Testing the Current

by William McPherson

Paul said Carmen had gone to heaven, though. “He went straight to heaven. The priest said so. He’d already gone to confession and made his First Communion, and Jesus loved him so much he wanted Carmen to be with Him and the angels in heaven.”

  Well, Tommy thought, Carmen used to get in a lot of trouble in school, before he’d transferred in the middle of the year to the Catholic school, but he’d always been kind to Tommy. He’d defended him when Tommy refused to fight Lois Marks. Tommy wouldn’t fight with a girl. Carl Smith called him a sissy, but Carmen said he wasn’t a sissy, that boys who had fights with girls were the sissies. Then Tommy had to fight Carl in the space between the turn-over bars and the swings. Tommy was scared. He didn’t like to fight. He didn’t want to hurt anybody else any more than he wanted to be hurt himself, and he was afraid that if he got really mad he would hurt somebody terribly. So Carl beat him up, which still made Tommy mad. He knew he could have beaten up Carl Smith if he’d tried, and next year, if Carl picked a fight with him, he would.

  Carmen was a good fighter, and Carmen stood up for Tommy. Carmen even liked him, though they hardly ever played together, just on the playground. Carmen had a nice smile, but Leo didn’t. They were both good at sports, but Leo played mean. When Carmen transferred, Tommy wished it were Leo who had gone, and now it was Carmen who was gone for good and the priest had said it was because Jesus loved him. Tommy hoped that Jesus didn’t love him that much. He was happy enough with his mother and father, although Tommy thought that maybe he didn’t always honor his mother and father enough, the way the Commandments told you to, the Ten Commandments that Paul had had to memorize and could recite by number without stopping. Tommy’s mother had said more than once that she’d never talked back to her mother the way he sometimes did to her, but Tommy wasn’t as good as his mother. He’d told some lies, and his mother didn’t, only white lies and they didn’t count. And he did, he knew, sometimes have bad thoughts.

  Tommy’s father had gone to Carmen Bonnaro’s funeral. He always went to funerals in families of the men at the plant, but this one was different from the others, and his father was very upset. “My God,” he said, “what next?”

  Tommy didn’t know what next. One thing that happened, though, was that they started to build a big chain-link fence around the lime dump and the pond next to it. The fence was very high and there was barbed wire on top of it so that no one could climb over it and drown in the pond or burn in the lime, and the gates were always locked. Mr. Steer said that it was about time the plant did something to protect innocent people from that menace. And another thing that happened was that everyone in school, Miss Case and all the pupils, tried to be especially kind to Leo, who seemed nicer now than he used to be. The third thing that happened was that Tommy got an ingrown toenail on the big toe of his left foot, and it got infected and Dr. Randolph had to remove the toenail. He froze it when he did it, and the operation didn’t hurt much. Tommy was determined to be brave, and he didn’t cry once. His father said he was proud of him, and his mother said she was too. His father cut the end out of a tennis shoe and Tommy had to wear it to school until the bandage came off, and he couldn’t play on the playground for a few days. He didn’t mind that; he got to read instead, and his mother drove him to school every morning because she didn’t want him to get his bandage dirty.

  One morning, a beautiful morning in early June—school was almost over—his mother dropped him off and came back again just a little while later. Tommy was surprised to see her walk into the classroom and whisper to Miss Case. His mother almost never came into the school; she didn’t believe in interfering with the teacher. Miss Case called him up to her desk and told him he was being excused that day. In fact, she told him he didn’t have to come back at all, that she was passing him into third grade in the fall, and there were only two more days of school anyway. “It’s been a pleasure having you, Tommy,” Miss Case said, “and we’d love you to come back for the picnic on Friday.” Tommy was glad that he’d passed, although his mother didn’t seem to think there’d been any question about it, and he wanted to come back for the picnic.

  In the car, his mother explained that Rose hadn’t shown up again—“Sometimes I could just kill that Rose,” she said—and she had a golf date with Dr. Rodgers’ wife and a couple of other ladies and she would be gone all day and no one would be home when he came home from school, so she was taking him to the country club with her. Tommy didn’t mind. It was such a fresh morning—the dew was still on the grass—and he liked playing at the country club. “Ophelia will keep an eye on you,” his mother said, “and you’ll find something to do.” Together the two of them drove past his father’s plant and down the River Road to the country club.

