by Alex George
Just in case all that wasn’t enough, I also had Margaret Fitch to think about.
As I pushed sausage links up and down the hot plate, I contemplated my encounter in the music room, beset by a variety of conflicting emotions. There was, of course, dazed disbelief that it had happened at all. Then there was an intense frustration that there was nobody I could brag to about it. (I’m ashamed to say that it was at this point that I really began to miss Magnus Kellerman.) I felt guilty, too—I knew that my behavior was unworthy of my grand feelings for Miriam Imhoff. And there was a profound regret that I had missed my chance to see Mrs. Fitch’s breasts.
Most of all, though, I was just plain terrified.
As I began to consider the implications of what we had done, my thoughts inevitably turned to Rankin Fitch. I knew that if he ever discovered that I had screwed his wife, however ineptly, he would wreak an apocalyptic revenge that would ruin my life forever. My imagination ran riot. I saw myself being sent down for a stretch in the state penitentiary, framed by the wily lawyer for a crime that I did not commit. I began to obsess about the Fitches, and what they might do to me. Such an obviously unhappy marriage, I thought, unable to suppress the lump rising in my throat.
That was when it hit me.
Mrs. Fitch—poor, sweet, lovely, sexy Mrs. Fitch!—had fallen in love with me.
Suddenly everything began to make terrible sense. Her advances in the music room that night had been a desperate plea to be rescued from her loveless union with her miniature husband. She had probably adored me for years, but knew that she could not declare her devotion until we were no longer teacher and pupil.
It was all very flattering, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be Mrs. Fitch’s knight in shining armor. There would be no heroic showdown on the courthouse steps between the ardent young lover and the cuckolded husband. Instead I decided to slink away and leave them to their lives together.
After that I began to dread singing at First Christian Church. Mrs. Fitch often played the piano at weddings, and she smiled bravely at me when we caught each other’s eye, but I could see the sadness and disappointment in her face. I wasn’t proud about abandoning her, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Yes, I wanted to see her breasts, but not that much.
Instead, I did my best to focus on my exciting new culinary career. In the absence of other options, I decided to try to be the best short-order cook I could possibly be. I immersed myself in my daily chores. By concentrating on the details of each task, I was able—for a while, anyway—to ignore the overall bleakness of my prospects. I discovered a measure of quiet satisfaction in small jobs well done. Nobody but me knew how precisely and efficiently I had chopped that day’s quota of green peppers, but that was all right. It helped me get through each long shift.
Once lunch had ended, Joseph and I got to work prepping for the following day. I enjoyed these afternoons alone with my father. He showed me how to layer up trays of lasagna, watched as I carefully followed his secret recipe for meat loaf. Now that I had officially joined him at the grill, Joseph proudly boasted about me to the regulars who ate breakfast at the bar each morning, telling them all that I was a natural. When he pointed an egg-covered spatula at me and called me his partner, it almost made the whole thing worthwhile.
Soon after I began working full-time, Rosa started to come in every morning for a cup of coffee on her way to school. She sat at the counter and sipped her drink, watching me as I fried bacon and buttered mountains of toast. No matter how much I whistled, no matter how loudly I laughed at the customers’ jokes, she persisted with her silent scrutiny over the rim of her cup. I didn’t fool her for a minute.
When Joseph and I had finished work for the day, I would sometimes stay behind in the diner and switch off all the lights. The lingering smells of the day’s cooking took on a warm intimacy in the darkness. I sat at the counter, enjoying the solitude. Every so often I would feed a fistful of nickels into the jukebox. My nighttime listening back then was Bill Haley and His Comets, Pat Boone, the Four Aces, and some young punk called Elvis Presley. I allowed my mind to wander, adrift on a sea of bright, uncomplicated melody. As the music washed over me, I wondered how I might clamber out of the black hole that I had inadvertently tumbled into.
A few months after graduation, Miriam Imhoff and Kevin Kinney got married. By then Miriam was about seven months pregnant.
