In the Fall They Come Back

by Robert Bausch

  “That’s bizarre.”

  “I’m trying with her, though. I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  “There’s something going on with that little girl,” Annie said. “Abuse, or something.”

  “I guess.” I didn’t see the need to tell her what I’d heard about Suzanne. Males were tricky subjects with her anyway. She often characterized me as a rare bird; she’d say things about “most men” that would make me cringe. I didn’t want to tip the scales completely against me just because I’ve got the extra chromosome.

  We were quiet for a while, and I listened to her breathing, wondering if she might be falling asleep. But then she said, “I feel sorry for Leslie Warren.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s probably quite intelligent, but she’ll never discover it.”

  “Why not?”

  Annie raised her head a bit and looked at me. “She’s just too beautiful to ever understand imperfection.”

  “So?”

  “Nobody will ever be good enough for her. She will expect perfection in everything and everyone and when she doesn’t find it, she will begin to hate people.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “How about you? Can you be perfect for her?”

  “Oh, I’m not going to try. I’m just going to tell her the truth and she’ll hate me for that.”

  “Nobody could possibly hate you.”

  I smiled and said, “Sure.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Nobody’s told Leslie no, ever. I can tell.”

  She let her head fall again on my chest. “How can you tell a thing like that?”

  “She’s spoiled rotten. She’s always gotten just what she wants.”

  “I always got what I wanted,” Annie said.

  “And you’re spoiled rotten, too.”

  “I am not,” she laughed.

  “And you’re also beautiful.”

  She breathed deeply, but she said nothing. I listened to the clock ticking on the nightstand, thinking of Leslie’s fine golden hair, the brown curve of her knees. Maybe I should feel sorry for her. Then I said, “I was thinking, I bet nobody ever told Leslie the truth.”

  “Why not?”

  “Beautiful people never get the truth from folks.”

  “You never told me the truth?”

  “Well, of course …” She laughed and I held onto her. I wished that I knew her better, or that she knew me. Sometimes she seemed like such a stranger. I went to sleep looking forward to the promising fall weather. It was the beginning of October, and the air took on a bright finish with the waning sun, a bracing quality, and mornings remained crisp and speckled with leaves and gusts of cool wind.

  In spite of all that was going on, I really was kind of happy.

  33

  Purpose in Small Things

  In a way I admired Leslie’s determination. As the days and then weeks went by she maintained a defeated, less than subtle resistance to everything I tried to do in class. She was not disruptive, not even disrespectful, but she would position herself—let her face drop, or move her head down, or sit lower in her seat and look at me with scorn—and I knew she was not interested or amused by anything I said, or anything anybody else said in the class. She was not a discipline problem and she did her work—not much more than the minimum, to be sure—but just enough to get by. Every day I was hurt by the way she looked at me. And each day I waited to hear from Mrs. Creighton about my talk with Leslie’s father, or the progress of the complaint. I never had the nerve to ask her. I just waited, thinking no news was good news.

  Leslie’s journal entries—all unfolded, she wanted me to read them—were always lurid: full of the details of her sexual encounters with Randy and an older gentleman named Raphael, who knew her father and was “so sophisticated.” He told Leslie that he “knew how to touch a woman’s breasts.” Then she went on to describe the way he did it, how her nipples got erect, and how smooth his cock was when she put it in her mouth. They always had their “meetings” in the best hotels.

  I made a copy of each entry and put it in the Leslie’s Complaint folder in my desk. I had so much ammunition against her I wasn’t worried overmuch about her complaint. And I was beginning to think she was pretty stupid for saying those things directly to me in writing. But I realized it wasn’t so much stupidity as it was simple arrogance. She had always had her way, and for the first time in her life she was confronted with something she could not control: Glenn Acres Prep School, and me. It made her furious and careless. When she was angry, she did not consider consequences.

  I don’t know why it was so important for me to win her over, but I was always trying to do that with or without her false accusations. I was not worried anymore about my job. If I was worried about anything, it was Leslie’s promiscuity. The more she wrote about it the more I fretted over the danger. Sex was lethal again—very lethal—and I wrote in the margin of her journal things like, “You could get very bad diseases if you’re not careful,” and “For heaven’s sake take precautions.” I did pay more attention to her most of that year, but that was because I had to. It bothered me to feel disliked, and the truth is I just could not stand the fact that Leslie had no regard for me and she did not like my class. That’s not an easy admission for any teacher to make, but I’m human. Isn’t every teacher a little worried about that? In spite of a certain awareness of this vainglorious need of approval and affection, I still believe that what I must have wanted all along was to save Leslie from herself. I don’t think I should be proud of myself for any of it.

