Arkansas

by David Leavitt

  I finished, to my own surprise, three days early. That same afternoon my agent called. “Congratulate me,” I said. “I’ve just done the best work of my life.”

  “Congratulations,” Andrew said. “Now when do I get to see pages?” To which request I responded, rather unconvincingly, “Soon.”

  How could I have explained to him that the only thing that made it possible for me to write those pages was the knowledge that they would never bear my name?

  I called Ben. He sounded happy and surprised at my news, and as before we arranged to meet on the third floor of the Beverly Center parking lot.

  He was waiting in his car when I pulled up. “Nice to see you, Mr. Leavitt,” he said.

  “Nice to see you too, Ben.” I climbed in. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “Mm.” He was staring expectantly at my briefcase.

  “Oh, the paper,” I said, taking it out and handing it to him.

  “Great,” Ben said. “Let’s go up to the roof and I’ll read it.”

  “Read it?”

  “What, you think I’m going to turn in a paper I haven’t read?” He shook his head in wonderment, then inserting the key in the ignition, drove us up into sunlight. To be honest, I was a little surprised: after all, none of the other boys for whom I’d written had ever felt the need to verify the quality of my work. (Then again none of the other boys had been remotely scrupulous in the second sense of the word, either.) Still, I couldn’t deny Ben the right to look over something that was going to be turned in under his name; in addition to which the prospect of seeing his astounded face as he reached the end of my last paragraph did rather thrill me; even in such a situation as this, I still had my writer’s vanity. So I sat there, my ripper’s eyes fixed on the contoured immensity in his polyester slacks, and only balked when he took a pen from his shirt pocket and crossed out a line.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I just think this sentence about Druitt is a bit redundant. Look.”

  I looked. It was redundant.

  “But you can’t turn in a paper all marked up like that!”

  “What, you thought I was going to turn in this copy? Are you kidding? No way! I’ll type it over tonight on my own computer.”

  He returned to his reading. Periodically he jotted a note in the margin, or drew a line through a word or phrase. All of which made me so nervous, he might have been Michiko Kakutani sitting in the next seat, reviewing one of my novels while I watched.

  Finally Ben put the paper down.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Well...” He scratched his head with his pen. “It’s very interesting, Mr. Leavitt. Very ... imaginative. The only thing is, I’m not sure it answers the assignment.”

  “How so?”

  “The assignment was to make a case for someone or other being Jack the Ripper. And basically, what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter. That any of them, or all of them, could have been Jack the Ripper.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But that’s not what Professor Robinson asked for.”

  I spread my hands patiently on my lap. “I understand what’s worrying you, Ben. Still, try to think about it this way. You have a murder mystery, right? A whodunit. Only there’s no clear evidence that any one person did it. So the B student thinks, I’ll just make a case for the most likely suspect and be done with it. But the A student thinks, More is going on here than meets the eye. The A student thinks, I’ve got to use this as an opportunity to investigate a larger issue.”

  “I can see all that. Still, this stuff about twentieth-century modernism—I have to be honest with you, Mr. Leavitt, to me it sounds a little pretentious.”

  “Pretentious!”

  “I mean, very intelligent and all. Only the spirit of twentieth-century modernism—that can’t hold a knife. That can’t strangle someone. And so I’m afraid Professor Robinson will think it’s—I don’t know—off-the-wall.”

  Clearly Ben had the limited vision of the B student.

  “Well, I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m not disappointed exactly! It just wasn’t what I expected.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll go home this afternoon and rewrite it. You just have to tell me who you think actually did do it—”

  “Mr. Leavitt—”

  ‘Was it M. J. Druitt, or James Stephen, or Dr. Pedechenko? Or how about Jill? It could have been Jill.”

  Ben was silent.

  Then: “Mr. Leavitt, you can’t blame me for being worried. A lot rests on this paper for me. You, you’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Was that true?

  “And you don’t risk expulsion if you get caught.”

