We Were The Mulvaneys

by Joyce Carol Oates

  I'd come home from school and find Mom in such places. Crazy places like the backyard where, in a lightly falling snow, or a cold drizzle, there she was trying to spade the hard-packed earth. Mom in a soiled parka, slacks. I'd park my bike in the carport (it was a mile-and-a-half ride from school, even in the rough March wind those rides were usually my happiest times of day) and trot Out back not so much hearing Mom talking to herself as seeing her, moving lips, short steamy puffs of breath. There came Judd's cheerful voice caffing out, "Hey, Mom! What's up?" Mom would turn startled to stare at me as if for a moment she didn't recognize me, either. "Oh, Judd. Are you home from school, so soon? What on earth time is it?"-searching for her watch that wasn't on her wrist.

  Take care of Mom. Be sure Mom doesn't crack up.

  There was this voice instructing me, Judd Mulvaney's cheerful loud voice in my ears. I was open-eyed, I could see the way Dad was sliding, the way our lives were skidding. Like a runaway senu on a steep hill where the warning sign is TRUCKERS USE LOWER GEAR but it's too late for any warning. And the brakes are worn-out and not going to hold.

  So I'd put away Mom's gardening tools in the shed, and get her to come back inside the house. If she'd been sitting in a trance on the basement stairs I'd tease her saying let's put some light on the subject!- switching on the light. And get her back upstairs, into the kitchen.

  Now we could play TV Mom and teenaged son just home from school. He'd even bicycled home from school, he's such a good, clean-living simple country kid.

  "Well, now!" Mom would say, rubbing her chapped hands, a pale neon-blue light coming up in her eyes-, "-you must be famished, I bet. How about a snack-" opening the refrigerator door for me to rummage inside, maybe sonic milk, maybe orange juice, wedge of gelatinous chei-ry pie, "-but don't ruin your appetite for supper, please-"

  Under Mom's watchful smiling eyes I'd squeeze into the breakfast "nook" with its Formica-top worn colorless from the elbows of the previous tenants of the house. I'd devour my delicious afterschool snack for it's true I was famished.

  The split-level ranch with the glary-white aluminum siding was not home and would never be home. I seemed to know that, as the rattled dogs and cats knew it, restlessly prowling and sniffing as if seeking their lost niches, trying to settle down for a nap but never quite comfortable. Little Boots was so nervous he'd gotten into the habit of snapping at me if I wriggled the loose skin at the nape of his neck as I'd always done. Foxy barked, barked, barked at invisible and inaudible dangers as fiercely as he barked at the thunderous diesels on the highway. We didn't have a canary now, poor Feathers had lived to a ripe old age of seven and then expired. Mom wanted to buy another canary or possibly even a parrot (someone to talk to, she said jokingly) but not right now-"We'd better wait till we get settled."

  One sad day Mannalade disappeared. Mom called desperately for him, I bicycled for miles calling for him, "Marmalade! Oh kittykitty-kitty-kitty--KIT-TY!" but the wily old orange fellow was gone.

  Another sad day, Dad backed the Lincoln over something bunchy and soft, as he called it, in the driveway-poor little Sin. Only six months old, and she'd just had her operation at the vet's. Morn wept for Sin harder than she'd wept for Mannalade who'd been with us so many years but, since he'd run away, might be considered a deserter.

  "Sin never had a chance," Mom said, grieving so I thought she'd make herself sick. "Oh, why did we come here! This terrible, terrible place."

  We buried little black Sin who'd never had a chance, just a limp soft-furred creature weighing less than four pounds, in the backyard near the single decent-sized tree, and that a weeping willow-the species of tree Dad hated, for the messes they make, and their propensity for cracking and shattering in the wind.

  Home wasn't home and wasn't very real and that was fine with me. School was even less real. Like a TV programn I'd switch on, stare at for a few seconds then switch off. Bullshit.

  Back from Marsena High School I'd immediately shut Out all memory of the place. Because we'd moved in midterm, in March, I had less than four months before summer recess and already I'd begun looking for after-school and Saturday work, freed at last from farm chores, and needing and wanting more to do; wanting to make some money of my own. Money of my own!-it was like a prayer. Maybe not being a farm kid any longer wasn't a hundred percent bad?

