Hide Fox, and All After

by Rafael Yglesias

  Alec looked at him, astonished. The first formers playing below tossed a miniature football over the wall. Raul picked it up, looking at Alec. He laughed and said, "You want a little guilt, Alec? Here, have a little guilt." He tossed it to him.

  Alec swung about, laughing, and said, "Here, have some guilt, Raul." He tossed it to him.

  They threw it back and forth, yelling that it was guilt. They ran up and down the street, joyously bumping into cars and people as they gave guilt to each other. The first formers heckled them for the ball.

  "Alec," Raul yelled, "they want their guilt back."

  "Here it is," Alec said, throwing it to Raul.

  Raul leaned over the wall, saying to them, "Here— listen to this, Alec, it's a terrible cliché—you can have your guilt. We want no more of it."

  "My life may seem suddenly calm," Raul wrote in his notes, "but it remains a mess. My lies to my parents are beginning to strain under repetition and consequent lack of credibility. Hell, that was a sentence. As for Barbara, her presence in my life is annoying. Something draws me to her; I cannot make a clean break. I still hope for a loss of my virginity. But things worked out well with Alec, and I am quite happy, strangely enough. It's just that it all seems to be the calm before the storm."

  He stayed in his room at the back of the apartment like a cowed animal. At night he prowled about it, a caged panther.

  His life had been seriously invaded; he tried now to recapture the order of his inner life. Months ago, as part of a long argument with his family, Raul had established the rule that no one entered his room without knocking. A while after that, he put on a latch, never failing to lock the door behind him. Without the door closed, it was as if a gaping wound had been left unhealed; without it locked, the wound was in danger of reopening.

  Raul's own sense of power was all-important to him. Without his fortress secure, he retired, deep in his chair, frightened and exhausted. No joy surpassed the locking of that door after dinner; the playing of the radio in the subdued room, his voice climbing the blank walls.

  This was no adolescent phase, though it bore resemblance to one. Wherever he went, with or without his parents, this was true. If he had to resort to the bathroom for peace, he would do so. The demand for privacy excluded demanding it, though he did once with his parents, for that alone would breach it.

  His mania, therefore, was never taken seriously. His parents were hurt by it, particularly his father— for what secrets could he have from him? His brother was equally surprised by it, and rather than believe Raul wished to be alone—or away from them—they put it down to silly resentment. It would pass. All they had to do was draw him out. There were constant expeditions in there for that purpose, Raul marking each one with hate.

  Jose Sabas, Raul's brother, was in his final year at Columbia University. It was a momentous year for him because of the Columbia uprising; and his intense political activity made any visit of his to the Sabas home an event. His news was always astonishing and his skill in the telling provided a willing audience. Though Raul couldn't bear his brother's mere presence, he still looked forward to his visits. But when Raul found the company of adults too awful to tolerate, he retired to his room, and often his lumbering warmhearted brother followed him there. Jose would act as if the latch on Raul's door were non-existent, jamming it violently. "Come on, man. Open up."

  "Okay, wait a second." Raul would remove the now twisted latch. Jose entered the room in big strides, Raul closed and locked the door.

  "So what're ya doin'?"

  Raul liked to be tight-lipped with his brother. He just shrugged his shoulders.

  "I see you're reading Bleak House. It's a great one of his."

  Raul nodded.

  Jose took out a cigarette. "So what's the story with you and school?"

  "Could you give me a Camel?" Jose handed him one. "I don't know. Uh, I'm goin' to school."

  "Yeah, but can you see staying with it, or what?"

  "What difference does it make?"

  "Come on, man, it makes a lot of difference. Like the money. Like what you wanna do. It's your life, man."

  "I don't know whether it's my life or not. I mean… That's stupid, I don't see Cabot as my life."

  "Well," Jose hesitated. "What does that mean?"

  "I don't know what it means. Exactly what I said— Cabot isn't my life."

  "That just seems unreal to me."

  "Okay."

