Any Minute I Can Split

by Judith Rossner

  “No taxes at all?”

  De Witt shook his head.

  “Then you really don’t have any income.” Now he believed it.

  “Right.”

  “Jesus,” Mitchell said, “that’s pretty funny. I’m not sure I’d ever’ve trusted you with this whole spread if I knew you didn’t have a dime.”

  “I think it shows you were really a good person,” Mira said. “That you didn’t even think of asking.”

  “I took it for granted,” Mitchell said.

  They were all embarrassed.

  Becky laughed. “Gee, Mitch, how would you be sure you existed if it weren’t for taxes?”

  To Margaret it seemed an aggressive remark but Mitchell simply nodded. He seemed lost in thought.

  “Jesus,” he finally said, “I’d be a rich man if I didn’t have to pay taxes.”

  “If you weren’t a rich man already you wouldn’t have to pay so much,” Roger said.

  Becky giggled. “He’s got you there, Mitch.”

  “I never think of myself as being rich,” Mitchell said.

  “How other people think of you is a better gauge,” Roger said. “Us rich kids are always raised to think poor but I foxed ’em. At a certain age I realized that the test of whether your parents are rich isn’t whether you can have what you want but whether they can have what they want.”

  Mitchell nodded, Kokeshi-doll-like.

  “So let’s talk to each other,” Roger said. “Two rich kids.”

  Roger, you just had your allowance cut off, Roger. Was he bluffing or was he choosing to forget?

  Mitchell smiled. Something in his eyes focused so that he looked intelligent again.

  “Aren’t you undermining your position?” Becky asked Roger. Flirtatiously. “Letting us know you have money?”

  “Uh uh.” Not responding to her signal. “I’m letting you know I can go elsewhere. Only poor people have to take whatever terms they can get.”

  “Okay,” Mitchell boomed out happily. “So make me an offer!”

  “Ten thousand,” Roger said, deadpan.

  “You’re kidding,” Mitchell said.

  Roger shrugged. “You told me to make an offer.”

  “Hadn’t we better clarify what we’re talking about?” De Witt asked. “The farm or the whole parcel of land of which the farm is a small part?”

  Mitchell responded but to Roger. “The parcel the farm is originally part of is actually about eight acres. If I had to put it up through a broker I’d ask for forty thousand.”

  Roger whistled. “That’s pretty steep.”

  “Not really. It’s good usable land, the house is in good shape, the barn’s superb, all the out buildings, the coops and so on are in good condition. Now I admit they wouldn’t be in that condition if it weren’t for De Witt’s work, which is why I’d let you have it for a lot less if you were working with him.”

  “How much less?”

  “Five grand.”

  “Plus $2,400 for the broker’s fee you wouldn’t have to pay . . .”

  Mitchell laughed. “He’s too sharp, De Witt, watch out for him.”

  “Makes $32,600.”

  “Okay,” Mitchell nodded. “You talked me into it. If that’s what De Witt wants.”

  “What about the rest of the land?” Roger asked.

  “That’s about three hundred acres,” Mitchell said. “I’m in no hurry to part with that.”

  “I’m in no hurry to buy a farm with no land,” Roger said belligerently.

  “Wait a minute,” De Witt said. “I feel a certain antagonism creeping in that has no place here.”

  “Sure it does,” Roger said promptly. “Buyer-seller antagonism.”

  “Then please let me take part in this. As a neutral party. Friendly to both of you.”

  Did he really believe he was neutral? And if he did, was it true? Did the fact that only his life was involved make him neutral? She hoped he didn’t believe it; she hoped he was conning Mitchell.

  “First let me explain something, Mitchell,” De Witt said. “The question of land isn’t a matter of principle. Nor are we thinking in terms of investment. You see Roger and I have been talking for a while, even before we were sure you were going to try to sell the place . . . we’ve been talking about ways to make it truly self-sustaining. It being an artificial situation to be supported by you. What we finally settled on as a feasible source of income is raising beef cattle. Organically, of course. There’s an incredible market right here in the East. You need plenty of pasture for cattle, though, and . . .”

