Going Down Fast

by Marge Piercy

“Mainly just having it. I studied as if I didn’t, but it kept me cool. Finally about midnight I sat down and took it, and it was a snap. Then I went, had a hamburger and came home to bed. All collected, I walked in, finished early, even the essay part that was out of the blue.… Almost didn’t look at it. I had qualms, then I figured it was harder for me to look than not to.”

  Something in his voice puzzled her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Never cheated before.”

  “That wasn’t cheating,” Leon drawled. “You had the questions, not the answers. Every fraternity jackass in that course had that advantage—why not you?”

  “The University shouldn’t be like a payphone you can monkey with. And I’ve been trained to do things the hard way. You know, public display of virtue. The Jamesons all think they’re God’s dummies, you know, walking ads for black justice.”

  “What do you think you were scared of?” Leon asked.

  “Failing. What else? Losing my scholarship.”

  Leon spread his big hands. “Then why aren’t you flunking everything?”

  “That would take work. Maybe I’m just not interested.”

  Leon grinned like a trap. “But you were supposed to be an archaeologist. A kind of scientist.”

  “I saw myself playing Schliemann. Uncovering brilliant civilizations in some jungle. Kid’s dreams.”

  “You saw yourself—or that sister of yours saw you?”

  “Of course, it’s been a mutual thing—”

  “I wonder.” Leon watched with hard narrow eyes. “You’re smart, kid, so why are you stuck under your sister’s thumb?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You think she dominates because she’s older. The truth is that half the time I make decisions for both of us.”

  “Why?

  Paul cupped his neck, staring. “What do you mean, why?”

  “Why don’t you make your decisions and she make hers? She pressures you to decide what you’re going to do. What business is it of hers? You don’t owe her a life.”

  Anna sat forward. “Come on, you think my relationship with Estelle is healthier? Lock me in a room with her and I’d lose my mind.”

  “Yes.” Bam went Leon’s fist. “I do call his bond with his sister sick if it keeps him from doing his own thinking. If he acts under blind compulsions coming off it. If he flunks a course because that’s the only way he can say with his life, no! If he can’t move out freely toward others. What is it protecting him from, that he should be learning? He’s married to her—and he’s too young to be married.” The passionate baying of Leon’s voice rounded through the high dusty room. Paul looked moved in spite of himself. Moved, yes, and intrigued. A strange halfsmile touched his face. In that moment he looked very like his sister.

  Leon stirred. His hand fell on his belly, kneading. “Anna, how come you haven’t made us supper?”

  Paul frowned at his wristwatch. “I have to be going.”

  “Stay,” Leon said. “Plenty of food. I like company when I eat.”

  As she worked in the kitchen she was overhearing seduction. Paul mistrusted Leon. His dark highdomed face would tense suddenly, harden to expressionlessness. Yet he was too much the young intelligent unsure male held on the leash of his vanity before someone older who wanted, holy shit! to discuss him, to resist Leon long. Perhaps the narrow domestic encounter began to bore Leon. How had she grown dependent? She must get out and see other people instead of plodding over here every night to curl up involuted dialogue.

  He had the urge to make disciples. He had been born lonely and must continually manufacture a family to replace the first and second he had lost, that had failed him. As he had collected her he was trying to collect Paul. It meant much to Leon to have others do as he advised, to believe he was helping. Like any man he had to feel himself in the world.

  “If love isn’t just a bullshit word for neurotic grasping needs, if it don’t mean I own you, I eat you, I use you for a crutch—then it’s seeing, then it’s attention. It’s that heightened insight into the other person, as much what she could be as what she thinks now that she is. It’s unfolding attention, attention that creates. That’s what you understand in film. What you see, is. ‘A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.’ Blake. The eye creates.”

  They ate in the livingroom. Paul looked at his flatware and seemed relieved that it was clean. “If you’d return those popbottles,” she said plaintively, “we could eat in the kitchen. All this balancing.”

  Paul strolled in to see what she was talking about and gave a low whistle. He moved with a ranginess at once graceful and awkward. “Tell you what. This weekend we’ll load the bottles in Leon’s car and return them.”