  "No, I mean, when I was in high school, all my friends were there, you know, and the tests and that kinda mindset you get into about grades. I mean I didn't think of myself in those terms. I was a poet, a playwright." Jose smiled ironically. "And I couldn't fuckin' stand the bullshit the teachers and the administration would go in for. There were times I just said—fuck the school, you know. I didn't think, like that was my life. But, ultimately, it was. Couldn't get away from that. What else were you gonna do? You know, living with your parents. With Columbia, it's different 'cause you don't have that dependency, you can't be defined by it. At least you can't let them."

  "And why the fuck should I let them now?"

  "Let what? What do you mean?"

  "Look, just 'cause you're in college and I'm in high school doesn't mean I should let them define me."

  "I wasn't saying that at all. You shouldn't let them define you. I just meant it was a different situation. You're trapped in the situation, and you're just forced to find some way of dealing with it."

  "Fuck that. You think you're saying something revolutionary to me? You're just saying, it's too bad, but stick it out. Keep a stiff upper lip."

  "Come on, don't be stupid. I wasn't trying to say anything revolutionary to you…"

  Raul jumped up, holding his arms tightly at his sides, yelling at the center of the floor. "I mean who the hell do you think you are? Walking in here discussing my life as if you own it. Get outta here with your fucking stupid platitudes."

  "Will you stop acting so crazy?"

  "Crazy!" Raul screamed.

  "Man, I can't relate to this…"

  "Crazy! You shit! You…"

  "Fuck this, man. You're just bein' silly." Jerking his arms, Jose left.

  Nearly all the adults about him elected themselves his advisers. The constant flow of belated clichés, of fatherly tones, or brotherly tones, annoyed him beyond endurance. He spent the majority of his day at school listening to the varied experiences of concerned educators' fourteen-year-old days. And with this disingenuous advice becoming popular at home, he was all the more without peace. The retirement to his room used to be a relaxation into sanity, as he privately worked out the violences others exhibit in life, but now it was becoming a scramble to escape.

  Barbara called him several times, asking him to call back. He did not.

  He and Alec were on different schedules, so they saw little of each other. But Alec was also avoiding him slightly. Raul knew why but blocked the thought out—he would not learn to hate Alec.

  He was dealing with three different planets: his parents, the school, and Barbara and Alec. He prayed that somewhere between the squeeze of those worlds he could find that solemn Raul who watched life swirl beneath him.

  11

  Iolanthe's opening night came. Since Barbara would be there, Raul would have to avoid going, but he arranged to meet Alec afterward at Richard's house. He got to Richard's half an hour before Iolanthe was scheduled to finish. Richard and a friend of his were there alone; Richard, evidently, was having a fight with Stephie. Raul, however, wouldn't let Richard's harassed and bedraggled manner delay smoking the grass. Richard fussed about, checking that doors were locked and that no one was coming, before they went to the terrace to smoke.

  Raul, felt uncomfortable enough, socializing without Alec, without Richard's and Barry's childishness. For God's sake, they were four years older than he, yet they were acting as if the grass were a six-pack of beer.

  Raul abstracted himself from their chatter, concentrating on the deepening
sensuality the grass produced. He was submerged in sensation when Alec arrived. They said little to each other as Alec smoked. Stephie came, and Barry left. Stephie and Richard began speaking intensely to each other. Raul was sprawled on Richard's bed, obsessed with his own world and unconscious of their presence. Alec, in a haze, wandered out of the room.

  Stephie was pouting: she scolded Richard like a frivolous child bride. It was trivia she was complaining about; clearly, she was guiding the argument to her advantage. Richard's squirming excuses awoke Raul to their discussion. They were making up when he had geared himself to their situation. Richard was demanding something of her, some sort of verbal assurance, and she was toying with refusing it. Her baby's voice was ludicrous. But when she scolded him, it was harsh and cold as any other.

  "I wove you," she said finally.

  "Say it without the baby voice," Raul heard himself say.

  She looked at him for the first time, astonished.

  Richard, who had caught on to Raul's meaning, said, "Yeah, say it normally."

