The Laughing Matter (3 page)

“Yes, Swan?”

“I'm scared.”

“Why?”

“I'm scared to death.”

“Don't be.”

“I don't
want
to be, but I am. I know the kind of man you are, the kind your brother is, the kind your father must have been, the kind Red is.”

The man got down from the railing, freshened his drink, then hers, for he knew she had something else to say. He was beginning to tighten up inside about the difficulty she was having saying it. He handed her the freshened drink and looked into her eyes. Then he put his drink down, and hers, picked her up out of the chair and embraced her, not kissing her mouth, only holding her. He came near to rage when he heard her sob. He let her go, picked up his drink, and went down the steps to the walk.

“What is it, Swan?”

“Jesus, Evan.”

“What is it?”

“I wish I were dead.”

“Why, Swan?”

“Let me drink a little,” the woman said. “Please let me drink a little first.”

He leaped up onto the porch to the table and the bottle.
He took the bottle and poured out of it over the ice in his glass until it was full, and drank the glass dry.

“Drink a little, Swan,” he said.

He poured into her half-empty glass and she drank as he had.

“I know the kind you are,” she said.

“What
kind, Swan?”

He almost knew now what she couldn't tell him. He dropped cubes of ice into his glass, poured whiskey again, drank again, and refused to believe.

“Listen,” he said. “Maybe you'd better not tell me.”

“No,” the woman said. “I've
got
to tell you.”

She finished her drink and stared at him.

“The boy said you loved everybody in Clovis,” the man said. “He said you were beautiful in Clovis. He said you were funny because you loved everybody.”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“What is it, Swan?”

“Can I have one more drink?
Please.”

“No!” he shouted. “What is it? Make it fast. Get it over with. Don't fool around with it. Let's have it.”

“I'm pregnant,” the woman said quickly. “It's not ours.”

The man picked up the bottle by the neck. The woman cringed, thinking he meant to strike her. He poured his glass a quarter full, added water, and handed it to the woman. He took her glass and poured it almost full, and began to drink.

He sat up on the railing again, holding the glass, and began to cry softly. The woman got up out of the chair, and went to him.

He leaped from the railing to the walk, threw the glass
far out into the vineyard, and hurried away. When he reached the road, he stopped and turned and saw the woman following him. He began to run down the same road along which only an hour ago the four of them had loafed. When he had gone about fifty yards he stopped again, turned, and saw that she was lying at the foot of the steps.

A car was coming toward him now, moving swiftly. It slowed down, then almost stopped. He saw that it was Warren Walz and his wife May, but he turned away. The car drove on slowly. It stopped at the turn, and he saw Walz get out and walk quickly toward the woman.

He ran across the road into the vineyard.

Red heard his father shout, but he'd heard that before, many times. At first hearing his father shout had scared him and made him vaguely angry. Once it had filled him with sudden hatred. He'd flung himself at his father, who had only picked him up.

“You don't understand,” he'd said.

He'd put Red down, and Red had felt ashamed, for he had instantly understood. Still, he wished Evan wouldn't be so angry at her. When Swan was angry at Evan it was bad enough, but there was something amusing about it, and
while it annoyed Red to think Evan was being made angry, Swan's anger never seemed in earnest. She always seemed to mean something else by it.

He sat up suddenly, then got out of bed, in the dark, and stood a moment at the door. He felt strangely sick, and began to shiver. At last he went out into the dark hall, then into the parlor.

Warren Walz saw the boy trying to lift up his mother, holding a hand, dropping it, and then trying to lift her by the head.

“I'm Warren Walz,” he said to the boy. “We met at the depot.”

“What's the matter with my mother?”

“Here,” Warren said. “Let me lift her up.”

May Walz came quickly, the husband and wife got the woman to her feet and moved her slowly up the steps. She saw Red holding the door open, wrenched herself free, went to him, took him up in her arms, and went into the house. She slammed the door shut and moved with the boy through the dark house. She struck a table somewhere, lost her balance, and fell.

Red got out of her embrace and helped her to her feet.

“Mama?” he said. “Turn on a light.”

“No,” she whispered. “No. I don't want a light.”

Outside, the husband and wife looked at one another.

“That
was
him on the road, wasn't it?” the wife said.

“Of course.”

“Hadn't you better go after him?”

“I don't know. After all, it's none of our business.”

“You better go after him,” the wife said. “We just can't get back into the car and go home. I'll stay here on the
porch until she feels like coming out again, or until you come back.”

“Let me take you home,” the man said. “I don't think we'd better stick our necks out.”

“Something's the matter,” the woman said. “Why doesn't she turn a light on?”

“Let me take you home.”

“Go after him. I'll stay here.”

“Hell fire,” the man said, “they've had a little fight. They're both ashamed and want to be left alone.”

“Go after him, Warren.”

“Oh, Christ,” the husband said.

“His brother's your friend,” the woman said.

“His brother's nobody's friend,” the man said. “This is none of our business.”

“Will you please shut up and go after him?” the woman said.

“Ah, the hell with
you
, too,” the man said, and went to the car. He turned it around and drove back along the road. The woman watched him go; then, deeply frightened, tiptoed up the steps of the porch to the door. There was nothing to be heard from inside the house.

The boy was back in bed, wide awake in the dark.

“Don't cry,” he said.

“He's your father,” the woman sobbed. “He loves you. He loves Eva.”

“Does he love
you
, Mama?”

“Yes, he loves me, too.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“I can't tell you, Red. I can't tell you, but I love you.”