  He kept talking but Margaret had turned off. Beef cattle! They surely hadn’t talked about beef cattle when she was around, at least not seriously enough for her to pick up on it. Beef cattle had a much more ominous sound than the generalities of making a farm self-sustaining. Screen memory: hard-working, hard-driving, leather-faced cowboys working hard on the range all day, then at night riding into town to wench and brawl at the frontier saloon. That would be Roger and De Witt, while her life would be just like in the suburbs! She and Mira—she glanced at Mira, who was smiling placidly. How nice for Mira, she’d have more time to meditate.

  “Nobody said anything to me about beef cattle,” she said to nobody in particular. “Doesn’t anyone care how I feel about it?”

  “When we do it,” Roger said, “you can let us know how you feel. By staying or splitting.”

  But Roger! This was my place! Her eyes filled with tears of betrayal.

  Becky giggled nervously. “Is he really the way he sounds?”

  But she couldn’t answer without crying so she swiftly got up and went upstairs to their room, closed the door, made sure the twins were still sleeping, then really let loose the tears, curling up in the bed, hugging herself, crying bitterly . . . wishing, aching for David to be there. Most definitely David, not Roger. David, whom she could curl herself around without being accused of trying to smother. Who if you gave him something thought it was his due, not your neurosis. Who never fazed you by having grand schemes . . . who never had schemes at all. Who was on the road someplace, looking for something. A little temporary something. What he’d come from didn’t exist, a formica counter with nothing underneath, what was ahead was no good, and what was available was okay only as an alternative to the others. She drifted into a light, sad sleep full of images that disappeared before she could reject them by waking up. She and David painting a line down a long highway. She and David’s mother sitting in rocking chairs in an otherwise empty house, not speaking to each other. Snow outside. More snow. Piles of snow. Snow-white towels in a hotel linen room. Two of David’s mother, wheeling a laundry cart down a long corridor full of doors. There was a knock on the door. As much in her sleep as out of it, she called, “Come in.”

  It was Mitchell.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were asleep.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, sitting up, rubbing her eyes.

  “I’m upset,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, nothing in his manner suggesting that he was telling the truth. “I’m terribly upset because I really dig you and I don’t want you to be mad at me and I have a feeling you’ll be angry with me if I let Roger have the farm.”

  “You don’t seem upset.”

  He smiled. “How do I seem?”

  “Horny.” Unctuous-horny.

  Mitchell roared as though she’d said something brilliant and adorable. So it was true. Downstairs Becky flirted with Roger while Mitchell came upstairs to dip his wick in the counter culture. He tried to kiss her but she pushed him back, full of uncomprehended hostility. There were footsteps and De Witt opened the door. Mitchell laughed guiltily.

  “De Witt told me to stay away from you.”

  “Suppose you go downstairs and negotiate, Mitchell,” De Witt said. “I have something to discuss with Margaret.”

  Mitchell went. Margaret waited sullenly. De Witt sat down where Mitchell had been. Her nose began to itch; she scratched
it.

  “Margaret, why are you angry?”

  “Because you told him to leave me alone,” she lied.

  “They think it’s exciting to be here,” De Witt said. “I told him you weren’t like the younger girls, Carol, Starr, and so on. Sex for them is a very casual thing.”

  “How do you know it isn’t for me?” she teased, knowing he would be too kind to remind her how he knew.

  “I don’t think that’s what you’re angry about.”

  She leaned forward and kissed his lips lightly but he gently pushed her away. She laughed ruefully. Now to continue the chain he had to go to someone and get pushed away.

  “That’s why I’m angry,” she said. “Because you don’t want me any more.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “What’s nonsense?”

  “It’s nonsense that I don’t want you and it’s nonsense that that’s why you’re angry. You got angry about the beef cattle.”

  “I don’t think it’s so much the cattle,” she said slowly. “It’s that it sounded very permanent, and very demanding. But not of me. I mean I’d just be in the background someplace while you and Roger . . . the truth is, I feel left out. The truth is that I’m jealous of this friendship between you and Roger. I mean, part of me thinks it’s a beautiful thing, enjoys it, knows it’s important for men to have . . . but part of me is jealous.”

