The Inventors

by Peter Selgin

She acts like a woman.

  Oh? What about me? Do I act like a man?

  Sometimes.

  When don’t I act like one?

  Right now, for instance.

  Why? What did I do?

  A man doesn’t ask other people whether or not he acts like a man.

  You watched glumly as the teacher washed, dried, and put away plates and silverware. He wore the gray sweatshirt with OXFORD on it.

  You don’t seem to like Vivian very much, he said.

  I don’t.

  Why don’t you?

  Because – she’s just not my type.

  Really? What’s your type?

  None of your business.

  You do like girls, don’t you?

  What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I like girls!

  It was just a question. No need to get defensive.

  I’m not being defensive. Who says I’m being defensive?

  The teacher laughed.

  What are you laughing about? What’s so damn funny?

  He kept on laughing. You said cut it out! – which made him laugh harder. Shut up! you said, and he laughed harder still. The more you tried to get him to stop, the harder the teacher laughed, until his face was red and tears fell from his eyes.

  That’s when you lunged. Together you and the teacher rolled across the blue floorboards, wrestling, with the teacher still laughing and you saying Shut the hell up, goddammit! You’d wrestled before – with George, of course, and in phys ed, with Coach Hunt slapping the matt. But this was much more pleasurable. The teacher’s arms were stronger, his legs were longer. It took him less than a minute to pin you, his big hands pressing your shoulders down, holding them to the blue floorboards, his chest heaving, his lips sparkling with saliva, his blond hair hanging over his face, the round lenses of his glasses reflecting twin flames from a candle on the table.

  The wide floorboards reminded you of ocean waves as you lay there, stretched out and out of breath, snickering, feeling happy – as happy or even happier than you’d ever felt before in your whole life.

  Dingleberry! you said, laughing.

  Smelly cheeser! said the teacher.

  THE WIDE-PLANKED BLUE FLOORBOARDS. THE HORSEY smell of that tea-soaked Japanese table. The feeling that you’d not just entered the home of your teacher but been initiated into a new world filled with its own intrigues, mysteries, its own secret language and codes. A heady experience for a thirteen-year-old boy. And it wasn’t only the experience of a world but of falling in love for the first real time with someone who – in his way – could return that love, who made you feel worthy and special.

  * * *

  FOR YEARS I’VE TRIED TO WRITE ABOUT THE TEACHER, to make our relationship comprehensible – as opposed to classifiable or categorical – to disinterested parties. Glib phrases like “teacher’s pet” and “closet case” don’t do it justice – not in my estimation, an estimation that (some would say) is prejudiced, that can’t or won’t accept that what was once so charged with meaning, loftiness, and intensity can be reduced to banalities. Even if that happens to be the case, even if I was as naive as my youthful days were long, still, as with any love story, something irreducible exists at its core, the beauty of which lies in the fact that it can’t be properly understood or appreciated by anyone outside of it.

  The teacher himself tried to warn me about this back when we were still in Bethel. “They [other people] will never understand what you and I have,” he said. “They can’t understand because they’ve never had anything like it themselves. Their misfortune could be our undoing, Peter, since what people can’t understand they distrust, and what they distrust they tend to destroy. They’ll turn it into something they can understand, something vulgar, banal, worthy of gossip and intrigue. They’ll drag it down to earth. They’ll bury it alive.”

  * * *

  I SIT ON MY DOCK WATCHING THE SUNSET. WE GET THE most fabulous sunsets here. Over the treetops across the water the sky burns orange, rose, and pink. I can barely see the pages of my notebook. In more ways than one I’m writing in the dark. It stands to reason. Exhuming the past, digging up its corpse, is a job best undertaken by night.

  United States Patent No. 3,423,595: “DISTANCE MEASURING MEANS USING LIGHT BEAMS.” Patented January 21, 1969.

  VIII.

  Christmas Dinner

  Bethel, Connecticut, 1970

  IT WAS YOUR MOTHER’S IDEA TO HAVE THE TEACHER OVER on Christmas Eve. The day before, a blizzard dropped fifteen inches of snow on the town. You spent the morning shoveling walkways, including the one to the front door (so rarely used it stuck to the jamb). You were glad to have something to keep you busy. You were as eager about this Christmas Eve as on previous Christmas mornings you’d been anxious over the prospect of a mound of gifts glittering under a tree ablaze with lights.

