Ten North Frederick

by John O'Hara

  “That’s exactly my point, Father.”

  “Then you should have told them.”

  “What is there to tell? It’s a small town in the Pennsylvania coal region. Not even as big as Scranton.”

  “Not even as big as Wilkes-Barre, either. But not the same as Scranton, not the same as Wilkes-Barre.”

  “If I started to expatiate on the glories of Gibbsville I’m afraid my audience would turn away.”

  “Then I’m afraid I have a low opinion of their manners, a very low opinion indeed. And if all they’re interested in is New York and Philadelphia and Boston, then I won’t give them much credit for their intelligence. It isn’t where a man comes from that counts . . .”

  “Yes, but Father, that’s my point. Would you consider it polite if I were to bore my friends with a description of the town I happened to be born in?”

  “And your mother and I, both your grandfathers and both of your grandmothers, and their fathers and mothers.”

  “But some of those New York people, and Boston, and Philadelphia, their families go back so far that I’d run out of greats.”

  “Well, in my day they were ladies and gentlemen, and if they asked a man where he came from, they had the good manners to let him answer their question. And they might learn something into the bargain.”

  “Well, I suppose I’ll have to tutor in Gibbsvilliana. I’m not even sure of the population.”

  “No, you won’t have to tutor, but you might brush up on your own manners, starting with more respect for your father.”

  “I’m sorry, Father.”

  “I trust you are, and I accept your apology.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And the population of Gibbsville is 17,000, mostly English, German, Welsh and Irish stock.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And it’s a very good town to live in, as I hope you’ll find out some day.”

  The conversation, which took place in the summer between Joe’s graduation from Yale and entrance in the Penn Law School, was typical of the Chapin father-and-son colloquies. They would begin amiably enough, but nervous impatience would set in, followed by sarcasm and apology, and the father’s attempts at humor usually came too late.

  Ben Chapin away from his legal work was of the loneliest of men. The vigorousness of which his wife spoke to their son as being present in men of middle age was present in Ben Chapin, but after the second stillbirth she never returned to Ben’s bed. There was no dramatic scene, there was no theatrical announcement, and there was only one conversation. “Charlotte,” said Ben one evening, “can’t we go back to sharing our room together again?”

  “I don’t think so, Ben.”

  “I miss you.”

  “I know, and I miss you, but you know what’s bound to happen. And if I’m not there, it won’t happen.”

  “But I’m not an old man, Charlotte. Not yet.”

  “No, and I’m not a dead woman. But I would be if I had to go through another confinement and the same thing happened.”

  “I see. Yes, I see.”

  For the next ten years Ben paid visits at irregular intervals to a whorehouse on Arch Street, Philadelphia, where he would get slightly drunk before going to bed with one of the women, and wholly drunk afterward. The place was expensive because of the vigilance of the man and woman who owned it. If a girl was known to be diseased, she was fired; if she spoke to a patron on the street, she was fired. And a new patron had to be introduced in person by an old patron. Young men in their twenties, no matter who they were, were not admitted, but there was no limit above thirty. The girls submitted to or participated in any perversion that did not involve the drawing of their blood or the burning of their flesh. Ben Chapin was a simple man, whose wants were simple, and after he had slept off his drunkenness he would return to his hotel for a day or two until he was able to go back to Gibbsville and face his wife without showing his hatred of her.

  Then after ten years of the visits to Arch Street the need became less urgent and was dissipated in his dreams. He had one experience in a Washington hotel that put an end to his overt sexual life. He had gone to the dining room for breakfast and was again in his room, lying on the unmade bed and reading his newspaper. He dozed off, and was awakened by the chambermaid’s key in the door. When the door opened he saw her, a handsome Negress of thirty or more. “Come here,” he said.

  “I be back, sir.”

  “Come here.”

  “I can’t. I be fired.”

  “I’ll give you five dollars.”

  “No, sir. Ten dollars.”

  “All right, ten dollars. Lock the door and get on the bed.”

  “Wutta you goin’ do to me?”

  “You know what I’m going to do to you.”

  “You goina hurt me?”

  “I’m not going to hurt you. Take off your clothes, quick.”

  She obeyed him, and lay on the bed. “You take off your clothes?”

  “No,” he said. He managed to get inside her a matter of seconds before it was over. “All right, now go.”

  “That all? I want my ten dollars.”

  “I’ll give you your ten dollars, just go.”

  “Yes, sir. You want me to come back?”

  “No, God damn it, just put your clothes on and go.”

  “Cap’n, I do’ want you angry with me. I can’t he’p it if you too quick. Quick or slow, I can still get in the family way.”

  It was the only completely uncontrollable surging he had ever had, and the possible consequences frightened him as nothing had ever frightened him. He was not afraid of blackmail; he knew that a blackmailing chambermaid had no chance. But there was nothing in his past experience that had warned him of himself as a potential rapist. His relations had been entirely with Charlotte, and with the Arch Street whores, and if anything Charlotte was more freely passionate than the paid women. He never had had to consider rape as a kind of trouble he might get into. But he knew in all honesty that if the chambermaid had not submitted for money, he would have taken her violently. It was a real danger now, and the risk governed his thinking in relation to all women. And thus the chambermaid became the last woman to receive the seed that reposed in the body of Ben Chapin. It was a secret he was often tempted to tell his wife.