  “But Margaret,” De Witt said—softly, reproachfully—“you are the bond between us.”

  Bullshit, De Witt. That is what David would call Pure Bullshit.

  “Oh, yes? How could I tell?”

  “Now you’re being sarcastic.”

  “What’s in all this for me, is what I want to know. A concession maybe? A saloon or a whorehouse in Brattleboro so I can get to see you two once in a while?” You are not being reasonable, Margaret. You can’t get mad at them about some old cowboy pictures!

  De Witt smiled. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Already,” she pointed out, “we’ve progressed from your wanting to make love to me to not even letting me kiss you.”

  “You know perfectly well you’d have stopped me, anyway. With Roger downstairs and the children two feet away in the crib. Rue’s not even sleeping.” In point of fact she was staring at him through the slats.

  So. He’d called her bluff. It didn’t diminish her anxiety; it only left her with one less excuse for it.

  “All right, what if those things weren’t true? Then would you have?”

  “Of course I would have,” De Witt said. “If we had an understanding with Roger.”

  “What if I wanted to desperately and the very thought freaked Roger out of his mind?”

  “I think you know it isn’t possible for us to live together that way.”

  She knew.

  “Would you do me a favor and take Rue down? I don’t feel like seeing everyone yet.”

  “You don’t want to talk about the cattle thing?”

  “What’s the point?” she asked wearily. “Roger isn’t going to change his mind, we might as well just play it out. Maybe he won’t even be able to get the money.”

  A short while later Rosie woke up and Margaret changed her and took her downstairs. Becky Kastle was alone in the common room.

  “The men are walking the grounds,” Becky said. “They took the baby. And there’s the other one. My goodness, isn’t she pretty!” Margaret thanked her. Sat down. Her head felt as though it were in a vise.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” Becky said. Suddenly everyone was concerned with her moods. “Is it because of the farm business, or is it because of David?”

  “I don’t know,” Margaret said. “Maybe both.”

  Becky smiled. She was really very pretty.

  “How old are you, anyhow?” Margaret asked.

  “Thirty-seven,” Becky said.

  “I guess you know you don’t look it.”

  “Nobody looks their age any more.”

  “Up here they do. The natives, especially. And some of us.” From hard work, from no make-up, from clothes that were right for work but wrong for everything else. But mostly from hard work. From real life, you could say self-righteously if you were thoroughly convinced that work was life or vice versa.

  “Maybe they just work too hard up here,” said Becky. Untroubled by any such conviction.

  Silence.

  Becky took a pack of cigarettes from her pocketbook, extracted one sloppy-looking joint, offered Margaret a choice. She refused. Becky lit hers, dragged deeply on it.

  “I’m nervous,” she said, smiling in that direct, appealing way she had. “I’d like to talk with you about David but I’d understand if you didn’t want to talk to me. If you’re feeling hostile or anything.”

  “It’s just hard for me to think of you as David’s mother.”

  “David has the same problem,” Becky said. Margaret found her an ashtray. “David was never difficult when he was little.” She giggled. “Not that he was difficult later on . . . I mean it just became apparent later on that he had some problems, you know, relating to people . . . When he was little he’d want to stay home and play with stuff, gadgets, kitchen things, broken appliances and so on . . . but a lot of kids are like that and I didn’t worry about it . . . I never worried about the kids anyway . . . I had a business at home . . . we were pretty broke when Davie was little, Monty my first husband was just switching over from being a union organizer to being a history teacher and he had to take all these courses and he couldn’t earn much . . . we had these friends in Mt. Kisco, we were living in a cottage on their estate, they had a lot of money and he . . . it was Mitchell, actually, Mitchell and his first wife . . . anyway Mitchell set me up with an answering-service business right in the house . . . David could operate that board as well as I could when he was six years old, the only thing was, he didn’t like to talk into it, he’d pick up a call and . . . is Davie a good lay?”

  Margaret stared at her.