  “Can I have a root beer float and a toasted cheese sandwich for lunch?” Tommy asked her.

  “May I,” his mother corrected him. “Yes, you may.”

  5

  DAISY Meyer was already on the golf course when Tommy and his mother arrived at the country club that June morning. His mother was in a hurry and she rushed past the few ladies sitting on the porch, greeting them quickly, explaining that she was late for her foursome. She went into the ladies’ locker room, where Tommy wasn’t allowed, though he’d seen it once a long time ago when he was very young. He was much too old to go in it now. His mother had to change into her golf shoes and pick up her clubs, and when she came out she went directly to the first tee, where the rest of her foursome and her caddy were waiting. Tommy walked to the end of the porch by the driveway and watched his mother greet the women, who were sitting on the bench talking, clubs at hand. She apologized for being late. Tommy couldn’t hear her but he could tell what she was saying. She gestured across the driveway toward Tommy as she slipped her ball into the slot in the little white ball washer on the post next to the tee and pushed the paddle vigorously up and down. She always liked to wash her golf balls herself, rather than letting the caddy do it. She said it brought her luck. Tommy figured his mother was telling the women that Rose hadn’t shown up again, and she’d had to pick Tommy up from school, and so on and so on. The ladies didn’t seem to mind the wait; they’d been enjoying the morning sun and the fresh air. His mother took a practice swing. Tommy didn’t stay to watch them tee off. He walked back the length of the porch, past Mrs. Appleton and the other women who were sitting there rocking and talking, and then came back and sat down near them on the broad steps facing the fairways and, far across the fairways and the River Road that wound by the country club, the river itself, glinting in the sunlight, the river that flowed by the Island where they would all soon be going. He could see the green trees of the islands, too, quiet in the distance.

  A white figure replaced the flag in the fifth hole near the road. The woman picked up her golf bag where she’d dropped it next to the green and walked toward him and the sixth tee. As she approached, Tommy could see that the woman was Daisy Meyer. He didn’t think he’d seen her since New Year’s. She must have gotten an early start, if she’d already finished the fifth hole, which was a long one. You had to drive your ball across the country club driveway, and the cars paused as they turned in front of the River Road to make sure that a ball wasn’t flying through the air. Once in a while—not very often, but it had happened—a car got hit, and then everyone apologized all around. Tommy’s father said it was really the driver’s fault. The driver was supposed to stop and look, as the player couldn’t see the oncoming car because of the trees. Daisy was playing by herself. It was hard, when you were good, to find people to play with. A poor golfer could hold back your game, and that made it boring. People liked to play with golfers who were better than they; they didn’t like to play with those who were worse. Of course, everybody had to now and then; you just tried to avoid it as politely as possible.

  Tommy looked to his left, across the driveway to the first tee. His mother’s foursome had already teed off. Tommy could see the tiny figures marching down the fairway between the woods and the rough. His mother
didn’t drive her ball as far as some people did, but she drove it straight as an arrow. Her long game might not have been powerful, but it was a pleasure to watch just because it was so straight. Everyone said so. She always knew where her ball was going to go, and that was where it went, too. That made David mad when he played with her. David could drive a ball more than two hundred and fifty yards, but some of the time it hooked into the woods or sliced into the rough, and then he would swear. That wasn’t being a good sport, his mother said, and once when David took his club and broke it right over his knee after he’d made a particularly bad shot, his mother got furious and said she wouldn’t play with him until he’d learned to control his temper. She was really mad. Tommy thought David wouldn’t have been so mad if his mother hadn’t hit her ball smack down the middle of the fairway. She always did, and in two or three strokes she got it straight to the green, and she really knew how to play the greens. Her short game was as good as anybody’s. Sometimes it took David two or three strokes just to get his ball out of the woods or the rough, and if David missed his ball, as he sometimes did, his mother always counted it as a stroke. Sometimes David even got a penalty. His mother played by the rules, and she didn’t make exceptions just because David had a bad temper. Temper was no excuse, she said, writing down his score. You controlled your temper. His mother never lost hers. She was the only one in the family who didn’t, though John didn’t do it very often. Still, David always beat her in the end.