  In the old days when I guess we had money, or anyway Mulvaney Roofing was prosperous, Dad loved to joke and tease about how much a farm like High Point cost, how much the "largely useless" animals cost, and his kids, and his wife's "notorious expenditures"-now he was facing bankruptcy he never spoke of money at all let alone joked about it. Don't worry, Dad. I'll go to work, too. I can help out. If we don't get along, I can move out, too!Just watch.

  At seventeen, a transfer fromn Mt. Ephraini to Marsena, Judd Mulvaney was much observed, much discussed at Marsena High School. (You have to know what a backwater Marsena was, to understand that Mt. Ephraim High was considered "more sophisticated" by far. For one thing, it was roughly twice as large.) I possessed, in this new place, the arrogance of a certain kind of brainy male adolescent: not so smart as he thinks he is, but smart enough for the competition. I did my homework with contemptuous ease, wrote my tests quickly and carelessly. Sometimes I got high grades, sometimes not. I rarely volunteered to speak in class but if called upon I could provide correct and even impressive answers. Anyone who'd known Patrick would have seen that I'd taken on certain of his public ways-the haughty composure that disguised shyness, the frowning silence that intimidated others. I almost wished I wore glasses so that I could shove them against the bridge of my nose like Patrick.

  Mind your own business, Judd. Make your own way. No one knows the Mulvaneys here,

  I hardly remembered my teachers' names that first spring, let alone my classmates' names. It was a great feeling, actually-like that -last scene in Alice in Wonderland Morn used to read to me when I was little, before I went to sleep, when Alice suddenly tosses the kings, queens, would-be executioners who've been threatening her into the air and discovers that they're just playing cards. Who cares for you? You're nothing but apack of cards!

  I'd always liked that as a little kid and as a seventeen-year-old transfer from one life to another, I was liking it more and more all the time.

  Take care of Mom. Be sure Mom doesn't crack up.

  As for Dad-stay out of his way.

  I don't want to misrepresent my father. There were days when he didn't drink much, or in any case didn't show the effects of drinking. Which were for him an anesthetized glare, on the edge of belligerence but lacking the energy to cross over. He'd come home exhausted, too tired to eat, crack a can or two of ale and drain them in a few minutes, fall into bed-and be up again the next morning by 6 AM. He was a good man in his heart but stymied, frenzied, like a creature poked by spears, upright and flailing in a corner. If you got too close, to console, or hope to be consoled, you might be hurt.

  At the time, I guess I hardened my heart against him. He's a drunk. He's a fool. He's stupid. He doesn't give a shit about you or Mom. Dad would order me to do something and I'd shrug sullenly and take my time doing it and Dad would give me a shove on the shoulder-oh, just a shove!-to show who's boss!-and my heart would flood with rage, adrenaline rushed through my skinny kid's body hot to bursting. I thought of the shotgun, the rifles now packed away somewhere in the basement amid the chaos of cartons, boxes, barrels yes but I know where: I can find them and it seemed to me the most natural thing, that a son might kill his father; to protect not just himself but his mother. He's waiting to explode. Look what he did to Marianne. Erased her like she never existed. What makes you think he won't do the same fucking thing to you.

  I missed Patrick! My brother I loved, my brother I'd been led to think was my friend. Needing to talk to him for his intelligence, his wisdom. What had he said of our parents-they were casualties? Dad was like some poor creature whose life is being sucked out of him by a predator? By nature's plan? Yet Patrick ha
d seemed to blame Dad anyway. He'd never forgiven himn. When he called homne, which was rare, it was never at a time Dad was likely to be home, only Mom and me. And Patrick had said he believed in evil.

