Merrill, darling. Please. Try words.
It was this posture that had won the heart of her ex-husband. One look and Sid Mandel whisked Merrill permanently off the balance beam. She collapsed her pose and stood up. Sid knows all about us, honey boy, and it’s not a healthy bit of information, not for you, not for me.
Come on now. Roy took her by the wrist. Led her to the puffiest chair, the one Charlie Brown and Sable liked best. They were at the vet today, getting shampooed. Here now. Sit. Sit and breathe a little.
Merrill took a couple of shallow breaths. There was a captivating rise and fall of her bosom. Roy’s hand was on her white lace shoulder. Esther could take a look at this kind of workmanship. Deep breath now. Roy knew divorce was like combat. Sometimes there were flashbacks. Okay, now. Relax.
Merrill closed her eyes. Roy was free to study her face in repose. Her pale lids were touched with an icy blue shadow. He knew her bedroom played off this extraordinary palette. Pale silk spread, vast creamy carpet, tiny cupid sconces with violet-blue ribbons on their asses. Sid loved that. The last visit, a visit Roy had to terminate, Sid plucked a blue satin souvenir and ate it while two semiarmed Pinkerton cops waited in the foyer for him to swallow. So. What’s really going on?
Susie.
What about her?
Susie can’t get into kindergarten, she’s a dope.
Don’t say that.
She is, she’s thick. Just like her father! Merrill yelled to the throw pillow.
Roy moved the pillow to the other end of the coffee table. Let’s keep this in confidence. So what happened? You tried the school, what school by the way, and they just said no? That’s it?
Merrill sighed, recrossed her legs.
So you took her down to school and the principal said?
Susie took a test in the school library. Two hours with a repressed person sticking pegs into holes.
What repressed person?
A nun! A sister of charity flunked Susie in IQ. Can you imagine?
Roy scratched his neck. He checked out his lower left molars with his tongue. He finished Merrill’s diet soda. So. This is a Catholic IQ test? With saints?
No saints, just pegs.
All right, give me a minute. Just one minute.
Merrill’s eyes darkened with sadness, with injustice. She should have been a movie star, but she was too busy for the big screen.
One minute. Roy stood up. He needed some air. He needed to think. Contrary to logic, sometimes being with Merrill was like taking a high-potency sleeping pill.
Out on the aft deck the rain had slowed to a wet atmosphere, nothing coming down, just cold steam. Disgusting. Now the river was a bright viscous green. Roy leaned out and adjusted the flag, made sure the stripes hung straight. What could he do. He could get the name of the principal, or the nun with the pegs, and put in a call to the diocese. Shouldn’t be a big deal. Wasn’t the point of being a Catholic that brains didn’t matter, spirit was all? Crazy spirit trumped. He could think of several examples. Hadn’t he been called to tame those spirits once too often? And look where it got him. Anyway. Susie. She could peg any hole she put her mind to, the nun had only distracted her.
In school Roy had known his own troubles with distraction. At Columbia, it was Gerald Meecham. And at Horace Mann, it was Dun Wickford, then Perry Santimeyer. Talkers, cutups, tall boys. All charisma. Roy wanted to see how the world looked through those special eyes. What did they feel, what did they know? And it kept him from things. Sometimes he got Bs and Cs. The equivalent still happened, he hated to admit it. Sometimes he just couldn’t concentrate. Though who would believe it if he said so.
The water smelled like an anchovy, really vile. Roy pushed back from the rail but then spotted his captain on land. He thought Charlie Peeko was on the boat, but no, there he was, outside the office hut with the basin manager, a true crook. Charlie gestured toward Roy, and the manager, slimy-eyed dope, gave Roy the benefit of his slow reflexes. Was the guy alive? Charlie, Roy shouted. But they were too far away. Well, he’d find out soon enough. Something was definitely wrong.
Out through the barnacle-ridden doorway slipped a new figure. A head-down, limp-armed type with hair like a slab of butter. Fourteen years old, Roy guessed, the kid looked wet. And even dopier than the father, who clapped him on the back. They started back down the ramp to the dock, Charlie and the boy. From the size of those feet, landing every which way, Charlie Peeko was lucky a misplaced foot didn’t pop him in the drink.
They took the gangplank for Roy’s sake. What was the use of having one if everyone stepped on board wherever they felt like it? Charlie Peeko wore that annoying smirk of satisfaction that, so far, Roy had failed to erase.
