Fever (3 page)

“I hope,” said Charles evenly, “your appearance and your grades have nothing in common. I trust you are doing all right at college. We haven't heard much about that.”

“I'm doing all right,” said Chuck, finally dropping his eyes back to his cereal. Standing up to his father was something new for Chuck. Before he'd gone to college, he had avoided any confrontation. Now he looked forward to it. Chuck was sure that Cathryn noticed and approved. After all, Charles was a tyrant with Cathryn as well.

“If I'm going to drive the station wagon into Boston, I'm going to need some extra cash,” said Cathryn, hoping to change the subject. “And speaking of money, the oil people called and said they won't deliver until the account is settled.”

“Remind me tonight,” said Charles quickly. He didn't want to discuss money.

“Also my semester tuition has never been paid,” said Chuck.

Cathryn looked up from her food and glanced at Charles, hoping he would refute Chuck's allegation. Semester tuition amounted to a lot of money.

“I got a note yesterday,” said Chuck, “saying that the tuition was way overdue and that I wouldn't get credits for my courses if it weren't paid.”

“But the money was taken out of the account,” said Cathryn.

“I used the money in the lab,” explained Charles.

“What?” Cathryn was aghast.

“We'll get it back. I needed a new strain of mice and there was no more grant money until March.”

“You bought rats with Chuck's tuition money?” asked Cathryn.

“Mice,” corrected Charles.

With a delicious sense of voyeurism Chuck watched the discussion unfold. He'd been getting notes from the bursar for months, but he'd not brought them home, hoping for a time when he could bring it up without his performance being at issue. It couldn't have worked out better.

“That's just wonderful,” said Cathryn. “And how do you expect we are to eat from now until March after Chuck's bill is paid?”

“I'll take care of it,” Charles snapped. His defensiveness was coming out as anger.

“I think maybe I should get a job,” said Cathryn. “Do they need extra typing at the institute?”

“For Christ's sake. It's not a crisis!” said Charles. “Everything's under control. What you should do is finish that Ph.D. thesis of yours so that you can get a job that uses your training.” Cathryn had been trying to finish her thesis in literature for almost three years.

“So now it's because I haven't gotten my Ph.D. that Chuck's tuition isn't paid,” said Cathryn sarcastically.

Michelle stepped into the kitchen. Both Cathryn and Charles looked up, their conversation momentarily forgotten. She'd dressed herself in a pink monogrammed sweater over a white cotton turtleneck, making her look older than her twelve years. Her face, framed by her jet-black hair, seemed extraordinarily pale. She went over to the counter and poured herself some orange juice. “Ugh,” said Michelle, taking a taste. “I hate it when the juice is filled with bubbles.”

“Well, well,” said Jean Paul. “If it isn't the little princess playing sick to stay home from school.”

“Don't tease your sister,” commanded Charles.

Suddenly, Michelle's head snapped forward with a violent sneeze, sloshing juice from her glass to the floor. She felt a
surge of liquid come from her nose and she automatically leaned forward, catching the stream in an open palm. To her horror, it was blood. “Dad!” she cried, as the blood filled her cupped hand and splattered to the floor.

In unison, Charles and Cathryn jumped up. Cathryn snatched a dish towel while Charles picked Michelle up and carried her into the living room.

The two boys looked at the small pool of blood, then at their food, trying to decide what effect the episode had on their appetites. Cathryn came running back, pulled a tray of ice cubes from the freezer, then rushed back to the living room.

“Ugh,” said Chuck. “You couldn't get me to be a doctor if you paid me a million dollars. I can't stand blood.”

“Michelle always manages to be the center of attention,” said Jean Paul.

“You can say that again.”

“Michelle always manages to . . .” repeated Jean Paul. It was easy and fun to ride Chuck.

“Shut up, stupid.” Chuck got up and threw the remains of his Grape-Nuts down the disposal. Then, skirting the blood on the floor, he headed up to his room.

After four mouthfuls, Jean Paul finished his cereal and put his dish in the sink. With a paper towel, he wiped up Michelle's blood.

 

“Good gravy,” said Charles as he went outside through the kitchen door. The storm had brought a northeast wind, and with it the stench of burnt rubber from the recycling plant. “What a stink.”

“What a shit hole of a place to live,” said Chuck.

Charles's frayed emotions bristled at the impudence, but he refrained from saying anything. It had already been a bad enough morning. Setting his jaw, he tucked his chin into his sheepskin jacket to keep out the blowing snow and trudged toward the barn.

“As soon as I can, I'm going to head for California,” said
Chuck, following in Charles's footsteps. There was about an inch of new snow.

“Dressed the way you are, you'll fit in perfectly,” said Charles.

Jean Paul, bringing up the rear, laughed, his breath coming in concentrated puffs of vapor. Chuck spun and shoved Jean Paul off the shoveled pathway, into the deeper snow. There were some angry words but Charles ignored them. It was too cold to pause. The little gusts of wind felt abrasive and the smell was awful. It hadn't always been that way. The rubber plant had opened in '71, a year after he and Elizabeth had bought the house. The move had really been Elizabeth's idea. She wanted her children to grow up in clear, crisp air of the country. What an irony, thought Charles, as he unlocked the barn. But it wasn't too bad. They could only smell the plant when the wind came from the northeast and, thankfully, that wasn't very often.

“Damn,” said Jean Paul, staring down at the pond. “With this new snow, I'm going to have to shovel my hockey rink all over again. Hey, Dad, how come the water never freezes around Michelle's playhouse?”

Leaving the piece of pipe against the door to keep it open, Charles looked out over the pond. “I don't know. I never thought about it. Must be something to do with the current because the area of open water connects with the inlet from the river, and the inlet isn't frozen either.”

