by Daniel Klein
Of Robert and Louise Wright’s brood, it was their second son, James, who completed the odyssey to the Housatonic River valley at the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, to the place that would, half a century later, be incorporated by the Massachusetts Settlement Council as Grandville. To understand why James Wright stopped at this particular spot and did not range on to Albany or points further west, or turn south to the fertile soil of what would become Connecticut to grow tobacco along with other enterprising colonial farmers, or even north, deep into mountains teeming with deer, rabbit, and bear whose pelts were prized on the other side of the Atlantic, we first need to fathom this young man’s character and heart.
From the time he was a toddler, James was an eccentric boy—argumentative, dreamy, and given to fits of melancholy that his father saw as laziness and his mother as a sign of spirituality. Indeed, James grew to be an avid Bible reader, although this was fundamentally because the Bible was the only book in the house. The Good Book was both his primer when, at the age of ten, he taught himself to read, and his fodder when later on he discovered that the written word could nourish his dreams. He favored the Old Testament, in particular tales of flight. He could recite by heart long passages from Exodus.
As it happened, James was declaiming the story of the parting of the Red Sea in the family barn when he had his final clash with his father. Robert told his boy he was sick and tired of his malingering ways, that the cows needed to be milked, not preached to. James replied with a straight face that enlightened cows produced richer cream. This, of course, was a preposterous idea, and James knew that as he said it, but the impulse both to argue and to spin fantastic tales was second nature to him, so much so that when his father screamed back at him, James stood his ground, insisting that his enlightened cows principle was well-established fact. By the end of their skirmish, James had a blackened eye that hardened into the resolution to leave his family immediately even though it was the middle of winter. So it was that James Wright set off from Westfield—not to search for more fertile land or more open space or, a common motive for young men living on remote farms, to find a wife, but simply to escape. But this only accounts for James’s flight, not for why he subsequently alighted in the future Grandville, never to leave.
It is February twelfth, 1685, the tenth day of James Wright’s journey. Half of those days, the snowfall was so heavy and unrelenting that he tramped no more than four or five miles from sunrise to sunset, his eyes flicking from the faint outline of the sun to whatever visible patch of snow-covered ground lay west of him. At dusk, he crammed himself under an overhanging rock or into the well of a tree stump where he spent the night murmuring Bible verses to himself or falling into a half-sleep of delirious dreams.
On this tenth day, he awakens to a clear sky and brilliant sun. Instead of making himself a breakfast of flat bread and raspberry preserve from the bundle his mother packed for him, James sets off immediately to make up for lost time. He has only taken twenty steps when he asks himself what ‘lost time’ can possibly mean if he has no destination? Is there a faster or slower passage to nowhere in particular? It is just such paradoxes that always tickled James’s imagination and, when expressed out loud, infuriated his father. At this moment, the thought makes James laugh. When the sound of his laughter echoes off the mountain to his right to the one on his left and then back again, back and forth, accelerating and dimming to a vanishing point that feels like Eternity itself, James Wright is in a state of bliss.
At noon, in the afterglow of this ecstatic moment, James begins to ascend the next fir-covered hill on his trek. The frigid air feels fresher in his nostrils and more vital in his lungs than any he can remember. Miniature prisms made of pebbles of ice suspended from the needles of blue spruce trees throw off tiny rainbows, dazzling James’s vista and making it more exhilarating. (Over two centuries later, this phenomenon will be mimicked by pinpoint light bulbs strung on cut pines inside heated houses at Christmastime.) Near the top of the hill, the trees give way to a great mound of granite. It would be easy enough for James to skirt this boulder and pick up his westward path on its far side but, without thinking why, he climbs on to the hill’s stone summit. It is here, looking down into the snowy valley, where James begins to cry.
If we saw him at this moment, we might assume that the tears falling on his cheeks were the result of his eyes smarting in the cold air. But as he weeps on, his shoulders trembling, we might be prone to admit that he is, indeed, overcome with emotion. Yet, given his fatigue, his hunger, his days of solitude, and his abrupt and acrimonious departure from his family, we would be likely to pin the cause of his outburst on these conditions rather than on its authentic source.
