Oh-Oh City

by Jonathan Carroll

  "To watch you in action, Scott. To see what you do outside that house. I see you only eating lunch and talking to Roberta. You're a good teacher, and it shows in the way you do it. Nathaniel Hawthorne's not my subject, but you make him interesting. And I learned what a 'pathetic fallacy' is today, too!" She patted my arm and stood up. Halfway up, she stopped for a second and winced. It could only have been from her pain. She smiled at me, seeing I'd caught the look. "My constant houseguest. You'll do, Professor Silver. You'll do. See you day after tomorrow."

  Roberta was at an aerobics class, and I was in my study, working on an article. Right in the middle of a superb thought, there was a thump thump on my door.

  "Yes?"

  "Scott, I got something here. Can you come out and look?"

  I liked Beenie and admired her courage, but was it necessary to disturb me in the middle of work to see if we wanted an old tennis racket? I made a face and went to the door. "Yes, Beenie, what is it?"

  She held a cardboard box the color of oatmeal. Wrapped around it was a piece of brown rawhide. Written across the top in large block letters was THE KING OF TOMORROW. I hadn't seen the box in twenty years, but didn't need to open it to know what was inside.

  When I was a graduate student, besides my course work, I was required to teach a class in Freshman Composition. It was a pleasant chore, and – because I was young, idealistic, and full of energy – I taught it well.

  One of the students in there was a serious young woman named Annette Taugwalder. She was smart and talented and wanted more than anything else in the world to be a writer … Annette cared so much about literature that she often read class assignments twice. I liked her, but was put off by her intensity. I loved books, too, but got the impression she ate them as well as read them. Also, she had an arrogance that said, Nobody is on my level here, folks, so stand back.

  Halfway through the semester, she came to me after a class and asked if I would be willing to read the manuscript of her novel. I said yes, but also told her I would be totally honest if I didn't like it. She said she knew that, and it was one of the reasons she was asking me and not another teacher.

  Unfortunately, it was no good. Yet another twenty-year-old's bildungsroman-there were good parts in it, but generally it was only old stuff trying to sound new. But I spent the better part of a weekend reading it carefully and making notes so Annette would know I had given it a fair shake.

  On Monday we sat together after class, and, as cannily and diplomatically as I could, I told her what I thought was wrong with her book. There were strong things there, but they needed shaping up, better characterization, clearer perspective. She asked if I thought the manuscript was publishable, and I said no; I thought it had to be rewritten. She became defensive, and said she'd already submitted it to one publisher, who had written a very encouraging letter back. I congratulated her, and said I could very well be wrong. She seesawed back and forth between arrogance and pleas. I could see the discussion was getting nowhere, and, after two hours –two hours! – i told her i'd said all i could about the book, and, in the end, it was her decision. never once was i condescending or dismissive. i am sure of that. to make a terrible story short, annette walked out of the room and left the manuscript in its box on the table. i thought it a bad dramatic gesture, and best not to follow. i'd wait till our next class and give it back then. i never saw her again. a week later she committed suicide.

  Tell me you were connected to a suicide, but feel no guilt, and I will call you a liar. We start whole, but soon guilt begins to carve its insidious tunnels around and through our souls. By the time you are my age, much of the structure should be condemned as unsafe. I have never gotten over this. I don't know what influence our meeting had over her final decision, if any, but what difference does it make? I see myself as one of her accused. I talked to Roberta; I talked to an analyst; I tried talking to God. But nothing helped.

  "Where did you find that?"

  "Up way back on a shelf in the garage. What do you want to do with it?"

  My first instinct was to say dump it. Instead, I told her to leave it with me. What was more troubling than seeing it again was knowing for sure I had left that box with the police the day I heard about her death. I walked into the police station and spoke to men I'd never had any real contact with, other than seeing them give parking tickets and chatting with store owners. Now two of these blue uniforms were asking me questions, and their faces were solemn, suspicious. One of them took the box and opened it. He looked inside, although I'd already described what was in there. What did he expect to find? I told them what I could, and left. The box looked strangely naked there, open in the middle of that wide oak desk. I left the police station empty-handed.