“Ugh,” said Chuck, pointing beyond the playhouse. There on the apron of frozen mud surrounding the pond was a dead mallard. “Another dead duck. I guess they can't stand the smell, either.”

“That's strange,” said Charles. “We haven't seen ducks for several years. When we first moved here I used to hunt them from Michelle's playhouse. Then they disappeared.”

“There's another one,” cried Jean Paul. “But he's not dead. It's flopping around.”

“Looks drunk,” said Chuck.

“Come on, let's go help it.”

“We haven't much time,” cautioned Charles.

“Oh, come on.” Jean Paul took off over the crusted snow.

Neither Charles nor Chuck shared Jean Paul's enthusiasm, but they followed just the same. When they reached him, he was bending over the poor creature who was in the throes of a seizure.

“God, it's got epilepsy!” said Chuck.

“What's wrong with him, Dad?” asked Jean Paul.

“I haven't the faintest idea. Avian medicine is not one of my strongest subjects.”

Jean Paul bent down to try to restrain the bird's pitiful spasms and jerks.

“I'm not sure you should touch it,” said Charles. “I don't know if psittacosis is carried by ducks.”

“I think we should just kill it and put it out of its misery,” said Chuck.

Charles glanced at his older son, whose eyes were glued to the sick bird. For some reason Chuck's suggestion struck Charles as cruel even though it was probably correct.

“Can I put it in the barn for the day?” pleaded Jean Paul.

“I'll get my air rifle and put it out of its misery,” said Chuck. It was his turn to get back at Jean Paul.

“No!” commanded Jean Paul. “Can I put it in the barn, Dad? Please?”

“All right,” said Charles, “but don't touch it. Run up and get a box or something.”

Jean Paul took off like a rabbit. Charles and Chuck faced each other over the sick bird. “Don't you feel any compassion?” asked Charles.

“Compassion? You're asking me about compassion after what you do to all those animals in the lab? What a joke!”

Charles studied his son. He thought he saw more than disrespect. He thought he saw hatred. Chuck had been a mystery to Charles from the day he reached puberty. With some difficulty he suppressed the urge to slap the boy.

With his usual resourcefulness, Jean Paul had found a large cardboard box as well as an old pillow. He'd cut open the
pillow and filled the box with the feathers. Using the collapsed pillow as a protective rag, he picked up the duck and put it into the box. As he explained it to Charles, the feathers would both protect the duck from injuring himself if he had another seizure and keep it warm. Charles nodded his approval and they all climbed into the car.

The five-year-old red, rusted Pinto complained as Charles turned the key. Because of a series of holes in the muffler the Pinto sounded like an AMX tank when it finally started. Charles backed out of the garage, slid down the drive, and turned north on Interstate 301, heading toward Shaftesbury. As the old car picked up speed, Charles felt relief. Family life could never be made to run smoothly. At least in the lab the variables had a comforting predictability and problems lent themselves to the scientific method. Charles was growing less and less appreciative of human capriciousness.

“All right!” he shouted. “No music!” He switched off the radio. The two boys had been fighting over which station to hear. “A little quiet contemplation is a good way to begin the day.”

The brothers looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

Their route took them along the Pawtomack River and they got glimpses of the water as it snaked its way through the countryside. The closer they got to Shaftesbury, the more intense the stench became from Recycle, Ltd. The first view of the town was the factory's smokestack spewing its black plume into the air. A harsh whistle shattered the silence as they came abreast of the plant, signaling a changing of shift.

Once past the chemical plant the odor disappeared as if by magic. The abandoned mills loomed on their left as they proceeded up Main Street. Not a person was in sight. It was like a ghost town at six forty-five in the morning. Three rusting steel bridges spanned the river, additional relics of the progressive era before the great war. There was even a covered bridge but no one used that. It was totally unsafe and kept up just for the tourists. The fact that no tourists ever came to Shaftesbury hadn't dawned on the town fathers.

Jean Paul got out at the regional high school at the northern end of town. His eagerness to start his day was apparent in the rapid way he said good-bye. Even at that hour a group of his friends were waiting, and they entered the school together. Jean Paul was on the J.V. basketball team and they had to practice before classes. Charles watched his younger son disappear, then pulled the car out into the street heading toward I-93 and the trip into Boston. They didn't hit traffic until they were in Massachusetts.

For Charles, driving had a hypnotic effect. Usually his mind trailed off into the complexities of antigens and antibodies, protein structure and formation while he operated the car by some lower, more primitive parts of his brain. But today he began to find himself sensitive to Chuck's habitual silence, then irritated by it. Charles tried to imagine what was on his older son's mind. But try as he could, he realized he had absolutely no idea. Snatching quick looks at the bored, expressionless face, he wondered if Chuck thought about girls. Charles realized that he didn't even know if Chuck dated.

“How is school going?” asked Charles as casually as possible.

“Fine!” said Chuck, immediately on guard.

Another silence.

“You know what you're going to major in?”

“Nah. Not yet.”

“You must have some idea. Don't you have to start planning next year's schedule?”

“Not for a while.”

“Well, what course do you enjoy the most this year?”

“Psychology, I guess.” Chuck looked out the passenger window. He didn't want to talk about school. Sooner or later they'd get around to chemistry.

“Not psychology,” said Charles, shaking his head.

Chuck looked at his father's cleanly shaven face, his broad but well-defined nose, his condescending way of speaking with his head tilted slightly back. He was always so sure of himself, quick to make judgments, and Chuck could hear the
derision in his father's voice as he pronounced the word “psychology.” Chuck worked up his courage and asked: “What's wrong with psychology?” This was one area in which Chuck was convinced his father was not an expert.