  After shoveling all the walks, while your brother read a book, you assembled and trimmed the Christmas tree. You wanted a real Christmas tree that year, as you’d wanted a real Christmas tree the year before and the one before that.

  Your mother refused. She didn’t want pine needles all over the place.

  And so you dragged the fake Christmas tree in its battered cardboard box up from its storage place under the basement stairs, and spent the next half-hour attaching fake branches to the fake trunk, and another hour trimming it, stringing bulbs and lights and tinsel, stopping now and then to assess the result only to find it spurious. A Christmas tree in the Selgin household, that den of heathens, made as little sense as a screen door on a submarine. Who did you think you were you fooling?

  Oh, well, it was better than no Christmas tree at all.

  You strung more colored lights around the barrel hedges in the yard and in a spiral around the lamppost rising from one of them. You vacuumed, made the beds (yours and your brother’s), put the extenders into the dining table and covered it with the red tablecloth and then with another tablecloth made of white lace before setting it with the fancy yellow china your mother kept in a bottom cupboard. You jammed tapered red candles into two matching sterling candleholders, adorned them with sprigs of plastic holly, and positioned one at each end of the table.

  In the laundry room you gave the dog a bath so she wouldn’t smell so bad.

  BY THEN IT was almost five o’clock. Mr. Peck, the husband of your mother’s best friend before she died of a brain aneurysm, had already arrived. In the breakfast nook where he’d seated himself, he spoke to your mother, who wore a green gown while preparing appetizers at the counter with her back to him. Since his wife’s passing Mr. Peck had been coming over regularly and usually unannounced for lunch and dinner, and sometimes even for breakfast. He wouldn’t bother to knock. He’d clomp into the kitchen in the heavy tan brogans he wore to the construction sites he owned, depositing dry noodles of mud on the floor that Pa’al would eat or try to. He’d plant himself in the breakfast nook, where, while guzzling your mother’s coffee (that he’d criticize for being too weak), he’d complain about the latest tax increase or deadbeat tenant occupying one of his rental properties.

  In place of his brogans that evening, Mr. Peck wore a clean plaid shirt and leather shoes and a yellow scarf that he hadn’t taken off yet.

  Hey, there, Mr. Peck, you said, greeting him in a brocade vest reminiscent of those worn by James West. You wore it with a pair of cowboy boots, black and polished to a polar glare.

  Fancy duds, Mr. Peck observed, sizing you up and down, pursing his lower lip that protruded from his face like a toadstool. His bald head reflected the kitchen light.

  You helped your mother with the antipasti, platters laden with cured meats, cheeses, dips, spreads, several kinds of olives, deviled eggs, prosciutto e melone, and your favorite, peperonata – sliced roasted peppers in olive oil with vinegar and garlic.

  HAVING LEFT WORK and walked up the driveway from his laboratory, your father sat in his rocking chair with his German dictionary in his lap. George lay sprawled on the carpet wat
ching the Mr. Magoo Christmas Special while reading a book about undersea exploration. He wore his pajamas; he’d been wearing them all day, you realized as you stood there holding a tray of antipasti. The teacher was coming over and look at him. Impious scubadiving bookworm! Goodfornothing slob! You wanted to kick him in the rump, but resisted, knowing it would only start a war. Instead, having put the antipasti tray down on the coffee table, you announced:

  Mr. Peck’s here.

  George didn’t budge.

  Is he now? said your father. Well, I suppose I should go say hello.

  Having marked the page in his German dictionary and put it next to the lamp on his reading table, with a deep existential sigh, your papa rose stiffly from his chair. Wearing a relatively clean pair of what he called “trousers” and the paisley cardigan you’d given him last Christmas he made his way to the kitchen.

  You said to your brother:

  You gonna watch TV all night?

  George watched TV.

  We’ve got company, in case you haven’t noticed.