  “Well, naturally, and that’s exactly why I’m offering to rewrite it.” (My anger had dissipated.) “After all, Ben, you’re the customer, and the customer’s—”

  “Do you have to make it sound so ... commercial?”

  “Isn't it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ben said. “I never have been.”

  Once again he took out his pen. From the bottom of his breast pocket, I noticed, a tear-shaped blue ink stain seeped downward. “You must have put your pen away without the cap,” I said.

  “Did I? I guess. I do it all the time.”

  “Me too.”

  With my forefinger, I stroked the stain. Ben’s breathing quickened.

  “Look,” he said, “about the paper. You don’t have to rewrite it. I mean, if I didn’t appreciate it, it probably says more about me than about you, right?”

  “Not necessarily—”

  “And anyway, I didn’t come to you to get a B paper, I came to you to get an A paper. And if I don’t recognize an A paper when I see one, all that points up are my limitations.”

  “Maybe.” I moved my finger downward, to brush the cleft of his chest. “Or maybe it only points up the fact that I have a wider experience of these things. Remember, I’ve never gotten anything less than an A on a paper in my life—for myself or anyone else.”

  “Mr. Leavitt, please don’t touch me like that. Someone might see us.”

  “I’m sorry.” I took my hand away.

  “Thank you,” Ben said, clearing his throat. “And now I guess I owe you something, don’t I?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. For that let’s just wait until you get your grade. Then we can—”

  “No, I’d rather get it over with, if you don’t mind. Not have it hanging over my head.” He played with his collar. “Obviously we can’t do it here. Where can we do it?”

  “My dad’s place,” I said swiftly. “He and his wife are in Singapore.”

  Without a word, Ben switched on the ignition and drove me back to my car. “Follow me,” I said, and he did, down Santa Monica to Cahuenga and Barham, then onto the 134, the flat, trafficked maze of the Inland Empire.

  Around one-thirty we pulled into my father’s garage. “Come on in,” I said, switching off the burglar alarm. “Make yourself at home. You want to take a swim in the pool first?”

  “I didn’t bring a suit.”

  “You don’t need one. No one will see you but me.”

  “Actually,” Ben said, “I’d rather just—you know—get down to business, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Fine,” I said. “It’s this way.” And we headed together down the long corridor into my bedroom.

  “This is nice.”

  “Thanks. It’s not really mine. Just the guest room. But I try to put in some personal touches when I’m here. That little painting, for instance. My friend Arnold Mesches did it.”

  “What is it, a turkey?”

  “A portrait of a turkey.”

  “That’s funny.”

  I took off my shoes. “By the way, would you rather I leave the lights on or off?”

  “Off.”

  “All cats are gray in the dark, right? All right, then, why don’t you just ... take your clothes off and lie down on the bed. And I’ll be back in
a minute.”

  “Okay.”

  Like a discreet masseur, I stepped into the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and got out some condoms. Then I walked back in. Ben was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, shivering a little.

  “Are you cold?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Wow,” I said, sitting down next to him. “Lucky I’ve got extra-large condoms.”

  He wrapped his arms around his chest. “Mr. Leavitt, you embarrass me when you say things like that.”

  “Look, Ben,” I said, trying to sound paternal, “I’ve been thinking about it, and if you don’t want to—”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “But it’s also okay if you don’t want to. I mean, you can still have the paper. Don’t tell Tony, though.” I winked.

  “What’s his like?” Ben’s voice was surprisingly urgent.

  “Tony’s? Oh. Fine. Smaller than yours, of course.”

  “Straight or curved?”

  “Straight.”

  “The other night he was telling me that in his fraternity, they take the pledges and shave their balls.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If they pass out from too much drinking.”

  Something occurred to me. “You’re not in a fraternity, are you, Ben?”

  “No.”

  I brushed my fingers against his scrotum.