  But he was not altogether sure that he wanted to take revenge upon her. He knew that Charlotte was making him old and souring his final years. And he was subtle enough to realize that the reason was too subtle for her to discover; it was not only the fear of giving birth to an idiot or dead child; it was her obsession with her son and his life. Ben was acquainted with the crime of incest, and the absence of incestuous practice did not remove the possibility of an incestuous desire, no matter how monstrously preposterous the idea might seem to Charlotte (and, until the years of denial, to Ben). As Ben’s hatred became a real and final thing he grew to see that Charlotte was a limited, if not a stupid, woman, and that the boy was a handsome and bright creature, but lacking in warmth. Joe was not cold, for the cold ones can be passionate too. But he was lacking in warmth. Some nights in his bed, trying for sleep, afraid to drink himself drunk because he was afraid to rape his wife—Ben would fancy that perhaps his revenge upon Charlotte would come through the boy himself, through his lack of warmth. He, Ben, might not be there to see it, but it might come. And when he discovered that ironic possibility, that the loving mother might suffer through the well-loved son, Ben began to sleep a little better.

  A married couple always presents an absurdly untruthful picture to the world, but it is a picture that the world finds convenient and a comfort. A couple are a man and a woman, and what goes on between them the world never knows, could not possibly know, does not anxiously want to know, unless the man and the woman are so spectacularly unhappy that the private events become public knowledge. But what is conveniently
and comfortably regarded as a happy couple is accepted as such so long as the couple appear as a unit and refrain from revealing the slightest disturbance. The mistake a couple can make is to let the outside world inside for a brief second’s look at a brief second of unhappiness. Then the unity is broken and the world demands to know more, and if there is no more at the moment, a live man and a live woman, who can breathe and love, can breathe and hate as well, and as they do they provide the world with the satisfied curiosity that it demands before passing on to something else. Ben Chapin’s whores and his chambermaid had an outside look at the inside of the Ben Chapin marriage, but the whores and the mercenary chambermaid were a special unhappy world of their own, and so deep and selfish in their unhappiness that they cared nothing about the misery of a stranger. In that respect Ben Chapin and his wife were fortunate; the uncaring whores and the chambermaid were the only ones who had been given an inside look. The rest of the world saw a happy couple, a long-established happy couple who might even be asked for recipes and formulas for the creation of a happy marriage. In their own small family, in the person of their only son, there was a candidate for happy marriage who wanted the benefit of their advice and experience. So carefully had the Chapins as a couple maintained the appearance of unity that their son, a not altogether insensitive creature, had not questioned the veracity of the picture. And in that respect the Chapins were entitled to their belief in their superiority; they kept their secrets from the world; they made the world believe what they wanted the world to believe. In worldly terms they had a highly successful, a model, marriage. Indeed, they appeared to demonstrate successful marriage in a day when publicly unsuccessful marriages were exceptional. Among their close acquaintances there were occasional evidences of infelicitous marital relationships, usually blamed on the husband’s drunkenness; but divorce had not occurred in the American history of the Chapin and the Hofman families. Under the unwritten rules of the time, Ben could have beaten and raped his wife with impunity; the screams of violently abused women were heard not only in the poorer districts of the town, where, to be sure, they were heard more frequently. But in accordance with the superiority they felt, Ben and Charlotte Chapin adhered to the ladylike and gentlemanly code which regulated all social activity and personal behavior, even including, by extension, the act of procreation. A gentleman did not force his attentions on a lady; the lady protected the gentleman’s pride by pleading a splitting headache or by telling him that it was her time of the month. In the case of Ben and Charlotte Chapin the code actually did regulate their conduct, had regulated it throughout the early years of their marriage, so that when Charlotte made the announcement that began the years of denial, Ben was already accustomed to acceding to her wishes. He conformed because that was what he believed; he never gave any thought to the fact, and it was a fact, that if he had disregarded her wishes, she would have had no one to turn to. She would not have confided in anyone, she would not have cried for help, she would not have left him. They were living in a time when it was unthinkable for a woman of Charlotte’s background to confide to another woman that her husband had seen her breasts. More explicit confidences were more unthinkable. An admission of sexual incompatibility was fantastically unlikely.

  And so, to all outward appearances, the successful marriage of the father and mother of Joe Chapin.

