Recessional: A Novel (60 page)

“So if you wants to do a good thing for yourself, Miss Betsy, and an even better one for him, you gots to do the proposin’.” In the silence the two people from the Palms looked at each other, Andy struck dumb by what he was hearing, Betsy trembling at this crucial moment in her life. But then came Nora’s strong, reassuring voice: “It’s simple, Miss Betsy. The words is: ‘Andy, will you marry me?’ ”

In the silence that followed, Betsy was more than prepared to ask the question, for she had often framed it in her mind during those first bad weeks in Chattanooga, and almost constantly since her arrival at the Palms. But as she was about to speak, Andy interrupted and said in a low, trembling voice: “Those are words that I should speak, Betsy. I’ve tried to help you recover. Will you now help me to do the same?”

In response she reached across the table, took his hands, drew him to her and gave him a long, loving kiss.

The rest of the evening was anticlimactical, and talk fell easily into a random discussion of courtship, marriage, life and associated wonders and disasters. Gloria confided what the others might have guessed: “I had to ask Tom to marry me, it was too big a leap for him to take alone. He said ‘Yes,’ thank God. Think how I’d have felt if he’d turned me down.”

“I been turned down,” Nora said, “and it ain’t pleasant. One day my man just up and left, no words, nothin’. Me and the kids never saw him again.”

“What happened to him?” Betsy asked, and Nora said: “Who knows? He might be out there somewheres kickin’ around like he did with me. Raisin’ two kids alone does present problems.”

“Where are your children now?” Andy asked and she said: “Both married. Doin’ pretty well. I insisted on marriage, especially the boy. Didn’t want him to run around havin’ babies he took no responsibility for.” Turning to Zorn, she asked: “Tell everybody what happened in your case. It was bad to make you clam up like you have.”

“It was epic,” he said in a way that indicated he wished no further questioning, but Betsy dug in: “I think that with what just happened at this table, I’m entitled to know what
epic
means.”

Reflectively, looking down at his thumbs as they massaged each other nervously, he said: “Let’s start with the fact that whatever happened was seventy percent my fault. Young doctor, pretty nurse, he was straight-A average after grammar school, she was from the country. She was adorable, and during the years of my internship and then
establishing my practice when I often worked all night, she discovered a couple of guys who were more her style, and one of them showed her how, with a good lawyer, she could work it so that the burden of the divorce would fall on me and she could net a pretty good settlement.”

“You call that seventy-thirty?” Scott asked and Andy said: “I had often left her alone at night—women do have their babies at the damnedest hours. It really was my fault because, strange as it may sound, I never even knew it was happening. Young, dumb, obsessed with my own problems at the clinic and further study to keep up in my field—” He could not continue, but Gloria asked: “She took you to the cleaners?”

“Totally.”

“Did she marry the other guy?”

“I preferred not to know.”

“But you do know?”

“I don’t know, and if you do, don’t tell me.”

Mrs. Scott chortled: “Watch out, Betsy, damaged goods! Psychologically crippled.”

As soon as she said this unfortunate word, so inappropriate when both her husband and Betsy were present, she looked stricken and put her fingers to her lips, as if to erase what she had said, but Betsy came to her rescue: “If Bedford Yancey can cure me of my affliction, which seems less damaging each week, I’m sure I can cure Andy of his,” and the guests in the room applauded, but Nora said sardonically: “Betsy, that’s the chorus of us black women: ‘We can cure the guy of whatever is eatin’ him,’ but when we try, we find it’s eatin’ us, too.” And Betsy said: “Come visit us six years from now. This man has saved my life. I can afford to take a risk in trying to save his.” And they wished her luck.

But Nora had not yet finished with the subject into which she had been accidentally led: “I’m not afraid to use the word
crippled
. I carry a set of scars you’d need a surveyor to diagram.” She shook her head in disbelief at what she had undergone with her man, then said philosophically, addressing the two women: “You white girls can’t appreciate the difference. When you go to your school’s senior prom you see a dozen boys there that would be pretty good bets. Of course, at that age you can’t pick the all-time winners like him”—she pointed to the portrait of Jaqmeel—“but you can reasonably expect that at
least one or two of the boys are going to grow into significant manhood. And if you’re lucky, you’ll catch one of them.”

