In the Fall They Come Back

by Robert Bausch

  I wrote in the margin of the section about Jolito’s, I’ve been there, it’s pretty good food and I think it’s funny and pretty accurate what you say about men.

  At the end of her entry, where she said she would fold the paper, I wrote, Nothing really got you going yet—but you write well enough, and maybe this is a good start. Focus on one thing—what you say about men, about your friend joining the army, or even public school—any one of those things is the beginning of a good idea so try again. Then I went into Mrs. Creighton’s office and made a copy of the last page for my defense if I should need it. I placed it in a folder I labeled Leslie’s Complaint, and placed it in the center drawer of my desk. Then I folded the paper for her. If she really did forget to fold it, I didn’t want her to know that.

  I was interested in everything Suzanne Rule wrote as well. She had no folded pages either.

  (Suzanne Rule)

  9-22-86

  If there is a God, would that being know of earth? The world is a tiny place—a spec of dust in a giant ocean of sand. Would a God who owned all that sand know what was happening on one tiny spec of dust lodged on one small grain of the sand in the desert? Would he know what was happening in the microbial heart of one tiny being among eight billion beings scurrying around on that spec of dust?

  Why does it seem more probable that we are without help?

  I am young and new to everything in the world, and I have been taught religion and I still can’t believe any child believes in these myths about a “lord” and “kings of kings” and all that royalty when we threw all that baggage off 200 years ago. Why would anyone devoted to democracy want to go to a heaven ruled by a king? Ruled by a king of kings. One who created cancer, and tornados, and men. Men and all the horrors of earth?

  It’s just as you say. It’s all a myth. We created God, not the other way around.

  I wrote on the last page only. I said,

  Excellent beginning draft. Now you must develop some of these ideas more fully, though. It isn’t complete yet, but I like what you have so far. Why do you condemn men particularly? I mean, it seems like you are adding men in the specific gender sense here, rather than the generic sense. It violates the tone of what you’ve written.

  I felt oddly successful, responding to Suzanne’s ideas. As if I had somehow broken through and gotten an ape to talk. Maybe she would never say a word out loud, but what she had written was a kind of talking and she was talking to me. I was certain of it. I was actually hoping for a future where I could get to know Suzanne Rule through these essays. Maybe she could learn from me, and I might communicate with her in spite of her handicap. Writing is a miracle. Before I packed up my things, put the rest of the essays into my briefcase and got ready to leave the room, I had already envisioned what I would say to my classes tomorrow about how writing transcends distance, time and place, and even death.

  Just as I was about to leave, Mrs. Creighton came in. She approached the front of the room with a serious look on her face. She sat down in the front and let out a loud sigh, and I turned to the things I was putting in my briefcase.

  “What a day,” she said, softly.

  I looked at her again. I thought, This is it, I’m fired.

  “I’m trying to get Leslie to withdraw her complaint.”

  I said, “Thank you.”

  “Her father wants to talk to you, and he’s not happy. But he wants her to graduate, and she wants to do well, so …”

  I shook my head. I was glad to have her on my side—or at least still claiming to be. “I hope you don’t have to go through a whole lot over this.”

  “I hope we don’t have to.” She rose from her chair, smiling. Again I realized that at one time not too far back, she had been a beautiful woman. She stood there, thinking, and then she said, “I won’t tolerate crude behavior in anyone.”

  “Do you think she’ll withdraw the complaint?” I asked.

  “I told her if she went through with it that I would dismiss her from this school and she would never be allowed to return. I said that to her father, too.” She smiled. “We’ll see what that does.” I was so proud of her, and rightly so. I almost told her what Granby had said about how she would come through for me, but I didn’t. What I said was, “Thank you for believing me.”

  She said, “How did Suzanne make out without me today?”

  “She was fine.” It was quiet for a beat, then I said, “I’m sorry about today.”

  “What about today?”

  “I know I shouldn’t have sent Leslie to the office again, but I thought it might …”

  “You sent her to the office again?”

  I nodded.

  “I never saw her.”

  “It was right at the beginning of class. She wasn’t gone long.”

  “She never came in. I saw her coming out of the restroom just around then. She must have been afraid to see me.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe that’s a good sign.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, she came back in and actually did some work for me.” I was suddenly afraid Mrs. Creighton would want to know what I was having them all write about. I wasn’t quite sure what she believed about God, but I knew it was a dangerous subject in any case. “Leslie worked the whole period,” I said. “She wrote almost as much as Suzanne.” We were standing about five feet apart. I realized she was waiting for me to say something else and she had this skeptical look on her face—as if she expected that now the real truth would emerge. I remained silent. Finally she said, “How long was she gone?”

  “It couldn’t have been more than five minutes.”

  She shook her head, and I pushed open the door and lifted my briefcase a bit to wave good-bye. “I got to get going or I’ll be late getting home.”

