by Jones, Craig
“I don’t know.”
“I can check this so easily.”
“Go ahead and check.”
“You didn’t go to school today, did you?”
“I was supposed to go on a field trip with the natural science class. I just didn’t feel like it.”
“You kill me. I let you off the hook with your father, the dean doesn’t give you detention, and yet you go ahead and brazenly pull the same stunt. You must want to be punished. You know, if I brought your father into this—”
“Go ahead. Who cares!”
I could see she didn’t care. That frightened me.
The next day I called the dean and asked if I could see her at four o’clock. When I arrived, she stood up to shake hands and offered me a seat. Her deep, throaty voice on the telephone had led me to believe she was my age or older. I was surprised to find her a young woman not yet thirty.
“I don’t want to take up your time,” I said, “so I’ll get right to the point. I want to know why Regina wasn’t given the customary detention for skipping school.”
“Well, we felt—I felt—that in Regina’s case, the punishment would be redundant. She was quite ashamed of herself and in view of her scholastic average and the satisfactory appraisals from her teachers, I thought it best to give her another chance.”
“Believe me, she used that chance. She skipped school yesterday.”
She lowered her eyes to the pencil she was playing with. “I see. Mrs. Mattison, until this semester Regina had no record of truancy. Do you have any idea why she should suddenly begin skipping school?”
“I certainly do. She has a boyfriend.”
“Yes, she’s told me about him. But I don’t think Virgil is the reason she’s skipping school on these particular days.”
Virgil. Hearing her say the name so casually, as if she knew him, bothered me.
“Regina has discussed the boy with you?”
“Somewhat,” she said. “She’s very fond of him. And the fact is she told me he doesn’t like her staying out of school.”
“Doesn’t like . . . ! She spent yesterday with him when she was supposed to be in school!”
“I think she would have skipped school without him. I think he’s the most positive factor in her life right now.”
“In what way positive?”
“He seems to be giving her a certain balance, a comfort she needs right now.”
“Comfort from what?”
“She seems to be under a strain.”
“What kind of strain?”
“Haven’t you noticed it?” she said.
“What kind of strain?”
“She feels a lack of freedom because her father doesn’t like Virgil.”
“Her father is opinionated and overprotective,” I said quickly, “but he certainly hasn’t impinged upon her freedom. I don’t know what you mean by this ‘lack of freedom.’ ”
“I mean it in the psychological sense. She feels her father is watching her in a certain way.”
“What way?”
She would not have had to answer. The sudden evasiveness in her manner indicated she had been told more than she was going to tell me.
“She couldn’t exactly describe it to me,” she said.
“Can you describe it?”
“I wouldn’t attempt to without knowing a few more facts.”
If that was my cue to provide those facts, I ignored it. “I don’t want Regina to know I’ve been here,” I said. “But I do want her to be given detention for skipping school yesterday.”
“If you want. But I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem.”
“It might be a start.”
Driving home, I tried to sort out my feelings over what Regina had done. It angered me that she had taken this situation to someone else, an outsider. But I was frightened by the possibility she didn’t trust me enough to tell me everything. Her unyielding harshness with Frank had seemed perverse—unless something had already happened.
For two days, I watched them closely. Frank was the same with her as he was with me—withdrawn, his shoulders hunched and rounded in an attitude of self-protection. Regina was self-possessed and untouchable. Around Frank she showed no fear, barely any resentment. She simply acted as if he were invisible. When Virgil came into the house, Frank dutifully hid himself in his study.
Regina got her detention and gave me smoldering, knowing looks the whole week. Suddenly, it was as if I were the one, not Frank, who was oppressing her. By the end of the week, I was so exhausted from sleeplessness, I went to the doctor and got a prescription for sleeping pills. And I decided to break the silence with Regina.
“Do you want your father to move out for a while?”
“No, not really,” she answered casually, too casually, as though she had expected me to suggest it.
“Then he’s not the reason you were skipping school?”
She sighed deeply, her usual signal that this was something she didn’t care to discuss.
“Regina, what did you tell Miss McPhee about us, about your father?”
I expected an outburst, but she seemed merely indifferent. “Not much,” she answered.
“She seems to have gotten the idea your father is the reason you’ve been skipping school.”
“What does she know?” She shrugged.
“Did you use your father as an excuse to get out of that first detention?”
“No.”
“Then why did you mention him to her at all?”
“She asked me what things were like at home.”
“What did you tell her? Did you tell her anything you haven’t told me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
For the next few weeks, I had the feeling of treading stagnant water. Frank slunk around the house and said nothing. When I asked how he was doing with the analyst, he would put on a wounded look, as if I had made the most blatant accusation—the very thing I wanted to steer clear of. Regina didn’t pay much more attention to me than she did to Frank. She was animated only in the presence of Virgil. I knew she was much too wrapped up in him, but that necessarily had to be the least of my concerns. Perhaps it was this sense of treading that made me wish something—anything—would happen. Perhaps this is what sent me into Frank’s study late one afternoon before he got home.
