“Please sit down,” Ben said gently.
Quinn sat down. His color was a little better. “You always had to run everything. I know that. Nobody else could do anything right.”
“You may be right, Quinn. It might be my fault. But that doesn’t change anything. If I let the mill go, we’ll both be out.”
“You too? But—–”
“I’m not a team man. They’ll bring in nice, orderly team men, with big books about policy and methods, and when there’s any doubt, they look it up in the book. They won’t run this place the way I would. I want to know about you, Quinn. You’ll have a house and two cars and no savings and a hundred and something thousand worth of stock. You’re thirty-six. If it wasn’t for the responsibility of David, maybe you and Bess could pull your horns in far enough to get by. But I doubt that. You have a well-developed taste for luxury, Quinn.”
Quinn leaned forward. “I don’t see why you even think of giving it up.”
Ben felt the return of anger. “You don’t! You don’t! My God, just because it’s gone along so far, you think it goes on forever or something. Three fair-sized bad guesses in any fiscal year and this thing comes down out of the sky like a bucket of boiled rice. Because you can’t kick the buildings down with your bare foot, you think it’s here for eternity. Does the big sign on top of the plant comfort you or something? Damn it, man! You think I wanted to come in here in the first place? I had to, because there wasn’t anybody else. Wilma and I had other plans for my life. I’ve spent a lot of nights lying awake, sweating about this place. I’ve got jangled nerves and bad digestion—Oh, the hell with it!”
Quinn was looking down at his clasped hands. “Maybe, Ben, you … underestimate my contribution. I mean, I think the contact work I do helps us quite a bit. The trips …”
“Do you know why you haven’t been down to New York lately? Because Delahay risked his job to write me a personal letter begging me to keep you away from there. He said he had to spend too much time patching up the damage. He said you treated his big accounts as if Stockton Knit was doing them a favor dealing with them. Stop kidding yourself, Quinn. Go play golf all you want, but at least have the honesty to stop implying that you’re being a big help to me out there on the fairway. I didn’t mean this to turn into a squabble like this, but you act so damn blind.”
“Why are you doing this, then? Why are you doing this?”
“Because you’ve got to make some kind of a plan for yourself and tell me what it is. Because I don’t like the idea of being retired for five years and then suddenly finding out I have to support the three of you. Because it’s a factor in my decision.”
“So … I’m some sort of a joke around here. A big joke.”
“Don’t go off on that tangent. All that phony tragedy, Quinn. Let’s not get melodramatic.”
“The most constructive thing I could do would be drop dead.”
“What kind of a remark is that?” Ben said, feeling very weary.
“There’s the insurance, isn’t there? The business insurance.”
Ben leaned forward and banged his fist lightly on the desk top. “Will you please, please stop looking so noble and blighted and get off this self-pity angle. I’m trying to wake you up.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot, Ben.”
“I give up. Probably things will go on the way they always have.”
Quinn stood up. “That’s where you’re wrong, Ben. They can’t ever go on the way they always have, no matter what you decide.”
“Will you do me the favor of getting out of this office right now before I lose my mind completely?”
Quinn left without looking back, leaving the door standing open. Ben sat and felt bitterly ashamed of himself. Regardless of Quinn’s ineffectuality, one human being had no God-given right to do that to another human being. He had, in effect, helped Quinn create his own myth. If he had torn it down in the beginning, when the myth was weak.… But long ago he had realized that Quinn Delevan had a limited intelligence, a complete lack of any competitive drive. He was mild and decorative and a bit of a bore. Born into a different social stratum, Quinn would probably have been one of those men who, bolstered by a working wife, drift through many jobs—floorwalker, salesclerk, doorman, usher, hearse driver—reasonably contented, mild, half-alive.
