“You don't know me well enough to talk to me like this,” Garp said.
“I know that you're smug,” Mrs. Ralph said. “You think you're so superior.” True, Garp knew; he was superior. He would make a lousy marriage counselor, he now knew.
“Please drive carefully,” Garp said; he pushed himself away from her car. “If there's anything I can do, please call.”
“Like if I need a good lover?” Mrs. Ralph asked him, nastily.
“No, not that,” Garp said.
“Why did you stop me?” she asked him.
“Because I thought you were driving too fast,” he said.
“I think you're a pompous fart,” she told him.
“I think you're an irresponsible slob,” Garp told her. She cried out as if she were stabbed.
“Look, I'm sorry,” he said (again), “but I'll just come pick up Duncan.”
“No, please,” she said. “I can look after him, I really want to. He'll be all right—I'll look after him like he was my own!” This didn't truly comfort Garp. “I'm not that much of a slob—with kids,” she added; she managed an alarmingly attractive smile.
“I'm sorry,” Garp said—his litany.
“So am I,” said Mrs. Ralph. As if the matter were resolved between them, she started her car and drove past the stop sign and through the intersection without looking. She drove away—slowly, but more or less in the middle of the road—and Garp waved his wooden spoon after her.
Then he picked up The Eternal Husband and walked home.
10. THE DOG IN THE ALLEY, THE CHILD IN THE SKY
WE'VE got to get Duncan out of that mad woman's house,” Garp told Helen.
“Well, you do it,” Helen said. “You're the one who's worried.”
“You should have seen how she drove,” Garp said.
“Well,” said Helen, “presumably Duncan isn't going to be riding around with her.”
“She may take the boys out for a pizza,” Garp said. “I'm sure she can't cook.”
Helen was looking at The Eternal Husband. She said, “It's a strange book for a woman to give to another woman's husband.”
“She didn't give it to me, Helen. She threw it at me.”
“It's a wonderful story,” Helen said.
“She said it was just sick,” Garp said, despairingly. “She thought it was unfair to women.”
Helen looked puzzled. “I wouldn't say that was even an issue,” she said.
“Of course it isn't!” Garp yelled. “This woman is an idiot! My mother would love her.”
“Oh, poor Jenny,” Helen said. “Don't start on her.”
“Finish your pasta, Walt,” Garp said.
“Up your wazoo,” Walt said.
“Nice talk,” Garp said. “Walt, I don't have a wazoo.”
“Yes, you do,” Walt said.
“He doesn't know what it means,” Helen said. “I'm not sure what it means, either.”
“Five years old,” Garp said. “It's not nice to say that to people,” Garp told Walt.
“He heard it from Duncan, I'm sure,” Helen said.
“Well, Duncan gets it from Ralph,” Garp said, “who no doubt gets it from his goddamn mother!”
“Watch your own language,” Helen said. “Walt could as easily have gotten his “wazoo” from you.”
“Not from me, he couldn't have,” Garp declared. “I'm not sure what it means, either. I never use that word.”
“You use plenty just like it,” Helen said.
“Walt, eat your pasta,” Garp said.
“Calm down,” Helen said.
Garp eyed Walt's uneaten pasta as if it were a personal insult. “Why do I bother?” he said. “The child eats nothing.”
They finished their meal in silence. Helen knew Garp was thinking up a story to tell Walt after dinner. She knew Garp did this to calm himself whenever he was worried about the children—as if the act of imagining a good story for children was a way to keep children safe forever.
With the children Garp was instinctively generous, loyal as an animal, the most affectionate of fathers; he understood Duncan and Walt deeply and separately. Yet, Helen felt sure, he saw nothing of how his anxiety for the children made the children anxious—tense, even immature. On the one hand he treated them as grown ups, but on the other hand he was so protective of them that he was not allowing them to grow up. He did not accept that Duncan was ten, that Walt was five; sometimes the children seemed fixed, as three-year-olds, in his mind.