  Beenie gave me this same box and left the room without questions. Adrenaline rushed through my body, and I started breathing shallowly, quickly. Whatever I'd been doing before fell from my thoughts. I took Annette's novel back into my office and spent the rest of the day reading it.

  Roberta was still gone at four when Beenie came in to say good-bye. "Well, I'm done. That garage is smiling again. Hey Scott, are you all right? You look gray as cement. I think you should put down those papers and go out for a walk."

  I was two-thirds of the way through. It was still a bad book, worse than I remembered. "Do you know what this is, Beenie? Do you have a minute to listen?"

  She said sure, and I invited her in. I went to the desk, and she sat in my fat reading chair by the window. For such a terrible experience, it took only a short time to tell. I'd spent years going over it in my mind, but here I was, telling it again, and it took no more than ten minutes. When I was finished, she looked at her hands.

  "When I was young my husband and I liked to spend New Year's Eve in interesting places. Once, it was in a train going across Canada; another time in a firehouse in Moscow, Idaho. Then the children came –" She threw a hand in the air as though she were throwing confetti to the wind. "Kids tame you, don't they? After Dean was born, we usually stayed home on New Year's, and maybe brought in a bottle of champagne. Once in a while, there was a party, but we weren't so crazy about going out and wearing funny hats."

  I looked at her, confused by her connection between funny hats and my story. We sat there, silently thinking about death and December 31st.

  "I never could figure out what I liked better – New Year's on the back of a camel, or sitting in the living room with our kids, waving sparklers and jumping around. Both were good.

  "What does that have to do with you? Who knew more, Scott – you before this girl died, or the you after? Scars make our faces ugly, but they also give it character. From my point of view, I'd've done the same thing you did back then – That girl didn't want your opinion; she wanted you to say she was great. Well, she wasn't, and, sooner or later, that would've caught up with her."

  "Maybe if it had caught up with her later, she would have been better equipped-"

  "Nonsense. She's dead, Scott. Weak links snap. But as for you, here's something I believe in really strongly: guilt's a whore. It goes with anybody, but it's not good in bed. You're not dying, but this thing you've got with the girl is no different than my situation. We could both use up whole days feeling guilty 'bout what we didn't do in life, but why spend a day in bed with someone who doesn't give you any pleasure?"

  "That's too easy, Beenie."

  "No it's not! It's the hardest thing in the world. Just dumping your guilt and moving on.

  "Like I gotta be right now. Sorry we don't see eye-to-eye on this. You know, I do believe in recycling. Save your old papers, Coke cans, glass. But not old guilt. Far as I'm concerned, guilt goes bad after a certain while, and can't be used after that."

  We said our good-byes, and she left. It was so disappointing. I knew Beenie wasn't Albert Einstein, but it seemed a person who knew they were going to die soon would also know … more. But what she'd said sounded as though it had come from one of those popular psychology books you find at a dru
gstore. Sighing, I put my glasses back on and picked up the last pages of Annette Taugwalder.

  New Year's came and went, and I thought of Beenie's evenings with her family. Would she visit with Dean and his wife? Or with the daughter? Why did she talk so much about the son, but almost nothing about the daughter? Roberta knew.

  "Because they don't get along. The girl married a stinker who caused bad blood between them. It breaks Beenie's heart."

  "There's been no reconciliation since she got sick?"

  "No."

  I could not throw the manuscript away, but my smart wife came up with a solution, as usual. Following her suggestion, I went to the university hall of records, found Annette's old address, and sent the manuscript there with a note on the package to forward it if necessary. I assumed her parents had a copy of her book, but what a remarkable surprise if they didn't!

  At two o'clock in the morning, I woke Roberta to read her this passage from Rousseau:

  "She only kept her bed for the last two days, and continued to converse quietly with everyone to the last. Finally when she could no longer talk and was already in her death agony, she broke wind loudly. "Good!" She said, turning over, "a woman who can fart is not dead." Those were the last words she spoke.'

  "Now, Beenie Rushforth or not? Can't you imagine her going out like that? Farting and stomping and shaking her broom at the gods."