  Mr. Magoo encountered Jacob Marley’s chain-wrapped ghost.

  Dingleberry, you said.

  BACK IN THE kitchen you cracked two trays of ice into the stainless bucket and opened two bottles of wine, one red, one white. Your mother opened the oven and tested the turkey with a fork. As you turned the corkscrew in a bottle you looked up at the clock. A quarter after six. The invitation had been for six o’clock.

  The teacher didn’t have a car. He’d be coming by foot. When you asked him if he wanted a ride, he declined. I don’t mind walking, he said. Now with a foot of snow on the roads and more snow falling you wondered if he’d changed his mind. Since he had no telephone, you couldn’t call the teacher to find out, nor could he phone you.

  Your guest is late, said Mr. Peck.

  He’ll be here, you said.

  Must be some kind of nut, walking in weather like this.

  Be nice, Erb, your mother said, pronouncing Mr. Peck’s name so it sounded like something you sprinkled into soups. Bad that it goes we eat a bit later, she said.

  Doesn’t this teacher of yours drive? Mr. Peck wondered.

  He doesn’t have a car, you submitted proudly.

  I’ll be damned – no car, your father said with admiration. I wish I could get away with that. I much prefer walking or riding my bicycle.

  I enjoy walking, too, said Mr. Peck, but not in weather like this.

  Suum cuique, your father said.

  What’s that mean?

  To each his own.

  You looked up at the clock again. Twenty after six. You were still looking at the clock when George entered the kitchen. He wore a long-sleeved dress shirt patterned with loud purple grapevines.

  Season’s greetings, said Mr. Peck, shaking his hand.

  You look like a hippy, you remarked.

  I see you raided Liberace’s wardrobe, your brother said. That vest come with a dimmer switch?

  Screw you.

  Brotherly love, Mr. Peck observed.

  THROUGH THE SWINGING doors you entered the dining room where you sat in the darkness by the bay window watching snowflakes fall around the lamp that you’d decorated with colored lights. Any moment now, you told yourself, the teacher will walk up the driveway. I’ll see him walking, his face lit by the lamp, the shoulders of his coat powdered with snow. It seemed impossible to you, yet it was inevitable. All of the conditions had been met, all forces set in motion. You peered out the window, your breath fogging the glass, asking yourself: Will he really come?

  Then you saw him coming up the steep slope, hunched over, walking into the light cast by the lamp. It lit up his breaths and highlighted the snowflakes falling around him. You waited for him to turn up the sidewalk you’d shoveled. Instead, he continued to the back of the house, where a second floodlight shined from the eave of the garage. When he broached it Pa’al started barking.

  Your mother yelled:

  Is ere!

  You hurried back into the kitchen. The door buzzer sounded. There was the usual pandemonium as Pa’al jumped and mewled and tried to lick the teacher’s face.

  Okay, okay, he said, petting her, averting his mouth. I take it this is Pa’al?

  Worst behaved dog in the universe, George said

  The teacher wiped and kicked the snow off his boots in the tiny mudroom that your mother called the “little porch.” He took off his scarf. Mr. Peck and your father stood in the nook. You and George stood in the center of the kitchen. Your mother stood by her antique black Chambers stove. The teacher took off his hat and gloves.

  Thanks, he said, handing them to you along with his scarf.

  You mother told you to take the teacher’s “jacket” – meaning his winter coat – too. Under it the teacher wore a dull green corduroy sport coat with a pale yellow shirt and a striped necktie. You’d never seen him in a tie before.

  The men having introduced themselves, the teacher turned to your mother.

  Mrs. Selgin. He offered his hand.

  Pinuccia. She hugged and kissed his cheek.

  Pinuccia?

  Is short for Giuseppina. Giuseppantonia, Giuseppina, Pina, Pinuccia. She looked him over. Ma sei cosi giovane! E anche un bell’uomo.

  What did she say? the teacher asked.

  She says you’re good-looking, you answered. My mother’s a shameless flirt. You should see her flirting with the UPS guy.

  Ma va, said your mother.

  Mr. Peck’s laugh was more of a snort.

