Scags at 18

by Deborah Emin

  The people who ask that question haven’t read the story. It’s obvious. The story isn’t about what it’s like to be a long distance runner. It’s about something more substantial than that—about power and who has it and why.

  I never could have written that down so clearly were it not for Charles. He has really helped me to understand this idea of class warfare much better than I ever saw it before.

  After classes, I decided to do what Charles had assigned me to do for the party—buy the decorations. That meant I had to put my belongings together, leave them in his Jeep and hot foot it to Town to tutor Jason before shopping. Then get to his place for dinner.

  I couldn’t help but feel “Halloweeny” as I walked into Town from the College. The spooky sound of the acorns dropping onto the road, the wind tearing through the spindly branches, the sight of their long fingers scratching the sky made it feel very much like I had walked into a scary movie. By the time I reached the cemetery on the border of the Town, the scene was completely set. I rushed along; I still had a long way to go to get to the Day Care Center and then to the stores. I got so frightened by the cemetery though that the invincibility disappeared.

  Jason was glad to see me. I think I smelled like the great outdoors when I walked inside. They keep it warm there and cozy for the kids. To me, it felt like I had walked into a furnace. Once we settled down to work, I forgot the temperature and the time. We had to buckle down because Jason was preparing for a test this Friday. I didn’t want to rush him and I didn’t want him to fail the test. I had created these puppets out of popsicle sticks for him to use as he studied. He had a much easier time learning when he had to teach the puppets how to multiply than he did when I tried to teach him.

  By the time I left him, I was as certain he would pass that test.

  I raced back towards Town and the stores. Now I feared the stores would be closed.

  At least the Town is small and the stores close to each other. Partly because the College is an arts school, these stores are well stocked with all that I needed. But they are really expensive. I had a long detailed list from Charles. Lists by Charles aren’t just lists of what to get but also what not to get. That’s why they are long. And wonderfully written and helpful.

  Having such a detailed list meant I got through shopping much more quickly than if he had left it up to me. I paid for everything with the money he encloses with his lists. I felt relieved that for the most part, I had finished everything I had to do before going to his place for dinner.

  Suddenly, I felt light headed and nauseous.

  As I tried to push open the door, I fell to one knee. Lauren was in the store and saw me fall. I hadn’t known what was going on but my body knew that I had done too much. Thank God for Lauren.

  Lauren grabbed my arm and helped me pick up the spilled bags of supplies. She offered to take me to the cafe for a cup of coffee. I know I looked awful and could have used that coffee but decided to forego it and get home as fast as I could. I calculated how much time I had spent in my walks, the tutoring and the shopping and realized I needed to get home for dinner.

  Charles wouldn’t have been angry if I had been late. I wanted to get home and eat and lie down. I was wasted, I had spent it all today.

  I asked Lauren to help me get home. She told me she would have to go back to the Day Care Center to get her car. I realized she didn’t know I meant to Charles’ apartment. I told her that I didn’t mean the College but that I had a friend in Town and I was going there.

  From the look on her face, it was clear she was confused. I would have explained it to her if I had had the energy but I knew complicated stories weren’t possible at that moment.

  In order to talk about something as she helped me to Charles’ apartment, I asked her, “Have other students from the College tutored at the Day Care Center before?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and they really liked it. I think they recognized that they were helping someone with way less than they had and it made them feel good. Though I don’t think that’s why you’re doing it, is it?”

  Her comments took me by surprise and since I couldn’t come up with a smart reply, I told her the truth.“I have no idea why I’m working there. I know I enjoy it and because I said I would, I’m there.”

  She chuckled, squeezed my arm and we kept trudging along.

  “I don’t usually buy supplies at that art store. They overcharge for the simple things I need. When we don’t order enough through our normal supplier, I have to go to them. I wish they would give us a discount but I understand. They’re in a tight financial spot. Without the students at the College, they’d be out of business as would most of the restaurants and cafes and other small businesses here.”

  I hadn’t thought of that before—the relationship between the Town and the College. I wondered if Charles had. While I walked with Lauren, the cooler air revived me. That helped take some of my load off Lauren.

  When we arrived at the back stairs that lead up to Charles’ apartment, I smiled a thank you. And left her standing down there in the dark. My manners had left me along with all my energy. I should have invited her upstairs with me but I felt desperate for Charles and wanted to be alone with him. I ran up the stairs with all the packages.

  I got inside the door and saw Charles in the kitchen. I left the packages by the door and threw myself into Charles’ arms. He looked surprised at how glad I was to see him but not sorry about it.

  I wish I knew Charles well enough to be able to predict what he will do or say. He’s still a mystery to me, his wealth, the places he’s been to, the things he knows about and has studied. Entering into his world has been like learning how to play in a completely new world where the rules are similar but not the same and people speak the same language but often mean very different things.

  I wanted when I returned from the store to make us dinner but he had already made it. Everything was ready. We sat down immediately. I was starving. I also enjoyed how domestic our lives together had become. Something inside me wanted to blurt out the whole story about tutoring Jason. Put on a song and dance rendition of meeting Lauren and all the kids and then having been mistaken for someone coming for a job and then getting the job and working with Jason and his imaginary trumpet. All of that seemed like good material to set to music.

