In the Fall They Come Back

by Robert Bausch

  Sincerely,

  Tess Hayward

  When I was finished I handed it back. “She’s stupid,” I said, lamely. “It’s clear she hasn’t a brain in her head and she’s about as sensitive as a corncob.”

  “Is she?” Bible said.

  “I’m sorry she—I’m sorry for this.”

  “For what.”

  “For everything,” I said.

  “I asked you not to tell anybody.”

  “I didn’t,” I lied. “I told no one but Annie, but it wasn’t long after you told me that I started hearing my students whispering about it. Some of them wrote about it in their journals. A lot of them think you’re dying.”

  He shook his head.

  “Listen here,” I said. “I’m no saint, and I’m just as bad as the next guy, I suppose, but a whole lot of people came to know about this, so I’m finding it hard to believe I’m the only person you told about it.”

  “Now you accuse me?” he asked. “It’s my fault, now?”

  “Well who else did you tell?”

  “I told you. That’s all.”

  So it must have been Doreen. I didn’t know what to say to him. I think I mumbled something about Mrs. Creighton not knowing about it yet or something like that.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he whispered. He turned back to the window and drew a long pull on his cigarette. I watched the thick smoke billow out into the cold air. “She’ll come to know it soon enough, now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “The only people I told were Annie and …” I paused. I knew I had to tell him about Doreen, even though he had told me expressly not to tell her. “Doreen,” I added, my voice trembling on it. “Doreen. I told Doreen. I know you told me not to, but she noticed something wrong with you—she saw that you were not—that you were not the same, and she asked me what was wrong. She said she would find out, and I didn’t want her bothering you. So I told her.”

  He nodded, took another pull on the cigarette. His eyes were absolutely inscrutable.

  “I really am sorry,” I added.

  Now he turned back to me. “What did Doreen say?”

  “She was very concerned.”

  He glanced downward, toward the floor.

  “In fact,” I went on, “she was the one who insisted I keep after you about getting it treated.” I told him how she had been hounding me ever since to see if he had done anything to pursue the treatment. “She won’t leave me alone about it.”

  He had no response.

  “Well have you?” I asked.

  “Have I what?”

  “Have you decided to let the doctor treat this?”

  “What treatment?”

  “Didn’t you say he wanted to cut off your toe?” I said, not a little exasperated. “That he’d already scheduled the surgery?”

  “Oh,” he shook his head, and continued to shake it, slowly as he spoke. “I showed it to him and he said it looked a little better, but it wasn’t completely healed either. So we’re going to keep treating it with the antiseptic baths and I’m to keep taking my antibiotics and insulin.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “So now they all know about it,” he said.

  “Well not all of them,” I muttered, but I didn’t believe it. Death has a way of occupying center stage in any scene and people tend to tune into it even when only a slight acquaintance falls under the sweep of its blade. And the rumor, unfortunately, had included the sad, but untrue fact, that Professor Bible was dying from “millennium’s disease.”

  Professor Bible flipped the rest of his cigarette out into the drizzling rain and closed the window.

  “Most of them think you’re dying,” I said.

  He turned to me and the sadness in his eyes did something to my soul; it left me no hope, that’s what it did. His eyes murdered hope—not just for him, but for myself, for Annie and the world. I felt so desolate, and responsible too. There was that. As if I had caused not only this pain but his disease and its rumored prognosis. I didn’t know what to say, so like a fool I stammered, “I will pray for you, sir.”

  I am horrified to this day that he heard me say that.

  “You’ll pray for me?”

  I didn’t know what to look at. I couldn’t stand his eyes, his drooping, sad eyes. “I’m not a praying man, but yes … I mean …”

  “Mrs. Creighton will have to let me go when she hears of this,” he said. “She will insist that I get it treated and all, but her main fear will be the health insurance. My disease can be very costly.”

  “She wouldn’t fire you.”

  “She’ll insist that I retire now,” he said. “I had hoped …” but he didn’t finish the sentence. He went to his desk and sat down. From my place at the window, he looked like the perfect image of a teacher; like one of those photographs the colleges and universities put on their brochures to entice students to their campuses. He leaned over the desk, his white hair drooping over his brow, his white jacket bunched at the shoulders, the desk covered with papers, and behind him, a chalkboard with diagrams of the state legislature and other houses of government.

  I walked over and stood in front of him. “Professor Bible, I am so sorry.”

  He waved his hand. “I know you are. I know it.” He wouldn’t look at me. I stood there another minute, thinking to offer him another cigarette, but then I just turned and walked out, slowly. I didn’t want him to get the feeling that I was running away from him, but that was exactly what I was doing.

  I guess I’ve given the impression that if I explain what happened with Professor Bible it will shed some light on everything else that happened. In a way, it will, although I could not have known that back then. Annie argued that I should just forget about it—that it was Bible’s life, and none of my business. She also scolded me for telling Doreen about it. In the end, I promised her I would never try to influence events around me again. I really did intend to work on letting things be; on staying out of everyone’s business but my own. I know I said that to her, but I can’t say even now if I really meant it. Being a teacher sort of involves you in the lives of other people whether you want it to or not.

