Ordinary People (6 page)

A long, uncomfortable silence. He is tired and irritated. And again, there are no choices; it only looks as if there are.

“I guess I skip practice and come here twice a week,” he says.

“Okeydoke.”

It is over, and Berger walks him to the door. “The schedule,” he says, “is based on patient ratings. A scale of one to ten. The higher I rate, the fewer times you gotta come. Example: You rate me ten, you only have to see me once a week.”

Conrad laughs. “That’s crazy.”

“Hey, I’m the doctor.” Berger grins at him. “You’re the patient.”

 

 

The worst, the first session has been gotten through. And the guy is not bad; at least he is loose. The exchange about the razor blades reminded him of something good about the hospital; nobody hid anything there. People kidded you about all kinds of stuff and it was all right; it even helped to stay the flood of shame and guilt. Remembering that day at lunch when Stan Carmichael rose from his chair pointing his finger in stern accusation: “Profane and unholy boy! Sinner against God and Man, father and mother—” Robbie prompted him “—and the Holy Ghost, Stan—” and he ranted on “—and the Holy Ghost! Fall on your knees! Repent of evil! Ask forgiveness for your profane and evil ways, Conrad Keith Jarrett!” and he had nodded, eating on, while Robbie leaned across the table, and asked, “Stan, may I have your gingerbread? Just if you’re not going to eat it, buddy.” And Stan broke off his ravings to snarl petulantly, “Goddamn it, Rob, you’re a leech, you scrounge off my plate at every meal, it’s disgusting!”

So, how do you stay open, when nobody mentions anything, when everybody is careful not to mention it?
Ah, shit, Jarrett, what do you want? Want people to say, “Gee, we’re glad you didn’t die?”
Poor taste, poor taste.

He is suddenly aware of the other people on the street, hurrying by, intent upon their business. See? No one’s accusing. They don’t even seem repelled. As a matter of fact, they don’t even notice. So. No need to be affected by them, either, right? Still, as they pass him, he carefully averts his gaze.

Cherry comes in, coatless, breathless, late from her lunch hour again. She gives Cal the practiced, wide-eyed smile. “What are you looking for, Mr. Jarrett? If it’s Braddock, that’s on Mr. Hanley’s desk. I’ll get it for you.”

“That’s all right.” He nods curtly. “I’m looking for the Sandlin account. I had it the other day.”

“Oh, just a sec, I know right where that is. I’ll bring it in to you, okay?”

And again, the smile. A tall, big-boned girl who wears too much make-up, and her skirts too short. He has noticed lately that women aren’t wearing their skirts short. It must be out of style again, and now it looks cheap. Or else he is getting old. And the secretaries get younger every year. Cherry is nineteen. Lord, was he ever that young? Cherry. Now, who the hell would give a daughter that silly name? Nobody would. It’s a fake, like the smile. He goes into his office and stands at the window, waiting for the file, staring out at the flat, red-brick complex of buildings to the west. Evanston Township High School. Strange how institutional buildings resemble one another. He can spot them a mile off. That one looks much like the Evangelical Home.

He glances at his calendar. Wednesday, November fifth. Get with Ray this afternoon about Braddock. Call George Sandlin’s broker. Call Burns and Rousch, set up a meeting for the nineteenth. Duties, services, advice. A good thing you do not have to know who you are, Jarrett, in order to perform, because today there is a minimum of information available on that subject.

 

 

He hates fighting, and last night they had fought—over London.

“I think you’re being unreasonable,” she said, “not even daring to ask him about it. Why don’t you just admit that it’s you who doesn’t want to go?”

“You ask him, then! What am I? The official interpreter here? You see him every day, don’t you? Show him the travel folders, give him the pitch.”

“I don’t see him any more than you do,” she said coolly. “What are you afraid of? It’s a question. It requires a yes or a no. You certainly ask him enough other questions—How did he sleep? How does he feel? How did
I
sleep? How do
I
feel?”

“Okay,” he said.
“How did
you sleep? How do you feel?”

“That’s not
it!”
she said. “If we could all just relax a little! If things could just be normal again. I don’t want you to start asking
me
the questions, I want you to just stop!”