Helen listened to the story Garp made up for Walt with her usual interest and concern. Like many of the stories Garp told the children, it began as a story for the children and ended up as a story Garp seemed to have made up for Garp. You would think that the children of a writer would have more stories read to them than other children, but Garp preferred that his children listen only to his stories.
“There was a dog,” Garp said.
“What kind of dog?” said Walt.
“A big German shepherd dog,” said Garp.
“What was his name?” Walt asked.
“He didn't have a name,” Garp said. “He lived in a city in Germany, after the war.”
“What war?” said Walt.
“World War II,” Garp said.
“Oh sure,” Walt said.
“The dog had been in the war,” Garp said. “He had been a guard dog, so he was very fierce and very smart.”
“Very mean,” said Walt.
“No,” Garp said, “he wasn't mean and he wasn't nice, or sometimes he was both. He was whatever his master trained him to be, because he was trained to do whatever his master told him to do.”
“How did he know who his master was?” Walt asked.
“I don't know,” Garp said. “After the war, he got a new master. This master owned a cafй in the city; you could get coffee and tea and drinks there, and read the newspapers. At night the master would leave one light on, inside the cafй, so that you could look in the windows and see all the wiped-off tables with the chairs upside-down on the table tops. The floor was swept clean, and the big dog paced back and forth across the floor every night. He was like a lion in his cage at the zoo, he was never still. Sometimes people would see him in there and they'd knock on the window to get his attention. The dog would just stare at them—he wouldn't bark, or even growl. He'd just stop pacing and stare, until whoever it was went away. You had the feeling that if you stayed too long, the dog might jump through the window at you. But he never did; he never did anything, in fact, because no one ever broke into that cafй at night. It was enough just having the dog there; the dog didn't have to do anything.”
“The dog looked very mean,” said Walt.
“Now you've got the picture,” Garp told him. “Every night was the same for that dog, and every day he was tied up in an alley beside the cafй. He was tied to a long chain, which was tied to the front axle of an old army truck, which had been backed into the alley and left there—for good. This truck didn't have any wheels.
“And you know what cinder blocks are,” Garp said. “The truck was set on blocks so it wouldn't roll an inch on its axles. There was just enough room for the dog to crawl under the truck and lie down out of the rain and the sun. The chain was just long enough so that the dog could walk to the end of the alley and watch the people on the sidewalk and the cars in the street. If you were coming along the sidewalk, you could sometimes see the dog's nose poking out of the alley; that was as far as the chain would reach, and no farther.
“You could hold out your hand to the dog and he would sniff you, but he didn't like to be touched and he never licked your hand the way some dogs do. If you tried to pat him, he would duck his head and slink back into the alley. The way he stared at you made you think it would not be a very good idea to follow him into the alley, or to try very hard to pat him.”
“He would bite you,” Walt said.
“Well, you couldn't be sure,” Garp said. “He never bit anyone, actually, or I never heard ab
out it if he did.”
“You were there?” Walt said.
“Yes,” Garp said; he knew that the storyteller was always “there.”
“Walt!” called Helen; it irritated Garp that she eavesdropped on the stories he told the children. “That is what they mean by “a dog's life,” Helen called.
But neither Walt nor his father appreciated her interruption. Walt said, “Go on with the story. What happened to the dog?”
The responsibilities loomed for Garp, every time. What is the instinct in people that makes them expect something to happen? If you begin a story about a person or a dog, something must be going to happen to them. “Go on!” Walt cried impatiently. Garp, caught up in his art, frequently forgot his audience.
He went on. “If too many people held out their hands for the dog to sniff, the dog would wall back down the alley and crawl under the truck. You could often see the tip of his black nose poking out from under the truc. He was either under the truck or at the sidewalk end of the alley: he never stopped in between. He had his habits and nothing disturbed them.”
“Nothing?” Walt asked, disappointed—or else worried that nothing was going to happen.
