting to him and he was floundering and flailing like a drowning man but-game theory was the key, he was sure! Joining Darwin and John von Neumann and John Maynard Smith-he was sure! Why is it that there exist organisms so similar in design to other organisms they're virtually indistinguishable from them, yet have wholly different DNA? What of the role of mass extinctions in evolution? What is the relation of "natural selection" to "adaptation"? Above all-how could life, which is highly complex biochemical activity, ever have arisen out of nonlife, which is chemical simplicity? What sense does that make?

  Patrick's voice echoed in the large, high-ceilinged space of Herring's office. The walls of the office were lined with bookshelves and several garishly painted, tusked and black-haired African tribal masks. Eyeless, the masks gazed at Patrick with expressions of mild

  Hard to believe that Patrick Mulvaney was making such mistakes.

  Three times, before Thanksgiving, he'd changed his research topic for his senior honors thesis in biology. First he'd been working on a problem of membrane biogenesis, then on a problem of invertebrate genetics, both topics suggested to him by his supervisor Professor Herring. But he couldn't maintain his initial interest. He tried, tried very hard. He understood that a young research biologist must work under the guidance of his elders. You're part of a team, you do what you're told and don't question why. But Patrick became discouraged and impatient, tossed away his data.

  His third topic was more theoretical than the first two, and would involve massive amounts of reading in areas new to him, and less lab work. This was an application of mathematical game theory to Darwinian evolutionary theory. Patrick wanted to analyze the concept of the "forced move" in evolutionary design: the biological imperative in which, in order to survive, a species must adapt along a line of X and no other. (Examples were parasites that become exclusively dependent upon a single host-species, the phenomenon of English sparrows dependent upon areas of dense human habitation, short-term gestation in certain species, long-term gestation in others, odd features like eyes on stalks, or recessed eyes, exoskeletons, minute brains.) The "forced move" was a metaphor from chess. You make your move as a species in crisis, brilliant, desperate, lucky or doomed-you have no choice. In retrospect, if you survive, it could be hypothesized from a future vantage point that you'd "adapted" to an altered environment. You'd exercised biological "specialization." The record might seem to show, or one might argue it did show, an unconscious DNA-design. Purpose, intelligence.

  Unless the record argued utter randomness, chance. In which case species survival isn't an essence of species but mere accident.

  When Patrick spoke of such matters to Professor Herring, in Herring's office in Lydall Hall, the elder man regarded him with bemused eyes. Frequently, he interrupted Patrick to ask him questions which Patrick fumbled to answer-"That's one of the things I want to know." Herring was a vigorous man of middle age, with a reputation in the department for caprice and cruelty, for exploiting disciples who eagerly did scut-work for his prot,g,s among the younger faculty; but he was a brilliant man, generously funded by the Na- tional Science Foundation and by the university, known to be remarkably kind to certain of his students, foreign as well as American, but all young men, whom he treated virtually like sons. For three years, Patrick Mulvaney had been a favored undergraduate of his. He'd arranged for Patrick to receive summer research grants, workstudy grants, he'd written a surely strong letter of reconirnendation for Patrick, for graduate school; he'd given hum consistently high grades of course, while singling him out at times for harsh criticism. "You can do better than this, Mr. Mulvaney. You can do better," he'd said. And so Patrick did better, without fail. He was grateful to Herring, admired Herring beyond any of his other professors, but he was uneasy in the man's presence. As he was uneasy in the presence of all older strong-willed outspoken and physically robust men who reminded him of his father. It's basically an uneasy position, to be grateful to an elder. Patrick wasn't sure he liked that position at all. As Patrick spoke, at what would be their final conference, in January, Herring appeared to be listening with a growing air of discomfort. Patrick had turned up at Herring's office with a sheath of unnumbered sheets of paper covered in close-typed paragraphs and equations, diagrams, and graphs; he was unshaven, eye red-rimmed and gritty from lack of sleep. He'd rushed ahead on a new subtopic before he'd discussed, with Herring, the chapter he'd handed in the previous week. (He could see his earlier work, marked in red, on Herring's desk, waiting to be returned to him. Oh but what did he care about that, he'd all but forgotten that.) Patrick's reading in mathematical game theory was enormously exciting to him and he was floundering and flailing like a drowning man but-game theory was the key, he was sure! Joining Darwin and John von Neumann and John Maynard Smith-he was sure! Why is it that there exist organisms so similar in design to other organisms they're virtually indistinguishable from them, yet have wholly different DNA? What of the role of mass extinctions in evolution? What is the relation of "natural selection" to "adaptation"? Above all-how could life, which is highly complex biochemical activity, ever have arisen out of nonlife, which is chemical simplicity? What sense does that make?

  Patrick's voice echoed in the large, high-ceilinged space of Herring's office. The walls of the office were lined with bookshelves and several garishly painted, tusked and black-haired African tribal masks. Eyeless, the masks gazed at Patrick with expressions of milc incredulity. What are you saying! How dare you speak like that! JT/hat sense does it make? Stricken with embarrassment, Patrick was renunded of the tale that made the rounds at their high school, that Marianne had put up her hand in biology class and asked Mr. Farolino why did God make parasites?

