The World According To Garp (50 page)

“Look,” the girl said to Jenny, “this is just the kind of routine I had to get away from. Some
man
bullying me all the time, some ding-dong threatening me with his big-prick violence. Who needs it? I mean, especially
here
—who needs it? Did I come here for more of the same?”

Fuck you to death,

said Garp’s next note, but Jenny ushered the girl outside and told her the history of Duncan’s eye patch, and his telescope, and his camera, and the girl tried very hard to avoid Garp during the last part of her stay. Her stay was just a few days, and then someone was there to get her: a sporty car with New York plates and a man who
looked
like a ding-dong—and someone who had, actually, threatened poor Laurel with “big-prick violence,” all the time.

“Hey, you dildos!” he called to Garp and Roberta, who were sitting on the large porch swing, like old-fashioned lovers. “Is this the whorehouse where you’re keeping Laurel?”

“We’re not exactly “keeping” her,” Roberta said.

Shut up, you big dyke,” said the New York man; he came up on the porch. He’d left the motor running to his sports car, and its idle charged and calmed itself—charged and calmed itself, and charged again. The man wore cowboy boots and green suede bell-bottom pants. He was tall and chesty, though not quite as tall and chesty as Roberta Muldoon.

“I’m not a dyke,” Roberta said.

“Well, you’re no vestal virgin either,” the man said. “Where the fuck is Laurel?” He wore an orange T-shirt with bright green letters between his nipples.

SHAPE
UP!

the letters read.

Garp searched his pockets for a pencil to scribble a note, but all he came up with was old notes: all the old standbys, which did not seem to apply to this rude person.

“Is Laurel expecting you?” Roberta Muldoon asked the man, and Garp knew that Roberta was having a sex-identity problem again; she was goading the moron in hopes that she could then feel justified in beating the shit out of him. But the man, to Garp, looked as if he might make a fair match for Roberta. All that estrogen had changed more than Roberta’s shape, Garp thought—it had unmuscled the former Robert Muldoon, to a degree that Roberta seemed prone to forget.

“Look, sweethearts,” the man said, to both Garp and Roberta. “If Laurel doesn’t get her ass out here, I’m going to clean house. What kind of fag joint is this, anyway? Everyone’s heard of it. I didn’t have any trouble finding out where she went. Every screwy bitch in New York knows about this cunt hangout.”

Roberta smiled. She was beginning to rock back and forth on the big porch swing in a way that was making Garp feel sick to his stomach. Garp clawed through his pockets at a frantic rate, scanning note after worthless note.

“Look, you clowns,” the man said. “I
know
what sort of douche bags hang out here. It’s a big lesbian scene, right?” He prodded the edge of the big porch swing with his cowboy boot and set the swing to moving oddly. “And what are
you
?” he asked Garp. “You the
man
of the house? Or the court eunuch?”

Garp handed the man a note.

There’s a nice fire in the wood stove in the kitchen; turn left.

But it was August; that was the wrong note.

“What’s this shit?” the man said. And Garp handed him another note, the first one to fly out of his pocket.

Don’t be upset. My mother will be back very soon. There are other women here. Would you like to see them?

“
Fuck
your mother!” the man said. He started toward the big screen door. “Laurel!” he screamed. “You in there? You bitch!”

But it was Jenny Fields who met him in the doorway.

“Hello,” she said.

“I know who
you
are,” the man said. “I recognize the dumb uniform. My Laurel’s not your type, sweetie; she
likes
to fuck.”

“Perhaps not with you,” said Jenny Fields.

Whatever abuse the man in the
SHAPE
UP! T-shirt was then prepared to deliver to Jenny Fields went unsaid. Roberta Muldoon threw a cross-body block on the surprised man, hitting him from behind and a little to one side of the backs of his knees. It was a flagrant clip, worthy of a fifteen-yard penalty in Roberta’s days as a Philadelphia Eagle. The man hit the gray boards of the porch deck with such force that the hanging flowerpots were set swinging. He tried but could not get up. He appeared to have suffered a knee injury common to the sport of football—the very reason, in fact, why clipping was a fifteen-yard penalty. The man was not plucky enough to hurl further abuse, at anyone, from his back; he lay with a calm, moonlike expression upon his face, which whitened slightly in his pain.

