American Dreams

by Price, Bruce;

  42

  All along Roger Freeman had thought he was so clever, and Mrs. Adele Morris had played on that and let him think that he had hoodwinked her, let him think that he was doing it to her real good when all the time she had been doing it to him. If Roger was one shrewd cookie, Mrs. Morris was the cookie jar.

  In the months after they had bought their house, each had separately been gnawed by the sensation they were losing the one thing they treasured most in life, control of the situation. And it was a vexing mystery to them both how such a thing could happen.

  Whenever Mrs. Morris had gotten control of something, inevitably she had found that she could extend her control, with a little pressure here and a little guilt there. Her greatest success had been with her husband, although whether his heart attack and death should be counted as the consummation of her success she was not sure.

  When her son and daughter-in-law and that tacky girl who threw up all over the toilet seat invaded her house, Mrs. Morris was confronted by a situation she could not control. The particular situation was of infinitesimal significance to her but lacking control was just the opposite. Lacking control was like death. Was death.

  And what the afternoon had rubbed in her face was that although she had had Roger, she had never really had control of Roger.

  The closest Mrs. Morris came to philosophy was the conviction that you were human only in so far as (1) you ran your own life and (2) as many lives around you as necessary to guarantee (1).

  Her list of priorities became clear. The first four of five were: put Roger in his place.

  The next evening at dinner she said, “Roger dear, have I ever mentioned an uncle to you?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “An older man. Made a lot of money in shoes, would you believe? Sister called me today. He’s in bad health. Sister’s much closer to the situation. She thinks the will should be very … interesting.”

  “For you, too?”

  “For us, Roger.”

  Mrs. Morris had gotten to fifty without taking much interest in her own body, or anybody else’s for that matter. Now she took a good look and thought she should lose weight. Which is easy, when you have a clear idea what you want plus an iron will. She bought a book on exercise, hated every page of it, but started doing the routine each day. Her hair on its own was gray but suddenly it was blondish gray and then even brownish blondish gray. She looked at her clothes, having decided to be objective, and threw half of them away. She also bought a book on sex. Simultaneously with all this, she withdrew a few feet, trying to seem preoccupied. If she could make him suspect another man, make him jealous, she knew she would succeed in getting what she had decided she really did want, Roger.

  The snag was that Roger was the same sort of person. And what was being rubbed in his face was that although he had had Mrs. Sam T. Jones, he had never really had control of her. And he was making the same sort of moves around her as Mrs. Morris was making around him, almost a mirror image.

  So that while Roger was angling for marriage with Mrs. Sam T. Jones, Mrs. Morris was angling for marriage with Roger.

  She considered being coy: Roger, I don’t think you’re happy with me. You’re not enthusiastic, really. Maybe it would be better if we separated.

  But why be negative, she decided.

  Instead she said, “My husband’s been dead almost a year now, Roger. There had to be some discretion before. But don’t you think we ought to make ourselves an honest couple now?”

  “Why, Adele,” Roger said charmingly, “is that a proposal?”

  “I’m sure I took the words right out of your mouth.”

  “Well, it may not be just the right time.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  43

  It was a fine and lordly house. The people who came to the party thought it was only appropriate.

  The host was no Gatsby but who was these days when even Mafiosi sent their sons to get an MBA? He was, in fact, in the middle of everything, shaking hands with every guest and laughing loudly. He had made his money in mutual funds and there was no mystery about him. Sometimes he wished that he were a robber baron and he would tell his accountant to deduct another of his cars and there the impulse would end. He knew himself that it was at the point when pensions became more important than making the first million that America started into decline. But what could he do?

  In the backyard it was chilly and the sky blue black over the oak trees. Some of the couples walked off behind trees among shadows.

  Many of these people were junior executives and middle management, which meant that they were too high up to make anything with their hands but not far enough up to make any decisions, not an enviable predicament. The people who made the decisions tended to be a different breed, more vital, loners who pretended to like people, alert to the theater of what they did.