Ben knew that out of his own selfish fear had come the hope that he could wire a verbal explosive to the seat of Quinn’s pants and shock him into awareness, into independence. It had been done, and he would have given a great deal to undo it. For a little time he had hoped he could force apart the jaws of this special trap. The hope had come from Griffin. But the springs of the trap were too strong. He thought of Griffin and of how contemptuous Griffin would be were he to know this special aspect of family responsibility.
He knew he had handled it very poorly. Had administered a shocking wound. Yet, he thought, perhaps you cannot inflict a deep and lasting wound when the injured party lacks depth. The meaningless people of this world seem to have a peculiar knack of self-delusion. Perhaps that is the measure of their meaninglessness. Already the ugly interview would be suffering a subtle distortion in Quinn’s mind. All the protective circuits and devices would be operating. By evening Quinn would remember words that were not said, and would have forgotten words that had been said. Delehay’s reaction would be construed as being the result of jealousy. Big brother Ben had been off on one of his usual tangents, trying to frighten the hired help. It would all be twisted and altered and changed, so that after a few days the rents in the toga would have mended themselves, and Quinn would pull it carefully around himself once more and stand proudly and smugly, made warm and safe by the fiction he constantly wrote for himself, the stories wherein he was always hero.
You could not smash the foolish ones, because the sledge bounced off their rubbery texture. It is awareness and sensitivity that fragment so easily. And he began, without warning, to think of his son. And as the sickness began, he turned his thoughts away. He had not yet been able to think it through. It hurt too badly. It involved too many losses, of hope and dreams and pride. Love was still there, stubborn and indestructible, but the good reasons for it were gone. And he could not yet permit himself to think of it.
Back in his own office, Quinn sat at his desk. The glossy trade journal was still open in front of him, open to the page he had been looking at when Ben had summoned him so abruptly. He looked sightlessly down at the color cut of the huge loom, a thing of Martian strangeness and endless complication, a device with an electronic brain which received its instructions from a plastic tape, a chirping, chuckling monster that sat and fed itself and excreted intricate patterns, full of stainless dreams of a day when the last man would leave the last mill and close the door.
Quinn sat alone and tried to remember when and how it had happened. It hadn’t happened in Ben’s office. It had happened a long time ago. He remembered the first day, the strangeness of it. A Ben who was sixteen years younger taking him around that day. This is my brother. He’s coming in with us. This is my brother. He’s coming in with us. Busy faces and quick grins and the handshakings.
Start at the bottom. Strange smells and strange methods and confusion and new words to learn. He had wanted to learn. They weren’t natural with you—not the way they were with each other. You were a Delevan. And somehow it wasn’t like a job. It was more like playing a part. And Ben kept shifting him around so much. It was confusing. There were a lot of things you never did get to understand the way you should. You were supposed to pick it all up quickly because you were a Delevan. You made mistakes and they said it was okay.
There must be one specific moment when it happened. One day back there when the decision was made. So that from then on you drifted along with it, stayed out of trouble, gave up any sincere idea of contributing anything. And you learned to nod in the right way when they talked over your head. And you learned all the defensive devices. Yes, you may be right. We’ll give that some consideration.
I’ll check with my brother on that. It could stand looking into. It would have to be a policy decision, of course.
And once those defensive devices were perfected there was little point in trying to learn more. Stockton Knitting had been going on a long time. The technical people had been trained for their jobs. Supervisory personnel made the minor decisions. My God, it wouldn’t collapse if you didn’t happen to know every little facet of the business. Ben kept things under control. He even liked it. The thing was to look wise in every job Ben gave you and wait patiently for the office of your own and the desk of your own.
But something had changed him into precisely what Ben had called him. Maybe it was a change so gradual he hadn’t noticed it.