  Raul glanced at him condescendingly. "Come on," Raul said to Stephie, "you're very good, but beat this test." Raul smiled broadly, holding his sides as if he were shaking in silent mirth.

  "Wichie, don't lissen to him, he's stowned."

  Raul giggled. "That's pretty weak. Come on, say it!"

  Richard looked at Raul, entranced by his words. He grabbed Stephie by the shoulders and said, "Say it. Say, 'I love you,' in a real voice."

  Raul leaned forward, looking at her. She glanced at him, womanly hate glaring from her cowed eyes.

  "I wove you," she said.

  Raul's laughter echoed piercingly. "Try again," he said.

  A cute pet, she tilted her head, looking up into Richard's eyes, cooing, "I wove you, I wove you, I wove you."

  Raul's glee, mixed with horror and admiration, became soundless as his body jerked violently. "She can't do it," he whispered.

  Richard shook his head. "You have to say it," he pleaded.

  She drew herself up, a proud mother cat, and said in a clear angry voice, "I love you." Each letter enunciated, without feeling. "I love you."

  Raul jumped up. She glared at him briefly before leaning forward to kiss Richard. Raul saw in his face that he had accepted it. Raul ran out of the room, yelling for Alec. He ran into the dark living room, lit only by the light of the kitchen. Alec was sitting against a wall, staring ahead. Raul knelt down before him, seeing in his eyes the guilt he was suffering.

  "I have something to tell you," Alec said in a strange voice.

  "It can wait," Raul said. He laughed. "My God, it's incredible what I just discovered about Stephie! It's frightening. She's so good at it. I didn't see it before. I really believed that baby voice."

  "You mean it's fake? That she uses it to keep Richard?"

  "Yeah. God, it's incredible. There is a consummate actress."

  "I knew that. I found it out after a year, though."

  "It was the grass that made me realize it so quickly. It seems so real!"

  Alec looked at Raul, about to say something. Raul shook his head. "Do you have a cigarette?" he asked.

  Alec searched his pockets, coming up with a pack.

  "I really kind of admire her," Raul said. "It scares the shit out of me, but ya gotta give her credit, boy, Whew!"

  Alec laughed weakly, patting Raul on the shoulder. He got up and began walking around the room.

  "One role all the time, though," Raul said. "Must be awfully boring."

  "Come on, let's go," Alec said.

  They moved toward the door. "She trapped herself," Raul said.

  The energy Raul's and Alec's relationship once had was gone now: there was a gap, unrecognized and barely felt, that reduced the passion of their friend-ship. Raul knew that Alec had carried out his sexual egotism, that he was fucking Barbara. And Alec knew that he was not fooling Raul. But Raul would not allow the subject to be discussed, and they carried on as before, but it was hollow.

  There was little chance for their seeing each other, though. The weekends were all that was left, and they too were lost. On the second night of Iolanthe, Raul went to Alec's apartment. Alec had left him the keys, with the instructions that he was not to answer the phone unless it was his signal. Alec would not call until 2 a. m. or so, for he would go to the cast party.

  Raul was watching television. The phone had been ringing on and off for over a half an hour. No one but Alec could be so persistent; Raul decided he had gotten the signals wrong.

  He looked at the clock before picking up the phone. It was well after two. He said hello, trying to disguise his voice. The confused voice that mentioned Alec's name and then blurted out his was Anita's.

  Raul nervously hung up. He decided she would think it was a wrong number. In a few minutes Raul heard the door opening. It was the neighbor assigned to keep watch over Alec. She got Raul on the phone to haltingly lie to Anita. He then handed the keys to the neighbor and went home.

  Within a half hour Alec called, obviously upset. He went over to Raul's house, Raul sneaking him in, his parents asleep.

  They huddled over the kitchen table. "Why did you answer the phone?"

  "It had been ringing for a long time. Now who the hell would call at two in the morning but you? I figured I had the signals wrong."

  Alec's harassed anger subsided. "Oh, why did you do it, Raul?" The question was rhetorical.

  "Did she lower the boom?"

  "Many booms, my friend."

