Crying Wolf

by Peter Abrahams

  In the small domed room at the top of Goodrich Hall, the smart girl from English 103 was saying, “There’s a lot here we’re going to have to filter out, isn’t there?”

  “Such as?” said Professor Uzig, his face so composed and dignified it was hard for Nat to imagine it any other way, certainly not furious. But the memory, not twelve hours old, was strong, reinforced by a quick glance on his way up at the hot-air grate in the ground-floor lounge.

  “Like on page one-oh-one,” said the girl from English 103. “ ‘In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man.’ And he’s got sexist opinions like that all over the place.”

  “Is it possible to mount a defense in this particular case?” asked Professor Uzig. An odd thing had happened: although the professor’s voice remained unchanged, calm, cultured, confident, he’d gone pale. Did he dislike being challenged? Nat had already seen some of the others challenge him, seen how he turned them back with ease. Then what was it?

  “You’re asking us to defend that statement?” Grace said.

  “For the sake of argument, Grace, as a lawyer would.”

  “That’s what’s wrong with-” She broke off at that moment: Izzie had just entered, a few minutes late, and she was wearing Nat’s letter jacket. Grace’s eyes were on her as she sat down; everyone’s were. Nat had two sudden revelations; the first, what a juvenile garment a high-school letter jacket was, certainly his, burgundy with gold sleeves, the big gold C, Nat in burgundy on one sleeve, 8 on the other; the second, he now understood the meaning of a word that had always been doubly foreign to him: chic.

  Izzie, aware of everyone watching, said, “Sorry I’m late.” She might have been addressing Professor Uzig, but she was looking at Grace.

  “Carry on, Grace,” said the professor.

  Grace faced him, opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Nat, sitting beside her, realized she’d forgotten what she’d been saying. “Lawyers,” he said, softly, so only Grace could hear.

  “Lawyers,” said Grace, her tone more passionate than it had been before, almost angry. “That’s what’s wrong with lawyers.”

  Professor Uzig, his color back to normal, said, “As your punishment for tardiness, Isobel, it’s up to you to defend Nietzsche’s one hundred and thirty-ninth maxim from Beyond Good and Evil. Page one-oh-one.”

  Izzie riffed through her copy, read the sentence, looked up. “Women are more barbaric than men?”

  “Barbarous,” said Professor Uzig. “The words are not synonyms, barbarous invariably implying moral condemnation, as barbaric does not. Barbarous, then, and in only these two areas, love and revenge.”

  “Barbarous love?” said Izzie. “Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

  “Is it?” said Professor Uzig.

  “And what about domestic violence?” said a girl who’d never spoken before; she had an up-from-under way of holding her head that reminded Nat a little of his mother.

  “What indeed?” said the professor.

  “Well, it’s indefensible, isn’t it?”

  “Anyone else?” said Professor Uzig.

  Silence. Nat expected Grace might speak, but she was doodling on her pad, a flower with something dripping from it. Professor Uzig’s gaze found him. He had yet another thought about that jacket: wasn’t it the descendant of knightly finery, what a princess-rescuing fairy-tale character might wear? He never wanted to see the goddamn thing again.

  “Nat?” said the professor.

  “Yes?”

  “Have you done the reading?”

  “I have.”

  “And your response to this question?”

  “A question of my own,” Nat said. To his surprise he said that aloud, the kind of remark that until very recently, maybe until that moment, would have remained inside. Then he asked the question: “Did Nietzsche believe it?”

  “Referring to this passage that seems to shock everyone so much?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “That’s it. How do we know he believed it?”

  “And if he didn’t believe it?”

  “Maybe he was just trying to be provocative.”

  “In order to provoke what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “Thought. To provoke thought.”

  “What kind of thought?”

  “Fresh,” Nat said. “And maybe that’s the connection to Kurt Cobain,” he added, the words popping out on their own, “the provocative part.”

  “Oh, dear,” said the professor, “and you were doing so well.”

