by John Irving
"We'll do it together," Roberta said. "That is, you're in charge, but I'll advise you. I'll tell you when I think you're making a mistake."
"Roberta," Garp said, "you're always telling me I'm making a mistake."
Roberta, at her most flirtatious, kissed him on the lips and clubbed him on the shoulder--in both cases, so hard that he winced.
"Jesus," Garp said.
"The Fields Foundation!" Roberta cried. "It's going to be wonderful."
Thus was friction kept in the life of T. S. Garp, who without friction of some kind would probably have lost his senses and his grip upon the world. It was friction that kept Garp alive, when he wasn't writing; Roberta Muldoon and the Fields Foundation would provide him with friction, at the very least.
Roberta became the in-residence administrator of the Fields Foundation at Dog's Head Harbor; the house became, all at once, a writers' colony, a recovery center, and a birth-advisory clinic--and the few well-lit garret rooms provided light and solitude for painters. Once women knew that there was a Fields Foundation, there were many women who wondered who was eligible for aid. Garp wondered, too. All applicants wrote Roberta, who assembled a small staff of women who alternately liked and disliked Garp--but always argued with him. Together, twice a month, Roberta and her Board of Trustees would assemble in Garp's grouchy presence and choose among the applicants.
In good weather they sat in the balmy side-porch room of the Dog's Head Harbor estate, although Garp increasingly refused to go there. "All the weirdos-in-residence," Garp told Roberta. "They remind me of other times." So then they met at Steering, in the Steering family mansion, the wrestling coach's home, where Garp felt slightly more comfortable in the company of these fierce women.
He would have felt more comfortable, no doubt, to have met them all in the wrestling room. Though even there, Garp knew perfectly well, the former Robert Muldoon would have made Garp struggle for his every point.
* * *
--
Applicant No. 1,048 was named Charlie Pulaski.
"I thought they had to be women," Garp said. "I thought there was at least one firm criterion."
"Charlie Pulaski is a woman," Roberta told Garp. "She's just always been called Charlie."
"I should say that was enough to disqualify her," someone said. It was Marcia Fox--a lean, spare poet with whom Garp frequently crossed swords, although he admired her poems. He could never be that economical.
"What does Charlie Pulaski want?" Garp asked, by rote. Some of the applicants only wanted money; some of them wanted to live at Dog's Head Harbor for a while. Some of them wanted lots of money and a room at Dog's Head Harbor, forever.
"She just wants money," Roberta said.
"To change her name?" asked Marcia Fox.
"She wants to quit her job and write a book," Roberta said.
"Oh boy," said Garp.
"Advise her to keep her job," said Marcia Fox; she was one of those writers who resented other writers, and would-be writers.
"Marcia even resents dead writers," Garp told Roberta.
But Marcia and Garp both read a manuscript submitted by Ms. Charlie Pulaski, and they agreed that she should hold on to whatever job she could get.
* * *
--
Applicant No. 1,073, an associate professor of microbiology, wanted time off from her job to write a book, too.
"A novel?" Garp asked.
"Studies in molecular virology," said Dr. Joan Axe; she was on leave from the Duke University Medical Center to do some research of her own. When Garp asked her what it was, she had told him, mysteriously, that she was interested in "the unseen diseases of the bloodstream."
* * *
--
Applicant No. 1,081 had an uninsured husband who was killed in a plane crash. She had three children under the age of five and she needed fifteen more semester hours to complete her M.A. degree, in French. She wanted to go back to school, get the degree, and find a decent job; she wanted money for this--and rooms enough for her children, and for a baby-sitter, at Dog's Head Harbor.
The Board of Trustees unanimously decided to award the woman sufficient money to complete her degree and to pay a live-in baby-sitter; but the children, the baby-sitter, and the woman would all have to live wherever the woman chose to complete her degree. Dog's Head Harbor was not for children and baby-sitters. There were women there who would go crazy upon the sight or sound of a single child. There were women there whose lives had been made miserable by baby-sitters.
That was an easy one to decide.