  Tommy watched Daisy move toward the tee. Her white dress shimmered in the sunlight. It was a brilliant morning, and when she passed under the shade of the elms she continued to shine against the thick green of the grass, still, under the trees, glistening with dew. She leaned her clubs against the rack, selected an iron for the sixth hole, and took her practice swing. She didn’t look toward the porch where the women rocked and Tommy sat on the steps, his toe sticking out of his tennis shoe. She approached the ball and shot it off with a solid thwack. The sound hit his ears. The ball rose slowly in the air, making a perfect, graceful arc, and seemed to hover there for a moment before it dropped to the green. There was a scattering of brittle applause from some of the women on the porch, breaking the hush as Daisy made her drive. She acknowledged the clapping with a short nod. She saw Tommy and waved at him, laughter brightening her face, then walked off toward the green, where she sank her putt. She always sank her putt. “A birdie,” one of the women said. Mrs. Appleton smiled. She didn’t play golf. Her sport was gossip, Mrs. Steer said. The women resumed their conversation. “Remember the pitchers,” Mrs. Appleton said. Tommy didn’t like her. She was always smirking, and Tommy felt there was something mean about her. One of the mean things about her was that she hated cats—a regular phobia, his mother said—and there were always a lot of cats around the clubhouse. They didn’t belong to anybody, they were just stalking the field mice, prowling the porch, ignoring the people and going about their business.

  Tommy got up and went inside. He thought he’d find a magazine in the lounge. The members brought their old magazines there for others to read. No one was playing the slot machines; no one was there. Tommy was leafing through the magazines, trying to find one that looked interesting—he’d seen most of them at home—when Ophelia came out to the bar. She looked at his foot.

  “What happened to you?” she asked him, and Tommy told her about his operation and how Dr. Randolph had frozen his toe so that it didn’t hurt. “Let me look at it,” she said, coming out from behind the bar. “That’s a mighty big toe.”

  Tommy laughed. “It’s almost better,” he said. “Dr. Randolph is going to take the bandage off in a day or two.”

  “Well, you just take care of it,” Ophelia said, “and don’t go running around too much today. You stick near me. Come on into the kitchen. I’ll fix you a treat.” She opened the gate to the back of the bar and led him behind it and through the swinging door into the kitchen. Tommy had never been in the kitchen before. He wasn’t supposed to go there. Ophelia and the others slept above the kitchen, but the kitchen was sort of like their living room, too. There was a couple of old couches in it and a floor lamp. “Here’s a hot biscuit,” she said, putting one on a plate for him with some of the conserves that she made. “It’ll fix your toe right up.” She laughed. Tommy was excited to be invited into the kitchen. Nobody ever was.

  “When will Buck be here?” he asked her.

  “Buck will be up next week, as soon as school is out, with Katherine and Junior and George,” she said. Buck was a few years older than Tommy. He was Ophelia’s nephew. Junior was related to George, but Tommy didn’t know exactly how Katherine was Ophelia’s daughter, he knew that, and George was her husband. Katherine and George were teachers, but they came to the country club in the summer because the weather was so nice—it was cooler than Kentucky—and there was a lot of work to be done, especially in the summer. They were all part of Ophelia’s family. It was a big family and they were all related in one way or another, only Ophelia knew exactly how, and in the summer a lot of them were there.

  “I hope Buck gets here soon,” Tommy said. Sometimes it was boring to be at the country club by himself, and Buck was always full of strange lore. Amy Steer came once in a while but not very often, and Jimmy Randolph hardly ever came. Paul Malotte didn’t come at all, but his family didn’t belong and you had to be a member or they wouldn’t let you in. Tommy finished his biscuit and Ophelia told him to run along, she had work to do. “Just ring the bell if you need anything,” she said. There was a little bell on the bar that Ophelia could hear in the kitchen. Tommy liked to ring it. Sometimes he rang it just because he wanted her to come out and talk to him, but he wasn’t supposed to do that. “You come back when you’re ready for lunch and I’ll fix you something you’ll like,” she said.

