by Tobias Wolff
The boy’s father came from a distinguished New York family. In his early twenties, he had traveled to Oregon to oversee his family’s vast lumber holdings. His family turned on him when he married a beautiful young woman who happened to be part Indian. The Indian blood was noble, but the boy’s father was disowned anyway.
The boy’s parents prospered in spite of this and raised a large, gifted family. The boy was the most gifted of all, and his father sent him back East to Hoatch, the traditional family school. What he found there saddened him: among the students a preoccupation with money and social position, and among the masters hypocrisy and pettiness. The boy’s only friends were a beautiful young dancer who worked as a waitress in a café near the school, and an old tramp. The dancer and tramp were referred to as “the girl” and “the tramp.” The boy and girl were forever getting the tramp out of trouble for doing things like painting garbage cans beautiful colors.
I doubt that Talbot ever read my stories—he never mentioned them if he did—but somehow he got the idea I was a writer. One night he came to my room and dropped a notebook on my desk and asked me to read the essay inside. It was on the topic “Why Is Literature Worth Studying?” and it sprawled over four pages, concluding as follows:
I think Literature is worth studying but only in a way. The people of our Country should know how intelligent the people of past history were. They should appreciate what gifts these people had to write such great works of Literature. This is why I think Literature is worth studying.
Talbot had received an F on the essay.
“Parker says he’s going to put me in summer school if I flunk again this marking period,” Talbot said, lighting a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you flunked last time.” I stared helplessly at the cigarette. “Maybe you shouldn’t smoke. Big John might smell it.”
“I saw Big John going into the library on my way over here.” Talbot went to the mirror and examined his profile from the corner of his eye. “I thought maybe you could help me out.”
“How?”
“Maybe give me a few ideas. You ought to see the topics he gives us. Like this one.” He took some folded papers from his back pocket. “‘Describe the most interesting person you know.’” He swore and threw the papers down.
I picked them up. “What’s this? Your outline?”
“More like a rough draft, I guess you’d call it.”
I read the essay. The writing was awful, but what really shocked me was the absolute lack of interest with which he described the most interesting person he had ever known. This person turned out to be his English teacher from the year before, whose chief virtue seemed to be that he gave a lot of reading periods and didn’t expect his students to be William Shakespeare and write him a novel every week.
“I don’t think Parker is going to like this very much,” I said.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“He might get the idea you’re trying to criticize him.”
“That’s his problem.”
I folded up the essay and handed it back to Talbot with his notebook.
“You really think he’ll give me an F on it?”
“He might.”
Talbot crumpled the essay. “Hell.”
“When is it due?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’d have come over before this but I’ve been busy.”
We spent the next hour or so talking about other interesting people he had known. There weren’t many of them, and the only one who really interested me was a maid named Tina who used to masturbate Talbot when she tucked him in at night and was later arrested for trying to burn the Nevins’s house down. Talbot couldn’t remember anything about her though, not even her last name. We finally abandoned what promise Tina held of suggesting an essay.
What eventually happened was that I got up at four-thirty next morning and invented a fictional interesting person for Talbot. This person’s name was Miles and he was supposed to have been one of Talbot’s uncles.
I gave the essay to Talbot outside the dining hall. He read it without expression. “I don’t have any Uncle Miles,” he said. “I don’t have any uncles at all. Just aunts.”
“Parker doesn’t know that.”
“But it was supposed to be about someone interesting.” He was frowning at the essay. “I don’t see what’s so interesting about this guy.”
“If you don’t want to use it I will.”
“That’s okay. I’ll use it.”
I wrote three more essays for Talbot in the following weeks: “Who Is Worse—Macbeth or Lady Macbeth?”; “Is There a God?”; and “Describe a Fountain Pen to a Person Who Has Never Seen One.” Mr. Parker read the last essay aloud to Talbot’s class as an example of clear expository writing and put a note on the back of the essay saying how pleased he was to see Talbot getting down to work.
In late February the dean put a notice on the bulletin board: those students who wished to room together the following year had to submit their names to him by Friday. There was no time to waste. I went immediately to Talbot’s dorm.
Eugene was alone in the room, stuffing dirty clothes into a canvas bag. He came toward me, winking and grinning and snorting. “Hey there, buddy, how they hangin’? Side-by-side for comfort or back-to-back for speed?”
We had sat across from each other at breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day now for three weeks, and each time we met he behaved as if we were brothers torn by Arabs from each other’s arms and just now reunited after twenty years.
“Where’s Talbot?” I asked.
“He had a phone call. Be back pretty soon.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at swimming practice?”
“Not today.” He smirked mysteriously.
“Why not?”
“I broke the conference butterfly record yesterday. Against Kent.”
“That’s great. Congratulations.”
“And butterfly isn’t even my best stroke. Hey, good thing you came over. I was just about to go see you.”
“What about?”
