The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

  A tempest of tears now followed. She would have given anything to have Daniel among the living, and the money he just had bestowed on her caused her no happiness, no joy. She spent that night weeping and sleepless. She felt she hated the money, for somehow she felt it had deprived her of Daniel himself. That night she was so racked with pain she took a strong sedative which she did not like becoming used to. But her sorrow was such, the pill failed to give her peace or rest.

  THE GIFT OF the money, far from making her as happy as she should have been, made it so she could neither sleep nor eat. At times she wanted to return such a sum of money. She remembered Daniel Schofield’s “shady” past.

  At last she decided to call Minnie and ask her advice. But here again she came against another problem. Her former husband, Will Patterson, by reason of his business mistakes and perhaps even his deliberate carelessness in his dealings, had ruined Vera’s mother and her second husband Ab Nisley. Minnie had forgiven Will, to everybody’s disapproval including that of Vera, but Ab Nisley harbored a grudge against Will which no time could erase. When Ab had decided to marry Minnie after the death of Judson Otis, her first husband, he was not unaware that he would be marrying a wife of considerable, even resplendent wealth. But soon after their marriage, Minnie’s foolish reliance on Will’s financial involvements had ruined Minnie and her new husband Ab Nisley.

  For this reason Vera did not wish to approach Ab for advice, although Minnie insisted she do so.

  There was another reason Vera did not wish to see Ab Nisley. Even after his marriage to Minnie there had been some scandal about Ab’s “friendship” with Hat (for Hattie), an incredibly wealthy heiress. There was another qualm. Ab had made no secret he was very fond of his stepchild, Vera, and especially her beauty.

  But Minnie’s insistence Vera see Ab, and her own illness from worry over receiving the request from young Schofield, prevailed.

  At last the day arrived, with Vera in even worse health than usual. She had forgotten how young her stepfather still was as he entered. She had not forgotten, however, the scandal concerning Hat Eoff and Ab, though later his innocence was established. Ab was a skilled engineer and had helped Hat understand what repairs were needed in her lavishly expensive electric car.

  Ab’s first words to Vera broke the ice when he asked Vera if she might prepare him a cup of her best coffee which he had tasted at her kindness once before.

  Stepfather and daughter warmed up to each other after three cups of the dark brew and some angel food cake. The presence of Ab began to drive away Vera’s blues, aided and abetted by the strong coffee perhaps.

  “You should invest the money, dear Vera,” he concluded his advice. “Keep this in mind. Never touch the principal, do you hear? Never! And, never see people who under the guise of friendship want a loan however small. You must hold on to every cent. Remember what Will Patterson did to your mother and me. Don’t see him!” he almost thundered. “For we know he visited you recently on one of your Friday galas.”

  Vera agreed, but her agreement was tinged with guilt. Her stepfather, she later thought back to that night, was too handsome for a father, step- or blood related. But his advice, yes she would follow it. She would not follow her mother’s folly and be ruined. But, despite her good intentions, her series of headaches did not abate.

  WILL HAD NOT completely recovered from his visit to Vera’s Friday gala and his having gotten a bit drunk afterwards when he received a long distance call from one Isham Cosalas, a perfect stranger to him. Mr. Cosalas said he was in the vicinity of Mr. Patterson’s home and that he had been entrusted with a book of memoirs written by Rick Patterson, Will’s son who had died some years ago.

  Will distrusted the call and the information, but he grudgingly agreed to see this person. Will and Rick had never been close and had many upsets. Will had disapproved of Rick’s life as an actor and now he expected nothing but trouble from this unknown call with a foreign name.

  Mr. Cossalas, however, made a favorable impression on Will. He sat down and told of his mission. After Rick’s death in New York he had left Mr. Cossalas some of his own precious items, including what was known as Rick’s Memoirs.

  After a few short bits of conversation, Mr. Cossalas gave Will the handwritten book of Rick’s memoirs, a small book in fine leather of perhaps 100 handwritten pages.