  However, something told me that Charles wasn’t the sort of person who enjoyed song and dance routines. Pops would have loved it. Charles, I fear, not so much.

  Having lost that one form of storytelling, I lost all ideas about how best to present it to him and so blurted out this confusing, silly and ridiculous account of something that I happen to care about very much.

  It lit something in him and he went off like an angry man whose wife had cheated on him without first explaining to her husband why she was dissatisfied. I wasn’t dissatisfied. I wasn’t accusing him of anything.

  On one count, he was correct. I never told him about it from the start. I didn’t because, as I see it now, he wouldn’t have agreed with me that it was something I had to do. When it came to me running in competitions with the cross country team, he had objected and I had listened to him and followed his wishes. Not because I didn’t want to compete, I did, but because I knew about the time commitment, he was right and I wouldn’t have been able, for example, to go to the march in Washington or home with him for Thanksgiving.

  The tutoring job, to me, is completely different. But perhaps not different enough for me to have told him about it from the start.

  As we argued, for that is precisely what we were doing, we cleaned the apartment. I don’t know how we figured out how to use the energy this way but for a while now, whenever we disagree, we clean together.

  By the time everything was dusted, arranged and put away, the argument hadn’t been settled. He thought I should quit and that I didn’t need the money or to take the time away from my own w
ork to tend to the needs of some little kid who wouldn’t be able to rise out of the poverty he was in because some “nice girl from the College took pity on him and taught him his multiplication tables.”

  At some point, my work ethic saved me from continuing the argument. I bit my tongue and went to the now clean living room and sat down on the couch to work and to sleep. He continued to “explain” to me how using my guilt to help someone was doing, perhaps, the right thing but for all the wrong reasons and it was sure to blow up in my face.

  He continued talking but I wasn’t listening. At times I think he’s not talking to me at all but to someone else he had a relationship with and she is making him miserable while I am doing absolutely nothing. Is it like this with most couples? Does one live in a battle with some phantom girlfriend while the current girlfriend battles her old boyfriend? I don’t know how you could prove that but it might be interesting to know what it’s like to live in the present and the past at once.

  Maybe that is why young people are encouraged to be virgins when they marry. Too late for me.

  Mr. Charles Foster Payne, I could have said to Charles while he complained about me not taking him into account, I don’t feel guilty about this job. I didn’t take the job out of guilt.

  He finished arguing and went off to bed. I continued studying until I fell asleep on the couch with my books open on my chest.

  At some point during the night, Charles woke me up to tell me he was sorry. I might have been dreaming except that he took me back to bed where I woke up a while ago and now sit next to the sleeping Charles while writing in here.

  I heard him say the things I feel too. “I think I got jealous. I thought of you with that kid. You’re spending time with someone I don’t know. But you care about him. It hurt.”

  He held me close to him and we fell asleep that way.

  The sun is rising. A band of light crawls across our bed like a cat coming to wake us up. I am liking love more now.

  Date: Friday, 10/24/69

  Lately I live in two separate worlds. One world is that of the College. The other world is Lauren’s Day Care Center. Somewhere in that gap between the way we live up at the College and the people in the Town have to live, there is a great injustice. All of it seems to be due to accidents of birth rather than some design or contest that proved who should have what.

  How does Kit not see how absurd it is that she drives her car to classes? I mean who needs to drive a Bentley? With what that car costs we could feed all the kids at the Day Care Center for a year or more.

  I was trying to explain it to Eileen and you know what? She understood completely. Of course she would. I should remember, that like me, she is here on scholarship and even though she’s involved with Philip what’s his name, she is, like me, more of the “people” than of the upper classes.

  I hadn’t realized either that I never told her about my work with Jason. I was running around the campus, overjoyed that he had passed his multiplication test, realizing how many more tests like that he had to pass in order to do something with his life when I met up with Eileen for coffee.

  I tried to explain to her about living in these two separate worlds that never overlap. Eileen thought about it as I spoke and then asked if I thought she and Philip could help out at the Day Care Center?

  I must have looked at her strangely because she pulled away from the table as if I had insulted her.

  “I don’t know why you have such a look on your face, Scags,” she said, “it isn’t as if you’re the only one who can be interested in helping out down there.”

  “Of course not,” I said, trying to put my thoughts in order. “You startled me. I hadn’t expected that you two would be interested in tutoring.”

  “Why not? It isn’t as if we’re incapable of it.”

  She was right. I tried not to be too possessive of things and then I am. I had wanted this to be my own area of interest. I liked that I was the only one from the College there and thus could be away from here without having to go out of town.

  I hadn’t noticed but Prof. Keating sat near us and had been rather obviously listening to our talk because he picked up his sandwich and asked to join us at the table.

  “I think that’s great, Scags,” he said. “Offering time to help is a great way to give back.”