Now, she sobbed more terribly than ever. What was the
matter? What was it, always? Why couldn't anything be the way it
ought
to be? Why was everything always strange, mysterious, dangerous, delicate, likely to break to pieces suddenly?

“I love you, and I
love
him, Red,” the woman said. “I don't love Eva because she's like me. I hate Eva.”

“Mama!”

“I love her. I love her, too, Red.”

“She found the stars, Mama.”

“Yes. I love her.”

“Nobody else found them. She's the one who found them. Didn't she?”

“Yes, she found them, Red.”

“What's the matter, Mama?” the boy said.

“I can't tell you, Red.”

“Don't you
know
, Mama?”

“I know.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can't tell you, Red”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don't know,” the woman wept.

When he had crossed the vineyard and had come to another road he stopped running and began to walk, burning badly, drunk now, and suddenly deadly tired. He stumbled over something—my dirty life, he thought—and fell. He stayed fallen and hurt, inhaling the dust his fall had made, tasting it. He reached forward and clutched the dirt, then got to his feet.

He walked again, tripped over something again, fell hard, and this time cried out, “Oh, Red, my son! Oh, Eva, my daughter!” He wept shamelessly now, the tears mixing with the blood of his cut face.

A car stopped and somebody came and stood over him.

“I'm driving to Fresno, if you want to go.”

He got up without help. He wanted to be polite but he wasn't ready to look into any man's face just yet. In the car, he wiped the blood and dirt from his face.

“You don't see many drunks in the country.”

“I'm awfully grateful to you,” he said in a whisper. “I don't want to talk.”

“Mind if
I
do?”

“No.”

“Well, I saw you back a little in the vineyard there. I thought I ought to see how you made out. I don't know why. It's none of my business. Another time I would have driven by. That's all.”

The driver of the car didn't speak again until they came to the center of the town. He parked the car, and the man turned to look at him for the first time. He was amazed to see a man so young.

“Evan Nazarenus,” he said.

“I know,” the other said. “I'm Cody Bone's boy. I know Dade. You look alike. Anyway, Cody told me he'd seen you at the depot.”

The young man tried to smile, then got out of the car. The man got out and walked away. He reached a corner, went into a bar, glanced at the drinkers, then went out to the street again. A taxi drew up to let out a young man and a young woman, and the man stepped into it.

“The airport,” he said.

At the airport he asked for a ticket to San Francisco, then went to the phone booth and tried to get his brother. The hotel said his brother was out. Five minutes before
flight time he tried again and his brother came on the line.

“Can you meet me at the airport?”

“Sure. When?”

“An hour, I think.”

“I'll be there.” He waited a moment. “Evan?” his brother said.

“I'll tell you when I get there.”

“O.K.”

The man went out and got aboard the plane.

He saw his brother, a man of fifty, standing at the gate, a little off from a cluster of seven or eight people, including a small boy and girl. When he came to the gate Evan Nazarenus looked at the boy, about four, and the girl, about six, and loved them with terrible pity.

The brothers noticed one another quickly, and then Evan said, “How about walking?”

“Sure.”

They moved in silence to the highway and began to walk toward San Francisco.

He told his brother softly, suddenly.

“How's Red?” his brother said.

“He breaks my heart, but she's his mother, Dade.”

“How's Eva?”

“She breaks my heart, too.”

“How's Swan?”

“What?”

“Swan.”

The younger brother stopped walking. He wasn't sure he wasn't going to turn and walk away.

“You're not trying to be funny, are you, Dade?”

“How's the mother of your kids, Evan?”

“Didn't you hear what I told you? Or did I say it to myself?”

“I heard you. How's Swan?”

They walked in silence again until they came to a road.

“Where's that road go to?” Evan said.

“San Bruno,” his brother said.

The younger brother moved down the road quickly, the older one staying close beside him.

“What do you want me to ask you?” Dade said.

“Anything. Ask me why I didn't kill her.”

“O.K.”

“Because I love her. What's the matter with us?”

“How is she?”

“I don't know. I guess she's dying. What's the matter with us, Dade?”

“What do the kids know?”

“Red can't figure out what it is in your house that smells like rocks. What's the matter with Red, Dade?”

“Does he know?”

“He knows. By
now
he knows. The smell of leather is from the chair in the parlor. He found the coffee on the bookshelf. He found the dried bouquet of roses in the silver bowl over the fireplace. He wanted to know if the smell of rocks came from
you
, from living alone in a house that not so long ago had two small sons and a small daughter in it. He knows by now. He knows
something
. He's very close to her. He loves her as I do, with something more of his own. What's the matter with us, Dade?”

“I don't know what the smell of rocks is from,” Dade said.

“What's that bouquet?”

“Hers.”

“How is
she?
How is
your
wife?”

“I don't know, Evan.”

“You can ask
me,”
the younger brother said. “You can ask me, but when I ask you, you say you don't know. Is that all? I'm already
pitying
her. Is that all because of your pride? You don't know. Is that all?”

“That's all, Evan.”

“After all this time? Nine years?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Who do we think we are?”

“It's dirty anyway,” the older brother said, “but if you don't have pride it's
dirtier.”

“All right, Dade,” he said. “Jesus, all right. Can't we be dirtier? Can't we be the
dirtiest?”

“I don't know. Can we? Can't we?”

“I told you I'm already pitying her,” Evan said. “What's the matter with us, Dade?”

“You remember some of the boys we knew that are dead,” his brother said. “That's what's the matter with us.
We're not. Who are mine, the three of them? Who are
they?”

“Yes,” Evan said. “Yes, you want me to go along with any pity I happen to feel.
You
wouldn't take
anything
, but you want
me
to take anything.”