Original Sins

by Lisa Alther

  What would she do if Jed had him another girl? What could she do with two babies, except swallow her pride and put up with it? She couldn’t go home. Her daddy had been so unpleasant about the marriage in the first place. She didn’t know what his plans for her had been, but she’d messed them up.

  “Daddy, what exactly do you have against Jed?” she’d asked once.

  He blushed and muttered, “Nothing. Jed’s a fine boy. But he chews gum with his mouth open.”

  She’d suggested to Jed to chew with his mouth closed, which he’d been doing ever since, but it didn’t seem to help much.

  Jed said once, “You know, Sally, I don’t think your daddy much likes me.”

  She’d said, “Jed honey, that’s just plain silly. He’s training you for foreman, isn’t he?” But secretly she thought he was probably right. Not long after they moved into this house, her mother and father came down for Sunday dinner. They looked around the house.

  “Well?” demanded Sally with a smile.

  “It’s very nice, dear,” said her mother in a quiet voice that suggested it wasn’t very nice.

  She saw them carefully avoiding looking at Jed as he chewed with his mouth open, his forearms resting on the table edge. Jed was nervous and laughed loudly at anything her father said, whether it was funny or not.

  “It’s sure been great having you here, Mother and Dad. You’re our first guests,” Jed said as they were leaving. They looked at him, then smiled politely.

  “It’s nice having you in the family, Jed,” her mother said, her smile strained.

  Her father called soon after to tell her he’d given her some mill stock, but that she couldn’t sell it or collect the dividends without his permission until he died. He added that she could have his permission if she wanted to spend it on some project of her own, like going back to school.

  “How could I go back to school, Daddy? I’m about to have me a baby.”

  “Hire a babysitter. Or I’m sure your mother and Mrs. Tatro would help out.”

  “I don’t think Jed would like that, Daddy. He thinks a mother should be with her baby.”

  “Fine. Goodbye.” He hung up. Just like that. How could she finish school when Jed hadn’t? He’d given up college for her, so she would for him, too.

  She went to her dresser and dabbed on some fresh Evening in Paris perfume. Ever since Jed said making love with her was like screwing a corpse, she’d tried to think of ways to make herself more exciting. She tore an article out of Modern Wife called “How To Keep That Man Coming Back for More.” It suggested hair styles and makeup techniques, a shape-control program.

  … and once you’ve rinsed that gray right out of your hair, don’t neglect that gray matter inside your head. Check books out of your local library on topics of interest to him. Read the newspaper every day—all of it now, not just recipes! Take a night course (if He doesn’t object to staying with the children on Mom’s Night Out). P.S. Inject your new knowledge into conversations in a modest, low-key way. No one likes a girl who knows it all!…

  Earlier that week she checked out the Handbook of Cotton Manufacture in the United States. Last night at supper she said, “I was reading today about hank clocks, darling.”

  “Um,” he said, hunched over his plate, shoveling in soup beans. “What about them?”

  “Well, they sound real interesting.”

  He glanced up. “Well they ain’t.”

  “Do yall use you a Buckley or a vertical opener?”

  “What?”

  “In the opening room.”

  “Sally, I got to think about that shit all day long. I just want to relax when I get home.”

  “Sorry, honey.”

  She took the book back and was now reading one of his detective paperbacks about a girl who wore high silver boots and had small pistols concealed in her bra so that the barrels poked out her blouse like nipples.

  She got back in bed and listened for the car. All she could hear was the pulsing of crickets, and the distant roar of diesel trucks on the highway. Down the block a woman shouted. TV sets of neighbors erupted with canned laughter. Laura whimpered in her sleep and flung out an arm, rattling her crib bars.