Roy?
Captain Peeko?
Mr. Cohn. I’d like to introduce Dirk Kegel, the new first mate.
Excuse me. Captain Peeko. We’re docked in the Hudson River. We are planning, at most, a trip to the Statue of Liberty in the next two months, we need a first mate for this? We already have the entire Karpochnicj family acting as steward. No reflection on your abilities intended, Mr. Kegel. You’ll pardon us for a moment.
The boy watched the planks of the deck very carefully. He had long, beautiful hands like a pianist’s, and a soft mouth, the kind that drew a mother’s attention. Made her think her child was still a child.
Dirk Kegel.
Yes sir?
All right. All right. Tell me something about your prior experience.
I’m a straight-A student at Bronx Science, sir.
That will certainly be a big help on board. What’s the plan here, Captain?
We’ll be doing a lot of prep for the fall. And Dirk is good with children.
Children?
Yes.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Roy gave Charlie Peeko a long stare. You truly amaze me. No wonder Merrill’s in there talking to lamps. It’s rude to eavesdrop. Is this news to you?
Now Captain Peeko studied the planks too. Roy shook his head. Unbelievable, Roy said. Kirk?
Dirk, sir.
Dirk. Do you know anything about pegs?
Excuse me, sir?
Pegs. IQ pegs.
No sir, but I’m willing to give it my best shot. The boy had a neck like a statue’s, white and corded. He glanced up at Roy briefly, a look full of wonder.
What was that, Dirk?
Pegs, sir.
That’s right. So, you’re willing to try.
The boy gave a downcast nod.
Well, I guess that has to be good enough. That’s all we can really ask. Isn’t that right, Captain Peeko. Fine. Do whatever you want, you always do. Go ahead. Give Merrill the good news and then give Mr. Kegel the tour. And in my next life, if I’m lucky, I’m coming back as Charlie Peeko.
That night Roy had a dream. His office was decimated. The wrecking ball had come and gone, and only the floor was left, and rubble where the carpet had been. Roy could see the night sky, the roof had been blown away. Directly above, a full moon. Roy lay down on the filthy mattress. On his right was Frank Reilly, on his left a miniature bride no bigger than a paper clip. Frank would know what to do.
Roy was the first to spot the birds. Look, said Roy, and nudged Frank. Big webbed feet, feathered bellies, and red underparts, coiled like fists. Roy reached for Frank’s arm. He knew what should be done, knew it before Frank did. Roy woke up. For a long time he lay there trying to remember exactly what he’d come up with.
Muddy was all alone in the kitchen. She’d made her own toast and the room smelled of burned caraway seeds from the rye. She wore a peau de soie quilted night jacket and a full-length lavender nightgown. Matching lavender mules, a dozen tiny hand-tied bows spanning each instep. Usually Mrs. Levy brought a tray to Muddy’s bedroom with the mail and several newspapers, but Mrs. Levy had caught the flu, the worst ever—always worse when it comes in the summertime—and none of the cousins could be prevailed upon to come and serve on such short notice. Roy hadn’t seen his mother at br
eakfast since his father died. He smiled as he opened the refrigerator. He wasn’t much for breakfast himself, so the occasion was rare. He would try to get Muddy to interpret. This wouldn’t be easy. Muddy loathed dreams, especially in the morning. Maybe a little chitchat first.
Roy brought a crusty tin of caviar to the table. Who knew how old it was. Mrs. Levy could not be taught to keep only fresh food, a wartime mentality Muddy indulged. A plate, Roy, Muddy said, now we are living in the twentieth century, something I meant to mention.
Roy put the little tin on a saucer. He used Muddy’s good silver fluted grapefruit spoon to hack the crusty black bubbles from the sides. He craved that salt and licked his lips just slightly, his tongue already thickened by it. Muddy did the same thing, and she wasn’t mocking him. Her tongue swept out across her planed lower lip, a long, slow exploration and then back inside again. Muddy’s lower lip had a pressed-down shape as if she’d stacked a couple of bricks there for a decade or so.
