The Henderson Equation (12 page)

"Hi, Princess," Charlie said, smiling and bending
over to kiss a pasty cheek. A tiny white hand lifted itself weakly to Charlie's
shoulder. "Here's Nick, Princess," Charlie said, struggling to
maintain his role in the charade, winking, a signal for Nick to follow his
lead.

"Wonderful to meet you, Princess," Nick
stammered, feeling difficulty in assuming the role. The tableau of the frail
painted woman, dressed in an old lace gown, years out of style, and the two
men, father and son, casting themselves as characters in her confused fantasy,
told the story of their pain in a single glance.

"Did he put his bicycle in the garage?" she
asked. Her voice seemed calm as she directed the question to her husband.

"Yes, Princess."

"And have you washed your hands?" she said, this
time to Charlie.

"Yes, Princess," Charlie answered.

"Such a good boy," the woman sighed. "You
should have seen his report card."

"Yes, Princess. His teacher said he's the smartest boy
in the class."

"We've made a wonderful Christmas dinner," the
woman said, a flash of lucidity, it seemed, if one closed one's eyes.
"We've roasted a beautiful chicken and, if you're a good, good boy, we
have strawberry tarts."

"How lovely, Princess," Charlie said, moving his
hand to signal Nick to respond. It was apparent he was quite familiar with the
stage directions.

"Lovely," Nick said. The word stuck hoarsely in
his throat.

Charlie stepped back and dropped heavily into the couch.

"Are you in Charles' class?" the woman said,
turning her shadowed eyes to Nick.

"Yes," Charlie's father replied, frowning at
Nick. It seemed essential that they find him a role.

"Do you like Mrs. Peters?" the woman asked. Nick
felt sudden moisture bursting into his armpits, sliding coldly down his sides.

"She's ... terrific, Mrs.... "Charlie tugged at
his sleeve. "Peters," he said quickly. He could sense Charlie's
father's relief.

"Do you get good marks?"

"Not as good as Charles," Nick replied. He felt
the pain of the two Pell men hanging heavy in the room.

"Mrs. Peters says that Charles is the smartest boy in
the class," Charlie's mother repeated.

"We're very proud of that. Aren't we, Princess?"
Charlie's father said, his eyes fastened to her face, quick to react.

"Are you wearing clean underwear, Charles?"

"Of course, Princess."

"It's Christmas," the woman said. "Little
Jesus will be so happy."

Charles, Nick noticed, held himself tightly, unsure of his
performance. Nick dared not look too obviously at his friend's embarrassed
face, lest he see the full extent of his unhappiness. The conversation
continued along the same track, recapturing past moments, lived through as in a
cycle, as if time had become suspended somewhere, an endless wheel, in Mrs.
Pell's corroded brain.

"You should take your nap before Christmas dinner,
Princess," Charlie's father said after the conversation had grown
repetitive. She put out her frail arm and Mr. Pell took it, gently half lifting
her. She rose unsteadily and he led her out of the room. They could hear them
rise slowly on the staircase, the wood creaking in the silence of the darkened
house.

When she had gone, Charlie looked helplessly at Nick. He
reached into his pocket and slipped a cigarette from a crumpled pack. Lighting
it, he inhaled deeply and blew the smoke angrily out of his nostrils.

"Weird, eh, Nick?" he said, his agitation
apparent now as he came out of his role.

"How long has it been?"

"All my life, it seems. Actually I must have been
about ten when the final snap came."

They sat silently in the dark, oppressive room. A piano
stood in the corner, the wood shining, a lace doily stretched across its top on
which a vase stood with paper flowers. Nick was sure Mr. Pell had kept the
piano finely tuned. The creaking stairs signaled the return of Mr. Pell. He
came, lips in a tight smile, as if a weight had been removed. He seemed to
unwind into normality.

"How are you, Son?" he said quietly. Nick felt
like an intruder.

"How long can it go on like this?"