  Professor Herring was pushing Patrick's last-week's chapter in his direction across his desk, a signal that the conference was over. The new chapter lay on a corner of the desk, yet untouched. An- noyed yet managing to smile, in an almost kindly voice, as one might speak to a bright, impetuous twelve-year-old, he said, "Why do you assume, Patrick, that there is `sense' to be `made' of any of this? Still more, that you're capable of making it?"

  Next day, Patrick was notified by a departmental secretary that he'd been assigned a new thesis advisor. A white-haired associate professor whose speciality was philosophy of science, one of the "popular" lecturers whom the serious scientists in the department scorned.

  Help me! Help- One night in early April, fifteen days before he planned to drive to Mt. Ephraim to confront Zachary Lundt, Patrick woke terrified from a nightmare of-what? Quicksand dragging at his legs, seething steaming black muck, getting into his nose, his mouth! Into his eyes! He leapt from bed, stumbled and fell, his heart pounding. He was sobbing like a child. No, no-help!-what is it!-leave me alone- He'd confused his damp twisted bedclothes with black muck. Yet it seemed his bed was black muck. Liquidy as melted tar, roofing tar, the tar his dad used, yet living, a living organism, seething and sucking at Patrick Mulvaney greedy to pull him down inside it.

  He switched on his bedside lamp with shaking fingers. Stared at the alarm clock not registering the time at first-4:35 A.M. And rain. Rain blown against his windows, a chilly draft from the window now that it was April and Patrick had removed the masking tape he'd been using as insul
ation. Now it was officially nearing spring, the landlord at 114 Cook was more grudging with heat; Patrick's room was as cold as if it were winter. Yet he'd been sweating in his sleep, in such terror of being suffocated. He wiped at his eyes imagining lashes were stuck together with black muck. Christ, how disgusting!

  It must be nerves, that was all. Yet Patrick was certain he hadn't any nerves, really. His plan for the execution of justice was complete except for a few minor details. Nothing could deter him.

  He'd vowed he'd be willing to trade his life, if necessary, in order to execute justice against his sister's rapist. Nothing could deter him.

  Patrick went out into the bathrooni in the hail, used the toilet and splashed handfuls of cold water onto his face. There were his eyes, finely threaded with blood, seemingly enlarged without his glasses, regarding him in the splotched mirror above the sink. Were those the eyes of a twenty-one-year-old capable of murder? Patrick smiled at himself saying, "Yes. Right."

  It served him right, he'd had a nightmare. Boasting to Judd earlier that night how well he'd been sleeping lately. How deep and restful his sleep. He wasn't even thinking of his goddamned academic work he'd let slide, classes he'd ceased attending. He'd been provisionally accepted into the Cornell Ph.D. program in biology, depending of course on his final grades; he'd missed the deadlines, or lost the application forms entirely, for admission to the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Berkeley and one other where Herring had, last fall, encouraged him to apply. But he didn't lose any sleep over any of this. Nothing could deter him.

  Judd had said, maybe not meaning to be insolent but it struck Patrick that way, "Lucky you."

  Patrick flared up at once. "Hey kid, if you want to back out of this, go right ahead. I can do it alone."

  Quickly Judd said, "No! I'm in it one hundred percent."

  "Just let me know, if you're afraid"

  "I am afraid, sure. But I'm in it one hundred percent."

  "If you don't trust I can do this right. If you're having second thoughts."

  "Hey Pj., no."

  "Forget that `P.J.' crapY' Patrick said. He'd meant to make a joke, a species of joke only another Mulvaney would get, for its daringly mutinous tone, but his voice was quavering. He went on, hurriedly, in the schoolboy-pedant style he'd developed at the Mulvaney kitchen table, impressing his family with his precocious ways, even as he'd made them laugh, "We didn't get legal justice. We couldn't. Dad tried, and failed. Because the legal justice system isjust a social institution, and it's inadequate as an expression of morality. The way of `legal justice' is to apply to a third party elevated above the `victim' and the `perpetrator' and their respective families and sanctioned by the people-the State. The State administers justice. But who is the State?Just more people. Specimens of Homo sapiens. And why should these specimens be elevated over others? Why should we grant to strangers a moral authority beyond our own? I've given a lot of thought to this, Judd. I'm not acting impulsively. Always at the back of my mind I see Marianne-abused, vilified, exiled even by her family. Like we're some primitive tribe, for Christ's sake! Like our sister has become a carrier of taboo! It's ridiculous, it's intolerable-I won't tolerate it. I'm not a Christian any longer but by God I'm a Protestant-a rebel. I'll execute my own justice, because I know what it is." Patrick paused, embarrassed at the passion of his speech. Such talk, aimed at his kid brother. "Judd? Hey, sorry-are you still there?"

  Judd must have been moved by Patrick's high-flown words. He said, quietly, "I'm always here, Patrick. Count on me."

