Confessions of a Crap Artist

  I had lived well in this house, for a short period of time. But not because of the house itself; more, because of the good meals and the warmth. Now, if I wanted warmth, I would have to pay for half of the bill that came as a result. And I would be buying my own food, as clearly as I had to buy it when living in one single rented room in Seville. Nobody would charcoal broil t-bone steaks on the outdoor grill and hand me a piece free.

  And the animals were dead. Except for the banty chickens. Now, at night, the banties had gone into their shed and gone to sleep. No ducks. No horse. No sheep. Not even the dog. Their carcasses had been dragged off for fertilizer.

  The house and the land around it was absolutely silent. Except that now and then I heard quail whirring around in the cypress trees. I heard the quail calling like Oklahoma teenagers to each other; ah-h-whoo-whoo. A sort of Okie yell.

  And then, lying by myself alone in the dark, empty house, hearing the refrigerator in the kitchen turn on occasionally, and the wall thermostats open and shut, I felt one thing. Fay and the girls and the animals had left, but someone besides myself remained. Charley was still in the house, living there as he had always lived there since the house had been built. The refrigerator that I heard was his. He had supervised putting in the radiant heating. The different sounds were made by things that belonged to him, and he had never left them. I knew it. It wasn't merely an idea. It was an awareness of him, just as at any previous time, during his stay in the physical world, I had been aware of him. By sight, smell, sound, touch.

  All night long I lay being conscious of him in the house. He never left, even for a moment. It was constant; it never dimmed.

  18

  At seven o'clock the next morning the telephone woke me up. It was Fay calling from wherever they were staying.

  “We'll buy your equity in the house,” she said. “Here's what we can give you. One thousand dollars cash and the rest in the form of monthly payments of thirty-eight dollars. We sat up half the night discussing it.” I said, “The only thing is that I want to stay here.” “You can't,” she said. “Did it occur to you that everything in that house belongs either to the girls or to me? And if we want to we can keep you from using the refrigerator or the sink—you can't even use the towels in the bathroom. You can't even eat off the dishes in the rack on the drainboard. My good god, you can't even sit down in a chair—that bed you're sleeping in doesn't come with the house; that's part of the personal property, and he only left you his share of the house. The sheets on the bed. The ashtrays!” She went on and on, working herself up. “And how are you going to eat? I'll bet you think you're going to walk into the kitchen and open up a few cans and packages of food. Do you think that food is yours? It isn't. And if you eat one bite of it, I'll sue you. I'll take you to court and sue you!”

  I hadn't realized it. What she said was true. “There's a lot in what you say,” I said. “I'll have to get my own furniture.”

  She said, “I think I'll have the movers up from Fairfax and move everything out of that house.”

  “Okay,” I said, taken aback and having difficulty thinking.

  “You idiot,” Fay said. “All you've got in this world is that empty box of a house—half that empty box of a house. And we can keep up our share of the payments with what we're getting in from the factory.” She hung up, then.

  I dressed and combed my hair, and then I went into the kitchen and stood wondering if I should fix myself breakfast or not. Suppose while I was eating it, Fay appeared with the sheriff or someone? Wouldn't I, in a sense, be stealing the food?

  Unable to decide, I at last gave up the idea of eating breakfast. Instead, I went outdoors and down to the chicken pen to throw grain to the banties.

  How empty the duck pen was without the ducks. The trough remained, the porcelain sink that Charley had put down for them, and the drainage system that he had been working on. There was even a duck egg left over, half-buried in the weeds that the ducks had made into a nest. And, in the garbage can, half a sack of egg-gro. Almost fifty pounds of it.

  I wandered on, to the stable that Charley had built for the horse. There was the saddle hanging up on the wall, and all the other equipment that had gone with the horse. Over three hundred dollars worth of stuff.

  Returning to the house I seated myself on the floor, near the fireplace, and thought. I spent most of the morning deep in thought, and at last I came to the conclusion that what I had to do was find a way of bringing in enough money to make my monthly payments on the house, including what I had to pay on the taxes and insurance. Also, I needed to have enough money to buy food, because it was now clearly apparent that Fay and Nat would not give me any of theirs. I had had the half-formed notion that we could go back to something like the old system, with me doing babysitting for them—although not the dirty work, the scrubbing part—and them supplying me with what would be an equitable amount of supplies such as food and the like. However, that was off.

  After figuring I came to the conclusion that I would have to earn almost five hundred dollars a month in order to keep up my end of the house, and this did not include either unusual medical bills or house repairs. Anyhow, I could make the payments, eat, buy some clothes, etc., and acquire some second-hand furniture.

  I therefore got out on the road and hitch-hiked to Point Reyes Station. There, I started looking for a job.