  The bearded student who liked Kurt Cobain leaned forward and said, “Wait a minute. He’s on to something.”

  “Something that you can discuss outside class,” said Professor Uzig. “We will begin to separate Nietzsche the provocateur from Nietzsche the philosopher, now that Nat has shown the way.”

  “But what about the whole Incesticide CD?” said the bearded student. “The one with ‘Hairspray Queen’ and ‘Mexican Seafood.’ It fits perfectly.”

  Grace had been working. She’d repaired the hatch cover, or trap door, in the tunnel, replacing the hinges and adding a pull ring and a rope ladder that unfurled all the way from the frame to the floor below. She’d swept, dusted, cleaned; and that night, by the glow of dozens of candles-in wall sconces, candelabras, and the great chandelier-they saw how magnificent the two rooms really were. They lounged on plush furniture with elaborately carved legs, while the paneled walls gleamed all around, but through pockets of candlelight and shadow, more like an artist’s rendering of Victorian splendor than the real thing, and while Amelita Galli-Curci sang “Caro Nome,” her voice, perhaps because of the recording quality, like some rediscovered instrument from a dead culture.

  “We need a name for this place,” Grace said.

  “How about the frat?” Nat said.

  They both gave him a look.

  “The club?” said Izzie, still wearing the letter jacket.

  “Yuck,” said Grace.

  “The Rigoletto Room?” said Nat.

  “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”

  “Then what?”

  “Something underground, like…”

  “The burrow?” said Izzie.

  “I’ve got it,” Grace said.

  “What?”

  “The cave.”

  “Oh, I like that,” said Izzie. “Didn’t Plato have a cave? This can be Nietzsche’s.”

  “I wouldn’t push it that far,” said Grace. “Just ‘the cave’ will do. Nat?”

  “The cave,” he said, raising his glass. He gazed through it and saw into the long-ago, or thought he did, and while he was doing that Grace opened another bottle. She poured more cognac in their glasses, heavy crystal glasses she’d found in one of the cupboards, poured cognac from 1899, its color the same as the atmosphere in the room. “Here’s to the cave,” she said, tilting back her head, exposing her perfect throat, draining the glass. Her face reddened at once, and when she spoke her voice was thicker and deeper. “And to Nat’s letter jacket, if that’s what the thing is called.”

  Nat sat up straight. Silence, except for Galli-Curci singing her song to the wrong lover, or whatever it was, the details of Rigoletto, never clear in Nat’s mind, now less so.

  “It’s sort of funny, isn’t it?” said Izzie, her voice going the other way from Grace’s, thinner and higher; anyone could have told them apart at that moment.

  “What is?” said Grace.

  “This silly jacket,” Izzie said. “As a fashion statement, I mean. That’s why I borrowed it.”

  Enough, Nat thought, and was about to bring everything into the open when he thought he heard a muffled sneeze, not far away. “Shh,” he said. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” they both asked.

  They all listened, heard nothing but water dripping, very faint.

  Grace turned to him. “You a little wired or something?”

  “No.”

/>   “Spooked, down here in the cave?”

  “Not at all. I like it.”

  “Me too. The best thing about this dump.” She got up from the divan she’d been lying on, filled everyone’s glass again. “A fashion statement,” she said, pausing before Izzie. “What a weird concept.” She continued to pour, candlelight-colored liquid rising to the top of Izzie’s glass and spilling over.

  “Grace!”

  “Oops. You forgot to say when.” Grace paused-Izzie’s eyes glued to her-plucked at the fabric of the jacket, rubbed it between finger and thumb. “Nice,” she said.

  “Want to try it on?” said Izzie, very quiet.

  “That’s up to Nat, isn’t it?”

  “Of course not,” Nat said.

  “I wouldn’t want to violate any high-school code.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Izzie; every note false in Nat’s ear. “It’s just a jacket.” She shrugged it off.

  Grace put on Nat’s high-school letter jacket, saying, “At least we know it’s going to fit.”