  Will took the book gingerly and leafed idly through some of the pages.

  “I must tell you, Mr. Patterson, that this book contains information which my own father would have difficulty reading. For this reason you may refuse to accept the book.”

  Will flushed. Mr. Cossalas saw at once Mr. Patterson was in a bind. Whether he accepted the gift or refused it, he would be in trouble.

  Nonetheless, after the departure of Rick’s Greek friend, as if fate itself had brought this punishment on Will who would be the first to admit he had not been a good or loving father to his son, he read every word of this monstrous confession. Will had been, as his son pointed out, a dreamer, a selfish and self satisfied man who cared nothing about other human beings were they decent and smug like himself or wild, immoral and out of control like his eldest boy Rick.

  Will became so ill after reading the book he had made a hurried visit to Clifford, who kept a storehouse of medicine he had inherited from his doctor brother.

  Clifford was so upset at Will’s appearance he hurriedly administered a medicine—probably morphine.

  As Will slept, Clifford read the outrageous confession of a young man who had fallen not among thieves, that would have been perhaps a kind fate, but young men of the most twisted dangerous kind.

  Much more worldly than Will, and conversant with many different kinds of men of which he was a secret one, Clifford, himself, was so shocked he also partook of a strong drug to calm himself.

  The next day—for Will had spent the day and the night with Clifford—Clifford was able to ask if Vera should be given what Clifford now called: “The Memoirs.”

  “Vera!” Will cried. “Do you want to kill her? Isn’t it enough what the book has done to me?”

  “I only asked, Will, for what we are to do?”

  “You have asked. And I have answered.”

  “What are we to do then? Burn it?”

  “Do you think even flames will be able to burn such a document?” Will almost shouted, then feeling his weakness he lay back muttering.

  “Shall I keep it for you?”

  “Keep it?” Will rose up a bit from his position on the couch. “Where on earth could we keep such a thing?”

  “Come, come, Will. There are worse things in the word than what happened to poor Rick. Be a man!”

  “Worse things? There are no worse things. And Vera must never know any of it.”

  “I have known young men who have done worse things, and they had a loving father in spite of their downturn. They lived to tell their story and their father stood up for them and helped to cure them.”

  “My son though is dead and I can see you think I am to blame for his fall and his death. Very well then, I am, and was, to blame. But my body is not made of steel and I am ready to die.”

  “Not as long as I live, Will. I mean to see that you live.”

  “You are in for a task for a Titan.”

  “Not a Titan, Will. A human being who knows we are all flesh and blood, neither demons nor angels. You will live and I will see you do so.”

  At that Will burst into such a paroxysm of weeping that Clifford helped administer another “antidote” to such passionate grief.

  While Will Patterson slept under heavy sedation in an adjoining room, Clifford idly leafed through Rick Patterson’s memoirs. Clifford noticed that Will must have missed a section of the book, or else his horror had dimmed his eyesight. There was a page or two in which Rick mentioned that his Mother and Clifford had visited him during his last weeks of life.

  Putting aside the memoirs Clifford mused on what he must do next. He felt for one thing that Rick’
s mother should be given the memoirs. She had, after all, gone to see her boy, to see one who, according to the verdict of society, was dying under the virus of the most infamous disease yet known, a disease more commonly recognized as the infection of young men of a dissolute life.

  Clifford Shrader might congratulate himself as being of a more venerable and respected family than the Pattersons. But Cliff’s own life had been nearly as infamous in some respects as poor Rick’s. He had missed, by mere chance, having to pay the penalty of his own derelictions. But noble family ties or not, Cliff had one thing in his character that many pious folk fail to be given. Cliff, whether by his inheritance, or more likely because he could sympathize fully with the outcasts, like the Christ, could help lift the fallen; while respectable men like Will Patterson, a church member and elder, could not embrace his own dying boy or tell him he loved him. Vera had been equally fearful of how her only son was dying. But something in her rallied at the last and, accompanied by Clifford, she had gone to the frightening shelter reserved for those who were not allowed in respectable hospitals. She had sat for hours beside her boy, helped by Clifford’s giving her, finally, one of his secret palliatives.