  Becky giggled, mashed out the rest of her joint. Tm sorry. I took you aback. Or maybe afront. Did I affront you? I get very affrontful sometimes when I’m stoned. My true lousy nature coming out . . . or . . . no kidding, is Davie a good lay?”

  “I can’t talk to you about that.”

  “That’s too bad,” Becky said, without apparent ill feeling. “Is there something else you’d like to talk about?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you ever think about sex?” Becky asked.

  “Sure I do,” Margaret said.

  “That’s a relief.” Becky stood, stretched. “People who never think about it make me jittery. I think about it all the time.” She walked over to the window, looked out toward the barn. “I’ve been married on and off for nineteen years and for nineteen years that’s what I think about when I’m not busy. Before I had orgasms I used to think all the time how it would be to have orgasms and then when I started having them I wondered if they’d be better with someone else, and about bad orgasms and good orgasms and so on, and then I went through this period of being unfaithful to Monty and then I’d think about whoever I was doing it with, and what we were doing, and so on, and now I’ve been going through this pretty faithful stage but my mind still . . . David does have a beautiful body, doesn’t he? I was so surprised when he went out for sports, Little League and all that shit, he didn’t seem like that kind of kid at all . . . he always did have a beautiful body, though, even when he was little he had those shoulders . . . Why won’t you talk to me about David? Do you have all kinds of hangups about sex?”

  “Yes.”

  Becky laughed. “I can see why David loved you. You’re really very lovable.”

  “David didn’t love me.” David didn’t love anybody, but she wouldn’t say that.

  “David doesn’t love anybody,” Becky said.

  Margaret stood up. “I think I’d better give Rosie some juice.”

  Becky nodded. “Sure. Listen, I hope I didn’t . . . is there anyone in
the big bedroom in front? I think I’m gonna take a nap, I’m soooo sleepy.”

  “I don’t think so,” Margaret said. “If there is, you can just use one of the other ones.”

  MITCHELL would sell the farm and land for a total of $125,000. When Roger asked where was the favor to De Witt in all this, Mitchell explained that it was only because of his love for De Witt that he was willing to sell the land at all. Roger asked what good his willingness would do if they couldn’t raise that kind of money, it being nearly impossible to get mortgages on unimproved land. Mitchell allowed as how he would be willing to take back a mortgage of up to $50,000. He also agreed that if Roger and De Witt were unable to raise the cash to buy the entire parcel, he would sell them one half or one third of the land parcel for $50,000 or $35,000, respectively. He insisted upon shaking hands with Roger, claiming that he was convinced that someone with Roger’s resources would have no problem raising the money. Then he and Becky went off for an overnight visit to friends in Newfane.

  “I think we’d better have a meeting,” De Witt said.

  “What for?” Roger said.

  “To discuss this idea with everyone.”

  “What if Roger can’t get the money?” Margaret asked. “Roger, have you thought about how you’ll get the money?”

  “I don’t see what there is to discuss,” Roger said to De Witt. “If I can get the money I can get it, and if I can’t, I can’t.”

  “Sometimes with a group,” De Witt said, “things aren’t as simple as they seem.”

  “Give me an idea of what you’re talking about,” Roger said.

  “I don’t want to lay on something that may not be there,” De Witt said. “But I really think we should all talk.”

  “I’M very confused and miserable,” she said to Roger before the meeting. “I don’t know if I’m more afraid you’ll get the money or you won’t. The whole thing of having to go to Philadelphia . . .” What if David comes back looking for me and I’m not here? What if the farm catches fire? What if your parents don’t like the twins? She felt tearful again and turned away from Roger so he wouldn’t see her crying. He would think the tears were directed at him. Men were slower than women to cry, correspondingly slow to perceive that you might be crying for some much vaguer reason than a desire to manipulate them. Maybe it was jealousy; they never told you to stop crying, they said don’t be hysterical, a cunning bit of word play designed to suggest that the womb was a dishonestly acquired secret weapon for the manufacture of tears. She waited for him to say Oh Shit. To tell her to go someplace else if she felt like being hysterical. She looked at him; he was watching her. Waiting. If she got really impossible he’d just go off someplace with De Witt for a beer.