Charlie's father's eyes looked warily at Nick.

"It's okay, Dad," Charlie said, "I don't
care if Nick hears."

"I'm sorry," Mr. Pell said. "We never have
visitors."

"She should be put away," Charlie said. He stood
up and paced the room.

"Never," the father said.

"It's a lost cause. She's getting worse. You're
pissing away your life."

"That's my business."

It seemed a familiar, ritualized exchange.

"She's worse than ever," Charlie said. His
fingers felt the lace doily on the piano. "It's wrong."

"You're away," his father said. "What does
it matter to you?"

"Christ, Dad." Nick watched as his friend's
fingers tightened on the lace. "I can't stand to see it."

"You don't come that often."

The two men glared at each other across the room.

"I don't know how you stand it," Charlie said
gently, in what seemed a grudging acknowledgment of his father's courage.

Later, they sat around the dining room table on which Mr.
Pell had set three places. When he had gone into the kitchen, Charlie said,
"He has to feed her. He won't do that in front of strangers. He probably
has her sedated."

"I had no idea, Charlie," Nick said.

"Who could possibly have any idea? He's made it a way
of life. It was bad enough growing up with it. I hate coming here."

It was obvious that his father had taken great care to
prepare a fine dinner. He brought the roast in and silently carved it, serving
his son first. When they were all served, the vegetables and potatoes passed
around, his father asked, "How's the newspaper business, Charlie?"

It seemed to open a new phase, the simple, quite normal
curiosity of an interested parent. Charlie's response seemed overzealous,
detailed, as if he were writing the older man a letter. The responses were
long, embellished with tiny asides, a litany of his life. It was a display,
prodded by compulsion, to tell everything, to paint a finite picture of a son's
life, as if it were happening to another person. Only a genuine feeling of
love, Nick thought, or guilt, could prompt such an outpouring. He was hardly
that informational with his own mother. Nick had been curious that Charlie had
brought no Christmas gifts. This was the gift, the telling of his life, and the
father knew it, soaking it up like a sponge.

Nick could see the joy it gave the older man, hopelessly
out of touch with anything beyond the closed world of his wife's madness and
his own charade. It validated all he had felt for Charlie, the measure and
texture of his admiration, perhaps his love. After dinner they drank coffee and
smoked. He noted that Charlie glanced at the grandfather clock that stood in
the corner of the dining room, a watching face. The father saw the
surreptitious glance and his face clouded over again, the ruts in his cheeks
deepening.

The light around the edges of the shade faded and soon they
were standing at the door again for a farewell that on the surface seemed as
tepid as the greeting they had received earlier. But having received a greater
knowledge of both men during the afternoon, Nick could observe the deeper
emotions behind what earlier had appeared a joyless response. The handshakes
were still weak, lifeless, but in the touching of their flesh, Nick could
understand what father and son really felt, a shared pain. Charlie looked
upward as they moved through the short ritual of their farewells.

"Kiss the Princess for me," he said, and soon
they were crunching through the snow in the starlit night toward the ancient
taxi that now waited at the curb. Before he stepped into the opened door, with
Nick already inside, Charlie turned once again toward the neatly painted house,
maintained with such meticulous care, as if in its preservation his father
might find some meaning to his hellish existence. When he turned again, tears
streamed down from his eyes and he held a hand over his mouth to mask his sobs.

The visit to Charlie's parents had thrown his friend into a
deep depressive silence, an impenetrable introspection about which Nick dared
not speculate. It could not be easy to simply file away the memories of that
house, that childhood, that imprisonment. Attempts to jolt Charlie out of his
cocoon of noncommunication floundered on shoals of indifference. If he had been
looking for landmarks at the time, if he had had the talent of clairvoyance or the
absolute knowledge of subsequent events, he might have spotted the beginnings
of Charlie's liquor problem. Not that, even then, it would have been an obvious
clue. Drinking was so enmeshed into newspapering, especially at the
News
with its odd crowd of Irishmen, that signs of sclerosis, bulbous noses, and the
red crust of skin blemishes across the center of a face were worn like badges
of honor, and a man's worth was measured by quantities of alcoholic
consumption.