In the back of one desk drawer, tucked beneath some papers, was a gun, loaded. Under it, single pages from a Fort Lauderdale phone directory were folded in a square; all contained complete listings for the name Evans. And there was a letter from the Fort Lauderdale Health Department, which said that on the basis of the information given in the request, they were unable to locate the birth certificate.
I took the gun to our room. I pulled out the bottom drawer of the dresser and put the gun on the floor, then pushed the drawer back in. I had already given Frank my ultimatum. A month and a half remained. I would wait.
The gun took up a permanent position in my mind. In the middle of teaching a lesson or pushing a shopping cart down the aisle of the supermarket, I carried a picture of its stubby barrel and deadly cylinder, and with that picture I remembered Vivian’s words: “I’ve seen his temper.”
In magazines and in the family living section of the newspapers I saw scores of articles about the increasing divorce rate and the common tendency at middle age to reassess one’s marriage. I found most of the personal interviews laughable (although I was incapable of laughing) because the discussions of “changed values” and “looking for new purpose” remained abstract, nothing more than little sociological essays. But a gun was concrete. So was the letter from the Fort Lauderdale Health Department. And there was Vivian’s story, and there were the circles under Frank’s eyes and mine from
sleeplessness. Everything pointed to the plain fact that nineteen years of marriage had not created a profound intimacy but instead left me stranded with a stranger. And to what degree was that my own doing? How many clues had I ignored over the years?
Driving to and from school, I had fantasies of running away, just stepping on the gas and aiming for Los Angeles and that Southern California sun which seemed capable of burning out your past and leaving you contentedly empty. The one thing I wanted most was to feel empty so I could sleep again.
By March, Regina had been going with Virgil six months. If one day passed without her seeing him, she was ready to jump out of her skin. I set no limits to the time she spent with him. When she was gone from the house and Frank was in his study, I could at least be alone.
The second Saturday in March, Virgil and Regina were going to Detroit to see a play. Virgil came by that morning and had breakfast with us. Dressed in a steel-gray three-piece suit and sporting his wide, gap-toothed smile, he looked more handsome than ever, the archetype of America’s Prince Charming. All through breakfast, Regina hung on his every word and took her eyes off him only to get the fork to her mouth. Although I found her too subservient to him, I had to admit she looked the happiest I had ever seen her. Even her coloring had changed. Her cheeks were pinker, her eyes glistened, her face looked fuller. It was saddening to realize that the most Frank and I could draw from her was a smirk or a sneer.
That morning, Frank was a little more at ease with Virgil and almost friendly. When they were ready to leave, Frank even walked them out to Virgil’s car. From the dining room window, I watched him look over the car, ask questions and climb inside to inspect the dashboard. Maybe, I thought, just maybe he was beginning to get a grip on himself. This thought, however, was whittled down to wishful thinking by the end of the day. He refused lunch, went through two stop signs on our way to the supermarket, ate only a few mouthfuls at dinner, then planted himself in the living room to wait for their return.
“Maybe they’ll want something to eat when they get back,” he said. “What time was that play supposed to be over?”
“Four-thirty, five.”
“It’s seven o’clock now. They’ll probably be hungry.”
“I doubt it. They’ll probably have dinner along the way.”
“They didn’t say anything about stopping for dinner. Did they say anything to you?”
“No.”
“Maybe they’ll be a little hungry anyway. When they get back, they can come in and have a little something. Even if they did stop and eat, they should be back pretty soon. If they stopped, it would probably be along the expressway, and someplace quick. I don’t imagine he’d take her to—”
“Stop it! Just—stop it!” If you don’t stop it, I thought, I’ll walk out of here tonight.
He settled back and hid behind the newspaper he had been pretending to read.
They pulled into the driveway at eight-thirty. Frank bounded through the dining room and kitchen and out the back door. In a minute, Regina and Virgil came in alone.
“Where’s your father?”
“In the garage.”
“Doing what?”
“Who knows?” She looked annoyed. “Virgil’s tired; he wants to go home. What did you want to talk to him about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Daddy said you wanted to talk to him.”
A dull freeze came over me. What was he doing out in that garage? “I—I just wanted to know how you liked the play.”
“I didn’t think it was so bad,” said Virgil, “but Regina didn’t like it. The end was kind of a disappointment, but I guess they work on those things before they get to New York.”
He went on with his review, but I had my eyes on Regina. The tilt of her head told me she was wondering the same thing I was. As Virgil continued talking, she turned and went to the dining room window. Obviously seeing nothing, she started for the kitchen, but before she reached it, Frank reappeared. His fists were clenched at his sides.