* * *
--
No. 1,088 caused some problems. She was the divorced wife of the man who had killed Jenny Fields. She had three children, one of whom was in a reform school for preteens, and her child-support payments had stopped when her husband, Jenny Fields' assassin, was shot by a barrage from the New Hampshire State Police and some other hunters with guns who had been cruising the parking lot.
The deceased, Kenny Truckenmiller, had been divorced less than a year. He'd told friends that the child support was breaking his ass; he said that women's lib had screwed up his wife so much that she divorced him. The lawyer who got the job done, in favor of Mrs. Truckenmiller, was a New York divorcee. Kenny Truckenmiller had beaten his wife at least twice weekly for almost thirteen years, and he had physically and mentally abused each of his three children on several occasions. But Mrs. Truckenmiller had not known enough about herself, or what rights she might possibly have, until she read A Sexual Suspect, the autobiography of Jenny Fields. That started her thinking that perhaps the suffering of her weekly beatings, and the abuse of her children, was actually Kenny Truckenmiller's fault; for thirteen years she had thought it was her problem, and her "lot in life."
Kenny Truckenmiller had blamed the women's movement for the self-education of his wife. Mrs. Truckenmiller had always been self-employed, a "hair stylist" in the town of North Mountain, New Hampshire. She went right on being a hair stylist when Kenny was forced, by the court, to move out of her house. But now that Kenny was no longer driving a truck for the town, Mrs. Truckenmiller found the support of her family difficult by hair styling alone. She wrote in her nearly illegible application that she had been forced to compromise herself "to make ends meet," and that she did not care to repeat the act of compromising herself in the future.
Mrs. Truckenmiller, who never once referred to herself as having a first name, realized that the loathing for her husband was so great as to prejudice the board against her. She would understand, she wrote, if they chose to ignore her.
John Wolf, who was (against his will) an honorary member of the board--and valued for his shrewd financial head--said immediately that nothing could be better or wider publicity for the Fields Foundation than awarding "this unfortunate relation of Jenny's killer" what she asked for. It would be instant news; it would show the nonpolitical nature of the foundation's intentions; it would pay for itself, John Wolf decided, in that it would surely gain the foundation untold sums in gift donations.
"We're already doing pretty well on gift donations," Garp hedged.
"Suppose she's just a whore?" Roberta suggested of the unfortunate Mrs. Truckenmiller; they all stared at her. Roberta had an advantage among them: of being able to think like a woman and like a Philadelphia Eagle. "Just think a minute," Roberta said. "Suppose she's just a floozy, someone who compromises herself all the time, and always has--and thinks nothing of it. Then, suddenly, we're a joke; then we've been had."
"So we need a character reference," said Marcia Fox.
"Someone's got to see the woman, talk with her," Garp suggested. "Find out if she's honorable, if she's really trying to live independently."
They all stared at him.
"Well," Roberta said, "I'm not about to discover whether she's a whore or not."
"Oh no," Garp said. "Not me."
"Where's North Mountain, New Hampshire?" asked Marcia Fox.
"Not me," John Wolf said. "I'm out
of New York too much of the time as it is."
"Oh boy," Garp said. "Suppose she recognizes me? People do, you know."
"I doubt she will," said Hilma Bloch, a psychiatric social worker whom Garp detested. "Those people most motivated to read autobiographies, such as your mother's, are rarely attracted to fiction--or only tangentially. That is, if she read The World According to Bensenhaver she would have done so only because of who you are. And that would not have been sufficient reason to cause her to finish the book; in all probability--and given the fact that she's a hair stylist, after all--she would have bogged down and not read it. And not remembered your picture on the cover, either--only your face, and only vaguely (you were a face in the news, of course, but really only around the time of Jenny's murder). Surely, at that time, Jenny's face was the face to recall. A woman like this watches a lot of television; she's not a book-world person. I strongly doubt that a woman like this would even have a picture of you in her mind."
John Wolf rolled his eyes away from Hilma Bloch. Even Roberta rolled her eyes.