Or maybe it had happened on a day long ago, a day during the time he had been assigned to bookkeeping. Sitting, drowsing over the intricacies of the accounts receivable, computing the discounts on the old manual machine with its worn keys, matching the discounts against the amounts taken by the customer firms. There had been a delay in getting some kind of new form from the printer. It was supposed to be ready, but for some forgotten reason, the printer couldn’t deliver. Burney, long years dead now, had asked him to go pick up the forms. He had left the office on a clear, cool October day and driven over into the heart of the city, parked on a back street. The yellow Ford, wasn’t it? The job press was a noisy place, presses thumping and clanking, paper whispering off into neat piles. The old man in the green eyeshade had shouted over the noise, “It’s half run off, son. You need them in a hurry, you take a stack back with you. That’ll hold you and we can deliver the balance tomorrow.”
And he had stood there thinking of the clear beauty of the day, of the dusty drowsiness of the bookkeeping section, of the wind that was touching the skirts of the sidewalk girls.
“They told me to get the whole order. How long before it will be done?”
“An hour I’d say.”
Quinn had looked at his watch. Three thirty. He’d still have time to get back to the mill before five. And it was too noisy, of course, to even think of using the phone in the job press. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he said.
The old man shrugged and turned away. Quinn had walked out into the sunshine. It felt good to walk. He stopped in at a quiet bar where the wood was old and dark and the ale had a taste that was like the smell of burning leaves, tart and smoky on that October day. And he sat at the bar where he could watch the sunny sidewalk. He had forgotten to call Burney. And time went too fast. It was quarter to five when he got back to the job press.
The old man leaned close and yelled, “Fella come and took most of the order back with him. Got here a little after four. Little fella with glasses with gold rims.”
Burney himself, and a needless affront when he could have sent someone else. “The rest of it’s finished. You can take it along now, son.”
The offices were nearly empty when he got back. He put the thin packet of forms in the storage cabinet. Burney glanced up at him and then returned to the work he was doing. Quinn turned and looked at Burney’s thin shoulders. He was annoyed at Burney. What the hell difference did it make? Would the walls fall down because some forms were late? Damn elderly little accountant, taking himself and his job too seriously. He shrugged. There was no point in sitting down at his assigned desk and working just because Burney probably thought he should feel guilty. Maybe Burney was waiting for some kind of an excuse.
He turned toward the door. At the doorway he paused. “Good night, Burney,” he said with great casualness.
“Good night, Mr. Delevan,” Burney said, not looking around.
And before that it had always been Mr. Burney and Quinn.
Had it started then? Or the next day when Burney, without explanation, had given the accounts receivable job to the girl who had been doing it in the first place, and Quinn had spent most of the day wandering around the mill, carrying a meaningless sheaf of papers in his hand, thoroughly bored.…
He sat and tried to summon up righteous anger, anger at Ben. He tried to tell himself Ben had kept him ineffectual, Ben didn’t want any competition. It didn’t work. Ben was right—hideously, irrevocably right. He thought of what Delahay had written Ben, and he felt his face get hot. Probably everybody in the plant had seen through his masquerade. Everybody in the family. Everybody in the city.
A girl came in quietly with a sheaf of checks already signed by Ben and placed them on his desk, stood quietly waiting. Quinn closed the trade journal and placed it aside, pulled the checks over, and countersigned them automatically, paying no attention to amounts or payees. One of the routine tasks. One of those little jobs which, added up, made up the one hour a day. The girl waited, fiddling with the clasp on a bracelet. He wondered what would happen if he should demand of Ben a full explanation of one of the checks selected at random, before adding his own signature. That was absurd. Childish. And the explanation might be too complicated to understand, even if Ben were willing to give it. He handed the checks to the girl and she walked out. After she had gone, he realized that she had not said one word to him. She had put the checks in front of him as though running them through some sort of machine. Oh, he has to sign the checks because he owns stock or something. No, he never looks at them. He just signs.
His world had gone very cold and he searched through it for warmth. He thought of the one place where he would find it. He got up quickly and went out into the mill and went up to her, aware of her quick surprised look of alarm. He pretended to be watching what she was doing. “I’ve got to see you,” he said. “I’ll wait for you at your place.”
