Pete stares. The woman with the golden hair said this guy was supposed to have the answers. He’d like to say so, but he doesn’t feel right about challenging him on national TV. Maybe, he thinks, he should change his line of questioning. The people in the audience are clearly not intellectual types. And after all, they did pay to get in. How could he have been so foolish as to imagine that he could dazzle them with metaphysics? If they’re all die-hard feminists—and the way they’re dressed, they must be—then it follows that their main interest must be male/female relationships. Well, he can give them that. He can give them whatever they want. “Why does she want me?” he asks the emcee.
“Your wife?” the emcee asks disinterestedly.
“No, the other one.”
“Oh, her.” The emcee smirks and looks toward the audience, who chuckle in response. Pete begins to fidget; his palms grow clammy. The chuckles diminish and are replaced with sighs. Obviously, his last question was as inappropriate as the first.
He gasps. He is on the air! What if Liz is watching? And his kids! Surely he told them he was going to be on TV. Thank God the emcee didn’t bother to answer his last question. He can feel the beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. The sighs wafting up from the audience are getting louder all the time. Oh, how he hopes for a commercial break. He looks around for a timer, a light, something to indicate that a break is forthcoming. But he sees nothing but the emcee staring back at him, his thin lips quivering with aversion. “Where is Lake Victoria?” Pete asks tenuously.
The emcee’s face lights up at once. A murmur runs through the theater. “Africa!” the emcee exclaims.
Bells go off. Pete looks out toward the audience. The ones who knew the answer are clapping. The ones who didn’t are snapping their fingers and rolling their heads. So this is what they want, Trivial Pursuit. That’s easy enough. He rubs his clammy palms together. “Throughout history,” he begins, “a certain fruit has been a symbol in art and literature of revelry and joy? What is it?”
The emcee chews it over. Pete can’t help but smile. He’s been working on a brochure for a local winery and has done research on the history of—“The grape!” the emcee shouts. Bells again. Applause.
“Okay, okay,” Pete says. “Try this one. What discovery ultimately led to the invention of the television?”
The emcee doesn’t even hesitate. “The discovery of the variation in the electrical conductivity of selenium when exposed to light,” he declares.
Pete looks at him in amazement. The emcee cocks his head. “Eighteen seventy-three,” he adds. Pete looks out at the audience, who are waiting patiently for the next question.
He begins to run though his knowledge of boats. Surely he knows more about them than the emcee does, unless of course he happens to be a boater himself. In the meantime, the sighs are beginning again, people are shifting in their seats. Pete feels a new wave of anxiety. He knows too much about boats! For every question he thinks of, another more challenging one occurs to him. He can’t seem to settle on one, to get his mouth to open. And all the time the audience is becoming more and more restless. When will there be a commercial break?
But wait a minute. Has he come all this way to satisfy the audience? Is he going to kow-tow to a group of women who live for the opportunity to humiliate men? What if Robert Bly is watching? “Why does she want me?” he demands, forgetting that his wife and children are probably watching at home.
The emcee winks at the audience. “We’re trying to figure that out ourselves,” he says. The audience laughs approvingly. “In the meantime,” he continues, “why don’t you tell us why you want her?”
The audience laughs louder yet. Some of them are positively hysterical! Pete doesn’t know what to do. It’s important to him that they understand what this is all about. He spreads his hands. “Look, it started out as a fantasy,” he explains. “I didn’t intend to take it further than that. It just got bigger. It’s not my fault.”
But they’re not listening. They don’t care why; they want laughs. Okay, okay, anything to get this over with. “Because she’s two inches shorter than me,” he tells them, but their faces remain set. Only the emcee smiles, sympathetically, Pete thinks.
“Look,” he says. “I’m nothing. I’m just this little guy.”
A few women smirk. Pete can feel his face reddening. What a stupid thing to say! Especially in front of an audience of women. They can see that for themselves. If he were a big guy, a hunk, they would, no doubt, show some interest in his love life. He glances at the emcee and finds him nodding now, encouragingly, just the way Johnny Carson does when he sees he is about to get someone to make a fool out of himself. “My father worked for IBM,” Pete says.