  There was a shooting star that only one person saw. “Look, a shooting star.” And everyone else turned their faces up to the empty sky. Shooting stars are as elusive as grace.

  Behind a tree a boy from Harvard was kissing somebody’s wife, which was acceptable, until it turned out that she was the host’s wife, and then it was not acceptable. The people at the party were aware of being in transit. They were the end of hard work and getting ahead. And the beginning of something else, feeling good and staying high. Back in the city you could feel it, the sliding down into Sodom. In their brains they could feel it, knowing they hated their work, it was something you did to keep up appearances. But what was important was weekends.

  A man was there who wrote science fiction and rented his mind to corporations. To people holding drinks and smiles, he said, “We’re living on our myths now. You can’t have great flights without great falls. But wait another hundred years. When you’ve got people out on the planets and asteroids. You’ll have the frontier again! You’ll have Homeric wars! People don’t change. They’ll fight a war of independence against us.”

  Meeting some people at a bar earlier in the week, Daphne had been invited to this party. Now nobody missed seeing her walk by. She had a manner of standing and smiling that seemed to approve everything in sight. But she recoiled. Whatever was in her Daddy wasn’t here. Whatever it was that haunted her was not here.

  A man who said he was a senior v-p invited her to walk and he waved grandly toward the stories he was telling and he put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. When she was pliant, he embraced her and kissed her mouth. She let it happen because she wanted to feel it. Anything so easy made the man nervous. He was glad when she stepped back and indicated she’d like to walk.

  Ten more steps and they saw the legs of a couple. The man gasped faintly. Daphne didn’t understand until he took her arm and pulled her back.

  “No,” said Daphne and stood still and studied those legs. She wanted to understand why they were there. Her thoughts were scientific. Daphne was curious about the urgency, that the legs had wanted something so much they were on the leaves in the bushes in the chilly air. She was not clear, whether to admire their irresistable urges or to want to be where there was nothing physical, such as an ankle wearing panties.

  44

  Problems could never be problems unless they were let out of control. Early on it was an errand or a detail or a phone call or a little lie or a heart to heart talk or just a stitch in time. What became problems were insignificant details left unattended.

  When Joe Floyd came at Georges in the hallway and caught him with a lunging right cross, Georges instinctively protected himself and counter-punched. He had not been in a fight in ten years but the moves were still there if not so fast. The fight went on two minutes, a lot of punches and some wrestling against the walls of the hallway. Floyd was younger and beserk, but he didn’t know much about fighting. Still, there was no time to talk this problem over, whatever it was, and Georges made all the wrong assumptions.

  VS.
/>   If Floyd had had to say what he was doing, he would have mentioned revenge or honor. The fact was, he had come to see the man, then lost control. At bottom he was doing this because of his wife, even though he hadn’t seen her in weeks, and he hadn’t cared, and he wouldn’t ever see her again.

  Georges saw the wild, shining eyes and he thought that he might once have had eyes like that. And he suspected that he wasn’t hitting this man as hard as he could. He was fighting to control the situation, so that he could find out precisely what the problem was. And Georges could only think that this man somehow fit into the universe he had been creating. And that now there was a gash in the universe.

  VS.

  Floyd was fighting for the pleasure of it, for the intensity. He enjoyed hitting the other man; he was surprised finding that he also enjoyed being hit. The whole experience was good. He sensed that he wasn’t hitting this man as hard as he could, contriving to make the fight last a minute longer. Then he ducked into a stairway and sprinted downstairs.

  Georges was too confused to follow him. Some people had come into the hallway. Georges moved casually to the water fountain, as though whatever they thought they saw, they didn’t. His stomach was tight. Usually his targets were passive, a home or building that waited in the night for him the lover. Now he was dealing with people who would come to get him. His mind raced. All right, he would have to move faster. Change a few details.