“That was too
hard
, Roberta,” Jenny said.

“I’ll get Laurel,” Roberta said, sheepishly, and she went inside. In Roberta’s heart of hearts, Garp and Jenny knew, she was more feminine than anyone; but in her body of bodies, she was a highly trained rock.

Garp had found another note and he dropped it on the New York man’s chest, right where it said
SHAPE
UP! It was a note Garp had many duplicates of.

Hello, my name is Garp. I have a broken jaw.

“My name is Harold,” the man said. “Too bad about your jaw.”

Garp found a pencil and wrote another note.

Too bad about your knee, Harold.

Laurel was fetched.

“Oh, baby,” she said. “You
found
me!”

“I don’t think I can drive the fucking car,” Harold said. Out on Ocean Lane the man’s sport car still chugged like an animal interested in eating sand.

“
I
can drive, baby,” Laurel said. “You just never
let
me.

“Now I’ll let you,” Harold groaned. “Believe me.”

“Oh, baby,” Laurel said.

Roberta and Garp carried the man to the car. “I think I really need Laurel,” the man confided to them. “Fucking bucket seats,” the man complained, when they had gingerly squeezed him in. Harold was large for his car. It was the first time in what seemed like years, to Garp, that Garp had been this near to an automobile. Roberta put her hand on Garp’s shoulder, but Garp turned away.

“I guess Harold needs me,” Laurel told Jenny Fields, and gave a little shrug.

“But why does
she
need
him
?” said Jenny Fields, to no one in particular, as the little car drove away. Garp had wandered off. Roberta, punishing herself for her momentarily lapsed femininity, went to find Duncan and mother him.

Helen was talking on the phone to the Fletchers, Harrison and Alice, who wanted to come visit. That might help us, Helen thought. She was right, and it must have boosted Helen’s confidence in herself—to be right about something again.

The Fletchers stayed a week. There was at last a child for Duncan to play with, even if it was not his age and not his sex; it was, at least, a child who knew about his eye, and Duncan lost most of his self-consciousness about the eye patch. When the Fletchers left, he was more willing to go to the beach by himself, even at those times of the day when he might encounter other children—who might ask him or, of course, tease him.

Harrison provided Helen with a confidant, as he had been for her before; she was able to tell Harrison things about Michael Milton that were simply too raw to tell Garp, and yet she needed to say them. She needed to talk about her anxieties for her marriage, now; and how she was dealing with the accident so differently from Garp. Harrison suggested another child. Get pregnant, he advised. Helen confided that she was no longer taking the pills, but she did not tell Harrison that Garp had not slept with her—not since it had happened. She didn’t really need to tell Harrison that; Harrison noted the separate rooms.

Alice encouraged Garp to stop the silly notes. He could talk if he tried, if he wasn’t so vain about how he sounded. If
she
could talk, certainly he could spit the words out, Alice reasoned—teeth wired together, delicate tongue, and all; he could at least try.

“Alish,” Garp said.

“Yeth,” said Alice. “That’th my name. What’th yours?”

“Arp,” Garp managed to say.

Jenny Fields, passing whitely to another room, shuddered like a ghost and moved on.

“I
mish
him,” Garp confessed to Alice.

“You mith him, yeth, of
courth
you do,” said Alice, and she held him while he cried.

It was quite some time after the Fletchers left when Helen came to Garp’s room in the night. She was surprised to find him lying awake, because he was listening to what she’d heard, too. It was why she couldn’t sleep.

Someone, one of Jenny’s late arrivals—a new guest—was taking a bath. First the Garps had heard the tub being drawn, then they’d heard the plunking in the water—now the splashing and soapy sounds. There was even a little light singing, or the person was humming.

They remembered, of course, the years Walt had washed himself within their hearing, how they would listen for any telltale slipping sounds, or for the most frightening sound of all—which was no sound. And then they’d call, “Walt?” And Walt would say, “What?” And they would say, “Okay, just checking!” To make sure that he hadn’t slipped under and drowned.

Walt liked to lie with his ears underwater, listening to his fingers climbing the walls of the tub, and often he wouldn’t hear Garp or Helen calling him. He’d look up, surprised, to see their anxious faces suddenly above him, peering over the rim of the tub. “I’m all right,” he’d say, sitting up.