  The first place I tried was the garage on the corner. I told them that I wasn't a mechanic, but that I had a scientific disposition and was good at analyzing and diagnosis. They told me they didn't have any openings, so I went on across the street to the market. There was nothing there, either, even a job such as opening crates and putting out the merchandise on the shelves. I next tried at the big hardware store. They said that the only person they could use was one who could drive. After that I tried at the post office for the job of postal clerk, but there they told me that a federal civil service exam was required. I tried the other garages and gas stations, the pharmacy, the coffee shop—at least there should have been a job of dish-washer open—and the dress shop, even the little free library. No work was available at any place. I tried the feed store, the big building-supply yard, and finally the bank.

  The man at the bank was very helpful. He recognized me as Fay's brother, and we sat down at his desk and talked for a long time. I explained my situation, why I wanted work and how much I had to have. The man told me that it was next to impossible to find work at any of the retail businesses in the area because they all did such a limited operation. My best bet, he said, was either the dairy ranches out on the Point or down at Olema at the mill, or over at the gravel works on the Petaluma road, or the RCA station out on the lighthouse road. If I could drive, he said, I could probably get a job driving the school bus, but that was obviously out. In summer I could pick produce, but this was only April.

  Of the various alternatives it seemed to me that a job on one of the dairy farms would be the best, because of my love of animals. Thanking the man, I hitch-hiked back on to the Inverness side of the bay and then, by means of several rides, managed to get out to some of the ranches. It took all day. The only job that was open was that of milker, and this reminded me of what Charley had said originally, that milking would be my best bet up here in the country.

  Milking, however, although it sounded like interesting work, paid only a dollar thirty an hour, and this would not be enough for me to meet my expenses. In addition, I would have to actually live on the various ranches, and this would defeat the whole purpose of the job. So milking was out. Toward evening, feeling discouraged and tired, I started hitch-hiking back to town. Fortunately the people at one of the ranches were kind enough to give me a big lunch, otherwise I would have had nothing to eat all day. As it was, I got back to the house at nine-thirty in the evening, thoroughly depressed and tired, with no prospect of work.

  I turned on the light in the living room, and, because the house was so cold, I lit a fire in the fireplace, even though I was cons
cious that the wood belonged to Fay and the children, not to me. Even the discarded newspapers which we always used to start fires did not belong to me, nor the milk cartons that we saved out of the garbage. Only the stuff in the study that I had carried with me from the Hambros'.

  Thinking about it, I wondered if possibly anybody in the group might be able to help me find a job that paid five hundred a month. I therefore took a chance and telephoned Mrs. Hambro. Although she was sympathetic she seemed to feel that there was no chance that I'd find a job paying anything like that much; she pointed out that in a farm area wages were generally lower than in the city, and even for San Francisco, five hundred a month was a pretty high salary.

  At ten, while I was seated before the fire, the phone rang. I answered it. Again it was Fay, calling from wherever they were staying.

  “I came by during the day,” she said. “Where were you?”

  “Out,” I said.

  Fay said, “Are you going to get psychiatric help?”

  “I haven't thought about it,” I said.

  “Maybe if you go see Doctor Andrews you'll get more insight into your situation. Why don't you sell your part of the house? I talked to him today and he says that you identify with Charley and are getting revenge on us for his death. You hold us responsible for him killing himself. Is that why you won't sell? Good god, think of the children. They've lived in that house ever since it was built … we actually built it for them, not for ourselves. And that's virtually all the son of a bitch left me, except for that nothing factory that hardly makes enough to pay its own way. I have to have that house—half of it is mine, and you can bet your bottom dollar I'll never let my half go. Anyhow, you couldn't buy it from me. Could you? My god, you can't even pay the buck-fifty water bill.”

  I said nothing.

  Fay went on, “I think we'll come over and discuss it with you. We'll see you in about fifteen minutes.”

  Before I could tell her that I was totally exhausted and about ready for bed, the phone had clicked. She had hung up. It never occurred to her to inquire whether I wanted to discuss it with her or not. That's the way she's always been; nothing will ever change her.

  Even more depressed than before I sat waiting for them to come. In a sense she was right; the children belonged in the house, and since she refused to live with me, the children would not be living here unless I moved out. She, of course, considered it her house, and to a degree it was. But certainly it was not her house in the sense that she meant it: that it was hers and no one else's. The fact of the matter was that the house belonged to Charley, and that he had divided it between her and me, with the obvious idea that both of us would live here. Charley assumed that since Fay and I were sister and brother we would be able to live together. What he thought Nat Anteil would do I have no idea. Possibly he did not realize that Anteii's wife had left him and that their marriage was over. He may have assumed that the relationship between Fay and Nat was only a passing affair. In that, he was not alone; none of us had thought of it persisting. Had Charley come back and not killed himself—nor Fay— then no doubt her assignations with Anteil would have come to an end. He had only to return to the house to put an end to the situation—at least, to keep them from physically coming together. Of course, the bond between them might continue, and that was why he did what he did. He had wanted to punish her for what she had done. I think he was right. She deserved whatever she got. However, at the end, she had outsmarted him and gotten him to kill himself instead. Even though he had drawn up a will that excluded her from the body of his estate, she still had her life, her half of the house, her children, and the household goods—even the car. And all that remained of Charley was the eternal presence that pervaded the house, the presence that I felt so keenly all the time I was there.