Well, okay. Fair enough. If she knew, though, that it is not only of Conrad but of himself that he is asking questions now; basic, hopeless questions that mock him, finger him as a joker, a bumbler, a poor dope.
Who the hell are you?
as he walks down the street, and who can step in time to that music for more than thirty seconds? He ducks into a drugstore for respite, buys himself a cigar.
Who the hell are you?
follows him inside, leaning on the glass counter, waiting. Maybe everybody does it, that is the thought he hangs on to, like a drunk at a friendly lamppost. Who in the world knows who he is all the time? It is not a question to ask a guy over a sandwich at the Quik-Lunch. If you must ponder it, then do it alone at isolated periods with long intervals in between, so as not to drive yourself bats.

I’m the kind of man who
—he has heard this phrase a million times, at parties, in bars, in the course of normal conversation,
I’m the kind of man who
—instinctively he listens; tries to apply any familiar terms to himself, but without success.

Arnold Bacon. There was a man who knew who he was. Years since he has thought about him. In 1967, Ray noticed his obit in the
Tribune
“... nationally known tax attorney dies at seventy-two.... Tragic loss to the profession, ABA president says....”

He was seventeen years old when he first met Arnold Bacon. Seventeen, a senior in high school, his plans for the future not extending past the next afternoon, and Bacon had come up to him at, of all places, a Christmas Tea in the lounge of the Evangelical Home. “Well, young man, what are you planning to do with the rest of your life?” He had laughed politely, looking for a neat and pleasant exit to the conversation, but Bacon was serious. “I’ve looked at your grades,” he said. “You’re smart. You know the importance of a good education. You ever thought about going into law?”

He had thought about being a Soldier of Fortune, after reading
The Three Musketeers.
Or a fireman. A professional athlete. He was a good tennis player, he was well coordinated. He learned games quickly. Those vague and wistful occupations faded out of the picture after that December afternoon. He did more than think about the law. He applied and was accepted to prelaw at Wayne University; he took a part-time job clerking in Bacon’s office; he graduated from Wayne and was accepted into law school at the University of Michigan, backed by Bacon’s influential recommendation, he later found out from one of the deans.

A lucky accident. Bacon took him on; decided to be his mentor; told him what courses to take and which ones to stay away from; which scholarships to apply for; which professors he must not miss. He came to his aid financially whenever it was necessary. It was the closest thing to a father-son relationship—it was a father-son relationship, he thought. Bacon had one daughter; no sons. Bacon’s daughter might have made a smashing lawyer; but women lawyers were rarer, then, and suspect. And he had this reverence, this vast, eclipsing love for the law that had to be coalesced. He needed a student, an apprentice. He needed to know that he was leaving his baby protected.

Bacon had not approved of law students who married while they were in school. Diffusion of energy, he called it. And so, of course, everything had changed, after Beth. Bacon was a man of strong views. He had principles. Integrity. He knew who he was and where he stood on certain—what he considered—inviolable issues. Bacon had been Cal’s first actual experience with loss.

When he was eleven, he learned the association of that word with death. The director of the Evangelical Home had called him in to tell him of his “loss.” His mother had “passed away”—another term he was more familiar with, having heard it used frequently in connection with the elderly, wraithlike beings who inhabited the east wing of the Home, coming and going very quickly. He remembered the feeling of awe that possessed him that day. He was aware that an event of some magnitude had happened to
him.
Someone close to him had passed away and it was his loss, and his alone. For a short time he became a figure of some importance to his peers. And he was invited to the director’s office for cocoa and sermons on
Love and Loss,
and
How a Christian Deals with Grief.
The only difference he perceived was that he no longer had any visitor or presents on his birthday, or at Christmas. Well, that wasn’t true, really. He had presents, they just weren’t from anyone he knew. But he did not, at the time, understand the meaning of loss. And of grief. He still had not experienced those words at all.

He had grieved over Arnold, though. Not when he died, it was too late, then; years since he had seen him. But when he discovered that it had been a business venture, after all, that had felt like grief. It was grief. He and Beth had, together, repaid the money. It was, as Bacon pointed out to him, a financial obligation. It took five years, but it was not a hardship. Beth had her own money; he had a good scholarship, and they hardly felt the monthly bill. But Arnold’s indifference, after the marriage—that had hurt him so much. It had undermined him, taken away something that he hadn’t even realized he possessed; he had regarded it so lightly, so casually.

