I said, “Are you and Fay going to get married?”
He nodded. “As soon as I get my divorce from Gwen. We’ll probably get a Mexican divorce and remarriage. There’s no waiting period.”
I said, “Since Charley didn’t leave her very much, won’t you have to go to work full time to support her and the children?”
“There’s the trust fund to support the kids,” he said. “And she’ll be getting enough from the factory and her property in Florida to maintain this place.”
“I really don’t want to give my share up,” I said. “I want to live here.”
“Why?” he said, turning to face me. “My god, it’s got three bathrooms and four bedrooms—you’d be living alone, one person in this huge house. This place was built for five or six people to live in. All you need is a rented room.”
I said nothing.
“You’ll go out of your mind, here,” Nat said. “All alone. When Charley first went to the hospital, Fay almost went crazy alone, and she had the girls to keep her company.”
“And you,” I said.
To that he had no comment.
“I feel I have to stay here,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because,” I said, “it’s my duty.”
“To what?”
“My duty to him,” I said, letting it slip out before I realized what I had done.
Without difficulty, he grasped whom I meant. “You mean because he left half the house to you, you feel you must live here?”
“Not exactly,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him that I knew that Charley was still in the house.
Nat said, “Since you can’t do it, it doesn’t matter whether it’s your duty or not. As I see it, your choice isn’t whether to give up your share. It’s whether you’ll sell it and get something for it, or simply lose it and get nothing. With a thousand dollars cash and thirty-eight dollars every month you could establish yourself very nicely in town. Rent a nice apartment, buy clothes, eat out in good restaurants. Go out in the evenings and have a big time. Right? And meanwhile you’d be using the money he left for psychiatric care. And if you had psychiatric care you’d be a lot better off. Let’s face it.”
He had picked up that phrase, “let’s face it,” from my sister. It’s interesting how one person’s vocabulary affects another person. Everyone who ever had anything to do with her winds up saying that, and also, “in my entire life.” And, “my good god.” Not to mention the really foul language.
“I just don’t want to leave this house,” I repeated. And then, suddenly, I remembered something that I had forgotten. And it was something that Nat did not know. Or if he did, he did not accept.
The world was coming to an end in a month. So it didn’t matter what happened after that. I only had to stay here a month, not forever. Then there would be no house.
I told Nat that I couldn’t decide, that I still had to think it over. He went back home, and I sat by myself in the living room, for most of the night, considering.
At last, about four in the morning, I came to a decision. I got into the bed in the study and slept, sleep being something I badly needed. Then, the next morning, I got up at eight o’clock, took a bath and shaved, dressed, ate some Post’s 40% Bran Flakes and toast and jam—which wasn’t very much to take—and then set out along the road toward the Inverness Wye. There was one job-possibility that I had overlooked that I wanted to try. At the Wye was a vet’s, not one that worked merely with sick dogs and cats, as the ones in town did, but with sheep and cattle and horses as well as smaller livestock. Since at one time I had worked for a vet’s, it seemed to me that I might have a chance, here.
However, after I had talked to the vet, I discovered that it was a family-run affair, the doctor and his wife and ten year old son and father. The ten year old boy did the feeding and sweeping that I had in mind, so I started back toward Drake’s Landing.
At least I had explored every possibility.
Approximately at twelve-thirty in the afternoon I got back to the house. I right away telephoned Nat Anteil’s number.
It was Fay who answered. Evidently Nat was either at work or doing his homework.
“I’ve come to a decision,” I told my sister.
“My goodness,” she said.
I said, “I’ll sell you my half of the house for the thousand dollars down and the rest in payments, if you’ll let me live in the house for the next month. And I have to be able to use the furniture and food and everything, so I can really live there.”
“It’s a deal,” Fay said. “You horse’s ass. You better not eat any of those steaks in the freezer. None of the t-bone or sirloin or New York cut. There’s forty dollars worth of steaks in there.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “The steaks don’t count. But I can eat any other food I find. And I want the money right away. Within the next day or two, no longer. And I don’t have to pay any of the utility bills for the month.”
“There’s things we need,” Fay said. “All the children’s things. Their clothes—good god, my clothes, a million things. I don’t want to move all those things out and then move them back in again. Why do you have to have it for a month? Can’t you go back and stay with those nuts the Hambros?”
So even though she had agreed she was trying to get me out. I felt the futility of trying to make any rational agreement with her. “Tell Nat that I agree,” I said, “if I can stay a month. I’ll work it out with him. You’re too unscientific.”
After a few more exchanges she said good-bye, and we both hung up. Anyhow, I considered that I had agreed, even if it wasn’t in writing. The house would be mine until the end of April—or, more accurately and realistically, until April twenty-third.
19
At nine in the morning, Nathan Anteil met his lawyer in the corridor outside department three of the San Rafael Courthouse. His witness was with him, a plump, scholarly man who had known both him and Gwen for a number of years.