  He was busy eating what looked like a never-ending sandwich. It was so large and filled so full that it kept escaping the bounds of his bread. He took great delight in pushing portions of it into his mouth and then chewing on it at great length. Why should a sandwich be this large and demand this much work, I asked myself. Like everything that Prof. Keating did, he did it in a large way was my answer.

  He looked tired, I also thought to myself. Eileen was pleased that he had joined us and began talking about how she and Philip could also help out and that that would mean more children could be helped with their studies.

  Prof. Keating continued with his sandwich. It finally looked like he just wanted company while he ate. Eileen glanced at her watch and realized she had a rehearsal and left me at the table with Prof. Keating.

  “These semesters get longer and longer the more I teach,” he said after Eileen left.

  “I am tired of being here,” he said to me and I thought, oh no, I don’t want to hear this.

  “I remember the excitement when I first arrived. My mind worked overtime with all the plans I had for teaching and the students seemed to eat it up. At least that’s how I remember it. That they really loved the way I taught. That convinced me our love affair would go on forever.”

  I had no idea why he was telling me his story. Even when he assured me that he wasn’t telling me any secrets, I was still confused.

  “Don’t worry, Scags,” he said. “I’m not laying anything heavy on you for you to have to pretend you don’t know.

  “I’m just unhappy as a teacher. It makes me feel I’m a fraud. When I explain something to my students, I know, in my deepest soul, that they will never remember what I tell them. I have even stood there with my mouth moving and no words coming out, and I swear, they wrote down something. Very obedient children here.”

  I laughed at that. He did too. For the first time, it seemed, since I had met him, I saw him laugh spontaneously. He was very handsome when he laughed.

  “Though I am thoroughly tired of the drug-induced idiocy they are capable of. I wonder when enough will be enough for them. Probably when someone dies from it. Or worse.”

  I couldn’t imagine what would be worse.

  He finished the sandwich, he cleaned up the mess he made eating it, and turning to me he said, “Sorry, the weather here, while beautiful as it usually is in the fall, is about to turn gray. Then it will stay that way all winter long. That’s when the real craziness here begins.”

  He stood up, picked up his large satchel and looked down at me.

  “We have a tradition of inviting any students who can’t get away from the campus at Thanksgiving time over to our house for dinner. Consider yourself invited.”

  “Thank you Prof. Keating,” I said, “I have an invitation from my boyfriend to go home with him for the holiday.”

  He looked at me when I said that as if he couldn’t imagine that I was involved with someone. It wasn’t that he said anything but the way he looked at me then, as if there were more to me than he had known.

  That is probably true of all the students he advises. We all are much more than he could possibly know.

  Date: Friday, 10/31/69

  I’m very upset. I’ve had one of the most horrible experiences of my life tonight. I’m going to need more than a shower and a long sleep to get over what happened. It wasn’t just that Charles’ stupid party was awful but that Philip, who offered to walk back with me when I couldn’t take all the drugs and noise anymore, tried to rape me.

  Damn, what’s wrong with tha
t guy? Eileen and I will never be the friends we were, thanks to him and his stupidity. From the way she looked at me from his car as she drove him back in that horrible storm, she won’t ever believe my side of the story. The true side of the story.

  Charles couldn’t contain himself he was so excited that there was going to be this dreadful storm tonight. In his mind, the storm was for him, to help him create the perfect atmosphere for his annual scary party.

  From the moment I arrived at Charles’ apartment until the moment I decided to leave, I couldn’t take what was going on in the place. No longer was it the quiet apartment where Charles and I sort of lived together. Now it was this smoke filled, loud and drug filled space transformed into more of a theater set than a living space. My spine became more and more rigid the longer I stayed. I refused after a while to even believe that these people were having fun. Inside me the voices of complaint and criticism kept telling me to leave. They kept saying that I didn’t belong there. After a long debate with myself, I decided to leave.

  Why is this fun, I wanted to ask Charles? Charles was having too much fun for me to ask him to answer my question.

  I wanted to be a part of his Halloween experience. I made a great costume, I thought. I didn’t tell him what it was even though he kept bugging me to tell him. I made it myself. Now it’s torn to shreds. Between the rain and Philip tearing at it, it can’t be worn again.

  It took me a long time to figure it out too. I wanted Charles to be proud of me. With some cardboard, I made a clerical collar. I painted my black T-shirt with a clock face—Father Time. I drew a watch on each wrist and hung a pocket watch out of my pants pocket. My black pants had lettering on them, one leg said minutes, the other seconds, so that when I walked by, I was time passing by. It was really great.

  I enjoyed making it. I enjoyed wearing it too. I liked how Charles smiled at me when I walked in the door. He didn’t put that much effort into his costume—he came as a beach bum. Tony wore the gorilla suit. Eileen and Philip came as Scarlet O’Hara and Rhett Butler. Kit and her boyfriend, Lewis, came as figures out of Salvador Dali paintings. There seemed to be this theme with the couples of coming as a matched pair, as in Sylvie and her friend Henri came as Campbell Soup cans. There were costumes in reference to books (Tom Sawyer) and in reference to movies (The Wizard of Oz) and in reference to things I had no clue to.