  Roberta reached for her glasses on the night table, which was her prelude to saying something that mattered. She would chat with glasses off, but when it was serious, she somehow felt she needed a clear field of vision.

  "I think you've got her pegged wrong, Scott. She's tough in ways, but also very vulnerable. Extremely vulnerable. Just listening to her talk about her daughter is so damned sad! The woman grieves. I think their separation hurts her more than the cancer. You know, I look at her, and we talk, and every time I think, 'Scott and I are so lucky. We are so, so lucky.'"

  I was shoveling snow off the front sidewalk, when the Rushforth Toyota pulled to the curb in front of me. She got out wearing the giant green government-issue parka her son had given her after he left the army.

  "Scott, you and I gotta talk."

  "What's up, Beenie?"

  "That book. You shouldn't've sent it back to the parents."

  "How did you know about that? Did Roberta tell you?"

  "No, but I knew. From now on, things like that, you either throw away or you keep 'em. Never pass 'em on. They're your memories, not theirs."

  "What're you talking about?"

  "I did the same thing and it got me into big trouble. You can do what you want, but I'm just telling you now so you know: there can be problems. Keep it or throw it away. That's the only rule to follow." She touched my arm, then walked back to her car and got out a bottle of cleaner. "It's tricky because everything seems loose and open. It's not! See you later."

  I watched her walk to the house. What was tricky? How had she known about what I'd done with the manuscript? Keep it or throw it away? Had she gone mad?

  I stabbed the snow shovel into the nearest mound and marched to the kitchen door, preparing for a talk either about Beenie with Roberta, or a talk with Beenie about what the hell was going on. Looking through the window, I saw both women sitting at the table. Beenie was looking straight ahead and crying. She'd say something stop, shake her head or drop it in defeat. I continued to watch, not knowing what to do. Finally Roberta happened to look my way. I pointed to me, then to the door. Can I come in? Her eyes widened, and she mouthed a big No! I went back to shoveling.

  When I'd finished the sidewalk and the never-ending path to the front door, I wondered if it was safe to go back inside yet. There was so much happening, and it all had to do with the cleaning woman.

  "Scott?"

  "Yes? I'm freezing! Can I enter my own house now? Or are we wrestling another crisis to the ground?"

  "Come in."

  Despite my displeasure, my antennae went up, and the signals sent were not good. Roberta's arms were crossed. A bad sign. Her face was expressionless. Bad sign two. My wife is an optimistic, good-natured person. If she gets mad once every two months, it's surprising – and most of the time, that anger is totally justified.

  "What's the matter, dear?"

  "The matter is, you are going to take me out to lunch and explain these."

  Our family had spent four years in Hale, Texas. A few of the only good times I remember there were sitting in the Lone Star Bar, drinking beer with Glenda Revelle, who might have been the most beautiful student I have ever known. If they're honest, all teachers will admit that, at least once in their careers, a young person walked into the class who had the potential to turn both the teacher and their world inside out. Some get involved; most don't. The problem for those who don't is, this ravishing student continues to sit in front of us half a year, their physical presence alone a daily reminder of the erotic dare: how intriguing it would be to live in a land way far from the mind. A land where the senses are everything, humiliation is likely, and outside the door of the room is probably nothing. Glenda and I did not have an affair, although she made it plain that would have been fine. We came close twice, and I was tempted. Close enough to smell her breath and the heat off the skin of her shoulder. But it did not happen.

  She was persistent, and sent me a number of letters. Silver calligraphic letters on black paper. Stupidly, I kept two – and Roberta found them. That led to the evening across the kitchen table when she called me a mean loser. Eventually she believed I had not been with the girl, and we reached a thin truce. The best one can hope for in situations like that.

  Now Roberta stood in front of the fireplace, holding out two black envelopes as if they were diseased.

  "Ro –"

  "Why did you save these, Scott?"

  "I didn't. You saw what I did with those letters. Where did you get those?"

  "Beenie found them."

  "Oh, Beenie, huh? Well, where is she? I want to ask her a few questions."

  "She left for the day. She's too upset to work. But that doesn't explain these. Why did you lie to me? Have you been writing her?"