The three of them left the courthouse and went across the street to a coffee shop. In a booth they sat discussing what the lawyer would want done and how. Neither Nat nor his witness had ever been inside a court of law before.
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” the lawyer said. “You go up on the stand and then I ask you a lot of questions that you answer by saying yes; for instance, I ask you, isn’t it true that you were originally married October 10, 1958, and you answer yes; then I ask you, isn’t it true that you’ve been a resident of Marin County for a period in excess of three months, and so forth. I ask you isn’t it true that your wife treated you in a manner involving cruel and unaffectionate behavior that caused you acute humiliation in public and before friends, and that her treatment had the result that you suffered mental and physical privation, resulting in inability to perform your job and that the result of this was that you could not carry on your life and meet your obligations in a way satisfactory to you.” The lawyer droned on, gesturing with rapid, sharp flutters of his right hand. Nat noticed that the man’s hands were unusually white and small, that his wrist had no hair on it. The nails were perfectly manicured, and it occurred to him that this was almost like a woman’s hands. Evidently the lawyer did no physical work of any sort.
“What do I do?” the witness asked.
“Well, you get up on the stand after Mr. Anteil; they’ll ask you to swear the same oath, at the same time as he. Then I’ll ask you, isn’t it true that you’ve lived in the County of Alameda for three months and in the state of California for over a year; you say yes. Then I ask you, isn’t it true that in your presence you saw the defendant, Mrs. Anteil, behave toward Mr. Anteil in a manner that caused him acute humiliation, and that because of this you saw him become mentally distressed and suffer both physical and mental privation that resulted in him having to consult a physician, and that there was a noticeable change in him that caused you to remark that he didn’t seem—” The lawyer gestured. “That he no longer seemed to be in the same good
health and that he was visibly suffering as a result of Mrs. Anteil’s behavior toward him.” To both of them, he said, “See, we have to establish the result of Mrs. Anteil’s behavior. It isn’t sufficient to declare that she treated you badly—for instance, that she slept around or boozed or something—but that you actually suffered a noticeable change as a result.”
“A change for the worst,” the witness said.
“Yes,” the lawyer said. “A change for the worst.” To Nat he said, “I’m going to ask you isn’t it true that to the best of your ability you tried to preserve this marriage, but that your wife showed in clear and tangible fashion that she had no interest in your health and happiness, that she stayed away from the home for prolonged periods of time, showed obvious reluctance to inform you of her whereabouts during these prolonged intervals, and in general did not behave in the manner that a dutiful spouse would be expected to.”
Sipping his coffee, Nat thought to himself that this was going to be a terrible ordeal; he did not know if he could do it, when the time came.
“Don’t worry,” the lawyer said, touching him on the shoulder. “This is just a ritual; you get up there and chant the proper formula and then you get the thing you want—a divorce decree. You won’t have to say anything but yes; you just answer yes to the questions! ask you, and we’ll be out of there in twenty minutes.” He looked at his watch. “We should be getting back there. I don’t know about this judge, but they usually like to get started right at nine-thirty.” He was from Alameda County, and Nat had gotten him because once he had represented him and Gwen in a property dispute with some neighbors. Both he and she liked him. He had arranged the property settlement for both of them.
They returned to the courthouse. As they went up the steps, the witness discussed some trivial matters with the lawyer, having to do with the economic factor behind the decisions of courts. Nat did not listen. He watched an elderly man who sat on a bench with his cane in his lap, and a group of shoppers walking along the street.
The day was warm and clear. The air smelled good. Around the courthouse building, painters had thrown up canvas and ladders; the building evidently was undergoing alterations. The three of them had to stoop under ropes as they entered.
As his lawyer and witness entered the courtroom, Nat said to the lawyer, “Do I have time to go to the men’s room?”
“If you hurry,” the lawyer said.
In the men’s room—a remarkably clean place—he took a pill that Fay had given him, a tranquilizer. Then he hurried back to the courtroom. He found his lawyer and witness on their way back out; his lawyer took hold of his arm and led him into the corridor, frowning.
“I was talking to the bailiff,” he said in a low voice. “This judge doesn’t permit the attorney to lead.”
“What does that mean?” Nat said.
“It means I can’t ask either of you questions,” the lawyer said. “When you get up there, you’ll be on your own.”
“You can’t prompt us?” the witness said.
“No, you’ll have to tell your own stories.” The lawyer led them back toward the courtroom. “We probably won’t be first. Listen to the other cases and try to judge from them what you should say.” He held the door open, and Nat entered ahead of his witness.
Presently he found himself seated on a bench, like the pew of a church, watching a middle-aged woman on the witness stand telling how a Mr. George Heathens or Feathers had spilled coffee on Mrs. Feathers at a barbecue party in San Anselmo and that instead of apologizing he had called her a fool and a bad mother in front of ten people.
The witness became silent, and then the judge, a gray-haired heavyset man in his late sixties, wearing a pin-stripe suit, made a grimace of distaste and said, “Well, how did that affect the plaintiff? Did it cause any change in her?”