We sang at the wedding, of course. Miriam’s father glowered furiously throughout the ceremony next to his silently weeping wife. Their daughter had been supposed to go to university a long way from here—Harvard, Princeton, somewhere like that. They hadn’t paid for all those private tutors to have her knocked up by some sweaty, bone-headed jock. The groom’s family, in contrast, thought it all a tremendous lark. The swelling in the front of Miriam’s wedding dress was a source of loud sniggers and admiring nudges. The Kinneys smirked and the Imhoffs shuddered through the service, the two families barely looking at each other. But I may have provided the oddest spectacle of all as we stood at the front of the church and sang “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You.” I stood ramrod straight, chest puffed out, and sang my broken heart out as tears ran steadily down my cheeks.
Two months later, Miriam gave birth to twin girls. I grew accustomed to having my heart crushed every time I saw them roll by in their enormous station wagon. The fact that Miriam was now married and a mother to boot did nothing to diminish my silent devotion. I had adored her so completely, worshipped her so devoutly, that I couldn’t simply turn those emotions off. I was unable to turn away and look elsewhere. It was enough just to have Miriam close by, if only to gaze upon from a distance. So when, the following year, Kevin Kinney joined the army and moved his family to Kansas, I was devastated. All of a sudden there was a gaping, Miriam-sized hole in my life. I had come to define myself, at least in part, by my hopeless love for her, and her absence threatened to unravel me completely.
One easy avenue of escape still lay in my aunt’s library of Wodehouse novels, although the refuge provided by those daft aristocrats and steel-eyed maiden aunts was only temporary. Soon I would be reluctantly pressing the pages back together, bracing myself for reentry into the world I was trying so hard to escape. But from the bliss of all that reading, an idea took root inside me.
I decided to write a book myself.
Without telling anyone, I saved up and bought a portable typewriter. It came with a sturdy carrying case that clipped neatly onto the base of the machine. I kept it hidden beneath a bench in the back room of the diner. Every night I lugged the typewriter to one of the booths, where I would insert a sheet of blank paper and stare thoughtfully at the keys, waiting for inspiration to strike. I should have been trying to decide what to write about, but it was more fun to dream about what would happen once my novel was published. I would move to New York and embark upon a life of celebrity and glamour. I dreamed of bohemian parties in brightly lit Manhattan apartments, of cocktail-fueled brilliance and beautiful women. I knew that P. G. Wodehouse now lived on Long Island, and I supposed that he and I would become fast friends. We would compare notes on current projects, and nonchalantly toss off wickedly funny plot twists over long, martini-drenched lunches. He would dedicate his next Jeeves and Wooster novel to me. I, the grateful young apprentice, would acknowledge his influence in my next acclaimed blockbuster. Critics would note this in their rapturous reviews, and ponder in print whether one day I might even surpass the master.
For now, though, I was stuck in Beatrice, Missouri, chained to an unforgiving hot plate and reeking of fried onions until I could think of something to write about. Then one day my novel crystallized before me: I would just tell the very story I was so desperate to live. My hero would be a humble young writer from the rural Midwest whose brilliant first novel thrust him into the literary limelight and brought him fame and fortune in New York.
Now that I had my subject, the word
s flew out of me. I named my fictional alter ego Buck Gunn—a strong, unpretentious name, I thought, manly and indisputably American (unlike, well, Meisenheimer). I gave Buck all the adventures I wanted for myself, dispatching him into the jungle of Gotham, where he encountered an army of eccentric geniuses, jaded celebrities, and exotic goddesses, all of whom wanted to sleep with him. He’d had a girl back home, of course, a beautiful redhead, his high school sweetheart. She had begged him not to go east. Did Buck Gunn listen to her tearful entreaties to stay? Did he stop to console her in her sorrow? He did not. He simply patted her on the cheek and rode out of town, not once looking back at her as she lay on the sidewalk, prostrate with grief.
I enjoyed writing that scene.
Every evening I hauled out the typewriter and wrote long into the night. I did not tell a soul what I was doing; this was my little secret. I was unconcerned with tedious stuff like grammar and spelling; that, I reasoned, was what editors were for. Besides, I did not want to dilute my raw talent by worrying about humdrum concerns with syntax, and the like. Gradually, the pile of pages grew.