James is crying over the beauty he sees. The crisp shadows of pines in virgin snow, the crystal blue sky, the flock of pine siskins swooping across the open valley—this immaculate winter panorama, distinct from any he ever saw in the plains from whence he came, strikes James with awe. And for this reason alone—beauty—he decides to make this place his new home.
* * *
James Wright’s impulse survives in the greeting Wendell deVries has already heard a dozen times this February morning. Folks walk in Write Now’s front door saying, “It’s a Grandville day, all right,” the traditional acknowledgement of a clear blue sky and generous sunlight dazzling the snow-covered trees and rooftops of their town in mid-winter. For some locals, the greeting has acquired a defensive subtext—We’d rather be right here than take off for Florida like some ‘snowbird’ rich folk and retirees we know. But for most, it is a simple expression of appreciation and pride of place, especially for those who take the plowed path up to Wright Mountain’s peak, there to gaze down at their snowy village as if sighting it for the first time.
In the past, Wendell joined the Historical Society’s annual, February twelfth trek up Wright Mountain, listened patiently to Dr. Armbruster’s monotone recitation about James Wright’s epiphany, and even sang along with the others in ‘A Living Prayer’—
‘Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.’
But this year, what with running the shop, visiting Franny in the sanitarium, and looking after Lila seven days a week, Wendell had to miss it.
Although Wendell has migrated little more than a hundred feet from projection booth to news shop, he has experienced something akin to culture shock in the process. He has gone from a sequestered life to a public one, from books and movies to a perpetual rotation of living, talkative people, from a sense of immunity to one of risky exposure. On Esther’s advice, he hauled as much of his Phoenix memorabilia as he could from his booth to the store to serve as a cushion of familiarity, but he quickly realized Write Now’s racks, shelves, and counter only left enough space to accommodate his old posters, calendars, and photographs—that is, if he still wanted his customers to be able to get through the door. So his cherished easy chair, footrest, and box of Silver Screen magazines—not to mention his mammoth Brenkert projector—had to be trucked home where they now made an obstacle course of the living room. Binx made the transition to shop life far more gracefully than his master; his first day there he discovered one of the Melville Block’s original brass heating vents in the store’s far corner, a divine sleeping spot for a connoisseur of sleeping spots.
During lulls in business, Wendell steps outside the shop and walks up to the Phoenix to investigate its overhaul. So far, it has been all egress and no ingress—workmen shouldering charred floorboards from the stage, long rolls of ripped-up carpeting, and entire rows of iron and velvet seats out the front doors and into trucks. Wendell feels neither saddened nor cheered by what he sees. From what he hears from his customers, he supposes that it represents progress, but mostly he has too much on his mind to think about it, even if he takes just about every opportunity he gets to watch the workmen.
Wend
ell has run into Babs Dowd several times there. On the work site she wears denim overalls topped with a hardhat, possibly because she thinks it puts her on equal footing with the workers—just one of the guys—but more likely because she sees it as a juicy role. Franny had her share of that same theatrical whimsy in her, often dressing for the day as if she was an imagined character, but Wendell doubts that is part of his daughter’s life these days. When he visits Franny at the psychiatric center, she seems to have lost so much of herself that he cannot imagine she has anything left over to invest in the role of someone else.
Babs always asks about Franny, and Wendell replies, “She’s coming along” or “She’ll be back on her feet in no time.” The situation is fraught, to say the least. From one perspective, it was Mrs. Dowd herself who drove Franny over the edge. But from another, more tangible perspective, it was Franny who set Mrs. Dowd’s newly acquired real estate on fire. Little damage was done and no charges were pressed. Furthermore, Michael Dowd’s investment syndicate gave Wendell what they called a ‘golden parachute’ in the form of a check for six months of his former salary as the Phoenix’s manager. Accepting the money was rough for Wendell; it made him feel shabby and patronized. But he knew this was not a time to let pride determine his decisions. He had only one goal these days—to keep his little family intact.