“I was wondering who you were planning on rooming with next year.”
“Oh, well, you know, I sort of promised this other guy.”
Eugene nodded, still smiling. “Fair enough. I already had someone ask me. I just thought I’d check with you first. Since we didn’t have a chance to room together this year.” He stood and resumed stuffing the pile of clothes in his bag. “Is it three o’clock yet?”
“Quarter to.”
“I guess I better get these duds over to the cleaners before they close. See you later, buddy.”
Talbot came back to the room a few minutes afterwards. “Where’s Eugene?”
“He was taking some clothes to the cleaners.”
“Oh.” Talbot drew a cigarette from the pack he kept hidden under the washstand and lit it. “Here,” he said, passing it to me.
“Just a drag.” I puffed at it and handed it back. I decided to come to the point. “Who are you rooming with next year?”
“Eugene.”
“Eugene?”
“He has to check with somebody else first but he thinks it’ll be all right.” Talbot picked up his squash racket and hefted it. “How about you?”
“I don’t know. I kind of like rooming alone.”
“More privacy,” said Talbot, swinging the racket in a broad backhand.
“That’s right. More privacy.”
“Maybe that South American guy will come back.”
“I doubt it.”
“You never know. His old man might get better.”
“It’s his mother. And she’s dead.”
“Oh.” Talbot kept swinging the racket, forehand now.
“By the way, there’s something I meant to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m not going to be able to help you with those essays any more.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
&
nbsp; “I’ve got enough work of my own to do. I can’t do my work and yours too.”
“I said okay. Parker can’t flunk me now anyway. I’ve got a C+ average.”
“I just thought I’d tell you.”
“So you told me.” Talbot finished the cigarette and stashed the butt in a tin soap dish. “We’d better go. We’re gonna be late for basketball.”
“I’m not going to basketball.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t feel like going to basketball, that’s why not.”
We left the building together and split up at the bottom of the steps without exchanging another word. I went down to the infirmary to get an excuse for not going to basketball. The doctor was out and I had to wait for an hour until he came back and gave me some pills and Kaopectate. When I got back to my room the dorm was in an uproar.
I heard the story from the boys in the room next to mine. Big John had caught Eugene smoking. He had come into Eugene’s room and found him there alone and smelled cigarette smoke. Eugene had denied it but Big John tore the room apart and found cigarettes and butts all over the place. Eugene was over at the headmaster’s house at this moment.
They told me the story in a mournful way, as though they were really broken up about it, but I could see how excited they were. It was always like that when someone got kicked out of school.
I went to my room and pulled a chair over to the window. Just before the bell rang for dinner a taxi came up the drive. Big John walked out of the dorm with two enormous cardboard suitcases and helped the driver put them in the trunk. He gave the driver some money and said something to him and the driver nodded and got back into the cab. Then the headmaster and the dean came out of the house with Eugene behind them. Eugene was wearing his hat. He shook hands with both of them and then with Big John. Suddenly he bent over and put his hands up to his face. The dean reached out and touched his arm. They stood like that for a long time, the four of them, Eugene’s shoulders bucking and heaving. I couldn’t watch it. I went to the mirror and combed my hair until I heard the door of the taxi bang shut. When I looked out the window again the cab was gone. The headmaster and the dean were standing in the shadows, but I could see Big John clearly. He was rocking back on his heels and talking, hands on his hips, and something he said made the headmaster laugh; not really a laugh, more like a giggle. The only thing I heard was the word “feathers.” I figured they must be talking about Eugene’s hat. Then the bell rang and the three of them went into the dining hall.
The next day I walked by the dean’s office and almost went in and told him everything. The problem was, if I told the dean about Talbot he would find out about me, too. The rules didn’t set forth different punishments according to the amount of smoke consumed. I even considered sending the dean an anonymous note, but I doubted if it would get much attention. They were big on doing the gentlemanly thing at Choate.
On Friday Talbot came up to me at basketball practice and asked if I wanted to room with him next year.
“I’ll think about it,” I told him.
“The names have to be in by dinner time tonight.”
“I said I’ll think about it.”
That evening Talbot submitted our names to the dean. There hadn’t really been that much to think about. For all I know, Eugene had been smoking when Big John came into the room. If you wanted to get technical about it, he was guilty as charged a hundred times over. It wasn’t as if some great injustice had been done.
Face to Face
She met him at a fireworks display. That part of it was funny when she thought about it later.
Virginia had been set up. Not that anyone really meant to set her up—but it happened that way. The boy, for example. He’d stopped asking questions like “Where’s Daddy?” “Why doesn’t Daddy want to live with us any more?” Lately, he had taken to drawing pictures instead—immature pictures considering his age—with bug-bodied figures and fat suns with long yellow rays like spokes. All the pictures showed the same thing: a man and a woman with a little boy between them, holding hands and grinning off the page. “Ricky,” she said, “why don’t you draw something else?” He wouldn’t, though. For this and for other reasons his teacher had begun to send Virginia strange notes.
