The Wanting

by Campbell Armstrong

  The goddamn phone was dead. A connection in Seattle had been severed. He couldn’t blame Ackerley for hanging up. Who wants to work over the sorrowful ground of an old tragedy—who except a ghoul? My daughter changed in that place.…

  Metger stood up, stroked his jaw. He looked at the Ackerley folder, flipping it open.

  Miles Henderson had written, … a verdict of suicide at a time when the balance of the girl’s mind was disturbed.…

  Now that was choice language. That was precise. The balance of her mind. As if there had been a set of tiny cerebral scales inside the poor kid’s brain. Very nice, Miles.

  Metger thought he’d get the hell out of this office. Go down, as he seemed doomed to do, in the general direction of the redwood house and the nice people from San Francisco. Go down there, stalking his private phantoms and fears, in the dark green depths of the trees.

  Charlotte Summer held a small glass jar between her hands. She turned it this way and that, so that its contents, which were practically weightless, shifted beneath the kitchen light. She heard Dick coming down the stairs from the bedroom. When he reached the bottom he paused.

  She raised her face. He was holding something out to her. After a moment she recognized what it was. An old bottle of nail polish.

  “I couldn’t,” she said.

  “Sure you could.”

  She set the glass jar on the kitchen table. The nail polish was dark red. She picked it up, opened the cap, smelled its woozy scent.

  “Been such a long time,” she said.

  Dick smiled. He watched her dip the tiny brush into the blood-red liquid and apply a slick to the index finger of her left hand, which she held out in front of her.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Looks pretty.”

  Charlotte studied the nail for a while. Then she said, “Why did that young man come around here?”

  “Who? The fellow that lives in the van?”

  “Don’t much like him watching us, Dick.”

  Dick shrugged. “He doesn’t worry me.”

  Charlotte was silent. Then she said, “He isn’t going to make trouble, is he?”

  “Hell no.”

  “I couldn’t stand it if he did, Dick.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Dick said. “Don’t you worry your head about him.”

  Charlotte stared at her nail. “Pretty color,” she remarked.

  26

  “What did he say?” the professor asked. “What did he say when you told him that?”

  The girl, hunched over a cardboard cup of weak coffee, lit a cigarette. The ashtrays in the diner where she sat with Professor Zmia were the inverted lids of Mason jars. She looked at the man for a time before answering. The room was filled with steam and condensation hung against the windows.

  “He didn’t say much. What could he say? I gave him an ultimatum. It shook him up. What the hell do you expect? Did you think he’d be happy?”

  Professor Zmia sipped his tea, which was abominable. He placed his fingers over the girl’s hands. “Your part is almost over, Connie.”

  “Almost? What do you mean almost? You’ve had enough out of me. You got what you paid for.” She took her hands away and the professor grimaced. “I don’t know why you’re doing this and I don’t think I want to know, but I’m out. Oh you tee, Professor. Out.”

  “Such nonsense. Such a delicate moral sense.” The professor smiled. He pushed his tea aside. “We are not quite finished yet, Connie. There remains something more to be done.”

  “Yeah? Well, I just upped the price, Professor. And I don’t think you want to pay it. And anyhow, this town gives me the willies. I’m a city person. I want to go home.”

  Zmia took out his checkbook. He flashed it in front of the girl’s face. She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, ignoring him. She raised her coffee and blew on its surface.

  “Goddamn,” she said.

  Professor Zmia smiled and took out his fountain pen.

  Theodore Ronson usually felt a sense of accomplishment when he stepped into the Carnarvon Nursing Home. Nurses smiled at him, orderlies regarded him with a kind of cautious awe. He was a member of the nursing-home board and had been more than a little instrumental in raising the funds necessary to build the place. This evening, though, the mayor did not experience any of his usual buoyancy. He barely looked at the nurses, even though he normally found them pleasing to his middle-aged eye. He went up the stairs to the second floor, where he moved quickly along the corridor. When he found the room he wanted he knocked on the door tentatively before entering.