“Just
answer
, for God’s sake, Walt,” Garp would tell him. “When we call you, just answer us.”

“I didn’t hear you,” Walt said.

“Then keep your head out of the water,” Helen said. “But how can I wash my hair?” Walt asked.

“That’s a lousy way to wash your hair, Walt,” Garp said. “Call me.
I’ll
wash your hair.”

“Okay,” said Walt. And when they left him alone, he’d put his head underwater again and listen to the world that way.

Helen and Garp lay beside each other on Garp’s narrow bed in one of the guest rooms in one of the garrets at Dog’s Head Harbor. The house had so many bathrooms—they couldn’t even be sure which bathroom they were listening to, but they listened.

“It’s a woman, I think,” Helen said.

“Here?” Garp said. “Of
course
it’s a woman.”

“I thought at first it was a child,” Helen said.

“I know,” Garp said.

“The humming, I guess,” Helen said. “You know how he used to talk to himself?”

“I know,” Garp said.

They held each other in the bed that was always a little damp, so close to the ocean and with so many windows open all day, and the screen doors swinging and banging.

“I want another child,” said Helen.

“Okay,” Garp said.

“As soon as possible,” Helen said.

“Right away,” said Garp. “Of course.”

“If it’s a girl,” Helen said, “we’ll name her Jenny, because of your mother.”

“Good,” said Garp.

“I don’t know, if it’s a boy,” said Helen.

“Not Walt,” Garp said.

“Okay,” Helen said.

“Not
ever
another Walt,” said Garp. “Although I know some people do that.”

“I wouldn’t want to,” Helen said.

“Some other name, if it’s a boy,” Garp said.

“I hope it’s a girl,” said Helen.

“I won’t care,” Garp said.

“Of course. Neither will I, really,” said Helen.

“I’m so sorry,” Garp said; he hugged her.

“No,
I’m
so sorry,” she said.

“No,
I’m
so sorry,” said Garp.

“
I
am,” Helen said.

“
I
am,” he said.

They made love so carefully. Helen imagined that she was Roberta Muldoon, fresh out of surgery, trying out a brand-new vagina. Garp tried not to imagine anything.

Whenever Garp began imagining, he only saw the bloody Volvo. There were Duncan’s screams, and outside he could hear Helen calling; and someone else. He twisted himself from behind the steering wheel and kneeled on the driver’s seat; he held Duncan’s face in his hands, but the blood would not stop and Garp couldn’t see everything that was wrong.

“It’s okay,” he whispered to Duncan. “Hush, you’re going to be all right.” But because of his tongue, there were no words—only a soft spray. Duncan kept screaming, and so did Helen, and someone else kept groaning—the way a dog dreams in its sleep. But what did Garp hear that frightened him so? What
else
?

“It’s all right, Duncan, believe me,” he whispered, incomprehensibly. “You’re going to be all right.” He wiped the blood from the boy’s throat with his hand; nothing at the boy’s throat was cut, he could see. He wiped the blood from the boy’s temples, and saw that they were not bashed in. He kicked open the driver’s-side door, to be sure; the door light went on and he could see that one of Duncan’s eyes was darting. The eye was looking for help, but Garp could see that the eye could see. He wiped more blood with his hand, but he could not find Duncan’s other eye. “It’s okay,” he whispered to Duncan, but Duncan screamed even louder.

Over his father’s shoulder, Duncan had seen his mother at the Volvo’s open door. Blood streamed from her gashed nose and her sliced tongue, and she held her right arm as if it had broken off somewhere near her shoulder. But it was the
fright
in her face that frightened Duncan. Garp turned and saw her. Something else frightened him.

It was not Helen’s screaming, it was not Duncan’s screaming. And Garp knew that Michael Milton, who was grunting, could grunt himself to death—for all Garp cared. It was something else. It was not a sound. It was
no
sound. It was the absence of sound.

“Where’s Walt?” Helen said, trying to see into the Volvo. She stopped screaming.

“Walt!” cried Garp. He held his breath. Duncan stopped crying.

They heard nothing. And Garp knew Walt had a cold you could hear from the next room—even two rooms away, you could hear that wet rattle in the child’s chest.

“Walt!” they screamed.

Both Helen and Garp would whisper to each other, later, that at that moment they imagined Walt with his ears underwater, listening intently to his fingers at play in the bathtub.