One day, the Dowd woman told him she had an appointment to visit Franny at the sanitarium, that she wanted to tell Franny personally she bore her no grudge and wanted to remain friends. Wendell panicked. It sounded like a prescription for another breakdown. He rushed back to his store and, for the first time, phoned Franny’s psychiatrist. Dr. Werner could not speak to him until the end of the day, and when he did, he told Wendell that he was completely aware of Mrs. Dowd’s role in Franny’s life and it was precisely for that reason he had approved the visit. “It will help us dig deeper,” the psychiatrist said to Wendell, a response that made Wendell feel both angry and helpless. For Wendell, psychiatric treatment seems as arbitrary and opaque as mental illness itself.
Wendell is trying to train himself to be hopeful about his daughter’s recovery. For a while, he spoke with Franny’s mother on the phone almost every day—many times over the number of times he had spoken to her in the previous thirty years—and Beatrice’s confidence in Franny’s doctors helped Wendell considerably in his pursuit of optimism. But after a few weeks he discontinued these conversations because they had ceased to comfort him. Beatrice’s cheery descriptions of the sanitarium she and her husband had chosen for Franny began to make it sound more like a finishing school than a treatment center—the finishing school Beatrice believes Franny should have attended years ago.
Still, on balance, Wendell has faith Franny will make it through this bad period. He is a deep believer in the body’s resilience and the recuperative power of the passage of time, and since he has never sensed a disconnection between body and mind, he is confident time will heal his daughter’s illness wherever it resides. But he does have to admit that being away from the shop and home will probably speed the process for her. She needs a break from Grandville. Watching the workmen shouldering burnt planks out of the Phoenix could not be good for her, and dealing with Lila on a daily basis would probably be worse. Lila has become even more withdrawn than usual, and on the subject of Franny she is relentlessly uncharitable: Lila maintains that her mother is a victim of herself. Even if Wendell doubts Lila fully believes this, he never disputes this position with his granddaughter, mostly because he does not want to quarrel with her about anything, not now, but also because the prospect of arguing that Franny’s condition actually is out of her control is too painful for him to contemplate.
Wendell returns to the shop this morning to discover that a customer has entered during his brief look-see at the Phoenix. He is a retarded man, a resident of one of the town’s so-called halfway houses, although as far as Wendell can determine, there is no other half to these people’s lives—they remain in these houses into old age. The man standing at the counter is a familiar presence on Main Street, recognizable as much by the backpack crammed with books he always carries, as by his large head and mongoloid features. At this moment, Wendell sees the books as an affectation, the man’s absurd pretense that he is not what people think he is, but actually quite the opposite, a scholar. If there was any blessing to being subnormal, one would think that at least they would be spared pretentiousness.
The man comes into Write Now every morning at about this time and asks the same question, “Where’s Franny?” Wendell tells him that she is away on vacation, then watches him shake his head back and forth before leaving. But after Wendell’s reply this morning, the man lingers, fingering the packets of Altoid breath strips that sit on the counter between them.
“I talk to her sometimes,” Wendell says. “Do you have a message for her?”
“No!” the man retorts loudly, still not moving.
“Maybe I can help you?” Wendell says.
Again, a loud, petulant, “No!”
Wendell is annoyed. If the man is self-conscious enough to try to pass himself off as bookish, he is capable of knowing he is behaving rudely.
“It’s a small shop,” Wendell says. “Got to make room for other customers.”
“Who are you?” the man asks belligerently.
“Franny’s father. And I’d like you to leave now, young man.”
The retarded man looks stunned. Wendell sees tears spring to his eyes as he turns and scurries out of the store, his backpack jiggling behind him.
Wendell sits down on his stool. He is shaken. Binx bounds off his grate, ambles over to his master, and lifts his front paws onto Wendell’s lap. Wendell is massaging Binx’s neck to soothe himself when Mrs. Carpolino stumbles in on her walker and asks for the latest issue of Vogue.