She became much more serious: “But with us black girls, we go to the same dance at our school, and our speculation is: Which one of these clowns is goin’ to find a job? And if he gets a job, will it ever pay enough to take care of our kids? And we can look around us at the black women in their thirties or forties who never solved that problem and had no chance to do so in the first place.”

She was speaking with great bitterness: “Now in my high school group there was maybe only two black boys seventeen years old who was goin’ to tear the world apart, as good as any white kids in town, but girls sixteen and seventeen cannot identify those winners. All we can do is stand back and marvel at them when they’re in their forties and we are too. They were the transatlantic liners that pulled out to sea, leavin’ us watchin’ from the dock.”

“But white girls can also make very bad choices,” Betsy said. “You see it in a southern city like Chattanooga. The Deep South can produce some real male losers, and nice girls seem to gravitate toward them.”

“Yes, but the odds are so much more favorable for you white girls. Don’t you understand?” Nora asked, her voice becoming almost a plea: “At a black girl’s graduation, when she looks at six black boys, four of them are not goin’ to get jobs in those important years when they need them and two of them are probably goin’ to be dead by twenty-two, shot in street brawls. That’s what we black girls see.”

“But
you
survived,” Betsy insisted. “You have a fine job. Everybody in the Palms loves you because you’re a wonderful, caring woman.”

“I was determined to make it that way when I moved in. I’d had enough of the horse manure this nation throws in the faces of us black women. I had to succeed.”

Betsy, with tears in her eyes, asked Zorn to help her, and she pulled herself up, reached across to the head of the table and embraced Nora: “You did more than succeed. And, Nora, you did a damned good thing tonight.”

One morning before the Thanksgiving holidays, a trio of agitated widows descended upon Ken Krenek, demanding that he summon
Dr. Zorn for an important meeting. With the two men listening intently, for the women were obviously serious in their protest, they heard an impassioned rendition of a complaint that they had heard before. At first they were inclined to laugh at what seemed a situation worth no more than an amused dismissal, but as Zorn was about to handle it that way, Krenek, who had learned to take the grievances of widows seriously, said: “Now, tell us again, what exactly is your complaint against Muley?”

“Last night at the long table he went too far.”

“In what respect?”

“His jokes. He went way beyond the bounds of decency.”

“Now, ladies, you know that Muley is a rough-cut diamond. He livens up the place with his jokes.”

“But they’ve been getting more and more vulgar, and this one was just too much.”

“What did he say?”

“We refuse to repeat it,” and Mrs. Robinson snapped: “If Patrick had ever told a joke like that in our dining room, or kitchen either, I’d have thrown him out of our house.”

When it was clear that none of the widows would repeat the offensive joke, Dr. Zorn did his best to mollify them: “You shouldn’t have to listen to offensive jokes, especially at dinner. I’ll speak to Muley and warn him that he must clean up his act.”

“I assure you our protest is not trivial,” Mrs. Robinson said, “and when you hear the joke he told, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

When the ladies were gone, Andy asked Krenek to fetch Muley if he could be located.

In a few minutes Ken arrived with the ex–truck driver, red-faced and chuckling at some new joke he had collected and shared with Krenek. Andy went right to the point: “Muley, three of our women came in here objecting to one of the jokes you told at the long table last night. Since these women are not chronic complainers or prudes who feel insulted if a man says
damn
, Krenek and I have to take their protests seriously, especially since the incident occurred at dinner, when there are many people around.”

Muley leaned back, rubbed his chin and after a long pause said brightly: “Oh, yes! I’d just heard this beauty about three old codgers sitting in the morning sun on a bench in St. Petersburg, known widely as God’s Waiting Room. When I used that title, the women laughed, so I was encouraged to go ahead.”

“Share the joke with us,” Krenek said. “Let’s see how offensive it might have been.”