"Thank you, Hilma," said Garp, quietly. It was decided that Garp would visit Mrs. Truckenmiller "to determine something more concrete about her character."
"At least find out her first name," said Marcia Fox.
"I'll bet it's Charlie," Roberta said.
They passed on to the reports: who was living, presently, at Dog's Head Harbor; whose tenancy was expiring; who was about to move in. And what were the problems there, if any?
There were two painters--one in the south garret, one in the north. The south-garret painter coveted the north-garret painter's light, and for two weeks they didn't get along; not a word to each other at breakfast, and accusations concerning lost mail. And so forth. Then, it appeared, they became lovers. Now only the north-garret painter was painting at all--studies of the south-garret painter, who modeled all day in the good light. Her nakedness, about the upstairs of the house, bothered at least one of the writers, an outspoken anti-lesbian playwright from Cleveland who had trouble sleeping, she said, because of the sound of the waves. It was probably the lovemaking of the painters that bothered her; she was described as "overextended," anyway, but her complaints ceased once the other writer-in-residence suggested that all the Dog's Head Harbor guests read aloud the parts of the dramatist's play in progress. This was done, successfully for all, and the upper floors of the house were now happy.
The "other writer," a good short-story writer whom Garp had enthusiastically recommended a year ago, was about to move out, however; her term of residency was expiring. Who would go in her room?
The woman whose mother-in-law had just won custody of her children, following the suicide of her husband?
"I told you not to accept her," Garp said.
The two Ellen Jamesians who just, one day, showed up?
"Now wait a minute," Garp said. "What's this? Ellen Jamesians? Showing up? That's not allowed."
"Jenny always took them in," Roberta said.
"This is now, Roberta," Garp said.
The other members of the board were more or less in agreement with him; Ellen Jamesians were not much admired--they never had been, and their radicalism (now) seemed growingly obsolete and pathetic.
"It's almost a tradition, though," Roberta said. She described two "old" Ellen Jamesians, who'd been back from a bad time in California. Years ago they had stayed at Dog's Head Harbor; returning there, Roberta argued, was a kind of sentimental recovery for them.
"Jesus, Roberta," Garp said. "Get rid of them."
"They were people your mother always took care of," Roberta said.
"At least they'll be quiet," said Marcia Fox, whose economy of tongue Garp did admire. But only Garp laughed.
"I think you should get them to leave, Roberta," Dr. Joan Axe said.
"They really resent the entire society," Hilma Bloch said. "That could be infectious. On the other hand, they are almost the essence of the spirit of the place."
John Wolf rolled his eyes.
"There is the doctor researching cancer-related abortions," Joan Axe said. "What about her?"
"Yes, put her on the second floor," Garp said. "I've met her. She'll scare the shit out of anyone who tries to come upstairs." Roberta frowned.
The downstairs of the Dog's Head Harbor mansion was the largest part, containing two kitchens and four complete baths; as many as twelve could sleep, very privately, downstairs, and there were still the various conference rooms, as Roberta now called them--they were parlors and giant dens in the days of Jenny Fields. And a vast dining room where food, mail, and whoever wanted company collected all during the day and night.
It was the most social floor of Dog's Head Harbor, usually not suited for the writers and painters. It was the best floor for the potential suicides, Garp had told the board, "because they'll be forced to drown themselves in the ocean rather than jump out the windows."
But Roberta ran the place in a strong, motherly, tight-end fashion; she could talk almost anyone out of anything, and if she couldn't, she could overpower anybody. She had been much more successful at making the local police her allies than Jenny ever had been. Occasional unhappies were picked up by the police, far down the beach, or wailing on the boardwalks of the village; they were always gently returned to Roberta. The Dog's Head Harbor Police were all football fans, full of respect for the savage line play and the vicious downfield blocking of the former Robert Muldoon.
"I would like to make a motion that no Ellen Jamesian be eligible for aid and comfort from the Fields Foundation," Garp said.
"Second," said Marcia Fox.