  “Your balls are pretty hairy. I could shave them for you, if you wanted.” I hesitated. “You know, we could pretend you were the pledge.”

  Ben started shaking.

  “Or that I was Tony—”

  “Shut up.”

  And pulling my face toward his, he thrust his tongue down my throat.

  Don’t think he wanted me. He didn’t. Yes, he stayed that night, allowed me to initiate him into even the most specialized modes of intimacy—and initiated me into one or two as well. Yet as we sat down across from each other at breakfast the next morning, I could tell from his eyes that it wasn’t me he was thinking about. Maybe Jessica, or God. Probably Tony. Not me.

  He left shortly thereafter, having first extracted from me a promise never to tell anyone what had happened between us—a promise I naturally kept. And as I watched his car disappear onto California Boulevard, I couldn’t guess whether he’d ever do it again, or do it only once again, or change his life and do it a thousand times. I knew only that during our night together, the marrow of identity had been touched. Whether it had been altered, however, I couldn’t say.

  A lull ensued. Spring break took most UCLA boys to a beach. With my father and Jean still in the Orient, I resorted to old habits: an hour each morning at the library, followed by Book Soup and lunch at the Mandarette Café. Then Andy was back in town for a few days between shoots; and my friend Matt Wolf from London. I got busy.

  Something like my old life claimed me.

  Naturally I was curious to find out, when spring break ended, what grade Ben had gotten on his paper; also, whether he’d bother to call and tell me what grade he’d gotten on his paper.

  When finally I heard news of the matter, however (this was early April), it wasn’t from Ben but from Eric.

  Eric and I hadn’t been in touch much lately. My suspicion was that he had a new girlfriend, the sort of thing he would never have discussed with me. So I was surprised and happy when he called me up one Sunday morning at seven and ordered me to meet him for breakfast at Ships on La Cienega.

  He was waiting in a corner booth when I got there. A placid, sleepy smile on his face, he held the menu with fingers marked by little burns. “Juggling fire?” I asked.

  “I got fifty bucks on Venice Beach last Sunday,” Eric said.

  “Congratulations.” And I sat down. His skin was porphyry-colored from the sun.

  “I must say, I never expected to hear from you at seven in the morning,” I said. “You’re not usually such an early riser.”

  “Depends on the season. Anyway, I had some news to tell you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I just thought you should know, apparently some guy you wrote for—Ben something—got caught last week.”

  “Caught?”

  “Tony Younger called me. Banana waffles for two,” he added to the waitress, “and another cup of coffee. Anyway, yes. Apparently what happened was that when this guy Ben got back from spring break he found a message waiting from his history professor, the gist of which was to get over to her office hours pronto. So he went, and she basically told him that after reading his paper, and comparing it with his other papers, she’d come to the conclusion that it wasn’t his own work Too sophisticated or something. Then she gave him a choice. Either he could admit he hadn’t written the paper, in which case he’d get a C and the incident would be dropped, or he could protest, in which case he’d get an F and the whole thing brought before the honor board.”

  “Damn. What did he choose?”

  “That’s the clincher. Apparently this Ben, this idiot, not only confessed he hadn’t written the paper, he practically got down on his knees and started begging the professor’s forgiveness. Tony’s roommate was outside the office, he heard the whole thing.” Eric shook his head in disgust. “After that he went straight to his room, packed up his things, and left. And since then—this was three days ago—no one, not even Tony, who’s one of his best friends, has heard a word from him.”

  “Eric,” I said, “I have to ask. Did he mention me?”

  “Always thinking about others, aren’t you, Dave? But no, he didn’t.”

  “As if it matters. As if it makes it any less my fault.”