  “Ought to be ten bucks, maybe more,” Leon muttered.

  “Oh, you’re such a baby about money,” she said.

  “You must drink soda like a car burns gas.” Paul laughed flatly, like a box stepped on.

  “I used to take other things. Anything. More a holocaust than a habit, you might say.”

  Paul made a face of respect. “Not any more?”

  Opaque eyes fixed on the wall. “The places I got to that way, they got worse and worse. Hardly worth taking a trip if you don’t get out of your bag but only farther in.”

  “Did you ever take speed?”

  Leon shrugged, slapping mustard generously on his spanish rice. “Three interviews today. Pat my back. Bitches talking about how demanding, how ungrateful old people are, and you can see in their ugly faces and bleached hair skinned up on top in pink curlers what kind of turds they’ll dry into. The in-ter-view: what a crock.” He chugalugged a Coke. “Tell you what I’d love to do. Get fired in a day. You start off to gain the subject’s confidence. See what they want to talk about. Seem to write everything down. People hate it when they talk for five minutes and all you do is check a box. They want to register on you.

  “After you snagged them good, you begin. You want to give the subject an illumination. You want for one minute to turn him on to himself.” Leon heaped more food on his plate. “You persuaded the person they really shocked you, revolted you. You appear terrified. You faint. You retch on the carpet.”

  His eyes commanded, visionary, cold. “Suppose you’re interviewing on sex attitudes. You move in slowly on the subject till, bingo, talking, talking, still asking questions, you make out on the couch. What do they think? What will they do? They find out. The truth is what they do. Or interview becomes fight. Or by subtle questions you lead him farther and farther on a limb, then cut! educational process. Leave every subject more alive—”

  “Or the interviewer dead.” Paul glanced at his watch.

  “People think they think all sorts of nonsense. The main thing is, will they live it? You home that on them.” Leon leaped up. “SATORI! ARGH!” He stabbed himself with his fist.

  “Suppose your subject went raving mad. Or attacked you. Or began crying her eyes out,” Paul said.

  “The interviewer would have to be hip to the psychotic episode signs and cool it if he hit them. He’d have to know judo and karate. As for tears, that might represent a successful climax for an interview.” He glanced at Anna.

  “I think you’re giving those interviews already.” Paul showed him a thin but not unfriendly grin. “I have to move on, I’m late, but this subject just couldn’t pry loose.”

  “But I make myself a subject too. Admit that. What’s your appointment—girl?”

  Paul tipped back and forth before answering. “Yeah.”

  “Pretty?”

  He nodded.

  “Good luck. Remember if you can’t score, bring her back for Papa to try.”

  Paul looked between them in surprise. “That’s not a safe comment in front of longhaired friends.”

  Leon said when the door had shut, “Bet she’s white, or why so tightlipped.”

  Anna smiled. “He’s on his way to see Vera.”

  “Maybe so.” He lolled back, grimacing at the half-smoked cigarette in hi
s hand. “Should stop smoking too. Then eating.” He smote his belly folds. “Fat slob! I used to be in shape. In school I went swimming all the time. I was a good catcher.” Thrusting his head forward, he held out the glove and signaled the pitcher. “Then I was in condition.” He flung out an accusing finger. “You want to get into condition too—diets, exercise, cut out the crap. You’re too soft.”

  “I’m supposed to be soft!”

  He giggled. “Tried to get the kid talking about Caroline. He claims to know nothing.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “Why don’t we run into them? The other night I happened to stop by the Rising Sun for a cup of coffee—”

  Quick flush of heat as if at betrayal. “Now come on, we agreed you’d get nothing out of hounding her.”

  “Hounding, my ass. I was walking by. I’m no different from any other slob goes in for a fifty-cent coffee and a cruddy pastry from a tray.”

  “So what did she say?”

  “She wasn’t around. The waitress said, Who? I made her go ask another waitress, and then she told me Caroline quit almost two weeks ago. How do you like that?”

  “Well, it wasn’t much of a job.”