  VS.

  In the street Floyd felt an unexpected jubilation. He wanted to go back and do it all over again. He licked his mouth and tasted blood and it was a good taste. Floyd staggered along the street, daring somebody to mess with him. He thought he was ready to climb Everest, to sail the Atlantic in a 24’ boat. He thought: that’s it, not one more fucking insurance policy.

  Floyd thought he wanted to work with horses in Texas or with the white water on the Colorado, taking tourists down the rapids. If people were to ask him how he came to be there, Floyd would say, “Oh, I didn’t get along with my wife; I thought I wanted a change.” Seven years, fourteen words.

  All right, Georges thought, Lawrence Georges would have to disappear. Benny Luther could still exist. And there was another name, too. There had been nothing like this since the war in Korea. And he had been too young then to realize that he was terrified. Now he knew that he was. He thought how much he wanted to have Eloise Samson with him. Georges broke some of the furniture in his office, the rest he turned over. He pulled open a storage cabinet and threw the contents on the floor. He called the police.

  “It’s 416 Boush Street,” he said, “fourth floor. Looks like a bomb went off.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Some real tough guys were up there. Gangsters, I’m sure of it. 416 Boush.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I don’t think they killed anybody.”

  “Mister! What is your name?”

  “You think I’m getting involved?”

  Georges threw the phone at the window behind his desk. The glass broke and the phone, dangling outside the building, pulled the cord taut.

  When he left, he didn’t close the door.

  VS.

  Floyd jumped in the street from excitement. “Now I’m burning bridges,” he said proudly.

  45

  Dirty language was one of the few things Thelma Compton hated. Dirty thoughts were not too bad, although they necessarily involved language so there you were again. But dirty actions! If there was something she objected to, nobody had suggested it to her yet. Yet in a crowd someone might say Balls or What the fuck, and she would say, “Plleeaassee, my ears are burning.” While the hour before or later, she and balls and fucking might have been on the most intimate terms. All of which could be puzzling to a man who had been involved in the actions, for when he came to comment, she would suddenly seem to be another woman, blushing and seeming not even to know about activities she had recently leaped into nipples first.

  Reading in a book about things she had done with a repairman or salesman, she would have fainted from shame. Doing those things she may have fainted, but from ecstasy, not from shame. People like this are a constant annoyance to the logical mind.

  Not surprisingly, Dr. Smithers picked up the impression that Thelma was a bit prudish, despite the things they themselves were doing. An ideal combination to his mind, and he wanted to marry her.

  So it was lucky for him that his wife tried to murder him a second time.

  But first a closer look at the doctor’s thoughts the first time, when he saw Rachel with a scapel in her raised hand. He saw it, certainly, but he did not believe it. He did not comprehend that his wife, law-abiding and mild-mannered and keeper of a clean house, meant murder. She had the thing up in the air, certainly, but it was probably a nervous gesture. She was agitated and picked up the first thing at hand, that’s what he thought. That she wanted to stick that particular thing into him was, well, it was not possible. Besides, she quickly began shouting at him. And the nurse came. And the embarrassment and the stress and, of course, the guilt came together like a solid knock on his shins. He couldn’t think clearly. His entire aim became to calm down his wife and somehow to reclaim the status quo ante. On the one hand, he lied outrageously, said his wife had got everything mixed up, there wasn’t another woman, she had misunderstood, he was trying to soothe a patient he didn’t want to call on. On the other hand, he was as solicitous as he had been during his wife’s first pregnancy seventeen years before. And for a week he actually thought that he had gotten out from underneath one very large boulder. I need time to think, he kept telling himself.

  But Rachel was looking at him through a cold, clear hate. Not believing a word. Actually, in fact, letting her hate multiply because he was not only having an affair, he was cowardly and dishonest about it. And while he was solicitous, she was scheming.