  Back in his apartment Patrick stood for a while at his window, fearful of returning to bed. The sheets would be damp and twisted, smelling of animal panic. That unmistakable sweat-smell. He thought ofJudd, a casualty too of Zachary Lundt's rape of Marianne. The poor kid stuck at High Point Farm in its waning, disintegrating days. He and Mike had cleared out, and Marianne was exiled, and Judd, the baby of the family, was left behind. In the past several months, in these nighttime telephone conversations, Patrick had grown closer to Judd than to anyone else in the world-except, maybe, Marianne. (He loved Marianne intensely. But with Marianne you didn't speak directly, couldn't speak the kind of truth a brother could speak to another brother.)

  Strange: growing up with Judd, Patrick hadn't taken him seriously. Aimost, he'd never looked at him. A kid brother is just someone who's there. Difficult to think of a kid brother as an individual with a life, his own secret thoughts, motives. But now, at the age of sixteen, Judd wasn't a child any longer and he'd become Patrick's friend and ally. Patrick liked him-very much. And respected him for his integrity and courage. Respecting a kid brother-what a novelty!

  Yet Patrick wondered if, living together at High Point Farm, face-to-face, always, as in any family, competing for the attention of their father and mother, they'd be capable of such frankness and intimacy as the telephone allowed.

  Sitting now at his desk, papers shoved aside. Head, which ached dully, in his hands. Jesus, what a close escape. Almost suffocated in that black muck. It had been, possibly, tar-molten tar-the tar he'd worked with, summers, on Dad's roofing crews. (What grueling, demeaning work. Laboring like slaves, for hourly wages, bare-backed on roofs.) But it was also, he seemed to see, a bog-a bog off Route 58, going toward Yewville. That dismal swampy area where a shallow creek emptied into the Yewville River north of Mt. Ephraim. Cattails and jungle vines and those brilliant purple wildflowers-phlox? loosestrife?-grew there in profi-sion in summer but most of the trees had been dying for years, as the water table rose, bark peeling off their trunks in tatters. At any hour of the day patches of sickly mist hovered over the bog. There was a pervasive odor of rot, of sewage. Just possibly, raw hog sewage seeped into the bog from a large corporate farm a few miles away. As a boy Patrick had never explored the bog, nor had anyone he knew. It was much too far to have bicycled to, from High Point Farm. Even in bright sunshine it retained a look of sinister desolation. In warm weather it was teeming with birds, frogs, water snakes, insects-microorganisms in unfathomable numbers. Now, in April, in the spring thaw, the liquidy black muck would be stirring into life after its long winter hibernation.

  "Jesus!"-Patrick shuddered, feeling a pang of nausea. He rubbed, rubbed, rubbed his eyes where something was sticking to his lashes.

  THE HANDSHAKE

  He won't want it, maybe? This is just to test me?

  Noon ofApril 16, the Saturday before Easter Sunday 1979, the brothers met at the spot Patrick had designated: an unpaved stretch of Stone Creek Road, near a railroad embankment, ten miles east of Eagleton Corners. The area was mainly scrubland, no houses. In deer-hunting season men in fluorescent-orange hunters' dickeys came in carloads to prowl through the woods but it wasn't deer-hunting season now.

  When Patrick drove up in his battered, mud-splotched Jeep, there was Judd anxiously waiting in the Ford pickup with the.22-caliber Winchester rifle, wrapped in a strip of canvas, on the passenger's seat beside hjni. Judd's heart lifted at the sight of his brother whom he hadn't seen for some time. If this was a test of Judd's loyalty and faith in Patrick, he knew he'd done well.

  So far as Corinne knew, Judd was on an errand to a farm supply store in Eagleton Corners. Neither Corinne nor Michael Sr. had any idea that Patrick was anywhere near home.

  Patrick slowed the Jeep but continued past the turnoff where the pickup was parked. Deftly turned in the road, and drove back to park close by Judd, facing the opposite direction. He swung open his door as Judd opened his but neither brother climbed out of his vehicle. In these quick confused seconds Judd had absorbed the significant fact that both the front and rear license plates of Patrick's Jeep were partly obscured by mud. "How's it going, kid?" Patrick asked. The voice was not Patrick's voice. From their many telephone conversations Judd had come to know Patrick's voice as intimately as his own but this voice, loud, aggressively cheerful, was not that voice. Chill sunshine fell from directly overhead through the Jeep's not-very-clean windshield and onto Patrick's pale, sh
arp-chiseled face. He looked older, scarcely recognizable. He was wearing wire-rimmed sunglasses so dark as to appear black and his jaws were covered in whiskers of approximately a week's growth. He was wearing an army fatigue jacket and his hair was completely bidden beneath a dark woolen cap pulled down low on his forehead. Judd stared, fascinated. "What's wrong, kid? Don't you know your old brother Pinch?" Patrick seemed pleascd.

  "You do look sort of different." "That's my intention."

  "Well. I brought the-what you wanted."

  "Great! Give it here."