"This is open to discussion," Roberta told them all. "I don't see the necessity of having such a rule. We are not in the business of supporting what we largely would agree is a stupid form of political expression, but that doesn't mean that one of these women without a tongue couldn't be genuinely in need of help--I'd say, in fact, they have already demonstrated a definite need to locate themselves, and we can expect to go on hearing from them. They are truly needful people."
"They are insane," Garp said.
"This is too general," said Hilma Bloch.
"There are productive women," Marcia Fox said, "who have not given up their voices--in fact, they are fighting to use their voices--and I am not in favor of rewarding stupidity and self-imposed silence."
"There are virtues in silence," Roberta argued.
"Jesus, Roberta," Garp said. And then he saw a light in this dark subject. For some reason, the Ellen Jamesians made him angrier than his image, even, of the Kenny Truckenmillers of this world; and although he saw that the Ellen Jamesians were fading from fashion, they could not fade fast enough to suit Garp. He wanted them gone; he wanted them more than gone--he wanted them disgraced. Helen had already told him that his hatred of them was inappropriate to what they were.
"It's just madness, and simple-minded--what they've done," Helen said. "Why can't you ignore them, and leave them alone?"
But Garp said, "Let's ask Ellen James. That's fair, isn't it? Let's ask Ellen James for her opinion of the Ellen Jamesians. Jesus, I'd like to publish her opinion of them. Do you know how they've made her feel?"
"This is too personal a matter," Hilma Bloch said. They had all met Ellen; they all knew that Ellen James hated being tongueless and hated the Ellen Jamesians.
"Let's back off this, for now," John Wolf said. "I move we table the motion."
"Damn," Garp said.
"All right, Garp," Roberta said. "Let's vote it, right now." They all knew they would vote it down. That would get rid of it.
"I withdraw the motion," Garp said, nastily. "Long live the Ellen Jamesians."
But he did not withdraw.
It was madness that had killed Jenny Fields, his mother. It was extremism. It was self-righteous, fanatical, and monstrous self-pity. Kenny Truckenmiller was only a special kind of moron: a true believer who was also a thug. He was a man who pitied himself so blindly that he could make absolute enem
ies out of people who contributed only the ideas to his undoing.
And how was an Ellen Jamesian any different? Was not her gesture as desperate, and as empty of an understanding of human complexity?
"Come on," John Wolf said. "They haven't murdered anyone."
"Not yet," Garp said. "They have the equipment. They are capable of making mindless decisions, and they believe they are so right."
"There's more to killing someone than that," Roberta said. They let Garp seethe. What else could they do? It was not one of Garp's better points: tolerance of the intolerant. Crazy people made him crazy. It was as if he personally resented them giving in to madness--in part, because he so frequently labored to behave sanely. When some people gave up the labor of sanity, or failed at it, Garp suspected them of not trying hard enough.
"Tolerance of the intolerant is a difficult task that the times asks of us," Helen said. Although Garp knew Helen was intelligent, and often more far-seeing than he was, he was rather blind about the Ellen Jamesians.
They, of course, were rather blind about him.
The most radical criticism of Garp--concerning his relationship to his mother and his own works--had come from various Ellen Jamesians. Baited by them, he baited them back. It was hard to see why it should have started, or if it should have, but Garp had become a case of controversy among feminists largely through the goading of Ellen Jamesians--and Garp goading them in return. For the very same reasons, Garp was liked by many feminists and disliked by as many.
As for the Ellen Jamesians, they were no more complicated in their feelings for Garp than they were complicated in their symbology: their tongues hacked off for the hacked-off tongue of Ellen James.
Ironically, it would be Ellen James who escalated this longtime cold war.
She was in the habit, constantly, of showing Garp her writing--her many stories, her remembrances of her parents, of Illinois; her poems; her painful analogies to speechlessness; her appreciations of the visual arts, and swimming. She wrote wisely and craftily and with penetrating energy.
"She's the real thing," Garp kept telling Helen. "She's got the ability, but she's also got the passion. And I believe she'll have the stamina."