  I walked over, took the letters out of her hand, and threw them in the fire. "I haven't done anything! I threw those letters away just like that, a long time ago, and you watched me do it! I have been a good man since then, Roberta. I've worked very hard to make amends to you and the children for treating you all badly, and I think I've done O.K. If you don't trust me any more than to think for twenty years I kept some half-assed love letters from a student hidden in the back of a drawer to moon over …. Where is Beenie? I want to talk to her."

  "She left. I told you she left. Why did you keep those letters?"

  "I DIDN'T!"

  "Then why did she find them?"

  "I DON'T KNOW!"

  "– Do, too!"

  "DO NOT! YOU SAW ME THROW THEM IN THE FIREPLACE IN HALE!"

  "Obviously not all of them?"

  "For Christ's sake, Roberta, I'm telling you the truth!"

  "Then why'd she find these?"

  "I don't know! How did she know I had sent the manuscript to Annette's family? How did she find it in the first place? I left it with the police. THAT'S WHY I WANT TO TALK TO HER!" Fuming, I gave her my back and walked to the door.

  "Where are you going? Come back here and start telling the truth!' I turned again and faced her. "What is holy to you, wife?"

  "The grandchildren."

  "Then I swear to you on all of their heads that you saw me burn each and every one of Glenda Revelle's letters back in Hale. O.K? Is there anything else I can say? Shall I slice my throat for further proof? Do I deserve no trust?"

  That was a terrible moment, because we looked at each other across a room that was suddenly miles wide. There was such silence between us. It told me no; in her mind, I still deserved no trust. That was so shocking after all those years. I would have gone to my grave thinking I had been bad once, but slowly, slowly, I had gotten all
right again in my wife's heart. Wrong. Like one of those ghastly accidents in nuclear power plants, my almost with Glenda Revelle had spoiled the earth around us for a thousand years.

  "Scott!"

  "What?! I'm going to find Beenie. I'm going to talk to her and find out what the hell she's doing. Then I'm going to come back here and dig out what other poisons you've got inside you."

  I don't like driving in the snow, because I never feel like I have full control over the car on icy roads. But you can bet your behind I drove that day. I drove too fast, and a couple of times fishtailed going around turns. Beenie had never gone home early, much less ten minutes after arriving but her unhappiness today didn't concern me. I would leave her alone as soon as she told me about the dead girl's manuscript, and where she'd found letters I'd burned years ago.

  Strange as it sounds, it didn't cross my mind that these circumstances were bizarre and verging on the impossible. I knew I'd given Annette's book to the cops and had thrown the black letters into the fire. Despite that, here they all were again, back on earth to accuse and alarm. Yet I wasn't spooked; I was irate! Who was this woman to dredge my past and come up with the only things I wanted to stay buried a fathom deep? I wasn't a bad man, damn it, but these two memories said I was. Insensitive and selfish, a pedantic lecher who cared little for most people and too much in the wrongest way for others.

  We have friends who live on Plum Hill. Houses there are old and big, and most have long sweeps of lawn right down to the lake. Groucho Marx had spent a summer there, and was purported to have said it would have been a nice place if it hadn't been so beautiful. Whenever there, I always marveled over the way the buildings, like powerful eider statesmen, sat up on that hill and knew they were impressive even if you had no idea whom they belonged to. Now and then, Roberta and I talked about what it'd be like to live on Plum Hill, but in our hearts, we knew it wasn't for us. What would we do next door to Peter Dawson, who owned the biggest newspaper in the state? Or Dexter Lewis, the junk-bond king? These were people you saw in town on Saturday wearing freshly ironed khaki pants and denim shirts, getting a haircut or buying a hammer at the hardware store. You nodded at each other and perhaps said a few pleasant, shoot-the-breeze words while waiting on line for the cashier to get on with it. But outside, the "Plums" drove off in their new Mercedes, while you dug in your pocket for the keys to a Chevy that hadn't been washed in some weeks. The world of difference doesn't rip you apart, but, once in a while, you stand by the door of your car a little too long and give a small sigh.