The witness said, “Yes, it caused her to become unhappy. And she said that she could not stand to be around a man who treated her that way and made her miserable.”
The case went on to its end, and then a second one, very similar, took its place, with new women and a new attorney.
“This is a tough judge,” Nathan’s lawyer said to him out of the corner of his mouth. “Look, he’s going through the property settlement. He’s really giving trouble.”
Nat scarcely heard him. The tranquilizer had begun to take effect, and he gazed out of the window of the courtroom, at the lawn. He saw cars going by along the street, and the windows of the shops.
To him, his lawyer whispered, “Say you had to go to a doctor. Say she made you physically sick. Say she was away for a week or more on end.”
He nodded.
On the stand a young, violently-nervous dark-haired woman was saying in a faint voice that her husband had hit her.
Nathan thought, Well, Gwen never hit me. However she had that fool in the kitchen with her that night when I got home. I can say that she was in the habit of going out with other men, and that when I questioned her as to who they were and what they did, she abused me and insulted me.
To their witness, his lawyer whispered, “You listen to what Mr. Anteil says and take your cues from him.”
“Okay,” their witness said.
She caused me distress and humiliation, Nathan thought. I lost weight and started taking tranquilizers. I lay awake at night worrying about money. She borrowed money and didn’t tell me about it. When she didn’t come home at night I had to call around to everyone we knew, thus notifying everyone that I had no idea where my wife was at night, or whom she was with. She ran up huge gas bills on our credit cards. She hit me, scratched me, called me dirty names in front of all kinds of people. She made it clear that she preferred the company of other men to me, and that she had little or no respect for me.
In his mind he rehearsed and rehearsed.
Not so much later he found himself up on the stand, facing the rows of empty seats and the few people. Slightly to his left and below him his lawyer stood tensely, holding a sheaf of papers and speaking very rapidly to the judge. Their witness sat ill at ease in the first chair of the jury box.
“Your full name is Nathan Ruben Anteil?” his lawyer said.
“Yes,” he said.
“And you live in Point Reyes Station in Marin County?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And you have been a resident of California for a period greater than one year, and a resident of Marin County for a period greater than three months? And you are the plaintiff in this dispute asking a divorce between you and Mrs. Anteil in the Superior Court of Marin County? And that the marriage between you and Mrs. Anteil ceased for all practical purposes on or about March 10, 1959, and that at this time you and she are no longer living together?”
He said yes to each question.
“Would you tell the court,” his attorney said, “the reasons why you seek a divorce from Mrs. Anteil.”
Now his lawyer stepped slightly back. The courtroom was a little noisy, because, in the rear, a lawyer was consulting in low tones with his client and two people in the front were talking and rustling. Nat began to answer.
“Well,” he said, “the reasons are that for the most part—” He paused, feeling the fatigue and languor brought on him by the pill. The sense of weight. “Are that she was never at home,” he said. “She was always out somewhere and when she came back even though I asked her where she had been, all she did was vilify me and tell me it was none of my business. She made it abundantly clear that she preferred the company of other men to mine.”
He tried to think what else to say. How to continue. All he seemed able to do was gaze out at the lawn beyond the windows, the warm, green, dry lawn. He felt terribly sleepy, and his eyes started to shut. His voice had trailed off, and only with great effort could he resume any sort of speech.
“It seemed to me,” he went on, “that there was nothing but contempt for me in her all the time. I could never depend on her to back me up in anything. She went her own way. She never acted lik
e a married woman. It was as if we weren’t married in the first place. The result of this was that I couldn’t earn my living. I got sick and had to consult a physician.” He paused, and then he thought of the name of a physician. “Doctor Robert Andrews,” he said. “In San Francisco.”
The judge said, “What was the nature of this illness?”
Nathan said, “What would be called a psychoneurotic complaint.” He waited, but the judge had no comment. So he resumed. “I found myself unable to concentrate or work, and my friends all noticed this. This went on for a long period. At one time she stood on the front porch and shouted abuse at me that even the town’s minister heard. He happened to be getting ready to visit us.”
That had been the day that Gwen had moved her things out. Some neighbor had evidently realized what was happening, that their marriage was breaking up, and had called old Doctor Sebastian. The old man had come by in his 1949 Hudson just at the height of the argument between them; Gwen, on the front porch with an armload of towels, had screamed at him that he was a no-good bastard and that as far as she was concerned he could go to hell. The old man had gotten back into his Hudson and driven off. Apparently he had given up any idea of trying to help them, either because he realized that it was too late and he could do no good, or because what Gwen had said was too much for him. He simply was too frail to stand the stress.
Anyhow, Nathan thought, as he gazed out at the warm lawn and the sunlight, the shops and people, she finished packing her things and then I drove her and them to her family’s house in Sacramento. I even gave her back the snapshots of her that I carried in my wallet.
Confessions of a Crap Artist Page 22