  Sally went into the bathroom and blotted her eyes and blew her nose. Jed hated her to cry, got all huffy. “Sally, this ain’t like you,” he’d mutter. As though he knew everything about what she was like. Would he be surprised if he knew some of the things she thought about! A few months ago she’d read a book called Castle Keep about a girl on this windswept moor over at England, who was carried off to this stone castle and held prisoner by a tall dark stranger. At first she’d pounded on his big chest with her little fists. But he was kind and patient, brought her presents. Little by little she began to lose her fear, and even to like him … There was this tall dark man who worked in the lumberyard where she sometimes bought building supplies for Jed. Whenever she came in, he would look up from his loading to give her a faint smile. Sometimes she imagined he would grab her wrists and force her into his truck and carry her off to his cabin in the mountains. She found herself stopping by the lumberyard as often as possible.

  He reminded her a little bit of Earl. Emily must have been crazy to let him get away. And all for what? So that she could end up with that Justin creature she’d brought home last winter. Earl had been so smooth. Justin was about as smooth as a sink coated with Ajax. All the time wearing a dirty old trench coat with the collar turned up, and turning his head sideways when you were trying to talk to him. She and Jed and Emily had driven him on a tour of the area, and it seemed like there wasn’t anything he couldn’t find something wrong with—the weather, the way the town was laid out, the houses people lived in, the pork barbecues they ate for lunch. Several times Jed looked about ready to relieve him of his teeth. Justin insisted they stop at Injun Al French’s house in Cherokee Shoals while he went in and bought for twenty dollars one of those ugly tire planters Betty had made in high school, which had been sitting unsold in the yard ever since. Injun Al in his war bonnet and buckskins, just sober enough to be amazed that he’d finally sold one, carried it over and put it in the trunk. On the way home Justin asked Emily if she’d ever seen the beadwork and silver jewelry and woven rugs in the American Indian Room of some museum in New York. Emily said no.

  “Reduced to cutting up tires and painting them with enamel. It’s pathetic.”

  “Why’d you buy it if you don’t like it?” demanded Jed.

  “As a reminder, a reprimand.”

  “What of?”

  “Of the genocide on which this nation is predicated.”

  Jed nodded politely, but Sally knew he didn’t any more know what “predicated” meant than she did. Looked like Emily did know, though, because she was nodding agreement

  But then Emily agreed with everything Justin said the whole time. It looked pretty serious. But it had looked serious with Earl, too. They’d even been pinned. Emily and Justin laughed about him sneaking from the guest room into her bed after Emily and Sally’s parents were asleep. Both Jed and Sally were shocked but said nothing.

  “It just ain’t respectful to your parents,” Jed said later to Sally.

  Justin wasn’t big on respect anyway. He tried to argue with Sally’s father at supper one night about how the mill was set up, and he didn’t even say “sir” as he did so. Her daddy only smiled politely and said, “I’m sure you’re right, Justin.”

  “Then why don’t you change it?”

  “Things are changing fast enough without my assistance.”

  Justin shrugged. Emily smiled. She seemed to think that he was wonderful, and that everyone else thought so too. Looked like she didn’t notice he was driving the rest of them crazy. At least if Emily brought Justin into the family, it would give her parents someone to be even more displeased with than poor Jed. They hadn’t mentioned Justin since.

  Sally looked in the mirror and traced her newfound wrinkle with her fingertips.

  As she slipp
ed back into bed, the back door slammed. “Hi, honey!” she called, puffing up her bouffant with her fingers.

  Jed walked into the bedroom. “Hey, darlin.” He unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it on the floor, “What is this crap?” he muttered, turning off Ingrid and Cary.

  He sat on the bed and took the jagged rings from poptop beer tabs off each finger and put them on the nightstand.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Kind of like brass knuckles.”

  “What for?”

  “In case of trouble.”

  When he climbed into bed, she took his face in her hands and murmured, “My darling.”

  He pushed her hands away.

  Regrouping, Sally slipped her hands inside his pajama top and caressed his hairy chest. He turned over impatiently and switched out the light.

  Undaunted, she groped for his crotch.

  “I don’t feel like it tonight, honey.”