“These men in their late eighties were comparing health problems, and the first says: ‘My only serious complaint is I can’t urinate easily. It’s a real problem.’ And the second says: ‘Same kind of problem, but with me I can’t have a bowel movement. And that can be nerve-racking.’ The third man says: ‘Now, that’s funny. I empty my bladder every morning, at seven o’clock sharp. And I have a complete bowel evacuation every day at eight.’ And the two others said: ‘You are really lucky,’ but the third man held up his hand and waved it back and forth: ‘Not so fast. You see, I never wake up till nine.’ ”

His two listeners could not suppress their amusement, and Krenek said: “Rough, I’d agree with the women, but it’s certainly not grossly offensive.” Andy, however, pointed out: “It could get by in the billiard room, but in a dining room, with meals being served—I think they had a right to complain.”

“But look! I go to the long table to eat by myself, down at one end. They crowd around to hear my stories. I don’t crowd around them.”

“Let’s leave it this way, Muley,” Andy proposed. “Continue to entertain the ladies, they enjoy it, but remember that they are ladies, not truck drivers,” and Muley, chastened by the complaints, promised to sanitize his yarns, and that night at the long table he sought out the women, sat among them and told them jokes more to their liking.

Later that night, when Dr. Zorn was checking on recent improvements in the appearance of Assisted Living he became aware that familiar music was coming out of the room long occupied by Muley Duggan’s wife, Marjorie, and he wondered who was playing the tape Muley had transcribed of her favorite operatic selections. He stopped outside the door and heard those heavenly female voices in the duet “Mira o Norma” but he also heard Muley’s voice, pleading with his wife and calling her by the name he had given her when she was still able to understand and appreciate music. Now, far advanced in her Alzheimer’s affliction, she could not respond to the music in any way, and this apparently frustrated her husband, for he was pleading with her: “Norma? Listen to the music! It’s your music, Norma. I made the tape for you. Norma, please listen!”

Andy was aware that he was eavesdropping and that he ought to pass on, but there was something so heartrending about the situation
that he was held in position as if icy hands had gripped him. Suddenly Muley shouted: “Goddammit, Norma! Listen to the music. It’s your music. I made it for you—to keep you happy.” Silence, then: “Norma, for God’s sake, listen to it! Please!” But, of course, she could not. His heart aching for poor Muley, Andy slowly moved away.

Some weeks later Krenek, Nurse Varney and Zorn received formal invitations from Muley to attend Marjorie Duggan’s sixty-eighth birthday party, which would be held in Muley’s spacious apartment in Gateways at five-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon. At four Muley reported at his wife’s room in Assisted Living to dress her for her evening meal, and on this occasion he brought along the hairdresser, who made sure that she looked as beautiful as she had in the early days when she was the cynosure of the Palms: a tall, graceful queen with an entrancing smile. So perfect was her blend of physical charm and social grace that Muley’s guests could hardly take their eyes away from her.

On this night the hairdresser and the two nurses had re-created the beauty of the younger Marjorie, and when he escorted her into the apartment, where some two dozen of her former friends waited, the crowd broke into spontaneous applause, both for her and for her devoted husband. The dinner was a genuine pleasure, for by good luck she behaved herself as if some fragment of understanding had mysteriously returned, making her aware that this was a special occasion. The flawless skin seemed more radiant than ever and she was, however fleetingly, the woman of ultimate grace who had captivated everyone in the past.

A week after this celebration, which went smoothly and without incident, the nurses in Assisted Living telephoned Muley at four in the morning: “Mr. Duggan, we think you’d better come over right away. Yes, a coma like before, but much deeper. Please come.”

Trembling, he slipped into his clothes as he mumbled: “Dear God, don’t take her yet. Please, please allow her to come back home, like before.” But when he hurried to Assisted, he was stopped before he could enter her room and told: “She died peacefully.”

When he was finally allowed in the room he insisted on taking charge of dressing her in a gown she had particularly liked and in brushing her hair as he used to do, and in attending to all details, even though the nurses said: “They’ll have to do it over again when they prepare her for the funeral.”

These words, intended to be helpful, had such a note of finality that he collapsed in tears, and nothing could halt the flow. He created confusion when he demanded to ride with her corpse to the undertakers, where he created more confusion by wanting to remain with her during the preparation of the body. Two men had to draw him away and drive him home.