  Leon scowled. “Sounds fishy. She liked all those people looking at her fondling a guitar and making coweyes into space. Why would she quit, unless Rowley found her something better?”

  Anna shrugged. “Your turn to do the dishes.”

  “If you keep me company.” He wrapped a towel around his waist. “Films could be like the interviews I was describing. People come into a room, they sit themselves down and stare where they’re supposed to, and they’re saying Do me something. They have expectations. You start by breaking those. Immediately. Their brains are done up in plasticwrap and you have to get through it. The people who come to see underground flicks like that shock of surprise, but it’s the others I really want to reach. And won’t. And can’t.”

  Friday, November 14: In the middle of the bombedout area a shopping center had opened, a double arcade of shops about a green space of four benches and a limp fountain. A few local merchants had survived the gap in time and financing, but mostly chain stores had taken over. As Anna carried out groceries, Caroline emerged from a zippy neon drycleaners just ahead. Anna halted on one foot tempted to dodge, but just then Caroline saw and froze also. For a moment they regarded each other with bleak dismay. Then Caroline broke into a performer’s smile and hastened toward her with hand outstretched, which dug into the sleeve of her worn black coat as if streaking for earth.

  “You’re looking great!” Anna said with more surprise than she had intended to let show. Caroline’s hair had been simply but elegantly cut short to her cheeks and lightened. On it sat a swoopy hat: a hat. She was dressed in dark mannish gray that made her even blonder. Lustrous vast leather purse. The coat with broad mink collar was new. Great, no. Caroline looked expensive, soignée, processed. Anna could hardly keep from gaping and asking questions.

  “And you too, of course, you always do.” Caroline’s large slightly vague brown eyes kept asking some question of their own.

  “How are things? I heard—didn’t see you in the Rising Sun the other night.”

  “Oh, Bruce had me quit. I don’t have that kind of time lately, and after all …” She nodded helplessly toward the street.

  Following her gaze Anna saw a man in a sportscar brooding sullenly on them. Jagged suntanned face blatant on the snow. Longfingered hand in leather glove tapped the wheel impatiently. Edgy, longnosed, handsome face. Very Anglo-Saxon. His eyes grated on her and she turned, fluffed up the limp collar of her coat against him. “Bruce …?”

  “My fiancé.” Caroline’s hand with the ring bulging the glove rose between them in explanation.

  Did Caroline drop Rowley for him? Or, no ring forthcoming, went back where the goods were handy? But the difference in her. Caroline’s eyes studied her asking their questions. Yes, I am shabby, yes, I am older than you, yes, I have lost weight over him, and no, I do not care any more at all. I will survive you.

  “I’m delighted to have him here. Really!” Caroline swallowed, turned and leaped in another direction. “Bruce is going home for Thanksgiving with my family, and—”

  Bruce leaned on the horn, brah, brah braaah. “Oh dear, I’ve kept him waiting, lovely to run into you, my best to everyone …” She ran waving, her heels pittering over the ice. Elaborately he swung open the door, said something briefly that made her burst into explanations as they roared off in a plume of exhaust.

  Sunday, November 16: “What kind of sportscar did that stud drive?”

  “Oh Leon, how do I know?”

  “A Porsche? A Triumph? An Alfa?”

  “I tell you, I didn’t notice!”

  “Just like a woman,” he said to Paul, who looked on bemused. “He was goodlooking uh?”

  “I wouldn’t say so. Not a type that would appeal to me.”

  “But to Caroline?”

  Paul suppressed a laugh. She said, “That girl was dressed. Not that she ever has worn cheap clothes, but now she’s out of Vogue. Is he paying for it?”

  Leon made an enraged chimpanzee face. “Why should he? Her father’s a banker.”

  “Caroline’s father? You’re kidding.”

  “They always did hold a good chunk of the money and land in town, but since the plant was built, her father cleaned up on real estate. Even her loudmouth brother’s a promoter these days,” Paul said.

  “When I was seeing her, she kept wanting to give me things—lighters with my initials and ties. Try to explain that to Joye.”