  She retracted her hand. “I fried you some chicken tonight, darlin.”

  “Yeah? Sorry I missed it”

  “It’s all right,” she said bravely. “I covered the pan and saved it long as I could. I kept thinking you’d surely be home soon. But it got all mushy, and I had to feed it to the cat.”

  “I’m sorry. I tried to call. The line was busy. Joey must have knocked the phone off the hook again.”

  “No. No, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I did try.”

  “Yes.”

  “I did, damn it!”

  “I believe you.”

  “You don’t sound like you do.”

  “How would I sound if I did?”

  “I don’t know. Different.”

  “You feel guilty or what?”

  “Hell no, I ain’t feeling guilty. I spend half the night guarding your old man’s house, and I’m supposed to feel guilty?”

  “Guarding Daddy’s house? What for?”

  “Last night they dynamited Mackay’s carport. We was afraid they might try yours tonight.”

  “Dynamited? But why?”

  “Who knows? Bunch of trash, led on by that Commie brother of mine.”

  “Who? Raymond? Is Raymond a Communist?”

  “Damn right he is.”

  “I don’t believe it. When I think I used to climb trees with that boy …” Raymond had refused to go to dinner at the Princes’ when Justin was in Newland. Nobody could figure it out. Hadn’t they been friends in New York? They’d decided he was still stuck on Emily and was jealous of Justin. But Raymond was so strange these days, even stranger than normal. Before the strike he stopped by after work for a beer and an argument about the union with Jed. Sally tried to play peacemaker, and Raymond said, “It’s not like this ain’t got nothing to do with you, Sally. Marx says, ‘The nature of individuals depends on the material conditions determining production.’ Look at yourself: You’ve gone and turned yourself into a product and then marketed it”

  Sally smiled uncertainly. Was this a compliment? She glanced at Jed. Looked like he didn’t know either.

  Jed narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists. “Are you saying my wife sells it? Is that what you’re a-saying?”

  Raymond started laughing and stood up. “Christ, no! Just relax and forget it, baby brother.”

  “You poor thing,” Sally said, cuddling Jed and stroking his hair. “My poor baby must be all tired out—working all day and guarding all night.”

  “Yeah, that’s a fact,” he sighed, resting his head against her breasts.

  As she stroked, she thought about how unfair it was. He was tired. Well, she was tired, too—taking care of the kids all day, cooking and cleaning, waiting up for him half the night. But who ever cuddled her and stroked her hair and said, “You poor thing.” Nobody, that’s who.

  And when she was in the mood for love, which wasn’t all that often, he never was, so nothing happened. But when he was in the mood, which was usually when supper was getting cold, or the baby was screaming, or the alarm was buzzing, they went right ahead. You couldn’t argue with a limp penis, but it still didn’t seem fair. The harder she tried, the less interested he seemed. Unless he hadn’t really been guarding tonight …

  She knew she could get him interested if she offered to do it with her mouth. He was always grateful when she would. When they’d be making love, he’d take her head in both hands and try to direct her mouth down there. Sometimes she would and sometimes she wouldn’t, depending on how nice he’d been. But really she could hardly stand it. She hated seeing him lying there on his back with that pleading expression. The man was supposed to be on top and in charge. The same way she hated seeing him all curled up against her like a little boy right now. But as long as she was doing these things for him, maybe he wouldn’t go looking for another woman who would.

  But it never worked out the way she planned anyhow. After she’d blow him, he’d get all mean and nasty. And in the morning, after she’d held him all night, he’d be cold. He’d probably like to shut her in the freezer until the next time he needed her, so he wouldn’t have to worry about her revealing to anybody that he was sometimes tired and weak and didn’t like liver.

  She vowed to reread the Modern Wife article first thing after he left in the morning.

  Jed kissed her at the door. “Well, wish me luck.”

  “Something special going on today?”

  He sighed. “Yeah, a strike. How many times have I got to tell you?”