To be falling-down, raving, screaming drunk was an
aberration to be understood and endured, provided it was done only
periodically. It was understood that for any man, life could sometimes become
so unendurable and preposterous that such a state was a prerequisite for coping
with its horrors. A man in his cups was an object of veneration, a troubled
soul for whom a whiskey was the only succor.

Special honors went to men like McCarthy who could imbibe
in quantities measured in fifths until their senses finally rebelled; the
length of a lucid frame of mind was important. There was also a measure of
character in the time needed for the head to clear; McCarthy shined here as
well, returning to the scene the next morning able to function, the tremors
controlled by the day's first hair of the dog. It was not uncommon even for
Nick and Charlie to stumble homeward, like two awry bookends, after a night of
drinking at Shanley's long wooden bar. In that environment, inebriation was
positively encouraged. It was, after all, the sign of the complex man, a soul
of many humors, a mind in turmoil, which only the god of the grape could
soothe.

It was, therefore, not unexpected for Charlie to seek the
solace of booze. He was, after all, under the eye of of a watchful friend whose
duty it was to carry him home, remove his shoes, and clean him up the next
morning, pouring the first amber drop into the shot glass. In that world, it
was seen as taking the cure. Knowing the illness, Nick was all the more
solicitous. Unfortunately, there was a kind of conditioning involved for a
massive bender for which Charlie's constitution had not been prepared, and the
morning-after recoveries were far too long to escape notice. By noon it was
obvious that Charlie couldn't make it through the day.

"Take him out," the city editor had whispered two
days later, watching Charlie's head slump over the typewriter. Nick led Charlie
out of the city room, down in the elevator, propping him finally against
Shanley's bar where he was allowed to nurse the devil in glorious privacy in
the care of the bartender, expert in this kind of babysitting.

But while this was accepted procedure, after three days
Nick began to worry. Perhaps it was this that shook his resolve not to pursue
Margaret, made him careless about his own vulnerability as far as she was concerned.
Certainly it made him less shy, even crafty, as he followed her one day to the
Automat on the corner of Forty-second Street and Third Avenue. Drawing a cup of
coffee from the tap, he brought it to her table.

"I'm having one helluva time with Charlie," he
said as an opening gambit, hoping she would sense his need to unburden himself.

"That's pretty obvious."

"He's got troubles. Big ones."

"Common afflictions," she said, indifferently,
without sympathy.

He watched her face, the cheeks moving as she daintily bit
into a sandwich. Was he soliciting her pity? A new ploy. He had expected her to
inquire further. Instead, she silently chewed her sandwich, washing it down
with coffee. He searched her eyes for some hint of interest.

"Did I offend you the other night?" he blurted.

"Of course not, Nick."

"Then why the indifference?"

"Indifference?" Her eyes widened. She was silent
a moment and put the remains of her sandwich back on the plate.

"I'm not indifferent, Nick."

"You're not?"

"No. Surely you can see that."

"I can't. I really can't. I know that I'm not
indifferent to you, not after the other night. I really felt we were
approaching something."

"I know, Nick," she said, dropping her eyes.

"Well, then," he said, rejoicing in the
admission. He knew again that he was in love. She paused, sipping her coffee,
watching him.

"I'm not looking for that kind of relationship, Nick.
I'm not ready for it."

"You mean it requires some kind of
apprenticeship?" He was conscious of his sarcasm.

"No, I don't mean that at all."

"Well, then, explain it better." He felt his
pressure on her. Was she teasing him?

"It's just not a priority in my life, Nick. It can
only interfere with my career. Frankly, I'm frightened of any entanglement.
Nick, you just don't know what it means being a woman in this business. There
are lots of pitfalls."

"I hadn't realized you were so ambitious."