  “But, why do they let her knock around? Don’t they care who she marries?” Anna asked.

  “You can bet your last tootsieroll. She brought him back from Italy to Green River and her family gave the okay.” Leon scowled.

  “They don’t want her fooling around at home, where it counts,” Paul said. “Her mother’s a lush and her father can’t stand her. Thinks the sun rises and sets in her brother.”

  “I know all that! Better than you do! I know that girl inch by inch. What do you think keeps me going in this shitstorm, my rotten life, except that I’m going to save her.”

  “Save her? She’s something to spend, baby.” Paul drew his hand over his domed forehead. “What do you want to save her for?”

  “To marry,” Leon said coldly. “Then her family couldn’t interfere. They’d have to make terms. Maybe send me back to school. I’d start re-educating her. Start showing her very slowly what she really needs out of all she thinks she needs, and what she needs that she doesn’t know about yet …”

  “Leon, listen,” Paul said urgently, “She’s going to marry that cracker, I’m telling you. He’s just the dish her family ordered, and she wants to—she needs to get in good with her family.”

  “She didn’t even ask about you,” Anna said timidly. “She must know by this time you’re still interested—”

  Leon kicked at the teak table. “The two of you are so naive I can’t tolerate it! Must I teach you everything about the world?” He stormed across the room, came back with a Film Culture and started flipping through it. “For your information, kindergarten, people love without being able to say so. People hide their love, for fear of being hurt. I let her down once, for your information.”

  He began ostentatiously reading, his face drawn into a jowly frown.

  Paul and Anna looked at each other sheepishly. The room was quiet except for a scuttling in the wall and the turning of Leon’s pages. With a sigh she went to do supper dishes. She turned the transistor radio on to a rock station, stuck it on the sink and began running the water. After a while Paul came to lean on the doorframe and finally took a towel and dried. When they finished, Paul carried the radio back to the livingroom. Deadpan Paul began to dance about Leon’s chair, a slow snaky athletic movement with his arms casting long shadows over Leon and the magazine. He motioned for Anna to join him.

  She laughed. “I can’t!
Nobody my age can move that way.”

  “Easy. Look, let your arms carry the weight forward. Your hips follow.”

  Feeling her clumsiness she imitated him. “No,” he said. “Loosen up. Don’t push.”

  “I can’t. I’m too tight.”

  “That’s better. Vera’s tighter than you are. If she can do it, so can you. Let yourself rise with your arms.”

  She could feel her muscles stretch. She would know it tomorrow. She laughed again, partly with pleasure and partly because she imagined the sight.

  “For shit’s sake!” Leon exploded. “If you don’t look obscene. It’s a goddamn playground.” He yanked himself out of his chair and stamped off into the bedroom, slamming the door.

  She stopped and so did Paul. She kicked off her shoes and went quietly over to pick up the director’s chair. She leaned it against the door and padded over to one of the half-packed or unpacked boxes of papers. She stacked that on the chair. Smiling serenely Paul heaved her chair up, tiptoed across and piled it upsidedown on the director’s chair. She added the two kitchen chairs stacked, while he pulled the cushions off the couch and wedged them in. As they were carrying the coffeetable between them, the door banged open against the barrier.

  “What?” Leon tried again, bumping the door. “Hey?”

  “It’s a caged lion,” Paul lilted. “A lion behind bars.”

  “What’d you guys do?” Leon rattled the door and succeeded in thrusting it far enough to get his head around. “For Christsake. What a bunch of infants.” He slammed the door and they heard the springs wince in the bed.

  Paul snapped off the radio and stood looking uncertain. “He’s really mad.”

  “For the evening. You should go home and study.”

  “You know, this Caroline thing?” He paused at the door. “She’s pretty, sure. Like she’s made out of icecream. But he had her, didn’t he? As much as he’ll ever get.”

  She unpiled the furniture. When she had cleared she knocked, smiling. Leon made a noncommittal noise and she came in.

  “Oh, you.” He pulled his head back under the blankets. “You put all that stuff back where it belongs.”