Cherry swings into the room with her smile, to put the papers on his desk. Seductively, that is how she does it. She works hard at it. Too hard. She has a good telephone voice. That’s about it. Can’t take dictation worth a damn, and she won’t file. He wonders where she found this one; she must have had to do some hunting for it. Her boy friend goes to Northwestern, gets out of class at five o’clock each day, she has informed them. She is firm about leaving the office at exactly that time. Her habit of sneaking error-spotted letters on the desk for his signature, as she gives him the look of wide-eyed innocence, drives him crazy. What would Bacon have to say about a secretary like this? “Calvin, you get what you deserve.”

I’m the kind of man who
—
hasn’t the least idea what kind of man I am.
There. Some definition. He is no closer than he was back in the director’s office, back when he listened to the sermons, his mind wandering, not even aware, then, that he was searching.

So, how does a Christian deal with grief? There is no dealing; he knows that much. There is simply the stubborn, mindless hanging on until it is over. Until you are through it. But something has happened in the process. The old definitions, the neat, knowing pigeonholes have disappeared. Or else they no longer apply.

His eyes move again to the calendar. Wednesday, November fifth. Of course. Obvious. All the painful self-examination ; the unanswered questions. At least he knows what is wrong today. Today is Jordan’s birthday. Today he would have been nineteen.

Karen smiles at him. Deep dimples in her cheeks. He had forgotten that about her, had forgotten how she lowers her head when she is embarrassed or nervous. Nervous now as she sits down across from him in the narrow booth. It makes him feel protective. She doesn’t have to be afraid of him.

“Hi. How are you?”

“Fine. And you?”

He grins; shrugs his shoulders. “Not bad. Light, scattered paranoia increasing to moderate during the day.” He means merely to jog her memory, but she frowns and looks away. He has offended her. “Hey, I’m only kidding. I’m fine. Really.”

She leans awkwardly to the side, shrugging out of her coat; folds it neatly beside her on the seat. She has gained weight since the hospital. It looks good on her. She used to wear her hair long and straight. She would tuck it behind her ears while she talked. Now it is short, curling softly about her face. Dark feathers that brush against her cheeks.

“I like your hair that way.”

“Thank you.” She touches it. She touches and straightens her coat again. They look at each other. Slowly sinking in the awkwardness of the moment. He didn’t want that to happen. They were good friends at the hospital. They still are. No reason to be uncomfortable, is there?

She asks, “When did you come home?”

“End of August.” A place where they were both safe. They talked for hours on the stone bench outside the rec-room door. Sometimes Leo would come and sit with them, cracking jokes, finding out they were alive. Surely she must remember.

“It’s great to see you,” he says.

“Good to see you.” Again she ducks her head. “I can’t stay too long. I’ve got a meeting at school. Our drama club is doing A Thousand
Clowns
—the Herb Gardner play—do you know it? We’re going wild trying to get it together. I’m secretary this year, that’s probably why we’re so disorganized—”

He says bluntly, “Well, don’t let me hold you up, then.”

All that time to get here so he can have a Coke in this drugstore because it is near her house in Skokie, and she sits there as if she is being held prisoner. What a stupid idea. Sorry he thought of it, sorry he called her at all.

“I came because you asked me to,” she says quietly.

And sorry again for being rude, and for exposing himself and his goddamn needs again.
Jarrett when will you grow up?

“You kids gonna order or what?”

The counterman doubles as the waiter when things are slow, as they are on this Saturday morning. He eyes them with hostile boredom.

“I’ll have a Coke,” Conrad says.

“Just black coffee for me.” Karen gives him a pleasant smile. Nothing doing. He scribbles off a bill and slaps it down on the table with a grunt of annoyance. Not the type to be won over so easily. Have to come up with something better. A million-dollar order, maybe. Conrad pulls his eyebrows together, mocking him, and Karen giggles. She bites her lip, looking down at the table. There, that’s better.