  On the last Sunday in October Mr. and Mrs. Creighton threw a little party at the school for the faculty. The weather turned as cold as a New Year’s Day, and just as windy. Mr. Creighton cooked out on a huge rented barbecue grill, and all of us sat in the English room eating hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, and potato chips. Mr. Creighton filled the cooler with a few six-packs of beer, and in spite of what turned out to be an absolutely clear, sunny, and bone chillingly cold day, he insisted on standing outside in front of the grill, cooking the dogs and the burgers, with an ice cold beer in his hand. From my desk in the English room, I could see him through the plate glass window standing with his shoulders hunched, breathing out puffs of steam, sipping his beer. Mrs. Creighton sat in the back of the room, smiling, munching on cut strips of carrot dipped in blue cheese dressing. Doreen looked like a young man in Levis, loafers, white socks, and a flannel shirt. Fat Mrs. Brown wore the usual kimono, but it was made of wool and didn’t drape very neatly off her broad shoulders and hips. She looked so uncomfortable. The hair on the French teacher, Mrs. Nagler, looked like something damp had flattened it. She insisted on speaking nothing but French, so only Mrs. Creighton was willing to speak to her.

  Granby wore his vest, and chatted with Mrs. Creighton about the Washington Redskins, and tennis and traffic in the Washington area. I knew he was going to ask her for a raise, and I listened for it—hoping to hear how he might engineer it. I thought maybe Mrs. Creighton or her husband might say something about Leslie’s complaint but they had been just as silent as ever about it. I watched Mrs. Creighton awhile to see if perhaps she wanted to get my attention. When she spoke French, her cheeks would tremble a bit and her face got red.

  After a while, I turned back to Mr. Creighton again; the cold air had brought tears to his eyes. Smoke from the grill blew away so fast, I knew he was standing in a frozen gale of wind, and yet when he saw me through the glass, he raised his beer toward me and took a sip out of it.

  I realized he was doing all he could do. He always felt out of place talking to the teachers because, he said, “You people know about so much, and I don’t know nothing. I’m just a salesman.” He hunched over that grill, trying to get some kind of warmth from the hot coals, and I actually felt sorry for him; I wasn’t feeling superior to him. I looked up to him. Any man who could play the guitar like he did was a gifted artist. But I thought I might teach him that he shouldn’t say things l
ike “I’m just a salesman.” In my life, I’d never met a salesman I didn’t like or one that wasn’t as quick of mind and witty as any teacher. Can you believe it? I wanted to make him feel better about himself because I thought he was feeling disliked.

  When he came in with the burgers, his face red and cheery, breathing through his mouth as if he’d run a marathon, he said, “Come and get it. Dogs and Burgers.” He’d stacked them on a plate. He set them down on my desk, which was covered with a white sheet. “Damn,” he said. “It’s cold out there for this time of year.”

  Then while we were eating, he wanted to drink a toast to all of us. “To knowledge,” he said.

  I drank to that.

  I thought I had knowledge.

  I know. The mark of a truly stupid man is that he cannot comprehend the enormity of his own ignorance.

  Near the end of the party it began to rain. Mr. Creighton closed up shop and everybody headed for home.

  As we were leaving, I shook his hand and said, “Great party. Great party.”

  “Well thank you.” The smile on his face was genuine and I could see he was happy, even perhaps grateful.

  “Have you ever thought of teaching the guitar?” I asked.

  “Nooo.” He still held to my hand. “I’m no teacher.”

  “You’re a bloody genius on the guitar,” I said.

  The smile on his face got a little brighter and he squeezed my hand a bit harder. “You’re a good man for saying that.”

  “I mean it.”

  He nodded, looked up a little at the freezing rain, and then turned to leave. I watched him ducking in the wind and rain on the way to his car. When he got there he looked back and waved at me, still smiling. I don’t know if it mattered to him really, but I thought it did and it made me feel better. In fact, I felt damned good.

  On the way home I started thinking about every moment I’d spent with Leslie. I ran a little montage through my mind, of Leslie picking her things up after she fell on the wet pavement, smiling carelessly as she handed me the big birthday card; looking pensively at me as I talked to her about George and his problem; listening to Professor Bible and debating with him about affirmative action. I saw her glaring at me with a lustful, lilting pout on her face. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever praised her for anything; ever written “Good work” on one of her papers, or admired her thinking in a class discussion. I realized I’d never told her anything wonderful about herself except the truly stupid remark that she could be a model or an actress if she wanted to.

  Annie got home a few hours after I did that night. She called and said she would be late so I had dinner by myself. When she got home we spent the evening watching television. I don’t remember anything we might have said to each other. When I went to bed, I was still thinking about Leslie. Not in any romantic way—I am not unmindful of how that sounds—but in the same way you think about any insoluble, complex, frustrating problem.

  Annie thought I was just a little moody because she came home a little later than usual and we missed dinner together again.

  34

  A Little Voice

  While I was paying attention to Leslie’s moods and measures, something new and very promising developed with Suzanne Rule.

  Sometime early in those first few weeks, and for most of the rest of that second year, I began each class by reading a poem. I’d pick poems by the best contemporary poets—people like Henry Taylor, James Dickey, Jane Shore, Sharon Olds, Denise Levertov, Anne Sexton, George Garrett, Roland Flint, Alan Shapiro, Gregory Natt, Richard McCann, and Ted Kooser. I’d simply start reading the work out loud and the class would quickly fall silent, and when I was done with a particular poem, I’d put it away and begin teaching whatever I was going to teach. I’d make no comment, no effort to explain or help them understand. It wasn’t studying poetry, it was hearing it. Just, hearing it. I wanted to give them a wondrous thing. Doesn’t everybody want to do that? Isn’t it normal? If you knew someone who’d never seen a movie, how long would it take you to drag them into a theater? Think of being able to give a person something so extraordinary and enthralling as watching good movies. It’s the same thing with poetry. People just don’t know how goddamned wonderful it is. To offer it to someone is a pretty nice thing to do. The problem is, it isn’t ever really offered. Poetry is usually forced on people and they’re told they “ought” to like it. I’m convinced that if teachers of literature in high schools and colleges were entrusted with teaching films almost no one would ever want to watch a movie.