  I have to say I agreed with Annie about Doreen. I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t think I would ever trust her again, and knowing that, it became increasingly hard to talk to her. I couldn’t very well avoid her, but I tried. I’d leave my class during breaks and go into Mrs. Creighton’s office, or I’d march outside and walk down to the basketball courts and smoke with some of the students down there. She could tell I was avoiding her, though.

  One day sometime around the middle of March it snowed in the afternoon and we had to pile in the buses right away and get everybody home before the roads got too covered. She stood in the door of my bus and waited for me.

  When I came around the front fender and saw her I gave a start of surprise. She put her hands on her hips and frowned.

  “What?” I said.

  She asked me what I was trying to prove.

  “I’m not trying to prove anything.”

  “Why are you making yourself so scarce, then?”

  “I’ve just been kind of busy,” I said.

  “Really.” She didn’t believe it, and the scowl on her face sort of embarrassed me. She had no emotional hold on me whatsoever—I did not care about her even in any superficial collegial way—and she was berating me as if we were old friends; as if we were on the brink of love and our deeply satisfying and charming alliance would get us through it. There was something affectionate in her scowl and in the tone of her voice, and that made her simply pathetic. “I’ve noticed you scurrying off to smoke with your students and hiding in the office,” she went on. “Don’t you think I didn’t, Mr. Ben Jameson.”

  I tried to go past her but she blocked the door.

  “Go on,” she said. “Explain yourself.”

  “Please,” I said, not too firmly, but I let her know I meant it. “I’m not going to talk about this now.”r />
  Her expression faltered. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes, and I’m not going to get into it here.”

  She only briefly met my gaze, but then it seemed to humiliate her, and she looked away. She moved her head down slightly and walked past me. I saw the white, smooth skin on the nape of her neck—the only smooth skin anywhere above her shoulders—exposed to the cold air. She moved off, awkwardly, her brown hair bouncing on her shoulders and neck in a way that was almost comical, and suddenly I felt really sorry for her.

  Sometimes I feel sorry for all women.

  Once, on the way to what I thought would be an important job interview—it was at a finance company for a part-time position in the loan office—I passed a car beside the road with a woman sitting in the driver’s seat, looking pretty alone and frightened. We were miles from a gas station or a phone. There was a traffic light up the road a ways, and I had to slow for the traffic. As I passed by her car, I saw that she was very definitely in some kind of trouble. She was probably in her fifties. I was dressed up for the interview but I had plenty of time. I’d left myself at least two hours to get lost or have my own flat tire and still be on time for the interview. I wanted to see if she needed any help, so I pulled my car over in front of hers, backed up a bit so I could get close to her car, and got out to ask her. I wore a blue blazer, a pinstriped shirt, a navy blue tie, white slacks, and tan shoes. I don’t think I looked particularly menacing, but I didn’t want to scare her further. As I neared her she frantically locked her door—which is what I would have done—but I knocked gently on the glass, smiled and asked if she was in any kind of trouble. I saw her decide to trust me. She let the window down a crack and with tears in her eyes, said she had a flat tire. I didn’t see it as I approached the car, but when I walked around behind it I saw that in fact the right rear tire was flat. I called out and asked her to open the trunk of her car. I told her she could stay in the car if she was worried about me, but if she had a jack in there, I’d change the tire for her. The trunk popped open, and I removed the jack and the spare. This was sometime right after I graduated from high school, before I ever dreamed of going to college. It must have been July or early August. I took off my jacket, loosened my tie and got to work. The whole time I was changing her tire, she stayed in the car. I got my hands dirty as hell, moving the bad tire off and replacing it, working the jack and tightening the lug nuts. When I was done and let the car down, I cursed myself for wearing white slacks that day. I just knew I’d get my dirty hands all over those pants and I’d instantly look like a street bum. And what would that do for my job interview? She got out of the car to thank me (she called me “honey” which made me feel sort of odd), but then she noticed my hands. “Wait a minute,” she said. Instantly she was as concerned for me and my welfare as I had been for hers. “Never mind,” I said, not wanting her to feel bad. “It’s just a little washable grease and road dirt. I’ll stop in a gas station up ahead.”

  “You’ll get yourself all dirty.” She went to the backseat of her car, and retrieved—are you ready for this?—a box, a huge box, of Mini-Wipes—you know, those little packets they hand out in restaurants that serve barbecued chicken and ribs. Apparently she worked for a restaurant distributor and she had a supply of those things. So there she was, breaking open each miniature packet as quickly as she could, working like a hurried servant beside that road, in the winds of passing traffic, unwrapping little Mini-Wipes for me, while I essentially scrubbed my hands.

  She took care of me, you see, even in those circumstances. I felt mothered—pampered, to tell the truth. When I was done, and I couldn’t find a speck of dirt on my hands, I had to prove it to her—she threatened to open another packet or two—but I really was clean. She inspected my hands the exact same way my mother used to when I was a little boy on my way to school. So, when I went to get in my car, I ended up thanking her for rescuing me.