  The teacher gave your mother a bottle. Spice wine, he said. From the Brotherhood Winery. Then to you: Your mother’s not exactly decrepit herself.

  Eh? your mother said.

  It’s a compliment, Mom. He’s complimenting you.

  Someone call a translator, said Mr. Peck. It’s like the United Nations in here.

  The United Nations, that’s a good one, said your father.

  Please, everyone sit down. No make compliment!

  YOU CARRIED THE teacher’s things to the closet by the front door, which, when opened, exhaled a breath of musty cold air, then returned to the kitchen where everyone stood talking still. You watched them, enjoying how they all seemed to be getting along, proud of your role in having engineered this event.

  Your mother had you pour the teacher some wine. You poured yourself half a glass, too, and used it to wash down a deviled egg (your mother made very good deviled eggs). While swallowing the deviled egg you couldn’t help noticing, as the teacher stood next to your father, the differences between them. Your father was at least four inches shorter than the teacher, the remaining strands of hair on his head gray, brushed back from a sloping forehead covered with wrinkles and spattered with liver spots, with fuzzy white tufts of hair sprouting from his ears. The teacher’s hair was golden and shiny. It reflected the kitchen lights. His shoulders were broader, his chest bigger, his stomach flatter. Your father had a paunch.

  Then there were the teacher’s hands, one holding his wine glass, the other propped on the counter next to the deviled eggs. They couldn’t have been less like your father’s. They were larger, with long fingers, their nails trimmed square and clean. Your father’s hands were small, their fingers stubby, dark and wrinkled, with quarter-moons of grime under the nails: the hands he curved over the lathe’s spinning chuck, the hands you once held in such high esteem.

  You listened to the teacher and your father talking. They were discussing England.

  Peter tells me you went to Oxford. Ah, those dreamy spires!

  I understand that you’re very fond of England yourself, Mr. Selgin.

  Please, call me Paul. It’s true, your father said, I’ve always been. Since I was a boy. What I like most about the English is their wit. Italians are funny. Americans like cracking jokes. Whereas the English are witty. They say funny things without meaning to be funny. That’s the difference. It’s why you’ll rarely hear an Englishman laugh at his own joke. He’s not joking, not in the least. He’s
being quite serious. (Your father’s Oxbridge accent had grown thicker.) Whereas Americans are always laughing at their own jokes. Have you noticed?

  Mr. Peck gave a look that said, There goes that egocentric father of yours. It hadn’t been long since the time when, sipping your mother’s weak coffee with the screen door freshly slammed behind him and your father headed to work, he remarked:

  There goes the most egocentric human being I ever expect to encounter in my entire life.

  THE PARTY MOVED to the living room. George carried the dish of deviled eggs. You followed with the prociutto e melone. The fake Christmas tree blazed. Walter Cronkite’s avuncular face filled the TV screen. Your mother had you turn it off. She sat on the sofa. Your father reclaimed his rocking chair. Mr. Peck sat on the upholstered chair. The teacher was about to sit on the ottoman but your mother insisted that he keep her company on the sofa, where Pa’al had taken up her usual position, her dull gold muzzle jutting over its edge, a perfect match for the threadbare upholstery. Mr. Peck ate another deviled egg. He said to the teacher:

  So how are you finding Bethel?

  Before the teacher could answer, Nonnie entered. She wore her veiled cocktail hat and had her wooden cane. Along with everyone your father greeted her, but with a faint malicious glint in his eyes. Mr. Peck stood again, this time to offer her his chair, moving to one of the folding chairs you’d brought in from the enclosed unheated porch.

  You and George were still standing, biding your time, letting the grown-ups talk for a while before reducing the discussion to sarcasm, insults, and brutal jokes.

  Che cosa succede? Nonnie asked.

  Niente, Nonna, said your mother.

  Mr. Peck turned to the teacher.

  I take it you haven’t been teaching long. You can’t be much over twenty.

  I’m twenty-four.

  I once taught, said your father. At the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn. It was during the Depression. I couldn’t get a job. The job recruiting officer said, You don’t want to teach, do you? I rather enjoyed it, as a matter of fact.