She gave a barely perceptible negative shake of her head, lips compressed.
“I’ll wait for you there,” he repeated and walked away. He saw the other girls glancing at him. He knew he had given them a ripe basis for speculation. It did not matter.
He walked from the offices to the garage where he had left his car. It had been repaired. He drove it away. He parked in front of the old house on Fremont. He had never been there in daylight before. He walked across the shallow, defeated yard and around the corner of the house to the private entrance. He used his key and let himself in.
In the daylight it was unexpectedly dingy, with lumpy-looking upholstery, stained wallpaper, a rug so worn that the brown cording showed through the sparse pile. And there was a silent smell in there, as though no one had been in the apartment for a long time. Yet her morning cup was in the sink under a dripping faucet. Each drip made a varying musical note. He stepped into the tiny kitchen and wrenched at the faucet. The cadence of the drip slowed, but it did not stop. He moved the brimming cup and saucer. The drops made a fainter splatting sound against the stained enamel.
He went into the bathroom. There was a wiry brown hair in the lavatory. He picked it out with a piece of toilet tissue and dropped it in a metal wastebasket adorned with an incongruous picture in bright color of a cottage with a white gate and roses. He ran the water and cupped his hands and splashed his face. The water ran down the drain with a retching sound. The only towel was slightly damp. It held a smell of soap and flesh. He held his breath while he dried his face.
He had never been there alone. It gave him a feeling of secretiveness and curiosity. A tiptoe feeling. Like long ago, a Sunday afternoon when the family was out and he had gone into Alice’s room, looking for something he could not define, knowing only that it was a part of the new mysteries that had taken her off into unknown places.
He found personal things in a bureau drawer. Legal papers, letters, photographs. The photographs were odd. She had talked of her family. He had seen them through her eyes. Idealized. But here were the pictures. Strange rough-dressed people looking uncomfortably into the camera. It made Bonny seem more a stranger to him.
He read parts of the letters:
… Well, there is nothing more to say, so I must close now, wishing you luck in your new job.
… Ruth is living in Schenectady where Paul is working for t
he G.E. and she says it is a good job but you know Paul and if it is good like she says you can bet he will not be keeping it long. Ha. Ha.
… Sis, you got to go back up there when you get a chance and get that sewing machine away from her. Sally thought you got it and like you said in your letter you thought Sally got it and the way it turns out neither one of us got it and you no dam well that if Mom was alive to no about it she would be sore as Hell. So dont let her give you any lip the way she will want to do and tell her we want it. It makes me so dam mad Sally renting one here when there is the one right in the family Mom bought and paying that dollar and a half a week on it for God knows how long and if you get it you send it express collect because Sally can sure use it.…
He put the letters back. He found a high-school friendship book:
Roses are red, Violets are pretty. Let’s us get married and live in the city. Your true friend, Sidney.
No matter how old and wrinkled I get, you’re one true friend I will never forget. Maria Teresa Rooney.
He dropped the book back in and banged the drawer shut. These things turned her into someone else. And he did not want that to happen. He opened her closet. He knew her clothes well. He knew the feel of them against his hands when she was warm inside them. They hung like empty promises. Brushed and neat and mended, and so few of them.
It was too silent in the room. He turned to the small radio she had accepted from him with such strange reluctance. So that’s the end of the Giant threat in the top half of the seventh, and the first man to bat for the Braves will be—He clicked it off. The voice seemed to echo in the room, brassy, full of simulated enthusiasm, and then the memory of the voice went away and the room was quieter than ever.
There was no magic in the room. It was a girl’s room. And the girl was trite and too young and meaningless. Here were all the grubby mechanics of a person living alone, a stranger. All the magic there had been in the young flesh now seemed a magic that had been self-induced. It was a circus ground by daylight. It was a magician seen from the wings, so that you knew how the trick hinges worked and where the pigeons came from.
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