  I needed to talk to Patrick about what was happening to us which I didn't always understand and could not control. Even in a kid's fantasy I could not control. The deals Dad was always negotiating that always fell through. The lengthy telephone calls, the abrupt departures in the car; another missed dinner, and no explanation; long hours of absence explained by mysterious words-laying the groundwork, connecting the dots. One day Dad's old foreman Alex Flood had been rehired to work for him, and was going to move his famnily to Marsena; a few days later, Alex Flood had changed his mind, or Dad had changed his mind, and Alex was "out of the picture-pemlanently." One day there was a roofing supplier in Rochester with whom Dad was going to do business, a few days later the supplier was "out of the picture- permanently." In Marsena and vicinity, Dad seemed to have made a wide range of acquaintances already, businessmen, tradesmen, but predominantly men who worked with their hands, the kind of men he'd strike up friendly conversations with in local taverns, with whom he felt comfortable and could "respect" just as they "respected" him. But at the same time he spoke vaguely of people in this new place not liking himn, not welcoming him-"They won't give me a chance. They don't really want me here. It's like somebody's been talking to them about me."

  Carefully Morn said, "Michael, dear-who would be talking about you? Why?"

  "You know who," Dad said. "And you know why."

  These were the months, eventually years, my brother Patrick was out of contact with the family for long periods of time. I missed him so, tried to harden my heart against him, too, hut could not.

  Just when I'd thought I had a brother at last and I was a brother at last, I'd lost Patrick! God damn him.

  Hurting Mom, too. Mom andJudd, two people who loved him.

  I guess I was the only person on earth who might have under- stood why Patrick went away when he did. Sabotaging what looked to be a sumina cum laude B.A. at Cornell. Disappointing his professors who'd had such hopes for him. But even I didn't really understand. He'd felt good about the execution of justice, that he hadn't killed Zachary Lundt after all, hadn't even hurt the bastard much. Said he felt free, would never need to punish any living creature again. And if Zachary had recognized Patrick, apparently he'd never told a soul.

  Still, Patrick had disappeared. We'd receive postcards from him from time to time, forwarded from our old address. Postmarked Cali- fornia, Utah, Idaho. Thinking of you & hoping all is well there, Sony not to be in touch hut will be calling soon I promise. Mom's birthday if possible. Sincerely & love patrick. He was working with "learning-disabled children" in Oakland, California. Had a job in a fire watch station in Glacier Park, Montana. Traveling & learning more than I'd ever thought possible. Feel such SHAME at my old self Love to you all on my 22nd birthday -orry to be missing it-. Your son & brother patrick. He was in Boulder, Colorado taking courses at the university in geology and archeology, he'd apprenticed himself to a Japanese woman potter. But soon then working as a hospital orderly in Denver, then again, a month later, in Fargo, North Dakota. Promise will call soon. Am in good health & hope all is well with you. Making arrangements to return to Cornell & get the degree. Sony for being out of contact & promise will call soon. Love pj.

  We waited to hear more about Patrick returning to Cornell, but-a long time passed.

  We waited for him to call. And waited.

  That Easter Sunday last year I'd done exactly as Patrick instructed. After Mom and I camne home from church, after a harried lunch, I drove Out saying I was going to visit a friend, went to the old abandoned cemetely on the Sandhill Road and found the rifle where Patrick had promised. I was scared as hell scurrying like a rabbit imagining pohce surveillance, somebody hiding amid the trees. But it was quiet, still, deserted like the countiy usually is, especially a lost old cemetery where the carved names of the dead have flattened out to almost nothing and weeds have grown taller than the tallest headstones. In nature, Patrick said, energy is never lost it's only reconverted, but a cemetery makes you wonder-so many people, so many lives, each one once thinking Here I am, look at me! I'm something! Yeah, right.

  But there was Mike's 22 Winchester rifle neatly wrapped in the same canvas, shoved beneath some loose rock. Without letting the canvas fall back. I sniffed the gun barrel-it didn't seem to have been fired.

  Not fired! Patrick hadn't fired the gun!

  Not a murder weapon in my hands!

  Of course, he might still have used the knife. There was that terrible possibility-Patrick might have used the knife. For what had my brother said, boasted-he was accustomed to "dissecting" animals in the lab? Was that actually what Patrick had said?

  I carried the rifle back to High Point Farm, smuggled it into the house amid back to Dad's cabinet, locked the cabinet door. I was desperate to hear from Patrick what had happened, but he didn't call until 10 P.M. that night, from Ithaca; and then he said only, tersely, "It's over-justice has been executed."

  "But, Patrick-what happened?"