  And it did. At that moment Nat realized that Patti had never worn it. Wearing your boyfriend’s jacket had been uncool at Clear Creek High, at least while he was there.

  “How do I look?” Grace said.

  16

  “Once you had wild dogs in your cellar, but in the end they turned into birds and lovely singers.” What does Zarathustra teach about “suffering the passions”?

  — Midterm exam question, Philosophy 322

  “Thought you had a laptop,” said Ronnie Medeiros, rummaging through the stuff in the back of the goddamn hippie van as they drove down to Fitchville. “My uncle has a thing for laptops.”

  “You thought wrong,” Freedy said. There was a laptop, of course. Freedy had decided to keep it for himself. He’d never owned a computer before, knew nothing about them, but the CEO of a pool company would need to be completely whatever the word was with computers. So he was going to learn in his spare time. How hard could it be?

  “Still,” said Ronnie, climbing into the front, “not a bad haul. My uncle says you’re doin’ good.”

  It was starting to snow again, little dark pellets more like buckshot than flakes. Freedy turned on the wipers, turned up the heat. “Why’s it so fucking cold?” he said.

  “Maybe you’re low on coolant,” said Ronnie. “Or else the coil’s fucked.”

  Freedy glanced sideways at Ronnie, all toasty warm in his plaid hat, wool mittens, and padded jacket out to here. Looked like a complete asshole. He hadn’t been talking about the goddamn car. “Why’s it so fucking cold in general?”

  “You mean because there’s s’posta be global warming?”

  Freedy wanted to hit him; not brutally, just hard enough to straighten things out, clear the air. “How can you stand it?”

  “Hey, it’s home.”

  “The flats,” said Freedy. “You call that home?”

  “Could do worse.”

  “How the fuck would you know? You never been anywhere.”

  “That’s not true. I was down to see my cousin in Fall River just last spring.”

  “Fall River,” said Freedy. “You heard of Bel-Air, Santa Monica, Rancho…” Rancho what? He couldn’t remember. Like: was the whole thing, his whole California life, his real life, fading away? That scared him. This pool thing-pool business, concern, corporation-was going to happen. No matter what. Have an idea, make a plan, and then… for a moment, he couldn’t remember the third part.

  “Jesus,” said Ronnie, throwing his hands up over his face, “you almost hit that guy.”

  “Fuck you, Ronnie. I’m in total control.” He must have said it loud, because everything was quiet after. And in the quiet, having a chance to think for once, he remembered the third part from the infomercials: stick to the plan. Idea, plan, stick, stick, stick.

  “Everything’s cool,” he said.

  “Okeydoke.”

  “Say, Ronnie.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Got any access to crystal meth?”

  “You into that?”

  “Wouldn’t say into. It’s just, you know, an enhancer.”

  “I tried it. Couldn’t sleep for two nights.”

  “That’s what’s fun.”

  “Not for me. I need my sleep. Can’t perform otherwise.”

  Perform? What the hell was he talking about? He wasn’t some high-powered something-Jew word-he was Ronnie Medeiros, Portagee loser. “You got access, yes or no?”

  “It’s around.”

  “I know it’s around, Ronnie. This is the U.S. of A. What I’m sayin’ is can you get me some?”

  “Sure, for a price.”

  “You fuckin’ people.”

  “What’s that mean? Who fuckin’ people?”

  “What I said.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence, Freedy shivering because of the coolant or the coil or whatever the fuck it was, and still wearing California clothes, and Ronnie toasty warm hunched inside his padded jacket out to here, looking like an asshole. Imagine Ronnie in California. The thought made Freedy laugh out loud, a good long laugh. He could feel Ronnie thinking, What’s so funny? but he didn’t explain. Does the wolf explain, or the tiger?

  “Thought there was a laptop,” said Saul Medeiros. It was cold in his office back of the collision place; cold in the office, cold in the car, cold everywhere, like all the heat was on the fritz.

  “No laptop.”

  “You sure?”

  “Fuck I’m sure,” said Freedy. “Think I got it hidden in that goddamn toaster?” A good line, California cool, especially if he’d said it quieter.