They laugh louder. They must have known that too. Pete spreads his arms out further. “I love my wife,” he says. He has to shout it to be heard over their laughter. They are roaring now, some of them rolling in their seats. “I think,” he adds. “You see, we’ve been married a long time now. I assume I love her.”
But what is he doing? This isn’t supposed to be a nightclub act. Suddenly he is filled with anger. “Why did my baby die?” he barks.
A hush falls over the theater. Now you could hear a pin drop. Some people sit forward. It’s clear the audience wants to see him break down. That he won’t do. “Look,” Pete begins, turning to the emcee. “Just what kind of a show is this? What kind of an emcee are you? Have you done this sort of thing before? Has anyone ascertained that you even know the answers?”
The emcee’s pale face flushes with anger. A red light that Pete didn’t notice before begins to flash off stage to his right. A deep authoritative male voice comes on over the loudspeaker. “Mr. Arroway,” it says, “you were supposed to have prepared your questions in advance.”
Pete looks around for the source of the voice, but he sees no one. In the meantime, some of the women in the audience are getting up from their seats, moving toward the exits. He flicks his finger against the mike and finds that it is still on. “How does one prepare?” he asks weakly.
More people get up. The gestures with which they throw their jackets over their shoulders and push up their seats assure him that they are as disgusted with him as the emcee is. They will, he imagines, be wanting their money back. He wonders whether he is liable for it. “How can you prepare questions in advance when you don’t know what will come up?” he asks. “I mean, there I was, making a living, dealing with the day to day as best I could, plotting a course for the future, when out of nowhere …”
“You may leave the stage now,” the deep voice says.
There is a kindness in the voice that sounds vaguely familiar. Pete looks around again for its source. He sees the last of the female spectators closing the door behind her. The emcee, he realizes, is likewise gone. He is alone on the stage. “Is that you, Butch?” he asks. There is no answer. “Mr. Bly? That can’t be you, can it?” he asks, thinking that Bly would do nicely. But still there is no response. “Where are you?” he asks irritatedly.
“Everywhere,” the voice answers.
Pete nods his head rapidly. “Everywhere, huh? Oh, I get it. This is a riot. This is really something.” He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his forehead. Just then the lights go out. “Hey, what’s going on!” he screams.
He hears someone clear his throat and he begins to breath again. At least he isn’t alone. The voice on the loudspeaker says, “Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.”
“Oh, that’s very funny,” Pete says. “Now how about some lights?
“Okay,” Pete goes on. “I can see what this is. This is still part of the show, right? The part where the management gets to play around with the contestant after the emcee has made a fool out of him. Okay, okay. I’ll play your game. That was from the book of Job, right? I know my Bible. You want me to try to stump You?”
“You can’t stump Me,” the voice replies.
“Oh, rig
ht. I forgot. You’re everywhere and You know everything. So You must know where the light switch is.”
“Just a few more,” the voice petitions.
“And then You’ll turn on the lights?”
“You have My word. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but … Wait. Here’s one for you: ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust—’”
“What do You think I am? Some kind of a jerk?”
“You’re right. Too easy. How about, ‘Having eyes full of adultery—’”
“That’s it!” Pete shrieks. “You’re not very subtle, are You? You, of all people. Amazing! But if You think I’m going to stand here and listen to You quote the Bible until You get Your point across, You’re wrong. I know what You’re after. And You won’t get it. You can’t lay Your morals on me. And don’t try to use logic either. I’ve already been down that road. This is more like physics, action and reaction. Or maybe it’s more biological. I can’t stop myself. It’s out of my control.”
“Easy, easy there boy.”
But Pete is determined to get it all out now. “Did You ever read Bly, God?” he asks.
“I can’t say that I have.”