  The demonstrated affection between the son and the mother was considered by their friends and relations to be a most desirable state of affairs. The love of a mother for her son was taken for granted; but while a son was expected to love his mother, only a few sons were so palpably devoted as Joe Chapin was to Charlotte. Other sons might be reasonably polite and respectful; Joe Chapin was courtly. Other mothers envied Charlotte and made efforts to inspire their own sons to emulation of Joe, but whenever the mothers started, they started too late. Charlotte was fond of saying that all the time she was carrying Joe she had known she would have a son and that he would be beautiful and brilliant (she did not go so far as to claim that she knew her next two pregnancies would be failures). An irreverent member of the household staff said that you would have thought it was Jesus and not Joseph that was getting circumcised, the day the child’s foreskin was cut. Throughout Joe’s boyhood Charlotte supervised every detail of his life; his health, his schooling, his playtime, his friendships. Nor was anyone else allowed to punish him. When he was small she spanked his behind; when he grew taller she made him hold out his hand for slaps with a foot-rule. But in spite of the corporal punishment the relationship was not endangered. It would have been a very stupid child who did not notice that corporal punishment was always followed by a gift, or by special privilege.

  Charlotte’s supervision of Joe’s activities entirely relieved the boy’s father of most paternal responsibilities, and particularly the responsibility of punishment. But as a consequence Ben was hardly more than a nominal, although an actual, father. He and the boy shared a roof and not much else, and after Joe went to boarding school, even the roof was less often shared. Joe’s allowance was determined by Charlotte and sent by her. It was not rigidly held to. She permitted him to borrow on future allowances, and then in June, because he had passed to a higher grade, she would write off the borrowing.

  “What do you do with your money?” she asked him in the prep school days.

  “Oh—spend it.”

  “But what on? Do you treat the other boys?”

  “I should say not—well, when it’s my turn I do, but not like Fothergill. He’s a boy from Chicago that always wants to treat everybody. He thinks he can buy people.”

  “I’m glad to hear you don’t do that, my dear.”

  “I should say not.”

  “But what do you do with your money? Do you play cards?”

  “Oh, sure I play cards, but not for money. They’d ship me home if they found that out.”

  “And you’re much too young to drink.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that, Mummy. I know other boys my age that drink.”

  “They do? At The Hill?”

  “Oh, but I wouldn’t tell you who they are.”

  “No, I don’t want you to be a tattletale.”

  “I want to get the gold watch Father promised me, so you don’t have to worry about me drinking till I’m twenty-one.”

  “When you go to Yale you may drink wine. You’ll be invited out to dinner and they’ll serve wine. I have to speak to your father about that. But no spirits.”

  “Can I drink beer?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve wondered about that. We’ll see if it’s the custom. I don’t want people to think you’re strange. Let’s get back to the money. What do you spend it on? Your clothing bills come to us.”

  “Well, I bought two sweaters. One was two and a half and the other was three dollars. And pennants for my room.”

  “You bought those in Lower Middler.”

  “Well, things like that, I buy that sort of thing. Let me see, we chipped in to buy a present for the baseball coach.”

  “That was nice. What else?”

  “It’s really very hard to say. But we always have these little expenses. They take up a lot of collections. And when we have a spread. And sweaters and baseball gloves. And just ordinary gloves. I’m always losing gloves—or other boys swipe them.”

  “Well, I can see that I’m not going to find out what becomes of your money. Just as long as you don’t spend it on the wrong things. That’s really what I wanted to inquire. And always buy the best. There’s almost no such thing as a bargain.”

  “Oh, I believe in buying the best.”

  “Your father and I have always believed in that.”

  “Father? I knew you did, but I often think Father doesn’t care about the best.”

  “I don’t know where you got that idea. Such as?”

  “Oh—I don’t know. We’re richer than the McHenrys, but Arthur’s hous
e is nicer than ours.”

  “Don’t ever say that again, do you hear me?”

  “Well, they have newer things.”

  “I’m not objecting to what you said about this house. I am objecting to what you said about the McHenrys and us.”

  “But aren’t we richer?”

  “I don’t know—yes, we are, but what if we are? Where did you hear that?”

  “Arthur’s father told me. That’s what he always says when I have something and Arthur hasn’t. He says we can afford things because we’re richer.”

  “I’ve never heard of Arthur being deprived of anything.”

  “I know. It’s just because Mr. McHenry is stingy and you’re not. He’s terribly stingy, Mr. McHenry.”

  “I don’t like you to use words like stingy when you’re speaking of your elders, I don’t care who they are.”

  “But that’s what he is.”

  “I said I don’t like you to use that word.”

  “I didn’t. I just said that’s what he is, I didn’t use the word.”

  “Joe, you’re clever, you’re very clever. You are going to be a lawyer.”

  “When I am I hope I’ll be a better one than some people.”

  “Now! Not another word!”

  “Why, Mummy? You don’t know who I was thinking of.”

  • • •

  The expression, the wrong side of the tracks, never caught on in Gibbsville. A Gibbsville citizen would know only too well that so long as a single Chapin lived on Frederick Street, “the wrong side” was much righter than the opposite side; the expression would have no meaning. The numbered and tree-named streets of Gibbsville, for example, never had been and never would be known as anything but the addresses of the middle-class and the poor. There were two kinds of people on Frederick Street; there were the old-rich, whose families had made it an important address—and there were the others.