When he was in kindergarten, Roy asked his mother why he had no brothers. Everyone had brothers, it seemed, but him. Muddy said—and this was at breakfast too—that when Roy was a baby, he had eaten them in their cribs. Roy thought about that. And then he looked at her, and he looked at her mouth. It was much wider than his own, and if anyone had eaten any brothers, it was her. He could see the brothers, popped in like snacks, their little boots flattening and widening her lower lip as they went. That Roy had been left alone was a double message: He was too good, he wasn’t good enough. Any given second he toggled between the two self-assessments. Even now, age thirty-five, in a kitchen he paid for, he dodged back and forth without words, like a pulse in his brain, and it kept him safe. In this way, Muddy and Roy got along.
Always the last to know.
What’s that? asked Muddy. You’re mumbling again.
Between husbands and wives, either side, always the last to know the first thing about the other.
This is a subject you want to hold forth on?
I heard a crazy story last night, Roy said.
No dreams.
It’s a true story. A husband and wife.
What could be more boring.
Not always.
No. True. Mine is a fatalist’s outlook. Muddy sighed. You are right. Go on.
It involves a famous film director.
So?
All right. The director’s wife is in the park one day.
What director, David Lean?
I thought it didn’t matter.
Why should it matter to me?
Exactly. The director’s wife is in the park, and she sees an old woman running, really fast. Roy paused to chip out a little more caviar.
Don’t tell me. She’s being chased? And I know who’s doing the chasing. That the police don’t arrest on sight, it’s really a scandal. What’s so hard to figure here?
Well, this old woman is running for her health.
How old is she?
Much older than anyone we know.
Is this a story about Roberto Rossellini? I won’t listen to trash, Roy.
It’s not him.
Fine. Go on.
You sure?
Yes.
So the wife goes home to her husband and says: I’m forty years old and I feel like I’m a hundred. She convinces him that they should start running too.
Is he faithful?
How should I know.
You know. You know. If her husband is faithful, a hundred is a long way off. If not, well, these things are like old fish. They stink up everything!
What about ducks or birds?
Excuse me?
Never mind.
Roy.
I don’t think this story is so interesting to you.
Are you looking for a debate? There are teams you can join. Yes, even at your age, it’s not too late.
Let me just tell you this one part. They start running. The husband thinks it’s an excellent idea. First they run to Fifth Avenue. Then they run to the boat pond. Finally they start running in circles around the pond, ten, twenty, thirty times. After a while the wife notices—
She sees a lot. Not always a good practice.
Yes. She notices that they are running on an incline. All the time, one leg is bending more than the other. She tells the husband. She says, We should go in the other direction, even things out. And you know what the husband says?
Muddy shrugs. Husbands don’t usually say so much.
He says: This is the way we run. That’s it! And then he takes off in the usual direction. The wife turns around and goes the other way. When her husband passes her, he doesn’t acknowledge her. She said it was the first time in their twenty years of marriage that she thought maybe he wasn’t so flexible. What do you think?
Muddy brushed the toast crumbs to the center of her plate. You call this a story? Tell me something, Roy. Is marriage on your mind?
No.
You are not thinking you will marry Sylvia Kinder’s daughter. That would be a mistake like you don’t know mistakes before today.
No, it’s just a story, but I think there’s something in it.
You do.
Yes. What does the story tell you, pretend it’s a dream.
Not hard to pretend, the way you talk. But I’ll tell you what it says, Roy. It says: Never, and I mean never, be afraid to turn around and run the other way. You tell that to Sylvia Kinder’s grasping daughter who thinks she can return a favor in such a way. You tell her I said so.
And Muddy pushed back from the table and planted a sharp wet kiss on his forehead before stamping out through the pantry.
June 14
It was Sunday already. A complicated day at Woeburne. For one, Pasteur was always agitated. His wife served a supper for the whole family promptly at five. And if any of the executives were lazy or clinging or sad during the visiting hours, the head count went slowly, and Pasteur arrived home late. This caused problems. Pasteur’s daughter, Emily, just fifteen, cradled a deep desire for romantic adventure. If Pasteur wasn’t consistent, setting an example of fealty and tenderness, all through gestures—he’d studied the importance of expression and movement—then his daughter might swirl away on the rising vapors of her bad ideas.