As a result of my literary endeavors, my days at the diner became easier to bear. I consoled myself with the thought that this would not last much longer. The stories that I spun each night were a buffer against the dread tedium of my existence. The staccato rim shots of the typewriter were a percussive hymn to my future life, far away from here. I bashed away at the keys like a man possessed, every downward jab freighted with boundless, impossible hope.
In the spring of 1956, Freddy moved out of the house. Joseph had never been able to forgive him for his decision to go and work for Oscar Niedermeyer, and the atmosphere at home had remained arctic ever since. The rest of us had been tiptoeing around the two of them for so long that we were relieved when Freddy finally carried his suits across the lawn and moved in with our grandmother next door. By then Jette was seventy-seven years old. A few months earlier there had been a small fire in her kitchen after she had set a pan of grease to heat on the stove and then fallen asleep in front of the television. The house stank of scalded fat for weeks afterward. She moved slowly now, her limbs tight with arthritis. Her eyesight had deteriorated. Too much television, she would cheerfully explain to us all, but we all knew the truth: she was getting old.
Although she would never have admitted it, Jette had always been fondest of Freddy. She saw the kindness in his eyes, and worried about him as a result. The twins had no need of anyone’s sympathy or concern, and I was well hidden behind my own defenses. Freddy’s big heart left him ill-equipped to deal with life’s dangers and disappointments, and his grandmother loved him a little more for it.
Each morning Freddy prepared breakfast for them both and read the front page of the Optimist out loud to her—her eyes could no longer bear the strain of all that small print. It was Freddy who picked Jette up when she stumbled. It was Freddy who cooked for her and bathed her. Before long, there were precious few secrets between those two.
Little by little, with Freddy there to look after her, Jette’s grasp on the world loosened. Later we would discover that her brain had been ravaged by postencephalitic Parkinson’s disease. All we knew back then was that sometimes her universe slowed to an impossible crawl. Tasks that had once taken a moment to perform now took an entire morning. Freddy once returned from work late in the afternoon to find Jette sitting at the kitchen table, quite motionless, a forkful of lunch in her hand, frozen halfway to her mouth.
Thankfully, Jette was unaware of the unsettling spectacle she presented: as her brain changed gears, it hoodwinked itself. She had no idea that her internal clock was crawling forward a thousand times more slowly than the rest of the world. She began to mumble disjointed German phrases, a mournful echo of long ago. Her brain staged a full retreat from the horrors of old age, and her punctured body mirrored that inert collapse. Now she was just a mess of enfeebled limbs, chaotically arranged in her favorite chair.
When he wasn’t looking after his grandmother, Freddy spent as much time as he could at Morrie’s house. By then his best friend was nearly eight feet tall, and could barely move. He spent most of his time on the floor of his parents’ living room—he had grown too large for beds or sofas—splayed out on a makeshift pallet of rugs and cushions. His immune system was so fragile that even a common cold posed a serious threat. His overburdened heart still beat on, but there was no hope left.
My brother was twenty years old, too young for all this. He spent his days at the funeral parlor, shepherding strangers through their grief. Then he returned home to tend to his own dying loved ones. By then both Jette and Morrie were just waiting for the end. There was nothing Freddy could do but wait with them. There was no consoling hand on the shoulder for him when he mourned, no softly whispered words of comfort. He faced his sorrow alone.
Even with Freddy gone, our bedroom was still crowded.
In the fall of 1957, Frank and Teddy began their senior year. They were the undisputed stars of the varsity football and baseball teams, although by then they were far more interested in chasing girls than sporting glory. The subject had been a sore spot between the two of them ever since the night of my senior prom. Frank had returned home long after midnight. The next morning his neck and lower lip bore evidence of substantial bruising and abrasions. It was the sort of damage that could only have been inflicted by the metalwork on Julie Tippet’s teeth. According to Frank, he had found Julie alone and drunk in the gym. It transpired that it was Julie who had borrowed a car that night, not Eugene, and before long she and Frank were on their way to Gants Bluff, in convoy with a score of other lovebirds. Julie hiccuped morosely as she drove, which caused the car to swerve precariously into the middle of the road. Frank had been scared out of his wits, but the journey was a risk worth taking.
