Chilly Scenes of Winter (36 page)

“What did she do to you?” Sam says.

“Nothing. It went fine.”

“I’m surprised. But that’s good.”

“You look like you don’t believe me.”

“You look half dead. You don’t look good.”

Charles shrugs. “Neither does J.D.”

“J.D. got good and drunk. We walked the dog for a mile, and he still didn’t sober up, so there he lies.”

“Does he have to go to work or anything?”

“He’s just working part-time now.”

“Oh. Well, see you in the morning. You want the dog?”

Charles puts the dog on the bed. The dog walks up to the other pillow and curls up.

“Get me up when you get up,” Sam says. “You can drop the dog and me at the animal hospital in the morning. It’s got worms.”

Charles makes a face. “Worms?”

“Yeah. All dogs get worms. Drop me at the animal hospital and I’ll only have to pay for a bus home.”

“Okay. See you.”

“Hey, Charles?”

“Yeah?”

“Those worms don’t crawl out or anything, do they?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.” Sam says. “You should have seen the things.”

That night, as usual, the dog paces (Sam removes the collar at night, but you can hear the dog’s toenails on the floor if you listen carefully) and J.D. groans and goes to the bathroom many times. Charles is glad he isn’t either of them. He is glad to be himself, now that he’s going to get Laura. And he
is
. He reassures himself of this, and eventually falls asleep. He awakens several times, though (flushing toilet, the dog pacing), from nightmares that he is losing her. In one nightmare he meets Frances, and instead of being a woman, Frances is a tall, handsome man, and Laura is obviously in love with him. They tell him to go away, and he jumps out the window (these nightmares are faithful, down to the last detail: he sees the shattered pane of glass as he crashes through the window), and he awakes spread-eagled on the bed, his face in the pillow. J.D. flushes the toilet. He is now only half glad he’s not J.D. J.D. will vomit a few more times, and eventually it will be over with.

He calls Laura when he gets to work. If she hasn’t left the apartment, he can at least tell her that he loves her and to have a good day. The phone rings and rings.

His boss asks him if he will have lunch with him. Charles is sure he is going to be fired. He works diligently until noon, when Bill said he would come for him. Bill does not appear until twelve-fifteen.

“Kid was on the phone. Sorry to be late.”

Bill is losing his hair. He is wearing a blue blazer and navy blue shoes—that’s something Charles has never seen before—and he has new glasses.

“Kid’s going nuts in the cold, wants an electric blanket. Jesus. My kid doesn’t even try to be self-sufficient. I said, ‘I sent you money galore. Can’t you go out and buy a blanket?’ and he says, ‘Do you want me to get into Harvard or not? Getting into Harvard requires that I do a lot of studying.’ So I said—I’ve always wanted to say this—I said, ‘I think you place too much importance on getting into Harvard. I don’t care if you get into Harvard or not, personally!’
That
shook him up.”

“I’d be afraid to sleep under an electric blanket,” Charles says. He thinks of his mother: God—what if that occurs to her? What if she plugs herself in and roasts?

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Bill says. “I’ve been sleeping under number three for years. My wife’s nuts for the thing. She wants to be under number four. As I’m dropping off I hear her click it up a number.”

Charles smiles, waiting to be fired. The elevator doors open and they walk out of the building.

“That blind man gives me the creeps,” Bill says, when they are outside the building. “I’m all for hiring the handicapped, but that blind man’s something else.”

“What is it about him?” Charles says.

“I don’t know. I just can’t account for it.”

“Maybe he’s the devil,” Bill says. “Other morning I came in and bought a paper from him and he said, ‘Up late last night, huh?’ As it happens, I was out damned late. Playing cards. You don’t play cards, do you?”

“No,” Charles says.

“That’s too bad. I mean—it can be overdone. But an occasional game of cards.” Bill slaps Charles on the back. “That’s what I tell my wife. She doesn’t like me out playing cards. What the hell. An occasional game of cards. Not that it’s always cards exactly.”

Bill’s face lights up, and what started as a conspiratorial smile ends up a sneer.

“You play
those
cards, don’t you, Charlie?” Bill says. “Ha!” Bill says.

They are crossing the highway. That means either the drugstore or the delicatessen. “How about some hot pastrami?” Bill says. “Fine,” Charles says.