"That's exactly how a man would react," she said
sharply. His eyes dropped to her chest. He felt a vague tug in his loins.

"I didn't know it had a gender," he said.

"I
am
ambitious, Nick. I took advantage of the
war, of the boys being away, and I don't want to yield my position. Can't you
see how vulnerable I am?"

"No, I can't." He hadn't suspected. It seemed far
from his own frame of reference.

He hadn't imagined that there were other reasons, beyond
simple human chemistry. It was, for him, a totally different way to view
things. She was telling him that she cared for him. What was there beyond that?
It was difficult for him to comprehend. Ambition was a male province, he
reasoned.

"I'm determined that nothing get in the way of my
chances to make it in this business."

"What has one thing got to do with the other?"

"A lot."

"I'm confused," he admitted.

"That's because you're a man. I know what I'm talking
about, Nick. I'm prepared to make whatever sacrifice is required. I don't want
to get trapped."

"By what?"

"Biology. Tradition. The way I look at it, I'm lucky
to be where I am. I don't want to blow it. If I had started just three years
later, I'd be competing with the boys coming back from the war. Who the hell do
you think would be getting the promotions? As it is, I begged them to put me on
the street. Not that I'm unhappy being a movie reviewer. They can see that as a
woman's place, that and writing about garden parties or weddings. I consider
myself damned lucky."

He searched his memory for names of women reporters. There
was one at the
News,
a tough old bag.

"There are lots of women in this business," he
mumbled, conscious of his attempts to twist reality.

"Bullshit."

He looked at her and smiled.

"All right, I concede that it might be slightly
tougher for a woman."

"Slightly," she sneered.

"But that doesn't mean you have to crawl into a shell.
Why deny a perfectly human reaction? Margaret, I care for you. To me that's
important, very important. I can't see how that can possibly interfere with
your career."

"Poor Nick," she said, "you just don't
understand. I care for you too, Nick."

His heart leaped with joy. "So what's the
problem?"

She shook her head. "Men," she said. "Why
are you all so obtuse?"

He put his hand on top of hers, feeling its warmth against
his flesh. "Hey, in a few days it'll be New Year's Eve. I've been assigned
to cover it. Why not tag along? Unless you've got something better to do."

She looked at him for a moment, shaking her head and
laughing, the tension broken. "What the hell?" she said.

"Sure, what the hell?"

Later he had gone back to Shanley's to fetch Charlie,
incoherent by now. He hailed a cab and maneuvered him into it, cursing his
responsibility. Charlie's problem was becoming a burden to him. Compassion for
his friend was wearing thin.

"It's time to stop this shit now," he said
firmly, pushing Charlie, fully dressed, into the shower.

Contemplating this renewed burst of feeling for Margaret,
loosed now by the possibilities of reciprocity, left Nick little time to play
crutch for Charlie. And, perhaps, seeing its abrupt loss, Charlie responded by
taking the first weak and awkward steps by himself. It wasn't that he went on
the wagon. The next morning he was still nipping at the bottle to steady
himself, but he was able to function through the day.

Covering New Year's Eve for the
News
was, in itself,
an anomaly. The year actually changed sometime between the publication of the
two-star and the three-star, and the story of the festivities was more a
tradition than a necessity, causing havoc on the tenses. Fleets of
photographers were sent out early to the city's most exotic night spots to set
up New Year's Eve pictures. The pictures were always stilted, since the
principals had been gathered either from the street or from among the
booze-soaked regulars at the bar to whom New Year's Eve meant only that liquor
sales would continue for an extra two hours, till six A.M. A reporter could write
the first roundup by rewriting last year's story, then calling in changes as
the evening progressed. Even that was fully predictable and the reporter was
allowed to map out his own itinerary.