  Raul smiled, but Alec had spoken humorlessly. "What?"

  "You can't come over any more."

  "What!"

  "Not only that, but I get no allowance. I have to work for my spending money." Raul began to exclaim. "And I have to go every weekend to the country, or stay with my grandfather in the city."

  "You're kidding." Alec shook his head.

  "I mean, who the hell does she think you are! You're going to college in a couple of months. What's she doing? Grounding you, like a typical American punishment. What is she doing? Reverting to Andy Hardy or something."

  Anita called, waking Raul's mother. Raul quickly got his mother off, putting Alec on. It was three o'clock. She scolded him again, ordering him to go home immediately.

  "Did she say anything about me?" Raul asked. "Yeah. She said you're a terrible liar."

  "No, really."

  "When she said I couldn't see you, I said, 'You just can't do that. Raul's too important.' Then what she said was just utter bullshit."

  "Well," Raul said, "what did she say?"

  "She said if that was so, then there was something unnatural about our relationship."

  "God, that old line. I thought adults grew out of that sort of thing."

  "Yeah, that's nonsense, real nonsense. I told her that. I made it very clear I wasn't going to take that bullshit."

  "Then did she, you know, apologize?" Alec looked at Raul condescendingly. "My dear child, my mother never apologizes. She made it less insulting. She said you were a very brilliant young man and that I'm very impressionable, so you're a very powerful influence."

  "And a bad one."

  "Right. The more brilliant you are, the more dangerous."

  "But what it all comes down to is that I can't see you."

  "Right again."

  A mother's cliché arrogance had yanked from beneath Raul a whole section of his life that had become as necessary and as vital as food. What doubled Raul's frustration was Alec's unquestioning submission to his mother's will. He was a pampered Jewish son; his mother's dominance approached soap-opera proportions.

  With this submission, Alec fell even farther from grace. His image was now swollen and degenerate with imperfection. He was fitting easily into a cubbyhole; another human that Raul could dissect. The criticisms of Alec's acting that Raul had heard and ignored returned to his mind. The insecurity of his ego sexually shattered the image of the seducer. His mother's sharp dominance closed the case definitively. Raul usuall
y delighted in such discoveries, but with Alec he fought the investigation of each weakness. There wasn't that Messianic sense of power that someone else was predictable. He had lost his Alec: the delusion that had made a comrade.

  Realizing this, he still buried it. Perhaps I am being bitter, he thought. This sudden criticism may come from my ego.

  A terrible languor followed Raul's separation from Alec, and if he didn't subside totally into a heap, it was because Alec assured him that his mother would be over her anger in a week or two. She dropped her demand that Alec work for his spending money almost immediately, and Alec expected her capitulation on banning Raul shortly.

  . Raul lay passive for two weeks. Final exams were coming up, but he seemed barely to notice them. During the third week, meeting Alec in the theater, Raul was told that Anita planned to invite him for dinner.

  "She'll give in soon," Alec said.

  "It's late, Alec. School will be over in a little while, and then I'll be off to the country. You should have fought her earlier."

  "I explained to you why I don't…"

  "Yeah, I'm sorry. Forget it, I'm just terribly angry at her."

  "I can understand that."

  But did he understand? Did the relationship hold the significance for him that it held for Raul? Alec seemed like a child smashing an old toy..

  He was invited for Friday night, and in the middle of dinner, Thursday, the phone rang. Raul rose from the table—his parents had company—and answered the phone.

  "Raul." It was Alec. He was whispering, low, intense and frightened. "My mother found my grass. All hell's broke loose."

  A hot New York night, bright and alive. Alec told his mother that he had to go out for a walk; Raul and he met, taking the 104 bus to Columbus Circle.

  Neither Alec nor Raul could avoid enjoying the air of catastrophe; they heightened it, smiling sheepishly with exclamations of "Oh, my God, we're ruined!" They walked frantically through the city streets, lamenting conspicuously. Ah, the glory of this parade of despair. If alone they were afraid of this disaster, together their drama reduced it to an interesting scenario. For an hour their unity returned.