“You’re a very quiet guy,” Bill says. “Notice that?”

“I guess so,” Charles says.

“So’s my kid. And then I get a phone call about an electric blanket. I worry that he’s not getting any action up there at Dartmouth. I was going to say something about that to him, but he’s a great one for confiding in his mother. If he wants an electric blanket, though, that means there’s nothing else to keep him warm, huh?”

“I guess,” Charles says.

“That’s a shame,” Bill says. “Nice-looking kid like that. Always work work work.”

“Yeah. He’s a nice kid,” Charles says.

“He works so hard he doesn’t remember his mother or his father’s birthday. Top that. You don’t have kids, but when you do you’ll see that things like that matter. I still go out and get his mother a gift and sign his name, and she does the same thing. Sometimes I feel like shoving that pen up his ass.”

Bill holds open the door. The delicatessen is mobbed. Bill stands in the longest line, the one for “twos.”

“Reason I asked you to have lunch with me, I thought that you were closer to my son’s age than I am … I’ve got a few years on you, huh? And maybe you’d have some idea what I might say to him to slow him down.”

“I don’t think there’s anything you can say if he doesn’t intend to slow down.”

“Aw, Charlie, there’s got to be some way to tell him to limber up. Are there any poets or singers or people like that I could introduce him to who would, you know, urge him to limber up?”

“I don’t know. I’m not as up on things as you probably think. Uh—you could get him a Janis Joplin record, one she sings ‘Get It While You Can’ on.”

“Tell me more.”

“Janis Joplin? You never heard of her?”

“I think I’ve heard of her.”

“She killed herself. She was a singer, at Woodstock? She was very free, you know, hippies identified with her. That one song …”

“Isn’t my kid going to know she killed herself? Won’t that make him think she’s nobody to listen to?”

“I don’t know. If he thinks that way.”

“I don’t know what he thinks, Charlie.”

“Well, try that one. Get him
Pearl.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The name of the record.”

“I
knew
you’d come up with something,” Bill says, slapping his back and moving him up in line.

In a few minutes the hostess seats them. She brings menus and a bowl of bright green pickles. Bill’s hand shoots into the bowl.

“That record’s going to surprise him,” Bill says. “I’m not going to send it with a note or anything. I’m just going to let him figure the thing out. That song’s plain enough that he’d figure it out?”

“Couldn’t miss it,” Charles says.

They eat their sandwiches in silence. Bill looks very pleased with himself. Charles is let down; he expected to be fired. All that adrenalin surging around for nothing. For that asshole kid. He would like to break the record over the kid’s head. Harvard. Just as bad, Dartmouth.

“Would you send an electric blanket to your kid?” Bill asks.

“No.”

“Why not?” Bill says.

“That’s just a lot of crap. Anybody can pile some stuff on and keep warm in bed.”

“They’re good things,” his boss says.

Oh yeah. His boss has one.

“Maybe you ought to send it, then,” he says.

“I never know when I’m talking to you exactly what you’re thinking. Tell me honestly, now: should I send an electric blanket?”

“No. They’re useless crap manufactured to make money.” Bill nods.

“But that record will go over okay?” he says.

“I imagine,” Charles says.

“No poets that you can think of, though?”

“I don’t know any poets who deal specifically with the problem of not agonizing if you don’t get into Harvard.”

“Yeah,” Bill says. “My impression is that they never speak specifically to any point. You ever sense that?”

“Yeah,” Charles says. It is the easiest thing to say. Bill insists on paying for lunch. “Not only will I pay, but I’ll teach you poker if you want to learn.”

“Thanks. Sometime I might.”

“Tell me the truth, Charlie. Forget that I’m your boss. You were very honest about the electric blanket. Would you ever take me up on my offer to teach you poker?”

“No,” Charles says. “Cards bore me.”

“Ha!” his boss says, and slaps him on the back, pushing him against the door to the outside.

They walk down the arcade, to the record shop. Charles finds
Pearl
and hands it to Bill.

“Look at that,” Bill says. “That looks like an old lady.”

“She’s only around twenty-five,” Charles says.

“I thought you said she was dead.”

“I mean in that picture.”

“That looks like my mother. Except for the way she’s dressed.”

“Yeah. She burned herself out good,” Charles says.