  The man who sat on the edge of the bed stared gloomily at the TV. He was a big man whose skin seemed to hang like loose cotton on his bones. Down his arms there were pale old tattoos, that now looked like a variety of discolored contusions. He didn’t turn his face when Ronson came in.

  “Stanley, Stanley,” the mayor said effusively. “How are you this evening?”

  The man appeared not to hear. Color from the television played across his face like a kaleidoscope. Ronson, hovering on the margins of the room, feeling awkward, cleared his throat. “Not talking tonight, Stan? Cat got your tongue?”

  The man on the bed, Stanley Metger, finally turned his face. He regarded the mayor for a second, his look one of non-recognition. The blankness in his eyes always shook the mayor. Big Stan Metger, the life and soul of any party—where are you now? What have we done to you?

  Ronson approached the bed. He smiled, glanced at the TV. “What’s on, Stan?”

  Metger said nothing. A tiny grunt from his mouth. Goddamn, Ronson thought. What made you take on the funny notion you were going to write a fucking book? What put that nonsense in your head, Stanley? Ted Ronson rubbed his hands together. There was a time when he and Stanley Metger had been the very best of friends. A time not so long ago either. Drinking buddies, roustabouts, carefree terrors of the night places. Big Stan, with his stories, his tall tales, his awful jokes, had been welcome anywhere. Ronson remembered the Taffy Owen stories, legends Stanley Metger had gathered about an eccentric Welsh miner who’d been among the early settlers in Carnarvon. He assumed Metger made many of them up—Taffy’s polygamous marriages, the night the Welshman had tried to ride a three-legged mule all the way to San Francisco, the gargantuan drinking binge that had ended when Taffy woke up in Tijuana with a new Mexican bride he was obliged to bring all the way back to Carnarvon without knowing the woman’s name—in Metger’s world you couldn’t tell where the truth finished and the embroidery began. In the manner of any storyteller, Metger kept recreating the universe he inhabited.

  Ronson sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you, Stanley?”

  “Who wants to know,” the man said flatly.

  It was some kind of response, Ronson thought. How far gone was Metger tonight? The mayor looked at the TV and sighed quietly. He was extremely uncomfortable. It had become his habit to look in on Metger now and then, but what brought him here? Old time’s sake? Or was it a touch of guilt? Ronson did not entertain this thought long. He patted Metger’s arm for a time. The big man tolerated this momentarily before moving slightly away.

  Theodore Ronson stood up, hands plunged inside the pockets of his lightweight sports coat. He was at a loss for further words; he gazed bleakly at the darkening window of the room. A tree knocked upon the pane, blown by halfhearted breezes.

  “I just thought I’d stop in,” the mayor said.

  The big man turned his face. He had great dark eyes, hollow and empty, lifeless as asteroids. “Where’s my wife?” the man asked.

  Dead, Ronson thought. A long time ago. Saying nothing, not knowing what words were appropriate in any case, he moved to the door and was reaching for the handle when Lou Pelusi came into the room. Pelusi carried his small black bag, all the portable tools of his trade. Ted Ronson stepped back.

  “I was just leaving,” the mayor said.

  “Why? Something you don’t want to see?” Pelusi asked.

  Ronson s
hook his head. “This isn’t exactly a pleasure for me, you know that. You think I like to see him like this? You think I enjoy this?”

  Pelusi opened his bag. He rummaged around inside. “Are you queasy, Ted? Don’t like the sight of blood?”

  “I don’t need it,” Ronson answered.

  “Somebody has to do it. Right, Ted? Isn’t that how you phrased it?”

  “You knew what you were getting into,” Ronson said. “Don’t bitch about it now.”

  Pelusi turned to look at the man on the bed. “How is he tonight anyhow?” he asked.

  “Whatever it is you’re giving him, Lou, it’s working.” Ron-son moved to the door.

  “Would you want it any other way?” Pelusi asked.