  “Oh yeah. Well, good luck, hear? Why? It’s not dangerous or anything is it?”

  “Sure. Can be. When you cross their line, they throw stuff at your car and call you names and all like that.”

  “Oh honey. I wish you wouldn’t go then.”

  “I got to go, darlin.” His blue eyes glinted in the sunshine. “We don’t have enough people as it is. I was running half a dozen machines all by myself yesterday. They brung in some coloreds, and some women from Cherokee Shoals. But they don’t know how to run nothing. And don’t hardly have the sense to learn. But they try real hard. You got to respect them for that. And you never saw such a happy bunch of people in your life. They consider it a privilege to be on at the mill. I say we should keep them and forget about them Commies howling around outside. Am I right?”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “Damn right I am.”

  “Well, I’m just so proud of you, honey.”

  “Well, it’s kinda like Coach Clancy used to say: ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’”

  Sally smiled. She just didn’t know what to think about this union business. Mrs. Pritchard had made it sound pretty good that day. But Jed and his father and her father said it was bad, so she guessed it was. Mrs. Pritchard must have gotten misled by the Communists or something.

  “Am I right?”

  “Yes, honey, you sure are.”

  He kissed her again.

  “Notice anything different about me?”

  “Huh un. Uh, I don’t know, your lipstick’s lighter?”

  “Huh un. I made up my eyes different. Do you like it?”

  “Honey, you always look gorgeous to me.”

  “You gonna show me tonight after the kids are asleep?”

  “Might do it, if I don’t have to guard or something.”

  As he drove off, Sally went into the bathroom and removed her makeup with cold cream. Then she applied a face masque with a double thickness around the eyes, and put her hair up in rollers. She went around the bedroom and picked up Jed’s dirty clothes and the bath towels he’d dropped, mopped up the swamp he’d made of the bathroom floor, made their bed. She fed Joey his cereal. As he watched Captain Kangaroo, she strapped Laura in her highchair with a dish of mashed banana and sat at the table with a cup of coffee reading “How To Keep That Man Coming Back for More.”

  … The bedroom is one arena many wives turn into a battleground. A man needs to draw from his wife at night, like a bee drawing nectar from a bright blossom, the sense of self-worth to send
him back to his struggles in the world the next morning. A good wife is the safe harbor in the storm, not the raging sea …

  Sally saw Joey cradling one of Laura’s dolls in his arms and nursing it with an imaginary breast.

  “Joey, come here, sweetie.” She laid the doll out of reach on a shelf and handed him a cowboy pistol. “Dolls are for girls, honey.”

  He studied the pistol, perplexed. Finally he pointed it at the doll and yelled, “Pow! Pow!” He galloped around the room.

  She looked at the red-patterned café curtains on the dining nook windows and wondered how it would be to have matching place mats. Maybe matching napkins, too. She’d ask Jed tonight.

  She strapped Laura in the jump seat that hung in the doorway. Then she got out her S & H Green Stamp catalogue and studied the various place mats and napkins they offered. One nice-looking set was only four books. She put a sponge in a dish of water, got out her box of stamps, and began pasting.

  After lunch she removed her face masque and put a scarf over her rollers, then loaded the kids in the Dodge. She drove slowly past the lumberyard and caught a glimpse of the tall dark man out back stacking two-by-fours. Her heart faltered, like someone whose pacemaker batteries were going dead. His smile. It was always so sad. Some woman must have done him wrong. Now he was leery of all women. You’d have to woo him, win him over, teach him to trust again …

  At Kroger’s she put Laura in the shopping cart seat, while Joey trotted alongside. Laura squirmed and grunted and pointed at the floor, wanting to walk too.

  “No, darling. Hush now. Be Mommy’s good girl and ride quietly.”

  She kept whimpering, twisting, and turning.

  Sally felt rage sweep through her. “No! Be still now!” Laura looked at her tearfully and did as instructed.