“I’ve lost something. No, actually, I never had it. I’ve been down in the pit, shoveling ashes, eating dust, accepting the snake—and nothing good has come from it. So now I’m going to have myself a little adventure. You know, I’m a ghostwriter. I write about other people’s adventures. I live my own life through them, vicariously. I’m tired of that. I’m tired of—”
“So you’re going to go and—”
“Yeah, that’s right. I’m going to. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“But didn’t Bly say that when a man falls in love with a face, instead of pursuing the woman, he needs to go off alone somewhere, canoe down a river?”
“I thought You didn’t read Bly.”
“Only parts.”
“It’s Your fault anyway,” Pete stammers. “You gave me this … this imagination. I wasn’t lying before when I said that it began as a fantasy and then just sort of took off on its own. I mean, it’s there, in my head, all the time, whether I want it there or not. What can I do, short of getting a lobotomy? Is there some medication? What I need is something like what my sister-in-law takes so that she won’t hear voices. I’m telling You, there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s sort of like dreams. You can’t shut them out either. Or like when you read something that bothers you, something in the news, maybe. You try to forget it, but it’s there anyway. Or take my kids. I’ve explained to them a thousand times that Fruit Loops aren’t good for them. They understand that. They really do. But they see the damn commercials every day, and every morning when they open the pantry, they want to know why there’s nothing but Special K. You see what I’m saying? These voices just get in. And then you can’t get rid of them. Like You, in fact. Sometimes I’d like to shut You out. We’re victims. We think we’re making our own choices, but really we’re listening to the voices, yielding to ones that speak the loudest. Does it matter which ones we listen to? Is there any difference? I don’t think so.
“Look, I’m getting fed up with all this. I don’t want to talk to You anymore. Just put on the god-d—Excuse me. Please put on the lights.”
“And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall—”
“Hold it right there, Buddy. I did ask, and I’m still in the dark!.… I’d like to go home now, but I can’t see my way out of here,” Pete sings through his teeth.
“You see, this is why no one believes in You. You make a brief appearance, and then You’re gone again. It really isn’t fair. Did you ever consider exposing Yourself? Just turning up one morning and then hanging in there? Concerning Yourself with our day to day affairs? A beacon amid the shoals? Gee, that would be something. That would be really interesting. No one would believe You at first. They’d think You were some kind of a crackpot, but after a while, after a few hundred miracles …
“Listen, I’m sorry if I hurt Your feelings. It’s just that this has all been a little frustrating … And now I’d like to go home and forget about it. My wife and my kids are waiting for me.
“Look,” Pete shouts. “I know You’re still there. What is this? Some sort of punishment? But that’s not fair. The punishment is supposed to come later, in the next … What am I doing, trying to explain to You? Get me out of here.”
Pete considers that he may have to stay all night, that the doors may already be locked. “Okay, okay. I admit it’s wrong,” he shouts. “But You’ve got to understand where I’m coming from. These recent years have been a big disappointment for me. I’ve been doing everything by the book. She wanted more kids, fine, I said, we’ll have more kids. She likes the noise, the chaos, the distraction. I didn’t want any more kids. I needed distraction like a hole in the head.” He hesitates. “But of course that doesn’t mean I don’t want them now,” he continues quickly. “Don’t be thinking that. I retract that. I take it back. If You lay a hand on them, I swear to God, I’ll …”
He stops to take several deep breaths. “Yeah, so she wanted more kids, and I figured it was my place to do what I could for her, to get her on the path to recovery. And You know, I did it for You. For Your sake. For God’s sake, as she always says. Gee, I hate when she says that. But You know what? She doesn’t want to recover. Do You know what I found out that day I went through her diaries? Well, of course You do. Now think about it. This is an otherwise perfectly normal woman … Well, almost … There was a peculiar scene a few nights ago …” Pete considers it for a moment. “But anyway, as I was saying, it’s not bad enough that Katie’s got an invisible friend. Now I find out my wife does too … that … that … that everything I did for her was fruitless. Save the whales, save the forests … But does she think of saving our marriage? Or saving the kids? Jake refuses to grow up. You know what I think? I think it’s his way of compensating for the loss, for Maddy. But he wouldn’t feel it anymore if his mother didn’t. Katie … well. Only the little one behaves normally. She’s all innocence and light, that one. But that’s because she’s a baby. New hope and all that. The possibility of perfection in an imperfect world. And you believe in that, and then they go ahead and fail you anyway, and their every failure is somehow a reflection on …
“You want me to take some of the blame? Okay. Done. I’m at fault too. Now turn on the lights.