Bill takes the record to the cashier. It is put in a bright orange bag for him. He swings it back and forth as they walk back to work.

“What do you think of these fancy shoes?” Bill asks.

“I was noticing them.”

“Yeah? My wife put me up to getting them. She said she’d seen enough of black and brown. I don’t know. Everybody looks like a clown nowadays.”

Back in their office building, Bill turns left and Charles turns right.

“Thanks for the advice,” Bill says. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“Sure,” Charles says.

Charles stops at the typing pool on the way to his office. Betty is still not there. Back in his office he tries to reach Betty, but there’s no answer. He tries Laura again; nothing there. He reaches in his coat pocket for the piece of paper he discovered early in the morning, when he was rummaging to see if he had his house key. He unfolds the piece of paper and stares at Sandra’s number. He dials that. A woman’s voice says, “Hello?” He has no way of knowing whether it is Sandra or not, because he doesn’t speak, and he can’t remember what her voice sounded like that day in the park. Why has he even dialed her number? He hangs up and throws the piece of paper away. He begins work on a report, then reaches in the waste paper basket and retrieves the number, smooths it out and puts it in his top drawer. Sandra somebody-or-other. It seems like months and months ago that he ran through the park. Why wasn’t he at work that day? Sore throat. But why …? Can’t remember.

He stops at a florist on the way home and buys yellow tulips for Laura. They are in a pot, so they won’t make her sad. It is a silly blue pot, with a ceramic windmill at one end. At least the tulips are pretty. Coming out of the florist’s he sees a hardware store across the street. What the hell. He puts the tulips carefully on the seat and locks the car. He runs through the heavy traffic to the hardware store and asks where they keep the car wax. A salesman points him to the back of the store. “Aisle two,” he says.

Charles picks up three containers of Turtle Wax and checks out. He runs back to the car. A day of good deeds: advice to his boss, a present for Laura, and Turtle Wax for Pete. He drives to his mother’s house. The Honda Civic is parked outside. He will lie to Pete and say that he didn’t notice it, swear that he didn’t notice it. It is so silly-looking—a toy.

Pete’s face is white when he answers the door.

“Charles! How’s my boy?”

“Fine, Pete. I stopped by with something for you.”

“Is that so? Well, I’m mighty glad to see you. What a surprise.”

“How’s everything?” Charles says. He never comes here uninvited.

“Today things couldn’t be better. Come upstairs and see.”

“She’s in bed?” Charles whispers.

“Mommy had, Clara had a bit of a setback, but she’s as bright as a firecracker now. Come on up.” Pete gestures nervously from the steps.

“Honey,” Pete calls, “you’ve got a visitor.”

“No!” she shrieks.

“What’s the matter with her?” Charles says.

“It’s just Charles,” Pete calls.

They reach the top. Charles whispers to Pete: “What is it?” Pete shakes his head, keeps walking.

“What a nice surprise, isn’t it?” Pete says loudly. They stand in front of his mother’s door.

“My firstborn,” she says.

“Isn’t this some surprise, Mommy?” Pete says.

“How are you doing?” Charles says. The room smells very perfumy.

“She’s as fresh as a daisy in the field today, aren’t you, honey?” Pete says.

Clara stares at them.

“Were you … sick?” Charles asks.

“I was in the hospital,” she says.

“What?” Charles says, turning to look at Pete.

“Well, now, you were in the hospital a while ago, but you haven’t been back now, have you?” Pete says.

“You mean when Susan and I came before?” Charles says.

“I know you did,” Clara says.

“We all know that,” Pete says, slapping Charles on the back. “How about taking a seat?” he says to Charles. Charles sits in the pink tufted chair. Pete strolls around like a master of ceremonies.

“I was quite sick,” she says.

“You’re looking fine now,” Charles says.

“Oh, Pete says that I have to be freshened up. He throws me in the tub, Charles, and squirts perfume all over me and I’m too weak to get away.”

Charles looks at Pete in confusion. Pete reddens.

“We have to freshen up,” Pete says. “We can’t lie in bed without a bath for a week, can we?”

“I hate to be freshened,” she says.

“Look at Mommy’s—Clara’s—nice pink bed jacket. Her thoughtful husband got that for her. If Mommy—Clara—takes to bed, she might as well look cheerful.”