  “Being late would be nothing new in your case,” she said. I smiled, but I didn’t think she meant to be charming about it. I had the feeling as I walked to my car that perhaps Mrs. Creighton did not believe me after all. I wished I hadn’t said, “Thank you for believing me.” That sounded like I thought she was doing me a favor, and it was just the thing a liar might say. Have you ever felt like a liar while you were telling the truth? It is pretty goddamned eerie, I can tell you.

  32

  False Accusations

  On the way home that day all I thought about was Leslie Warren. Was there a way to break through to her, and get her to pay attention to her own future a little bit, instead of working so hard to ruin the future of others? The poor thing had probably never gotten the truth from anyone about her talents. She would only have elicited praise for how she looked; people would naturally try to please her, and give her whatever she wanted. People—even professional people—find it very difficult to treat somebody who looks that good like they would treat anybody else. From the start, beautiful people are lied to. Just like rich people, they can never know if people have befriended them sincerely, or out of a secret wish to get their hands on some of that wealth, (or beauty, as the case may be). But maybe I could teach her how to turn her beauty into an advantage; how to use it to get something better out of life other than rebellion, diffidence, and suspicion. Maybe I could teach her that if you don’t always try to manipulate people, you get to behave as yourself once in a while. It was worth a try.

  I did not know what I was going to do about Suzanne Rule. I knew I couldn’t rely on her as a witness. Thinking about Suzanne only made me remember what she’d written in her journal. She was definitely a capable and intelligent writer, in spite of her odd thinking about men and the evils of the world. I was certain whatever reason she had for harboring those thoughts was probably as good as any; and one I’d rather not know about. At any rate, I saw no reason why she would want to help me since I was a man.

  When I got home, Annie wasn’t there. I waited awhile, and then I decided to make myself something to eat. I was sitting on the couch, eating a bacon sandwich with potato chips and a Coke when she came in. I’d made enough bacon for her, if s
he wanted it, but I was hoping she didn’t, so I could finish it.

  “Where you been?” I said.

  “A few of us stopped for drinks after work.” She threw her purse on the dining table and swept out of the room. I could hear her down the hall, changing her clothes. When I was finished with my sandwich, I got up and went to the kitchen, which was to the left of the thin hallway that went back to the bedroom.

  “You want a bacon sandwich?” I hollered.

  “No. We had chicken wings at the bar.”

  “Really.” I picked up the four remaining slices of bacon and lay them across a piece of bread, then went to the refrigerator and got more lettuce, a slice of tomato, and the mayonnaise. “I wish you’d called me,” I said.

  “What?” She was way back in the bedroom now, maybe even in the closet searching for what she’d wear.

  “I wish you’d called me,” I said louder.

  “It was happy hour.” She came down the hall. “Free snack food.”

  She had changed into a pair of Levis and a blue sweater.

  “You look nice,” I said.

  “How was your day?”

  I told her about Mrs. Creighton trying to get Leslie to withdraw the complaint.

  “Well that’s a relief.” She sat down on the couch and brushed the hair off her forehead. “You think she’ll do it?”

  “Believe it or not, Mrs. Creighton stood up to her and her father. He knows if she’s going to get a high school diploma, it will be through me.”

  “Why’s that such a big deal to her father?”

  I didn’t know. After a pause, I took another bite of my sandwich and said, “Mrs. Creighton told me he’s a big oilman. Works with worldwide markets and diplomats. Maybe that’s it.”

  She put her feet up and groaned. “People are so strange.”

  I wanted to tell her about what Suzanne Rule had written in her journal for the God assignment. I was so proud of myself for getting her to write so much. But when I told Annie about the assignment, I could see she was horrified. “Why do you get them to write about such controversial stuff?”

  “It gets them interested.”

  “You think Mommy and Daddy won’t object to what the evil English teacher is doing to their little Johnny?”

  “You know. I’m trying to play the part.”

  She sighed. “Play the part.”

  “Teacher. I’m a teacher.”

  “And you want to change the world.”

  “How is that changing the world?”

  “You can escape only so many times from these little traps you lay for yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hitler, now God?”

  “It’s just something to get them motivated and pissed off enough to write. I used the same assignment last year.”

  “You taught Jaime or whatever her name was about Hitler, but it didn’t change the fact that she got to be a junior in an American school without ever having heard of Adolf Hitler.”

  “I never said I wanted to change the world. I’m just looking for things they can get their teeth into. Things I can get them to write about with passion.”

  “You think.”

  “Well, I’m hoping for that.”

  She said nothing for long time. I finished my sandwich. I could see there was something on her mind.

  “Who’s we?” I said.

  “What?”

  “You said we stopped for a drink. Who’s we?”