“What are you up to?” she said.
“That’s what I was going to ask you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about and so does he. Sit down, both of you.”
“I’m not sitting—”
“You’ll do as you’re told.” There was a new, solid authority in his voice and Virgil was the first to bow to it. When he sat down on the couch, Regina joined him.
“Now where did you go today?”
Virgil gave a puzzled smile. “To Detroit.”
Frank moved in closer on them. “I’m going to ask you just once more and I want the truth. Where did you go?”
Regina was fuming, but Virgil looked questioningly, helplessly at me.
“Frank,” I said, “what are you doing?”
“Tracking down a lie, that’s what I’m doing. They didn’t go to Detroit.”
“Mr. Mattison, we’ve got the play programs in the car. I can show—”
“Anybody can get you play programs. What about the ticket stubs? They’ll have the date on them.”
Virgil turned to Regina. “Have you got them?”
“No, I haven’t. And he’s gone crazy.”
“Stop this right now,” I said.
“I checked the mileage on the car before they left this morning and I checked it again just now. They’ve gone a hundred and fifty-five miles. Round trip to Detroit is at least two hundred and ten!”
For a minute no one said anything. Finally, Virgil spoke up. “Mr. Mattison, you must have made a mistake. We were in Detroit.”
“A hundred and fifty miles is seventy-five each way. Where did you go?” He leaned over and put his face in front of Virgil’s. “What are you?”
“Frank!”
“Get him away from us!” Regina cried.
He grabbed the boy by the front of the shirt. “I want to know right now!”
Regina tried to stand, but Frank pushed her back onto the couch. It was the first time he had ever laid a hand on her that way. Instantly, I thought of the gun.
“Seventy-five miles each way,” he said to Virgil. “In what direction?”
“Frank, let him go.”
“In what direction?”
I got up and went to the phone.
“Stay away from there, Irene. All I want is an answer from him.”
I began dialing Bernie Golden’s number, shaking so badly I missed a numeral and had to start over. Frank rushed to me and pressed the button to cut me off. I looked him squarely in the eye and whispered, “You’re sick. You’re so sick I’m beginning to hate you.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t—” His eyes finished the plea.
“Let him go home,” I said. “Go upstairs and wait for me. Go now before I walk out of here tonight.”
He left.
“He’s nuts—he’s out of his mind!” said Regina.
“That may be, but he’s suffering too. You can see he’s suffering. Now tell me, did you really go to Detroit? That’s all he wants to know.”
“Yes, we went to Detroit!”
“Just like those days you said you went to school?”
“So you’re on his side now?”
“I’m on my own side, and I want the truth. The two of you are driving me crazy. It’s not just him. Now I have to worry about whether or not you’re showing up at school or if you’re really going where you say you are.”
“Mrs. Mattison, we really went to Detroit. He must have read the mileage wrong.”
“All right, Virgil, all right. You can go home now.”
“Oh, that’s just fine!” said Regina. “And I’m supposed to stay here with that lunatic!”
Virgil turned to her.
“He’ll calm down after I’m gone.”
She walked him out to his car. I waited twenty minutes. Instead of giving her the customary signal with the patio floodlight, I slipped out the back door with the intention of apologizing to Virgil. I had taken only a few steps when I heard them giggling in the car, then Regina broke into a shrill laugh. I went back into the house and signaled with the light.
When she came through the kitchen she had a faint smile on her face as though none of the last hour had happened. She breezed past me without a word.
The nightstand lamp was on when I walked into our bedroom, and Frank was lying with his arm over his eyes. I undressed in the bathroom, put on a nightgown and sat down in the rocker.
“You’re pushing me to leave you. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?”
“That’s the last thing I want.”
“I can’t believe that. It comes down to one of two things. Either you’re not making any effort to overcome this perv—this obsession, or else it’s entirely out of your control. But whichever circumstance it is, I can’t live with either one.”
“It’s not what you think, Irene. It’s not at all what you think.”
“Then what is it?”
That pleading look again, but no explanation.
“I found the gun,” I said.
“I know you did.”
“Then you know what I found with it.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why, then. Where did you get the gun?”
“It was just an impulse. I’m glad you took it. I never would have used it, anyway.”
“Frank, the gun is loaded.”
“It came that way.”
“What did you have in mind—putting bullets in our heads while we were asleep some night?”
“Jesus, Irene, don’t!”
“You haven’t got much time.”
“I know that better than you do. Trust me a little longer.”
“I told you my time limit and I’m sticking to it. After that . . .”
After that, I didn’t know.
Two days later, on Monday, I was teaching my second class when one of the office secretaries came to the door with a telephone message. It was from Vivian. I was to return the call as soon as possible. My next period was free, and I went directly to the phone booth.