It was Sunday and Pasteur was distracted, thinking of Emily and her way of chewing with her mouth open, of cuddling the furniture. The way her body seemed different, looser by degrees, than the adults’ in the house. Her skin more susceptible to help and harm. He thought she smelled funny. She gave off a musk of road tar and cotton candy. Pasteur believed if Mrs. Pasteur could be enrolled in a program of sustained attention, Emily might skate through the next three years or so. She’d land in adulthood as her mother had, undisturbed. Nothing agitated this protective urge like sitting in the high-back leather chair during visiting hour, watching the execs meet their outside relations. The mental defectives didn’t have the same effect. It was the free will and the free desire that got Pasteur’s unhappy attention.
He was trying to recall, just as a point of reference, if Mrs. Pasteur had been a lank-legged seducer in her youth, when Mrs. Will Clemens dropped her alligator purse at the check-in station. A rookie guard caressed the exterior as if feeling for breasts rather than weapons. Just the kind of thing that shot Pasteur’s blood pressure to hell. The rookie chatted away, telling Mrs. Clemens his life story, while a line built up behind her. Pasteur pushed out of his chair just as the rookie came to his senses. Mrs. Clemens floated in the entryway looking for her husband. Pasteur looked too and realized only in that moment, that Will Clemens was missing.
There was a special system for dividing the prisoners receiving Sunday guests from the prisoners who were not. It involved what Pasteur liked to think of as a humane ruse. A distraction of his own devising. The prisoners unlikely to be visited were saved from despair. They could pluck a sealed deck of bicycle cards from an open box on Pasteur’s desk. Pasteur paid for these himself. Anyone with a deck could find a seat in the education room.
A hearts tournament there was loosely supervised by one of Pasteur’s juniors in command. At the end of each month, Pasteur gave the lucky lowest scorer, prorated for days played, a Bundt cake baked by his own Emily.
Warden Flagmeyer agreed that some men on Kentucky benefited from the example of a good home life. So the cakes were presented at a monthly Friday fish supper in Pasteur’s rec room. His basement on Seymour Street had been fashioned with sofa, love seat, and easy chair—all upholstered in stain-resistant dark red plaid—a wet bar, and a separate exterior entrance. The lucky visitors had access only to the underground den. For the Friday-night fish suppers, card tables angled like a short string of diamonds from the wet bar to the laundry-room door and the toilet. Pasteur served the fish sticks and fries himself, but when dessert came, the invitees cocked an ear to the wooden stairs, listening for the footfalls of Emily and her mother. Mrs. Pasteur carried down the gallon container of pistachio ice cream. Then came Emily and her Bundt cake.
Will Clemens had attended only one fish supper, and Pasteur was determined he should not come again. Weeks ago there’d been a disturbance between Will Clemens and his wife that Pasteur witnessed from afar. Every Sunday she came, pretty as you’d want. And Will was often silent, head down, and that pretty girl leaned into the table like she’d bore right through it if it would get him to uncurl inside himself. Pasteur had seen this kind of thing before, but never really with such a temptation to talk. Will Clemens sat with his legs crossed, his hand moving up to his mouth to smoke. Then one Sunday Will said something that made pretty Mrs. Clemens sit straight back in her chair. Later Sammy Finlandor said that Will told her she was giving a bunch of convicts hard-ons. Did she enjoy that? No more mercy visits, please. Pasteur didn’t really believe Sammy, who was known to lie as soon as breathe. But Mrs. Clemens didn’t come back. Four Sundays in a row, Will Clemens had swept the hearts tournament without breaking a sweat.
On his winning Friday night, Emily came down the stairs, with her blond hair sculpted to a perfect flip, her hip grazing the handrail. As always, she was in a world of her own. Her mother hacked green ice cream into bowls. Emily hoisted her Bundt cake, sleepy-eyed and bored, waiting to pass it off to the winner. Pasteur wanted to say: Straighten up, a strong girl slumping around, it’s a crime. But he didn’t like to shame her. Shame was a poor motivator. He directed her to Will, stretched out in the red easy chair, leg over leg, cheek in one hand, two fingers of the other extended to hold a cigarette. His black hair soaped into a neat brick. Emily’s eyes focused abruptly. Her hips executed a swift corkscrew maneuver that ended in a squat at Will’s feet, her cake tilting off its cardboard platter. Will reached out with the hand that had held his face, caught the cake, said, Thank you, Emily. It’s very nice. Emily remained squatting. Pasteur, shame or no shame, reached over, encircled the back of his daughter’s neck, and brought her to her feet.
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