  “Steve and me and a few other people.” Steve was her officemate. Had been for almost a year. He was “just a good friend to have in a place like that,” Annie had said. She often talked about him. And sometimes weeks would go by and she wouldn’t mention him at all. Steve had dark hair, a long aquiline nose, and smart blue eyes. He was not much taller than Annie. They looked good together.

  “Steve, huh.”

  She stopped and looked at me. “Yeah?” She had a puzzled look on her face.

  “You see a lot of him at work, don’t you? Then after, too?”

  “You going to be a jealous husband before we’re even married?”

  “What jealousy?”

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  I shook my head. “Maybe you want me to be jealous.”

  She sank back heavily on the couch and put her feet back down on the floor. “Puhlease,” she said.

  I sat down next to her. She pointed to my plate on the table, the empty glass. “You going to leave those there?”

  “What if I’d cooked you dinner?”

  “You didn’t.”

  She looked tired, and her dark eyes seemed ready to draw down her eyelids. She’d been drinking and it showed. The pink skin around her pouting lips made me restive. I wanted to kiss her. “It just would have been nice,” I said. “If you’d called me maybe I could have joined you.”

  “Next time I’ll call.”

  We fell quiet for a while. I took the empty plate and glass into the kitchen, then poured myself a shot of whiskey. “Want a drink?” I said from the kitchen.

  “No.” Her voice was soft, far away.

  I came back in with my drink and sat down again. “Want to watch TV?”

  She was chewing on the tip of her forefinger closed against her thumb, twisting her hand a bit, her eyes straight ahead. I waited, but she did not answer. She was gazing off in space, lost in thought. “What?” I said.

  She looked at me. “Nothing.”

  “What? You’re thinking about something.”

  “God forbid I should think.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “You’ve got something on your mind.”

  “I do?”

  “Is this a game?”

  She seemed to slump down a bit, and again her face had this pained expression. “I’m just tired, okay?”

  I sat there for a while, sipping my whiskey, then I got up and turned the television on. “Want to watch the news?”

  “If you want to.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’ll watch the news.”

  “But do you want to?”

  “Yes, I said I wanted to.”

  “No you said, ‘I’ll watch it,’ like that. Like you were doing me a favor.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said.

  I sat down again, leaving the television on, but with the volume turned down so far the sound was barely audible. “Jesus Christ what?”

  “I want to watch the news, okay?”

  It was quiet again for a while and we sat there looking at the TV, then she said, “Turn it up.”

  I said, “Do you want to fight with me tonight?”

  “I never want to fight with you.”

  “Well what is this?”

  “I’m just trying to watch the news. And you seem to be in a bitchy mood.”

  “I’m not in any kind of mood,” I said. I didn’t know what we were arguing about.

  “And this wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I went out with some friends after work today.”

  “No. Of course not.” It really wasn’t about that and her thinking it was truly angered me, but I contained it. “I can’t believe you think I’d do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Take out my feelings like that.”

  “Sometimes we don’t know what our motivations are.”

  “Maybe this is something you want.”

  “And you’re not picking a fight.”

  “No.”

  “Well that’s how it feels.”

  “I’d hate to think …”

  “You know what I want?” she said.

  “What?”

  “I want a cigarette.”

  “I leave them at work. I don’t have any. The way you smelled when you came in, I’d say you had quite a few in the bar.”

  “Do you know what else I want?”

  “What.”

  “I’d like it if yo
u’d just watch the fucking news and shut up.” She got up slowly, almost regally, her head held high. “I’m going in to take a bath.”

  “Good night,” I said.

  Later that night, lying in bed, she snuggled up and apologized for not calling me. “I’m sorry about tonight, too,” she said.

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “It was insensitive of me to leave you out like that.”

  I held her in my arms and we talked about how silly our argument had been. “At least we communicate,” I said. “That’s really important in a relationship.” I did not really think we communicated at all, but I thought saying it might make it true somehow; perhaps it would make her conscious of the ways in which she refused to tell me what was on her mind.

  I said, “I don’t know how people who never say how they feel can live.”

  She nodded.

  “I guess it bothers me more than I let on when you accuse me of being jealous.”

  “I’m sorry.” She did not mean it this time. She was hiding an unshakable feeling of certitude about it, she didn’t really care if it bothered me, and I could sense it. “You have to admit,” she said. “You do get a little testy whenever I spend any time outside of work with Steven.”

  “No, I don’t have to admit it. It’s not true.”

  She smiled knowingly, and for a brief second I tasted a vestigial flicker of anger again, but I said nothing. It was quiet for a long time, then she said, “Tell me about the rest of your day.”

  I said, “Know that student who never talks at all, to anyone?”

  “You’re sure she’s not retarded, or injured in some way?”

  “She’s definitely not retarded. She may be the brightest person in any of my classes.”

  “Smarter than you?”

  “She’s been enrolled there for three years. Mrs. Creighton says she’ll graduate this year and that I’m to leave her alone.”