Thus, Nick and his companions could pursue a free-loading
hegira. Naturally, considering that it was his first date with Margaret, he
took special care to choose carefully. He had also prevailed upon her to find a
date for Charlie, who reached New Year's Eve in reasonable control of himself

Since Nick was the only one of them actually assigned to
work that night, it was decided that they would all meet at Shanley's for a
hamburger, lining the stomach before the impending trek. Their first stop after
Shanley's was to be Sammy's Bowery Follies, one of the city's most popular
freak shows.

At Shanley's, Nick and Charlie sat at one of the tables in
the rear, waiting for the girls to arrive. Charlie was drinking beer in
deference to the evening's sexual possibilities, and spent the time rolling
bread balls on the checkered tablecloth. For all his wise-cracking bravado and
his rugged and disheveled good looks, Charlie was not a ladies' man, although
he enjoyed creating for himself the role of great swordsman. In Europe they had both stood on the same cathouse line, more as a badge of male macho than a
provoking necessity of the sex glands.

Sweeping into Shanley's, her wonderful breasts jiggling
promisingly in her open coat, Margaret was followed by a somewhat less
prepossessing girl. Charlie glanced at Nick with that desperate look of
letdown, the unfulfilled dream, a hint of disaster yet to come.

The girl, whose name was Edie, was tall, big-hipped, her
face beginning to puddle into fat. Margaret made the introductions and they sat
down and ordered their hamburgers and french fries. The sight of his date for
the evening had caused Charlie to switch to hard booze.

"Edie's a nurse," Margaret said. "She works
at King's County Hospital."

"We work odd hours," Edie said, bending her head
over the foam of the beer. "I'm lucky to be off." Charlie drank his
booze from a shot glass, chasing it down with beer.

"Do you take a Hippocratic oath?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact we do, a sort of adapted version
of the one the doctors take."

"Do you believe in it?"

Nick could see the beginnings of drunken belligerence. Edie
looked helplessly at Margaret, who shrugged, signaling neutrality. Nick reached
for Margaret's hand and held it tightly, reveling in its yielding warmth. He
felt too much joy to be bothered as Charlie pressed on about the nursing
business as if he were seeking to draw out of the girl something he might
attack.

"Yes I do," she said. "I wouldn't be a nurse
if I didn't."

"Does it bother you to see all that human
misery?"

"Of course."

"Don't you feel ghoulish?"

"Of course not."

"Do you see lots of hopeless cases?"

"There is always hope."

"I can tell you're a Catholic."

"Edie and I went to parochial school together,"
Margaret offered, turning her eyes from Nick's. "Only I'm the
renegade."

"You mean you believe all that Catholic crap?"
Charlie asked. He had ordered another shot.

"Of course," Edie answered brightly.

"Everyone to their own opiate," Charlie said.

"To each his own," Edie retorted.

"Margaret?" Charlie asked. The smile took the
edge off his sarcasm. "You brought me a saint. What a great gift for the
New Year. A healer, a believer, balm for the savage spirit."

"I see you've got a flair for poetic expression,"
Edie said, revealing her toughness. Nick knew then that she could handle
Charlie.

They finished their hamburgers and hailed a cab. Nick sat
between the two girls, his arm around Margaret's waist, feeling the joy of
being so close to her. His confidence in the promise of the evening began to
grow. Now he was sorry that he had dragged Charlie with him. He determined to
ignore him. Nothing, he vowed to himself, would destroy the specialness of this
evening. He was in love, he assured himself. All disruptive factors paled
beside this knowledge. He pressed his lips into Margaret's neck.

Sammy's Bowery Follies used the aberration of alcoholic
addiction as a form of entertainment. Men and women, grown uncannily alike with
the bloat of wine--apparently a wino was able to sustain greater longevity in
his addiction than whiskey drunks--actually performed a show for the benefit of
the curious uptowners who flocked to the place. It was certainly worth a good
picture and the photographer had apparently set up his shot and left. A little
man with a big paunch showed them to a table after Nick had identified himself.
They ordered a round of drinks. Charlie ordered a double Scotch.