Every day at eleven-thirty, Esther brings lunch for them both from the co-op, usually a thick soup and salad plate from the co-op’s salad bar. She slips behind Write Now’s counter and the two eat standing up. Afterward, Esther tends to the shop’s bills and orders, a job she volunteered to do after watching Wendell struggle for hours over candy bar inventory. Before she returns to her job in the co-op’s produce department, they hug and, if no customers are around, kiss. Because of Wendell’s lost access to the Phoenix’s dressing rooms along with his job, plus his decision to stay home evenings with Lila, he and Esther have not made their way into bed together since Franny’s breakdown.
Today, between their soup and salad courses, Esther touches Wendell’s arm and says, “What’s up with you today?”
Wendell shrugs. “Just tired,” he says. He does not want to go into the Backpack Man incident. He still feels ashamed of his behavior, but he does not think the little episode is important enough to mention, certainly not in the current scheme of his life.
“And sad?”
“I don’t know, Esther,” Wendell answers, more firmly than he intended.
“Okay,” Esther murmurs. She takes a couple of bites of her salad, then sets it aside and pulls out the order folder from under the counter.
Wendell watches her work. He does feel sad. He squeezes himself behind her, groin to buttocks, and wraps his arms around her waist. “Just one of those days,” he says softly.
Esther does not respond. She does not in any way pull away from him, but Wendell can feel her taut discomfort. She keeps checking off columns of candy brands as if he was not there.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Wendell whispers.
“What? What’s just a matter of time?” Esther asks over her shoulder.
“I don’t know. Everything.”
“Well, that’s certainly true,” Esther says, a suspicion of sarcasm in her voice. “Everything is a matter of time. Time is the stuff life’s made of.”
“Come on, Esther!” Wendell snaps. “I don’t need any New Age wisdom right now, okay?”
“Actually, Benjamin Franklin said that,” Esther replies.
Wendell
disengages himself and walks out from behind the counter to the front window where he stares through the rectangle of glass at the still winter day. He longs for his projection booth; he wishes nothing had changed or ever would.
A moment later, Mel Gustal walks in saying, “Well, it sure is a Grandville day.” Esther silently leaves while Mel dithers over the rack of birthday cards. Today is his mother’s sixtieth.
That evening after closing up and shopping for steaks and spinach at the Grand Union—Lila has reverted to carnivore with the vengeance of a born-again sinner—Wendell is driving up Mahaiwe Street, Binx beside him. Turning into his driveway, his headlights again flash on the ‘For Rent’ sign in front of the house conjoined to his. Pressing clutch and brake, he lets the truck idle in front of the illuminated sign.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
If, on a mid-winter’s weekend, a family from Boston or New York or Darien were to take a long-planned trip to the Berkshire Mountains to go skiing at Jiminy Peak or Butternut Basin or Catamount, and wanting to take in all the renowned spots of the area, made reservations for lunch at the Red Lion Inn in the center of Stockbridge, they might pause on the long front porch of that picturesque landmark to take in the quaint shops and churches that line Main Street to their right, buildings that are already known to them because they have seen them on calendars and greeting cards in reproductions of paintings by the town’s most celebrated resident, Norman Rockwell. Such is the cross-inspiration of life and art that the vine wreaths and velvet bows decorating the windows and doors of these buildings today perfectly match those in Rockwell’s 1940s and ’50s paintings, as if the town were a picture of its past self.
Looking now to their left, the visitors view the old colonial and Victorian mansions in the center of town, museum pieces too—grand, white, stately, yet at the same time cozy and snug-looking, storybook homes of contented New England families. One in particular catches their eyes, a vast neo-classical home cattycorner to the inn. It displays rows of columns along its first and second stories, open balconies, long-windowed sun porches, parapets, sloping dormers, side wings each the size of a twelve-room suburban house, and an annex that seems to ramble behind it without end. Even with snow on the ground, they see that the shrubs and gardens surrounding the mansion are masterfully designed in the French manner. One or two members of this out-of-town family are likely to indulge in a fleeting fantasy of living in this place as a serene lord or lady of the manor, and they smile secretly as they now enter the Red Lion Inn and luxuriate in the warmth of its blazing fireplace, unaware that the mansion of their fantasy is home to the troubled souls of the Austen Riggs Psychiatric Center.