  Then she got it. A bottle of sleeping pills in his favorite desert, which was pecan pie. What she especially liked about the plan was that he had brought the pills home for her, probably so that he could knock her out and run off with that hussy. The pills were samples from his office, there would be no record, no evidence. It would be called a suicide, and that would be an end of him. Why should a wife be surprised if her husband went to bed early, after a hard day at the office?

  Doctor Smithers doted on pecan pie and often said his wife’s homemade was the best he had tasted. He usually ate two slices; and did this night. After a while he said he felt tired and said he wanted to lie down. So far so good. But Rachel wanted to see him dying. She went into the bedroom to look at his face and to cut off the light and close the door on that part of her life. But the doctor was not out. He was groggy and didn’t understand why and he was fighting it. And when his wife leaned over and looked down at him, he opened his eyes enough to see her face swimming over him and he saw the curiosity in her eyes and then it all fit. He knew he was at that moment dying and that she had done it and that the first thing he had to do was to get to the bathroom and throw up, and then to the telephone, and then out of that house forever.

  Rachel tried to stop him. If she had been bigger by ten pounds or had kept in shape playing tennis or even bowling, she could probably have wrestled him down until he passed out. He was no stronger than a man twenty years older than himself, but he was determined. Dying he was used to, saw it every week, but by God, he kept thinking, on my own terms, on my own terms. He pushed her away and staggered into the bathroom. Rachel kept on. She tried to push him into the bathtub. The Doctor knew that his blood was moving faster now and he had even less time. And he had to reach the phone. No, just make enough noise so the children would hear. He pushed out of the bathroom and he tried to scream and couldn’t. Some muscles were already letting him down. When he reached the door out to the hallway, Rachel jumped on his back. He opened the door and fell outside the room. He pounded on the floor, not making much noise, and dragged himself toward the living room. “Tommy,” he called, the name of the older bo
y, the word faint in his throat. But he kept pushing himself along the hall. Rachel took one foot and pulled the other way.

  If Rachel could have seen a year before where her life was going, she would definitely have joined a health club.

  Smithers reached the living room despite her. And then the phone. He pulled it off the table. Rachel put it back. “Tommy,” he finally got it out. The younger child heard the commotion and came in time to see her father and mother wrestling on the living room floor.

  “Annie, Annie, get Tommy, call doctor.”

  “Your father’s delirious,” said Rachel Smithers. “Go back to your homework.”

  Smithers got his hands on an ashtray and threw it at a window and broke a pane of glass. He had to make the child understand that something extraordinary was taking place. “Annie, I’m dying, call Tommy.”

  “Don’t you move,” said Rachel Smithers.

  With his last strength Smithers said, “NOW.”

  Annie stopped staring and ran for her older brother. He was sixteen. When he reached the living room, Rachel Smithers had already given up. She was on the phone herself. To her son she said quietly, “Your father’s sick. Don’t worry. I’ll get help.”

  She knew that her son could not be conned. Or that even if she stalled until her husband was unconscious, then he would be a witness against her. He looked like her but had inherited her husband’s scientific interest. She had never liked that boy, she thought, as she told the hospital, “There’s an emergency. Poison, I think.”

  Smithers spent the next two nights in the hospital. Then he moved to a hotel. He was clear on one thing, he wasn’t spending another night with Rachel.

  46

  One of the few ways he had to relax was ice skating. Even in the warmer months he would go to Skyrink on the west side of Manhattan and skate for an hour or two. It was a self-contained world, with its own little population of people you would never notice if you saw them anywhere else. But here you had to notice that some could turn better than you, some could skate backward better, some had such speed it was embarrassing, some used to play hockey and they seemed to be holding a stick even when they weren’t and moving a puck toward an invisible goal. During the intermission a large machine scraped the ice and left behind a layer of water and when the people went back out on the ice you could see the rafters overhead reflected in front of your skates. The air was still and cold, but some of the younger skaters wore t-shirts and you had to think it was a hot day in their minds.