  At any rate, one morning late in November—I think it was not too long after I sent Leslie to the office the first time—I found a small piece of notepaper on my desk, folded neatly in half. No one was in the room yet, so I thought it must be a note from Mrs. Creighton. When I opened it this is what was written on the page, in pencil:

  Jewels on a Woman’s Throat

  diamonds look blue as ice,

  but slip the light

  and red stones darken even bone

  rain falls down like diamonds and

  blood drops like rubies,

  green petals catch the rain

  It was unmistakably Suzanne’s handwriting. As a poem, of course, it was nothing to write home about, but I liked the fact that it was so concrete, so full of exact detail. It was an attempt at a poem, and not a bad one at that. I folded the paper back up and decided to return the favor. I’m not a poet, but I figured I’d find one I could give her. I opened the Adventures in Literature text and began paging through it looking for a poem that might be appropriate. I spent the rest of that day—during breaks between classes, lunchtime—searching through that text. That night, I took it home with me, and finally found what I thought might be just right. In fact, it was absolutely perfect. I used a pencil and copied it onto a small piece of paper.

  Maid Quiet

  Where has Maid Quiet gone to,

  Nodding her russet hood?

  The winds that awakened the stars

  Are blowing through my blood.

  O how could I be so calm

  When she rose up to depart?

  Now words that called up the lightning

  Are hurtling through my heart.

  —William Butler Yeats

  It was probably the title, and then the reference to a “nodding russet hood” that drew me to the poem. I’m not stupid, I realize from a certain point of view the thing is a love poem. But I didn’t intend it to be and I don’t think she understood it that way. Certainly I wouldn’t want to vouch for anyone else’s interpretation. I already said I thought it was perfect.

  I put it on her desk the next morning.

  She had already been there, though, because I found another one on my desk. This one said,

  Cold Spring

  Birds object to the shivering of the trees

  Wind slaps sails and foils the early bees

  Beneath rocky clouds, buried sky

  Every yellow jonquil stricken by

  Icy air, sways a green neck, tattered leaves.

  I wasn’t worried, nor would I ever worry about the tone of these poems. The first one might get one to thinking—that reference to the way blood falls—and this last one which described what most people would say is the opposite of spring—or at least the opposite of poems about spring written by high school girls—might be a cause for concern. Perhaps the trained eye might have seen early warnings of depression and suicidal thinking, but I never thought about it, and that’s the truth. I was just so happy that she was now sending me these little poems. I hoped she might leave one on my desk every day, but she didn’t. It was mostly sporadic after that. A poem or two in one week, then nothing for two or three weeks, then maybe two or three poems in the space of a few days. Each time she left me a poem, I’d find one to give to her. Mostly I just looked for poems that I thought she’d like. Not that I knew her well enough to know that. I guess I went by what her poems seemed to be about. Maybe I was responding to the mood she creat
ed.

  One day she left a poem about the tree outside our picture window. It said,

  The Tree

  It looks like a lung

  Turns yellow in fall

  Leaves scurry down

  Arteries, veins and

  Capillaries glistening and still

  In rain, white as anguish in snow

  I was sorely tempted to write something on this one—about the wildly inappropriate image of a tree as a lung. I wanted to say, “This one doesn’t work,” but I was afraid if I did that, she’d stop writing them for me. It was important to keep getting them. So I did nothing. I found another poem I thought she’d like, “Resuming Green,” by Roland Flint. I gave her George Garrett’s “The Dancing Class,” and Gregory Natt’s “Scrapbook.”

  Just before Christmas she wrote this poem:

  Linen

  Soft as rose petals

  supple and compliant

  stiff as cold air at first

  touch, and smells of mother

  before night falls

  I wasn’t sure what I could say to her. It hit me after the first dozen poems or so that none of them referred to her; or anyone, really. Was it a breakthrough that she mentioned her mother in this “linen” poem? Or was the word “mother” generic and not specific? Something was happening between us—a bond that might blossom into the whole world for her. Talk about success as a teacher. Think of it: you can bring a person back from the darkest place in their own soul in the light of words. I studied her poems over and over trying to discern an idea—something she might be trying to say to me.

  Working so hard to do exactly the right thing with Suzanne’s poems took my mind off of Leslie and her complaint. It gave me reassurance in classes where Leslie would refuse to even look my way. No matter what might happen with her, I believed I might be nearing a breakthrough with Suzanne. We tend to settle in the direction of success, and the more I found myself failing with Leslie, the more I gravitated toward Suzanne. I admit I was having fun working out our small communication.