  And that little episode has always been emblematic to me of what women are and what they mean to me. And I’m not talking about cleaning me up like a servant either. I’m talking about the rescue; about how she so naturally thought of me and tried to help me in those circumstances. It’s not that most women are incapable of self-interest; it’s that it almost never occupies center stage, and it is far—sometimes very, very far—down the list of their apparent faults. It hardly ever occurs to them—even when it ought to. This is not because they are calculating some recompense in later lives, or credit from some other worldly auditor of good deeds—it’s because self-interest truly doesn’t occur to them. They are always so much better at thinking of people rather than about them. That woman, I’m certain, has probably sung my praises to the heavens, told hundreds of folks about the way I rescued her, and has yet to mention her role in saving me. I could almost guarantee it. And yet—here’s the rub—if I had told her something secret, that I could not afford to have her tell anybody else, ever, at pain of my own soul, and she knew other people who knew me, all of them would know it before I got to my job interview.

  You tell me what that is. I have no idea. Maybe I haven’t lived long enough to know yet. But it’s vitally important in the world, for it makes loving a woman as essential as anything on earth. How else can one learn generosity of spirit? But it also creates a real need for reticence, even perhaps certain caginess, whenever you are within five feet of a woman.

  22

  The Will of the People

  The next day I was going to go to Doreen and finally tell her how I was feeling, but then Bible wasn’t there and I thought when she noticed that she would come to see me. I had just finished my second period class, and sure enough she walked in and sat down in the front row. I told her I was going out to have a cigarette, so she followed me—not too happily either—and when we were outside I stayed by the door near my classroom so we could talk. I lit her cigarette for her, then my own.

  I asked her what was up, thinking I’d just wheedle my way around to the subject at hand.

  “Professor Bible resigned yesterday,” she said.

  I think I staggered back into the door. I could not think of a thing to say. Doreen fought back tears, puffing madly on her cigarette. I had that terrible feeling of desolation again. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be anywhere. Everything I looked at made me sick. It was quiet for a very long time. Finally I said, “He never said a word to me.”

  “He told Mrs. Creighton all about it. She knew it anyway.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell anybody.”

  I decided to ignore this obvious lie. “Well,” I said. “Now he’s gone.”

  She said nothing.

  After a long silence, I said, “I wonder who will teach his classes the rest of the year.”

  “Mrs. Creighton’s got some retired friend of hers who used to teach here to come back until she can hire somebody else.”

  “I’m sure going to miss him,” I said.

  Doreen searched my eyes, tears running down her face. “He taught me everything I know about teaching,” she said.

  “I know. Me too.”

  “He always said, ‘It’s a balancing act. A high-wire walk without a net.’ And he meant it.”

  I agreed, I guess. I don’t remember. I think I was wondering what she meant by that, or rather, what Bible meant by it. I mean it sounds nice to say and all, and maybe he believed it—but I didn’t get the metaphor, unless teaching is somehow dangerous; unless one has to conquer fear in order to do it. I wasn’t ever afraid of my students. In the short time I was a teacher, I always knew what I wanted to do with them, and how to go about it. Most of the time, to tell the truth, all I worried about was how to use up the time, and keep them busy; and I confess I also worried about finding ways for my students to do some kind of work I wouldn’t have to read too closely. It was just too hard to grade so many papers, if you can find a way not to.

  “It’s going to be a pretty boring place without Bible around here,�
� I said, lamely. In truth, I didn’t know what to say to Doreen. In some ways, I believed she caused the whole thing. Her sadness didn’t count for much in the light of that simple fact, so it felt disingenuous to me. I finished my cigarette and left her there with her tears.

  At my first break, I went right to the office to see if I could find out what was going on. Mrs. Creighton was sitting at her desk, leaning back a little in the chair and staring out the window, when I knocked on the doorframe and asked her if I could come in.

  She didn’t even nod slightly, but she turned her gaze toward me and waited, a slight, welcoming smile on her face. I moved to the chair in front of her desk and sat down. She said nothing, though, so finally I told her what I had heard.

  She nodded, and the smile left her face.

  “He’s not coming back?” I asked.

  “He’s retired.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “You know what is wrong with him?”

  “Yes,” I said. I would have lied but I was afraid she knew the truth.

  “He’s getting treatment. He thinks it won’t do him much good, but he’s going to get it anyway. He’s afraid of losing his leg.”

  “His leg? He was barely starting to limp.”

  “He said the infection is being stubborn.”

  “What are they going to do about it?”

  “Who knows what they’re doing. It’s another language. I know he’s having some kind of treatment or surgery on his foot.”

  I nodded.

  Then Mrs. Creighton said, “I want you to teach his classes until I can get somebody to take over.”

  “Me. I can’t teach …” I stopped myself. “We have classes at the same time.”

  “It’s only for a few days. Get them working on something. I’ll take over your classes. I’m an old English teacher myself.”