  In fact, even now as I sat trying to see a way out of this dilemma, I sensed Charley around the house, in each part of it in proportion to the extent that he had inhabited that part while physically alive. Especially in the study, where he had worked at night … I felt it there the most. Not so much in the children's rooms or even their bedroom. And not at all in Fay's work room, where she did her clay modeling. Her creative stuff.

  What he hadn't realized was that if he had killed her, nobody would ever have had a happy moment again. Think what the effect would have been on the children. Their lives would have been blighted. He himself would have nothing left ahead of him but death from his heart condition, unless he had planned to kill himself, too. Nat Anteil had already given up his wife, seen his brief marriage to her end, and, with Fay dead, what would there be in store for him? Who would have gained?

  The nihilism of what Charley did is shown in his killing of the animals. That part affected me the most; I had the greatest difficulty understanding it.

  Surely he hadn't hated the animals as he hated Fay; he couldn't possibly have thought that the animals had betrayed him—although of course the dog had learned to greet Anteil rather than to bark at him. To follow the logic of that, however, he would have had to kill his own daughters, since they both like Anteil, and he would possibly even have had to kill me, since the girls like me very much. Maybe he planned to. Anyhow, the sheep cared for nobody on earth, and the ducks, to the extent possible with their limited minds, kept a loyalty to him. After all, it had been he who built their pens.

  After thinking it over steadily, I came to the conclusion that he had not known he was killing the animals, that he had only been conscious that when he got back to the house after being in the hospital, there would be some great change, which he himself would bring about, and that this change would affect all the living creatures there. He shot the animals to show that what he did mattered. He could do something that couldn't be undone. And yet, even deciding this, I felt then—and still feel now—that the actual reasons for his actions are beyond my scope. I don't understand his kind of illogical, semi-barbaric mind. It was not a question of seientific reason; it was brute instinct. Perhaps he identified the animals with himself. Possibly he was already beginning on the path of killing himself, that he knew in some part of his mind that he would never kill Fay; that it would be he who would end up getting shot, not she. Or possibly he hadn't even wanted to kill her, that he had only gone through the motions. Possibly he had meant to kill himself all the time, from the moment he bought the gun.

  In that case, she was not to blame. At least, not as much.

  But a confusion like this always results when the unscientific individual is involved. Science is baffled by the unreason of the hoi polloi. The moods of the mass can't be fathomed; that's a fact.

  While I was studying this entire situation deeply, and waiting for Fay and Nat, I heard their car drive up. So I got to my feet and went to the front door to turn on the driveway lights.

  Only one person came from the car. It was Nat Anteil; my sister hadn't come along.

  “Where's Fay?” I said.

  Nat said, “Somebody had to stay with the girls.” He entered the house and shut the door after him.

  His explanation, although reasonable, didn't convince me. I had the intuition that she couldn't bring herself to set foot inside the house as long as I was still there. And that made me feel just that much worse.

  “Sometimes it's easier for two men to discuss a business matter,” Nat said. “Without a woman.”

  “True,” I said.

  We sat down facing each other in the living room. Looking across, past the fireplace, at him, I got to wondering how old he was. Was he older or younger than I? About the same age, I decided. And look how little he had done with his life. A marriage that hadn't lasted a bit. Involvement with a married woman that had ended in the death of an innocent man. And, from what I had heard, a fairly insecure economic position. The only thing he had over me was that, to be very honest, he was much better looking than I. He had that sweet, open face, roundish, and jet-black hair which he kept cut short. He was tall, too, without appearing scrawny or bony. In fact he loo
ked to me like a tennis player, with very long arms and legs, but at the same time keeping himself in good physical condition.

  Also, I had respect for his intelligence.

  “Well,” I said, “this is a difficult situation.”

  “No doubt of that,” Nat said.

  We sat for a time in silence. Nat lit a cigarette.

  “You don't want to be a dog in the manger,” he said. “It's indisputable that you can't raise the capital to buy Fay out, and even if you did you couldn't afford to live here; the cost of keeping this place going is enormous. It's a completely impractical house. Personally, I'm not anxious to see Fay keep it. It's too costly to heat. I'd rather see her sell it and move into a smaller place, possibly an older house.”

  “But she has her heart set on living here,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “She likes it. But if she had to, she could give it up. I think in the long run she'll want to give it up. After she's had to keep it running without Charley. In some respects, it's more a liability than an asset.” Getting to his feet, he wandered around the living room. “It's nice. It's really a marvelous house to live in. But it'd take a really well-off person to maintain it. It's a constant drain. A person could wind up a slave to it, trying to keep it going. I don't think I'd ever want to do that; I hope to hell I don't get in that position.” He did not seem to be especially talking to me; I sensed that he was actually thinking out loud.