  “ ’Kay,” said Saul, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his greasy jacket, that nose with the hair growing right on top. “If there’s no laptops, there’s no laptops. But you know why I like laptops?”

  “ ’Cause they make you think of pussy,” said Ronnie, smoking in the corner. They both turned to him. “That’s what they make me think of,” Ronnie said. “Every time I see a laptop I think of one of those lawyers, like on TV in a miniskirt.”

  “Ronnie?” said Saul.

  “Yep.”

  “How about takin’ the dog for a walk?”

  “What dog?”

  “The junkyard dog, for fuck sake. What other dog is there?”

  After Ronnie left, Saul opened a drawer in his desk, took out two nips of V.O. and a jelly donut with sprinkles. He pushed one of the nips across the desk, tore the donut in half, leaving a black thumbprint on powdered sugar, said, “Help yourself.”

  “Not hungry,” said Freedy, unscrewing the tiny bottle.

  Saul shrugged, ate the donut, speaking between mouthfuls, or actually during them. “What I like about laptops is the way they fly out of here.”

  “Yeah?” said Freedy, downing his drink.

  “Fly. You’re doin’ pretty good, but you start bringin’ in laptops you’ll be doin’ better. ’Pendin’ on the model, I pay up to three C’s for a laptop.” He raised the V.O. to his lips-lips with sugar powder in the corners-paused. “One thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You bein’ discreet?”

  “Sure.”

  “Discreet means you never mention my name.”

  “Why would I?”

  “Otherwise I get anxiety. That’s no good for anybody. Me because of my hypertension. You because…” The ugly little bastard stared at him with his ugly little eyes, one of them bloodshot. Then he polished off his drink and said, “Let’s do business.”

  They did business. For Saul that meant shaking his head a lot, saying, “This I can’t move for shit,” “No one wants these anymore,” “There’s a new model out now,” “It’s missing that thingamajig at the back”; for Freedy it meant getting ripped off.

  “You’re doin’ good,” said Saul, paying him off.

  “Then how come this is all I get?”

  Saul did that head-shaking thing again. A tiny green drop quivered at the end of his
nose. “Has nothin’ to do with me,” Saul said. “Market forces goin’ on here. Globalization market forces.”

  A hundred and seventy-five dollars. Driving back by himself up the highway, Freedy knew he just had to work harder. He was willing. This was the U.S. of A., and he was a native son. Men just like him had built the whole goddamn country, so there was no problem with work. He wasn’t some lazy name-the-ethnic-group. He popped an andro dry, ready to work at the drop of a hat.

  But what about fun? There had to be fun too, or what was the point? Female fun, especially. The image of the video girl in glasses, and what had happened to those glasses, jumped up in his mind. He toyed with the idea of paying for it. He’d never paid for it in his life: with his body, it would have been like-something, one of those complicated comparisons. But where, as he rolled into Inverness, shivering now from the cold, would he even find a hooker in this town? In LA… but that was another story.

  He had an idea. It came to him, just like that. Proved how amazing he was: he figured out, with help from no one, where hookers might hang out in Inverness. The bus station. Pure inspiration, the kind of inspiration that makes all the losers say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Freedy cruised by the bus station. It was empty. What a town. Not just no hookers. No nobody. He had to really assert control over his hands to stop them from squeezing into fists. While that little struggle was going on, a bus pulled in at the back of the building. Freedy parked in front of the station door, waiting to see who would get out.

  One person got out, one measly person. But a woman. Freedy watched her through the glass wall of the station, coming across the floor with a suitcase. Probably not a hooker, not with the suitcase, but how would you tell a hooker in this fucking cold? This woman, a young one, was wearing jeans, hiking boots, a long, hooded sweatshirt. Probably not a hooker. She disappeared into the rest room.

  Freedy waited. Why not? The day was shot. And what did that matter? He worked at night. Plus, those jeans-as far up as he could see-had looked pretty good on her.