“Well, almost nothing,” Garp admitted, and Walt perked up. “Something bothered him: there was just one thing. It alone could make the dog furious. It was the only thing that could even make the dog bark. It really drove him crazy.”
“Oh sure, a cat!” cried Walt.
“A terrible cat,” said Garp in a voice that made Helen stop rereading The Eternal Husband and hold her breath. Poor Walt, she thought.
“Why was the cat terrible?” Walt asked.
“Because he teased the dog,” Garp said. Helen was relieved that this was, apparently, all that was “terrible.”
“Teasing isn't nice,” Walt said with knowledge; Walt was Duncan's victim in the area of teasing. Duncan should be hearing this story, Helen thought. A lesson about teasing is clearly wasted on Walt.
“Teasing is terrible,” Garp said. “But this cat was terrible. He was an old cat, off the streets, dirty and mean.”
“What was his name?” Walt asked.
“He didn't have a name,” Garp said. “Nobody owned him; he was hungry all the time, so he stole food. Nobody could blame him for that. And he had lots of fights with other cats, and nobody could blame him for that either, I suppose. He had only one eye; the other eye had been missing for so long that the hole had closed and the fur had grown over where the eye had been. He didn't have any ears. He must have had to fight all the time.”
“The poor thing!” Helen cried.
“Nobody could blame that cat for the way he was,” Garp said, “except that he teased the dog. That was wrong; he didn't have to do that. He was hungry, so he had to be sneaky, and nobody took care of him, so he had to fight. But he didn't have to tease the dog.”
“Teasing isn't nice,” Walt said again. Very definitely Duncan's story, Helen thought.
“Every day,” said Garp, “that cat would walk down the sidewalk and stop to wash himself at the end of the alley. The dog would come out from under the truck, running so hard that the chain wriggled behind him like a snake that's just been run over in the road. You ever seen that?”
“Oh sure,” Walt said.
“And when the dog got to the end of his chain, the chain would snap the dog's neck back and the dog would be tugged off his feet and land on the pavement of the alley, sometimes knocking his wind out or hitting his head. The cat would never move. The cat knew how long the chain was and he would sit there washing himself with his one eye staring at the dog. The dog went crazy. He barked and snapped and struggled against his chain until the owner of the cafй, his master, would have to come out and shoo the cat away. Then the dog would crawl back under the truck.
“Sometimes the cat would come right back, and the dog would lie under the truck for as long as he could stand it, which was not very long. He'd lie under there while the cat licked himself all over out on the sidewalk, and pretty soon you could hear the dog begin to whimper and whine, and the cat would just stare down the alley at him and go on washing himself. And pretty soon the dog would start to howl under the truck, and thrash around there as if he were covered with bees, but the cat would just go on washing himself. And finally the dog would lunge out from under the truck and charge up the alley again, snapping his chain behind him—even though he knew what would happen. He knew that the chain would rip him off his feet and choke him, and throw him on the pavement, and that when he got up the cat would still be sitting there, inches away, washing himself. And he'd bark himself hoarse until his master, or someone else, would shoo the cat away.
“That dog hated that cat,” Garp said.
“So do I,” Walt said.
“And so did I,” said Garp. Helen felt herself turn against the story—it had such an obvious conclusion. She said nothing.
“Go on,” Walt said. Part of telling a story to a child, Garp knew, is telling (or pretending to tell) a story with an obvious conclusion.
“One day,” said Garp, “everybody thought the dog had finally lost his mind. For one whole day he ran out from under the truck and all the way up the alley until the chain jerked him off his feet: then he'd do it again. Even when the cat wasn't there, the dog just kept charging up the alley, throwing his weight against the chain and heaving himself to the pavement. It startled some of the people walking on the sidewalk, especially the people who saw the dog coming at them and didn't know that there was a chain.