I lost count of the number of times I listened to Frank brag about what he and Julie Tippet had done in the back of that car. Teddy, of course, poured scorn on Frank’s story, disputing every detail. He desperately did not want any of it to be true.
Just as with everything else, chasing after girls became a matter of intense competition between the twins, but they soon realized that the female of the species represented an adversary far more potent than each other. Sometimes at night they put their competitive instincts to one side, and a spirit of cautious cooperation would descend as they compared notes and swapped advice.
They would usually still be discussing the manifold mysteries of the female when I got home after another night’s typing at the diner. As I listened to them talk, I thought about Mrs. Fitch. My brothers were discussing girls, but I had made love to a real woman, who was passionate, sensuous, and experienced. Quality, not quantity, I told myself—that was the important thing. As a tactic, it worked pretty well, until the late spring of 1958. Then everything began to go wrong.
THIRTY-SIX
One afternoon, a few weeks before the twins were due to graduate, Frank barreled into the kitchen. I had just arrived home after a long shift and was making a sandwich. Teddy sat at the table, idly flicking through the Optimist and yawning loudly.
“Teddy, Teddy, Ted,” panted Frank. “You won’t believe it.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “This afternoon. Holy smokes. The most incredible thing.” He paused for a beat. “Mrs. Fitch.”
My world imploded messily in on itself.
Teddy put down the newspaper. “What about her?”
“After my singing lesson. In the music room. Unbelievable.”
I stood by the refrigerator, frozen in horror. “What happened?” I croaked.
Frank didn’t need any more prompting. “We were about finished with my lesson, and she beckons me over. ‘Franklin,’ she says, ‘there’s something I need you to do for me.’ Then she takes my hand and sticks it up her skirt, just like that.”
Teddy sat quite still. “No she didn’t,” he said after a moment.
/> “It’s true.”
I said nothing, too appalled to speak.
“Anyway, there I am, touching her, you know, and she starts to moan.”
“No she didn’t,” said Teddy, a pink flush now creeping up his neck.
“Oh, but Ted, I’m afraid she did.”
“And I suppose then the two of you went at it over the piano stool,” said Teddy scornfully.
Frank nodded, closing his eyes. “It was incredible. She’s got these amazing big brown nipples.”
A hiss of inarticulate indignation escaped me. Frank had seen Mrs. Fitch’s tits!
Fear and doubt clouded Teddy’s eyes. “You’re a lying son of a bitch,” he said.
“I suppose her husband can’t satisfy her much,” mused Frank. “Perhaps his cock is as tiny as the rest of him.”
“Shut up,” said Teddy.
Frank sniggered. “Dwarf-cock.”
Teddy shot out of his chair. “I said shut up!” he yelled.
The look on Frank’s face was one of pure delight. “Why, Theodore,” he drawled, “I do believe you might be jealous.”
Teddy was done talking. He lunged across the table and smacked Frank across the face. Moments later the two of them were rolling around on the kitchen floor, trading blows. I left them to it, and walked out into the yard. My sandwich was dry and tasteless in my mouth as I negotiated the wreckage of my shattered illusions. I had built up substantial emotional equity in my encounter with Mrs. Fitch, but now it was hard to avoid the conclusion that she probably hadn’t been in love with me, after all; she’d just been horny for some young flesh. She wanted a properly proportioned penis after all that dwarf-cock.
For the next few days Teddy moped around in a miserable funk, until one afternoon—the afternoon of his own singing lesson—he bounced into the kitchen, all grins. The moment I saw his face, I knew what had happened. His eyes were shining in dazzled triumph. It seemed that Mrs. Fitch had used the same lines and gestures that she had used with me and Frank. I found this lack of variety a little insulting. I began to wonder whether she actually derived any pleasure out of these carbon-copy seductions, or if she was simply collecting youthful scalps with the needy but joyless monotony with which a drunk pours the next shot of liquor down his throat.