  "Look, Judd: the less you know, the less you're involved. It's over."

  "But what does that mean? Did you actually-"

  "I don't think he'll ever tell anyone what happened even if he recognized me which I'm not convinced he did, or didn't-you understand?" Patrick was speaking rapidly. "It's over and I'm through and I might not be speaking to you or Morn for a while."

  "But, Patrick-"

  "Can't talk now, Judd. But thanks! And, hey-I love you."

  Quickly hanging up, before I could stammer any response.

  So I'd think in the months and eventually years to come Patrick loves me, what I'd risked was worth it.

  Which I still believe, to this day.

  It was in early June just before the "incident" (as Morn woule subsequently call it) between Dad and me, and maybe this had somnething to do with the incident, that, suddenly, Marianne was back ix touch. Calling one Sunday evening as if nothing were wrong, an we hadn't heard from her in months.

  "Oh, my goodness! Marianne," Morn exclaimed. "I picked ui the phone and-my goodness, it's you."

  Pressing her hand against her heart, leaning against a doorftam

  Marianne was fine she said, living in Spartansburg in the ver northwestern corner of Pennsylvania, south of Erie; her address w- in care of a woman namned Penelope Hagstr"m, a poet, a philan thropist, in her sixties, a wonderful person for whom Marianne w-

  "a sort of all-around assistant and friend." Miss Hagstr"m was con- fined to a wheelchair, she'd been stricken with multiple sclerosis at the age of twenty-nine. She'd been engaged but the young man had broken it off and she'd never married, had no children and just a handful of distant, not very involved relatives. A wonderful person, Marianne reiterated, with high standards of integrity, behavior. Mom was guardedly pleased, hoped that Marianne was still managing to take some college courses?-and Marianne vaguely murmured yes, or she would be, soon, at a local community college. Mom hoped that Marianne was being paid "decently" by this Miss Hagstrom and that she wasn't being taken "criminal advantage of" as she'd been at the Green Island Co-op or whatever that place was called. In turn, Mom reported that our new house was just a little cramped, and the highway was closer than they would have liked (those damned trucks!-everything rattled including Corinne's teeth practically, she had to press a hand over one ear to talk on the phone), and Dad was having trouble finding the ideal location for the business, but otherwise things were fine, just fine! Everyone's health was fine! Marianne had numerous questions about the house, what did it look like, how large, what were the views from the window5, which pieces of furniture were in which rooms, which artworks on the walls? Did Mom remember that old painting "The Pilgrim" that Marianne had always liked so much? Mom said hurriedly that it had only been a print, not a painting, and she hadn't seen it for years-probably it had been tossed out with
the mountain of trash when they'd moved. And there wasn't much point in describing the new house because it was just temporary, they planned to build a house of their own design- "Once your father gets Mulvaney Roofing back on its feet."

  Every time I overheard Mom say this to whomever, a weird grin would crack over my face. Back on its feet. Like a drunk or a stroke victim who'd just crumpled.

  On the phone with me, Marianne was cheerful, sunny-sounding. Questions about my new school, new friends I'd made, how did I like Marsena I managed to answer in the same tone, saying what sounded plausible There was in the background beyond Marianne's voice a muted clatter like dishes being washed, cutlery-I had a quick flash of my twenty-one-year-old Sister holding the phone receiver awkwardly between her shoulder and one ear as she stooped over a sink in someone's kitchen. Would she be wearing rubber gloves? Was her hair still so short, shorter than mine? I could see a gloomy high-ceilinged kitchen with glass-knob cupboards neatly lined with oilcloth, I could see a large chipped old gas stove, one of those old-fashioned refrigerators on legs, whirring motor on top like a pillbox hat. Elsewhere, in another part of the house, a chisel-faced gray-haired woman sat in a wheelchair, blanket tucked in tight over her knees, waiting for Marianne to please hurry, to push her out into the garden before it gets too chill. The walled garden was soft-rotted old brick, crumbling masonry. Wild ragged English ivy nibbled by aphids. Leggy black-spotted rosebushes. Was that scrawny speckled-white cat picking his way through the lichen, all backbone and tail, Muffimi? Was Muffin still living? I was afraid to ask.