Virginia’s neighbors, Ben and Alice, played their part too. Alice kept telling her that it was a blessing in disguise that her husband had taken off. “You’re free now, hon,” said Alice. “You can find someone nice.” Virginia had to admit that her husband wasn’t any great shakes. But when he left, not saying a word, it took the life out of her, and she didn’t think much about going out with men. Besides, she had her hands full with the boy.
Whenever Alice talked about her smart cousin from Everett, though, Virginia found herself listening. Alice always referred to him as “Poor Robert,” and Virginia gathered that he had suffered some great wrong. In late June Alice told her that her cousin would be coming with them to see the fireworks display at Green Lake, and she invited Virginia and her son to join them. Virginia suspected that she had something in mind, but Alice had already told Ricky about the fireworks and he was all set to go; so she agreed.
Why not, she thought. She could probably do more for the boy if she stopped feeling so bad all the time.
From what Alice had told her about Robert, Virginia expected a distinguished, confident man, full of opinions and unlikely to be interested in her. Actually, he was shy. And polite. Whenever he reached for his cigarettes, he offered one to her even after she told him she didn’t smoke. He was full of questions about her, though he had a way of looking off when he asked them. Robert’s eyelids drooped and he had dense brown curls. A faint, acrid odor clung to him, like the smell of a newly painted room. He called Ricky “Crazylegs” and by the time they got to Green Lake he had promised to take the boy fishing—“As long as it’s okay with your mom. Maybe she’d even like to come along,” he added, looking out the window.
“We’ll see,” Virginia said.
Just after the fireworks started she went back to the parking lot with Robert to get some potato salad. They walked along without speaking, side by side. Finally, Virginia broke the silence.
“Alice says you went to college.”
He nodded. “For a while, back in Michigan.”
“What did you study?”
“Math, mostly. I was going to be an engineer. I didn’t finish.”
“That must be hard.”
“It was a long time ago. Grin and bear it.” He laughed.
“I mean the math must be hard.”
“It wasn’t that bad. I got all B’s, except for some C’s.”
They got the potato salad from the car and started walking back. The only time they could really see was when a big flare or rocket went off. Robert took her arm gingerly when there were things they had to go around. Once they almost stepped on a couple lying under a blanket. Then a flare went off in descending stages with a big burst like an exclamation mark at the end, and they could see the couple moving together. Robert looked away quickly. Virginia thought that he did so because he didn’t want to embarrass her by saying something about it. It did not occur to her until much later that he had looked away because he himself was embarrassed.
“So you live in Everett,” she said.
“Just outside.”
“What do you do there?”
Robert hesitated. “I’m a housepainter.” He turned and looked her in the face for the first time. He was swallowed in shadows, and Virginia saw only his teeth clearly, moving up and down as he talked. “Maybe I could come over for a visit sometime.”
“All the way from Everett? That would be a lot of trouble, wouldn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” he said. “I really wouldn’t.”
When they got back Virginia sat down beside the boy. Ricky was lying on his back, watching the display—Alaska Candles, Starbursts, American Flags, each burst more dazzling than the one before. The boy’s face changed colo
rs with the rockets.
Robert called her often after that night. They usually went over to Alice and Ben’s and drank and kidded around. When they didn’t go there he took her and the boy out to the movies, once to a baseball game. He always behaved correctly: helped her with her coat, opened doors, and walked on the outside. When they parted, he would stare into her eyes and squeeze her hand with furtive, almost illicit intensity. More than a month passed before they went anywhere alone.
He took her to dinner at a place called Enrique’s, where the waiters were all foreign and there was a violinist. Robert read the menu and told her about wines. “I like good food,” he said. “It’s my one weakness.”
Virginia had guessed. Not that Robert was fat, exactly. More like stocky.
After dinner he took a big cigar from a metal tube and roasted the tip over the candle, all the while explaining how a really good cigar should be smoked. “You’ve got to respect it,” he said, “almost like a person.” Then he called the violinist over and had him play “Hungarian Tears” and a couple of other numbers. The violinist closed his eyes and smiled to himself as he played. Virginia squirmed and fiddled with her napkin. She was unable to meet the eyes of the people from the other tables who looked in their direction. She stared at Robert, who stared at the tip of his cigar. He gave the violinist a twenty dollar bill. “Twenty bucks isn’t that much when you think about it. Look at all the training those guys have to go through.”
Virginia nodded.
“Your husband—” Robert paused—waiting, Virginia thought, for her to supply a name. She said nothing. “How come the two of you split up?”
Virginia stared at him for a moment.
“We didn’t split up. He left me.”
These were hard words. It would have been easier to say, “Oh, we decided to take a vacation from each other.” But when people said things like that to Virginia, she felt sorry for them, and she didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her. Nevertheless she felt ashamed.