  Now the question for all of them was this: Should not Vera be given her boy’s memoirs? Clifford believed she should and she must. Where he had received this notion, who knows? But, though not a believer in orthodox religion or perhaps any religion except his willingness and even zest in lifting up the fallen, he believed a mother should read what her boy had suffered.

  After a day or so, Will Patterson was able to sit up and converse. He could not as yet eat any solid food and was obviously very fragile.

  Despite this, Clifford insisted he read the pages he had overlooked in the memoirs. Will did, and oddly enough reading them gave him a kind of rallying energy.

  Handing back the pages to Clifford, Will said, “Let Vera read them if she wishes. After all, Clifford, if she had the kindness to visit our son, I see it is right for her to read what he wrote in his final day.”

  Clifford stared at Will. He felt he was seeing something like a conversion for one whose heart had been so cold.

  They said no more that day, but Clifford insisted on Will’s remaining as his guest until his strength returned.

  The collapse of Will Patterson from an unknown ailment was likened to the fall of a great oak tree in the forest, according to Clifford Shrader. He had called Dr. Ray when Will became seriously unlike himself, and Clifford waited patiently while the old Doctor made his examination. Dr. Ray’s diagnosis which Clifford listened to silently was both less serious and, in a way, more alarming. The doctor said Will was not suffering from life threatening sickness, but, on the other hand, he would not be able to be his old active self, at least for a while. “Will needs rest, much rest, but not in a hospital or other hospice. No, no that would finish such a man off.” Then Dr. Ray made the most unexpected suggestion of all. “Will should go stay at Vera’s. I have already spoken to her about it.”

  “Vera’s!” Clifford almost roared. “Are you serious?”

  The doctor smiled and nodded.

  Clifford sat down and caught his own breath.

  “And you actually got her O.K. for such a plan?”

  “Oh, yes, but already Ab Nisley and Cora Patterson have expressed disfavor. Cora on the grounds Vera is running a disorderly house, and Ab Nisley of course because he regards Will as the architect of his and Minnie’s ruin. However, I spoke alone with Minnie and she approves of Will returning to the woman who was Will’s wife.”

  Clifford was much too overwhelmed to be his old jovial self. He had little opinion for a while as to Will’s going to stay at Vera’s. He had hoped, he told the doctor, that Will would remain with him.

  The doctor smiled. “If Will were not so ill I would agree. But the Will we knew,” Dr. Ray continued, “that Will is no longer with us. I hope and pray he will return to his old self. But meanwhile the loving care of his former wife, and the spaciousness of her huge mansion, are ideal for a semi-invalid like Will.”

  “Semi-invalid?” Clifford almost shouted.

  “For now that is,” the Doctor attempting to cheer Clifford up who saw himself deprived of the Will he had so long known.

  “Semi-invalid,” Clifford muttered.

  “But, Clifford, our Will is alive. And, there is no one who can care for him like Vera. And, to mention something mundane, she is now quite wealthy in her own right.”

  Clifford barely heard Dr. Ray after his terrible pronouncement.

  “And I will be able to visit Will at Vera’s?”

  “Of course, Cliff, your visits will cheer him up. But you will have to change your own behavior now when you do see Will.”

  Clifford felt this was a dig at his fondness for drink. He sighed and said he would do everything in his power to encourage Will to get back his strength.

  The thought of Will returning to Vera was, for Cliff, beyond his wildest imagination. Yet he was glad Will could be looked after in her mansion rather than see his dearest friend in some medical institution.