  Ronson went out into the corridor, closing the door behind him. Writing your stories down on paper, Stanley—how could you be so fucking stupid? The mayor moved toward the stairs. Before he started down he heard Stanley Metger moaning from behind the closed door of his barren little room.

  27

  Louise said, “It doesn’t look too bad,” and she reached out, fluffing the edges of Dennis’s hair, as if she wanted to alter the style Charlotte had imposed there. It looked too flat to her somehow—Dennis’s curls were gone. He had lost something of his cherubic appearance. He appeared more mature, older. She dropped her hand to her side when she saw his look of exasperation.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “So do I. Kind of.” Louise ran a potato beneath the cold-water faucet, then began to scrape the skin. “Did you ask her to cut it, Denny?”

  “Of course I did.” The boy picked up a peeled potato and crunched into it as if it were an apple. “I wouldn’t let anyone cut my hair without permission, would I?”

  That tone, Louise thought. That little edge, almost a whine. She glanced at Dennis, smiling. “Something wrong?”

  The kid shook his head. He wandered to the table and sat down, tipping his chair back to the wall. “I’m okay,” he answered. He scratched at the back of his wrist for a few seconds.

  “Insect bite?” Louise asked.

  “Just itchy.”

  Louise placed the potatoes inside boiling water, then wiped her hands on her apron. She removed the apron and hung it on a hook on the kitchen wall. “Did you work on the truck today?”

  Dennis nodded.

  Louise was quiet a moment. The boy was mining a taciturn vein right then. Opaque adolescence, she thought—like a window you can’t see through. It was an age filled with mood swings and elaborate foxholes where you could hide your personality when you needed to.

  “Did you get it to run?”

  Crunching into the potato, Dennis shook his head.

  “How come I get the feeling I’m holding a one-sided conversation here?” Louise said.

  Dennis smiled at his mother. “I’m sorry. I’ve got this headache. Maybe I’ll go take some aspirin.” He rose, left the kitchen, wandered along the hallway toward the downstairs toilet. Louise heard the door click shut, then there was the sound of running water. She thought about the boy’s hair again; it seemed strange to her that Dennis, always so possessive of his hair, so particular about how it looked, should allow Charlotte to cut it. Should ask her even. And she felt a vague twinge of jealousy all at once. Why would the boy let Charlotte cut his hair when he wouldn’t even allow his own mother to touch it?

  It was a brief resentment and she let it pass. Presumably Charlotte had some secret way about her, something that made Dennis trust the woman the way he wouldn’t trust his mother. A knack, Louise thought. A gift for getting along with kids—another person’s kid anyhow. Why didn’t you get one of your own, Charlotte?

  Louise took a chilled bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and opened it. She poured herself a large glass and carried it to the living room. Max lay on the sofa, a book open on his chest. He had fallen asleep and his hands hung limply at his sides. She poked him in the side and he stirred, opening his eyes.

  “Hey,” she said. “It’s almost time for dinner.”

  “Dinner?” His voice was dry, a sleeper’s voice. Max sat up awkwardly. “I was dreaming that Denny and I were fishing in this huge dark lake. He caught some monster and I had the job of skinning it. Which wasn’t altogether pleasant. Thanks for waking me.”

  Louise sipped her wine. She looked at her husband. He was rubbing his eyes, his long fingers flying around his face. “A fishing dream,” she said. “Wonder what that means. Maybe it’s one of those future projections. Maybe you’re going to take your son fishing.”

  Max groaned. “Where is the kid anyhow?”

  “Bathroom,” Louise said over the rim of her wineglass. “He had his hair cut today. By Charlotte.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s okay except it makes him look about five years older.”

  “Do I hear disapproval?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Only …”

  “Only what?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. She stared inside her wine. Max got up, paced around the room. He paused by the telephone, let his hand dangle across the instrument momentarily, then he moved to the window.

  “Are you expecting Mrs. Harrison to call again?” Louise asked.