  “Hey, take it easy.” The waffles arrived. “You’re too quick to blame yourself,” Eric went on, pouring syrup. “I mean, it’s not as if this Ben guy didn’t know the risks. He came to you. Don’t forget that. And he could have fought it. Me, I would have said”—his voice went high—‘“Miss Yearwood, Miss Yearwood, how can you think I’d do something like that!’ And cried or something. Whereas he just gave in. You can’t break down like that! The way I see it, they’re testing you twenty-four hours a day. They want to see if you can sweat it out. If Ben couldn’t take the pressure, it’s not your problem. Still, I’d say it’s probably better if you kept a low profile around campus for a while.” He patted my hand. “Me, I’m lucky. I’ve finished my humanities requirements. And if I win a prize for that paper, it’ll go a long way toward Stanford Biz School, provided I get a high enough score on my GMATs. Did I tell you I have GMATs coming up?”

  He hadn’t—a lapse he now corrected in lavish detail—after which we said goodbye in the parking lot, Eric cheerful as he drove off into his happy future, me wretched as I contemplated the ruin of Ben’s academic career, a ruin for which, no matter what Eric might say to assuage my guilt, I understood myself to be at least in part responsible. For suddenly it didn’t matter that I hadn’t gotten caught; it didn’t matter that no one knew what I had done except the boys themselves, none of whom would ever squeal on me. Because I had written my paper, and not Ben’s, he had suffered. Blame could not be averted. The best I could do was try to bear it with valor.

  I got into my father’s car. For some reason I was remembering a moment years before, in elementary school, when a girl called Michele Fox had put before me an ethical dilemma familiar to most American schoolchildren at that time: if a museum were burning down, she’d said, and you could save either the old lady or the priceless art treasure, which would you choose? Well, I’d answered, it depends. Who is the old lady? What is the art treasure? To which she responded—wisely, I’m sure—“You’re missing the point, David Leavitt.” No doubt I was missing the point—her point—since Michele had few doubts in life. (She grew up to be a 911 operator.) As for me, I tortured that little conundrum for years, substituting for the generic old lady first my aunt Ida, then Eudora Welty, for the priceless treasure first the Mona Lisa, then Picasso’s Guernica. Each time my answer was different. Sometimes I opted for life, sometimes for art. And how surp
rising! From this capriciousness a philosophy formed itself in me, according to which only particularities—not generalities—counted. For principles are rarely human things, and when museums burn—when any buildings burn—the truth is, most people save themselves.

  What I’m trying to say here is, I made no effort to get in touch with, or help, Ben. Instead, that afternoon, I booked a flight to New York, where by the end of the week I was once again installed in that real life from which the episode of the term papers now turns out to have been merely a long and peculiar divagation.

  III.

  I RAN INTO BEN ABOUT A YEAR LATER. This was in the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, where I’d gone to research (I am actually now writing it) my Bailey bridge novel. I was looking at Bronzino’s portrait of Eleonora di Toledo, and Ben was looking at Bronzino’s portrait of the baby Giovanni, fatcheeked and clutching his little sparrow, and then, quite suddenly, we were looking at each other.

  “Ben?” I said, not sure at first that it was he.

  “Mr. Leavitt!” To my relief, he smiled.

  We walked upstairs, where in the little coffee bar on the roof, I bought him a cappuccino. Ben looked better than he had when we’d first known each other. For one thing, his hair was both longer and messier, which suited him; also, he’d foregone his old Mormon uniform in favor of denim, down, hiking boots: ordinary clothes, boy clothes, in which his body, somehow ampler-seeming, rested with visible ease. Nor did he appear in the least surprised to be sitting with me there. “Actually,” he said, “since I’ve been in Florence I’ve bumped into six people I knew from school. It might as well be Westwood Village.” He took a sip from his cappuccino. “I never knew coffee could be so good before I came to Italy.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “In Florence, three days. In Italy, two weeks. I’m with my friend. No—I guess I should say my lover.” He leaned closer. “Keith and I talk about this all the time. Lover’s stupid, and friend’s too euphemistic, and partner sounds like a business arrangement. So Keith says, ‘Just say you’re with Keith.’ But then people say, ‘Who’s Keith?’ And I’m back to square one.”