  IT WAS ALL arranged then, as Clifford later described it. Call it sleight of hand, or whatever. Only the Doctor could have arranged Clifford carrying the memoirs of Rick, so if it were lost or miscarried, a real disaster would be laid at his feet. And the Doctor sent Will and Clifford with his blessing to Vera’s. Oh, yes, she had been warned, and like many people who know they are facing some unavoidable and perilous crisis, Vera was already apprised either by the Doctor or by her own feminine second sight that she was to receive her boy’s sentencing of her, and second of himself. She was almost calm.

  Clifford gazed at her as he ushered in Will. Vera gave Clifford a look he would never forget. And Will was as calm as if he was in a drama for which he had memorized all the necessary speeches, intonations and gestures.

  Vera seeing his weakness ushered him into one of her mammoth easy chairs. He sighed gratefully and closed his eyes. Then slowly relaxing all his facial muscles, Will uttered the one word, “Vera.”

  She had accepted without his noticing it, had taken the memoirs from Clifford as if it were a great door leading into a room they had not seen previously. A maid entered then bearing a tray of refreshment.

  Yes, Clifford told his friends later, it did remind him of communion in the long ago days when he took communion.

  Vera moved the memoirs now against her quiet face as if she was fanning herself against a sudden unforeseen rush of fiery heat.

  “If you gentlemen will bear with me,” Vera muttered, and she gave Will now an anxious but encouraging look.

  The gentlemen were not able to gaze at her then. They whispered to one another now as if in church, a church at which they had long ceased to attend.

  A clock somewhere in the recesses of the old house chimed pitifully.

  The men hardly dared gaze at her, except in furtive almost guilty glances.

  How much time had passed? An hour, perhaps, or longer. At last, Vera rose then and with steady step, everything about her calm and steadfast, she handed the pages back to Clifford, as if his friendship for Rick and her merited his keeping what her boy had written, as if such a document belonged to a kind but responsible stranger.

  Dr. Ray had once told Will that women in his view were usually stronger than men when family tragedy struck. “For women,” the Doctor went on, “are the ushers in of life and very often the presiders over a loved one’s passing.”

  She had now stood the test of her boy’s terrible volley of words, not so much words as a firebrand of what he felt was truth: the failure of his parents to understand his lament at having no one in his short life to partake of his anguish and their failure to prevent his death.

  “You will stay of course?” Vera gave Will such a desperate beseeching, how could anyone least of all Will refuse her welcome? Vera mentioned the name then of the Doctor and Will nodded, meaning of course it was the Doctor’s wish, the Doctor’s insistent advice that th
e time had come for Will to come home; to come, that is, to Vera. That Rick’s memoirs, then, were a passionate invitation for Rick to bring the two parents back to where they belonged, to keep Rick also at home, after his terrible life in the Babylon of New York. In death he needed to join them now, away from his years of shame, madness, and suffocation.

  But Clifford rose now and in an almost incoherent manner of speaking said he had something to bring to their attention.

  Both Vera and Will stood up now and wondered what Clifford could mean. He pointed to a door leading to a dusty back stairs. Something awaited them, they realized, something was there they had lost account of but their faithful friend Clifford knew was there waiting now to be brought out to the light.

  Yes, it was the toy rocking horse, Rick’s rocking horse, that changed everything. And Clifford Shrader, who had remembered seeing Rick’s toy rocking horse in the unused staircase, brought the toy out now.

  The expression on Will’s face was like the sun breaking through a massive thundercloud. And Vera too, who must have forgotten having put Rick’s favorite toy in a never used stairwell. Vera held the rocking horse close to her as if the favorite toy of her son might speed away now and leave her.

  But she remembered then that Will was no longer as absent as Rick. She stood over him then, Will that is, the once absent husband now returned, who was sitting as to rest at his own hearth, and held the rocking horse close to his face. Again, as if the sun had at last burst forth for Will, he took the rocking horse from Vera and held it, not trembling now but firm. Vera welcomed Will then as if he too had come from as far away as his son.