“And that night the dog was so tired that he didn't pace around the cafй, he slept on the floor as if he were sick. Anyone could have broken into the cafй that night: I don't think that dog would have woken up. And the next day he did the same thing, although you could tell his neck was sore because he cried out every time the chain snapped him off his feet. And that night he slept in the cafй as if he were a dead dog who'd been murdered there on the floor.
“His master called a vet,” Garp said, “and the vet gave the dog some shots—I guess to calm him down. For two days the dog lay on the floor of the cafй at nighttime and under the truck in the daytime, and even when the cat walked by on the sidewalk, or sat washing himself at the end of the alley, that dog wouldn't move. That poor dog,” Garp added.
“He was sad,” Walt said.
“But do you think he was smart?” Garp, asked.
Walt was puzzled but he said, “I think he was.”
“He was,” Garp said, “because all the time he'd been running against the chain, he'd been moving the truck he was tied to—just a little. Even though that truck had sat there for years, and it was rusted solid on those cinder blocks and the buildings could fall down around it before that truck would budge—even so,” Garp said, “that dog made the truck move. Just a little.”
“Do you think the dog moved the truck enough?” Garp asked Walt.
“I think so,” Walt said. Helen thought so, too.
“He needed just a few inches to reach that cat,” Garp said. Walt nodded. Helen, confident of the gory outcome, plunged back into The Eternal Husband.
“One day,” Garp said, slowly, “the cat came and sat down on the sidewalk at the end of the alley and began to lick his paws. He rubbed his wet paws into his old ear holes where his ears had been, and he rubbed his paws over his old grown-together eye hole where his other eye used to be, and he stared down the alley at the dog under the truck. The cat was getting bored now that the dog wouldn't come out anymore. And then the dog came out.”
“I think the truck moved enough,” Walt said.
“The dog ran up the alley faster than ever before, so that the chain behind him was dancing off the ground, and the cat never moved although this time the dog could reach him.” “Except,” said Garp, “the chain didn't quite reach.” Helen groaned. “The dog got his mouth over the cat's head but the chain choked him so badly that he couldn't close his mouth; the dog gagged and was jerked back—like before—and the cat, r
ealizing that things had changed, sprang away.”
“God!” Helen cried.
“Oh no,” Walt said.
“Of course, you couldn't fool a cat like that twice,” Garp said. “The dog had one chance, and he blew it. That cat would never let him get close enough again.”
“What a terrible story!” Helen cried.
Walt, silent, looked as if he agreed.
“But something else happened,” Garp said. Walt looked up, alert. Helen, exasperated, held her breath again. The cat was so scared he ran into the street without looking. “No matter what happens,” Garp said, “you don't run into the street without looking, do you, Walt?”
“No,” Walt said.
“Not even if a dog is going to bite you,” Garp said. “Not ever. You never run into the street without looking.”
“Oh sure, I know,” Walt said. “What happened to the cat?”
Garp slapped his hands together so sharply that the boy jumped. “He was killed like that!” Garp cried. “Smack! He was dead. Nobody could fix him. He'd have had a better chance if the dog had gotten him.”
“A car hit him?” Walt asked.
“A truck,” Garp said, “ran right over his head. His brains came out his old ear holes, where his ears used to be.”
“Squashed him?” Walt asked.
“Flat,” said Garp, and he held up his hand, palm level, in front of Walt's serious little face. Jesus, Helen thought, it was Walt's story after all. Don't run into the street without looking!
“The end,” said Garp.
“Good night,” Walt said.
“Good night,” Garp said to him. Helen heard them kiss.
“Why didn't the dog have a name?” Walt asked.
“I don't know,” Garp said.
“Don't run into the street without looking.”
When Walt fell asleep, Helen and Garp made love. Helen had a sudden insight regarding Garp's story.
“That dog could never move that truck,” she said. “Not an inch.”
“Right,” Garp said. Helen felt sure he had actually been there.
“So how'd you move it?” she asked him.
The World According to Garp Page 26