  Tommy went back to the magazines. He thought he’d seen them all, or, if he hadn’t, he didn’t care if he did see them. He wished he had a nickel to put in the slot machine. He wandered into the lobby and looked at the canoes hanging there and wondered how many corks had popped into them on New Year’s Eve. He liked to imagine the scene that Mrs. Steer had described to him, the men opening the champagne bottles at midnight and trying to make the corks fly into the canoes. It must have been fun, Tommy thought, as he sat down on the bench near the doors, and he wondered if he would ever get to do it, if he would ever be old enough to put on a tuxedo and go to the country club on New Year’s Eve and pop champagne corks. Maybe when he was old enough he wouldn’t even want to, he thought; maybe he’d be somewhere else. He heard the voices of the women on the porch. Mrs. Appleton laughed. “He’s a regular night climber,” she said, “but he picked the wrong window that time. I wish I could have seen the look on his face. Can you imagine what that child thought? And that poor darling man—he couldn’t have any idea. Our other friend has a very good idea, I’m sure of that. Those Jews are shrewd.”

  Tommy hated Mrs. Appleton. “Jews are shrewd.” What did she mean by that? Of course, he’d heard his father say the same thing more than once, but he didn’t say it with that nasty tone in his voice, that tone that suggested she meant more than she was saying. Tommy’s father just said it. It was a fact. He sort of admired it. Maybe he even envied it. Jews are shrewd. That’s why Mr. Meyer had so much money. He gave a lot of it to the Episcopal Church, too. That was funny, Tommy thought. He liked that. With some of the money Mr. Meyer had given them they bought a new red carpet for the chancel and the sanctuary and the main aisle and the entrance, where the baptismal font was. Everybody said it cost a lot.

  Tommy went out to the porch, and the conversation stopped. “My, my,” one of the ladies said, “such a lovely day,” and they resumed talking again, now about the weather. He was certainly good at getting them to change the subject. “When will you be moving to the Island, Tommy?” Mrs. Appleton asked him. She always wanted to know everything.

  “Pretty soon,” Tommy said. Actually he didn’t know if they would be moving to the Is
land this summer, the way they usually did. His mother said she thought they ought to keep the house open because it would be so much trouble to close it when they had all these guests coming for their anniversary dance and there would be so many preparations and she’d have to be uptown a lot. But Tommy wasn’t going to tell Mrs. Appleton that.

  “Why don’t you ask Ophelia to bring us a lemonade?” she said. “Yes, wouldn’t that be nice, girls? Tommy, go ask Ophelia. You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you?”

  He went in and rang the bell. “The ladies on the porch want some lemonade,” he said.

  “They just want you out of the way,” Ophelia said, but Tommy didn’t care if they did. He walked around to the side of the clubhouse. He could see the tiny figure of Daisy at the far end of the course. At least he supposed it was Daisy. She was on the seventh green, which was the farthest from that end. There were five holes on this side of the driveway; the first four were on the other side. The cats were playing beside the porch. He thought he might drop one of them in Mrs. Appleton’s lap, just to see what would happen. He wasn’t ever supposed to bring a cat near her, and he wondered what would happen if he did. She couldn’t really hate cats; they were nice and furry and soft, and they liked to play. They didn’t like to be picked up, though, and the one Tommy had picked, a black one with white feet, struggled in his arms. He carried it to the corner. He could hear the ladies all talking on the front porch. He brought the cat around, held it up in front of Mrs. Appleton, who jumped back in her chair, and dropped it in her lap. She screamed. She didn’t give just a little scream; she really screamed, and she started out of her chair, knocking it over behind her, still screaming, and Ophelia ran out the front door—she was carrying a tray of lemonade and set it on the floor. Two of the women rushed to Mrs. Appleton’s side, one of them saying very sternly to Tommy, “You’ll give this poor woman a heart attack. Don’t you know she hates cats?” And the three of them, one on each side supporting Mrs. Appleton, followed by Ophelia, half-walked, half-carried her into the clubhouse and the ladies’ room, where there was a couch. He supposed they laid her on it. Well, now he knew. Mrs. Appleton really didn’t like cats. He’d never seen anybody react like that to a simple cat. What could a cat do to you? It was harmless. The cat had disappeared. Probably Mrs. Appleton had scared the cat more than the cat scared her. Ophelia came out, picked up the tray, and set it on a table in front of where the women had been sitting. She took him by the shoulder and marched him into the clubhouse. “Tommy, you know better than that,” she said. “My Lord, that lady could drop dead. You’d better keep out of sight—your mother will have a fit.” But that was all she said to him. He bet Ophelia didn’t like Mrs. Appleton, either.