  Max turned, smiling at his wife. Mrs. Harrison, he thought. Why in the name of God hadn’t he invented another name for Connie? It had come out without thinking, without planning—it was this absence of instinctive guile that made him a bad conniver. He laid his hand on the windowpane and said, “I asked her not to. I told her I was taking a leave of absence. I told her to talk with Stallings if she had any more problems.”

  “Firm, were you?”

  “Firm,” Max replied. “I can’t have neurotic women calling me up.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “No,” Max said. He gazed out at the car in the driveway, then let his eyes roam across the dirt road to the trees. Pretty—Connie was more than that. He felt a certain thickness at the back of his throat and small flylike spots shimmered in his vision. She couldn’t have been serious last night, could she? She couldn’t have meant what she said. Max pressed his nose to the windowpane and wondered what Louise was thinking, whether he’d convinced her with his explanation of a neurotic patient. She couldn’t think anything else—she didn’t have reasons. Now, like some terrible echo of a voice trapped in his mind, he heard Connie all over again. I’ve been thinking, Max. Silence. Ten seconds of silence. I want you to leave your wife. I want you to live with me.…

  Preposterous, Max thought.

  But there had been in Connie’s tone a kind of determination he didn’t like, an implicit menace to him. Dear Christ, how had he managed to get himself into this dreadful situation anyhow? Maybe she wouldn’t call again. Maybe. But he couldn’t shake that tone in her voice.

  “How old is she?” Louise asked.

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “She must have provided that information for your records, Max.”

  “Some women—don’t be shocked—lie about their age.”

  “Can’t you guess how old she is?”

  “Forty,” Max said quickly. “Forty and sagging fast. I don’t know why you’re so interested in this woman.”

  “Idle curiosity, sweetheart.” Louise came to the window and rapped the rim of her wineglass on the pane. “Actually, I think some of your female patients probably have the hots for you. That’s standard, isn’t it? The old cliché of the lonely woman falling for her physician. It’s your bedside manner that leads them on.”

  Max snorted. “Bedside manner? I failed Bedside Manner in medical school.”

  Louise smiled. She reached out and touched Max lightly on the back of his hand. “I don’t believe that. I remember you were a pretty persuasive guy back then.”

  Persuasive, Max thought. Could I persuade Connie Harrison to leave me alone? Could I talk her into not calling me? He slung one arm around his wife’s shoulder and hugged her quickly before releasing her. “The cockta
il hour approaches,” he said. He poured himself a scotch from the liquor cabinet. I want you to leave your wife, Max. Just like that. Out of the blue. Come live with me and be my love.… He stared at the telephone. Hadn’t it been Nimzowich, the chess master, who’d said that the threat was better than the execution? It was what the telephone represented to him—the sheer bloody threat of Connie calling again. It didn’t have to ring in order to menace him.

  He sipped his drink. His hand shook and cubes of ice knocked on the inside of his glass. If Louise noticed, she didn’t say anything. Max gripped the glass in both hands now.

  Dennis came into the room.

  “Like your hair,” Max said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Old Charlotte must be quite a barber.”

  Dennis nodded. He placed himself on the arm of the sofa and swung one leg back and forth.

  Max cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking about canvas,” he said. “Nights under the old roof of a tent. Casting the rod into the water. Watching the sinker bob up and down. All the magic of the great outdoors.”

  Louise said, “It sounds good to me.”

  “Does it sound good to you, Denny?” Max said.

  “You want to go on a camping trip, Dad? You?”

  “Well, I’ve been pondering the notion.” Max sipped his scotch. “Does it appeal to you?”

  The boy appeared hesitant. “I’d like it.” A short pause. The kid slid down from the arm of the sofa and squatted on the floor. “The only thing is, I’d like to wait until that bait really ripens. Dick says it takes maybe five more days before it reaches maximum potency.”

  “Maximum potency?” Louise asked. “How much more maximum does it have to get, Denny? I mean, every time I walk along the hallway and pass your bedroom I can smell the stuff. Couldn’t you allow it to maximize its potency outdoors?”

  “Uh-huh. Dick says rain shouldn’t get to it because that weakens the composition.”

  “What rain, Denny?”