“Or at least speak to me. Catalogue my flaws. I want too much from them, from life, right? Okay, I admit it. But look at You. That’s Your flaw too. You want too much from us. That’s probably where I got it from—Your image and likeness and all that.
“Hey! Don’t just leave me standing here alone in the dark! Talk to me! I mean, You’ve got some nerve to expect perfection. We’re progressing. It’s not like we started off civilized. We’ve been here in this form for what, 35,000 years? And it wasn’t until 6,000 years ago that we even figured out how to write. The iron age didn’t even begin until 3,500 years ago. We’ve only had telescopes for 330 or so years. And it’s only 60 or so since anyone came up with anything that even resembles a computer! And besides, You made us … although I know plenty of people who’d say we made You … ‘You made me, I made you.’ That’s Batman to the Joker. I don’t suppose You ever …
“I know what You’re thinking. A deal, right? You love those deals. I can’t make one with You where she’s concerned. I asked You to heal my wife and You didn’t. Now I’ve made up my mind. I’ll stay here all night if I have to, but I won’t give her up.”
Pete chews his bottom lip and thinks about lying down on the floor to try and get some sleep, then changes his mind. “I mean, this is me, God!” he shouts. “I’m not some chump off the streets who never gave You a second’s thought. I try to give some thought to the spiritual. I don’t plan to hurt anyone. I can be discreet. I’ve tried like hell to talk myself out of it. I just can’t seem to … Oh, what’s the sense.”
He calculates: If the show sta
rted at prime time, he probably has another six or seven hours to go before the cleaning people come and the doors open so he can get out. But what will happen then? They might think he broke in. They’ll call in the police, no doubt. It will be tough explaining. And what will Liz and the kids think? How will he explain to them that he got busy talking to God and failed to leave with the others?
He lowers himself to the floor and stretches out, but he just can’t get comfortable. At the very least, he has to have a pillow. He feels himself on the verge of tears and stands up again. “Okay, okay,” he shouts. “You win. Turn the lights on!”
The lights go on immediately and he is shocked to find Liz bending over him. “Didn’t you hear your alarm go off?” she asks.
He stretches his neck to see the clock and realizes that he is not in bed but on the carpet. “How’d I get here?” he croaks. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
LIZ
The last time Pete called from the office to invite her to lunch, Liz was pregnant with Brigit. So when he invites her now, she assumes he has a motive and thinks she knows what it is: He wants to check the depth of her thermal plume, to take a reading on the motion of her molten rock.
Strangely enough, it wasn’t her opening the knife drawer that actually upset him; he never even mentioned that. Not that she really intended to do herself any harm. She didn’t intend anything. She was a machine in motion, void of thought, running on an emotional power surge—the thing he doesn’t think she has. She was just as surprised to find herself in the kitchen as were Pete and Jake. It was only after she reached the drawer and jerked it open that it occurred to her that they might think she had a plan. Poor Jake! Who knows what he thought! But Pete’s only concern was what she did to her arm. He just couldn’t get over it. When they got everyone off to bed, they discussed it up in their room. Or, rather, he discussed it while Liz sat on the bed and watched him pace. “Your arm, Liz,” he kept saying. “I can’t believe you did that to your arm. And I can’t believe the effect it had on Sherri! It’s incredible to me the way her mind works. Really a wonder. I only hope it doesn’t get infected.”
Homebodies Page 17