That word hung in the air, isolated from the others. Nephew. And superimposed on the voice was his father’s voice saying, a long time ago: “We’re alone in the world, Adam—you and your mother and me. That’s why you’ve got to grow up strong and brave and good. You’re the last of the line and you’ve got to keep it going …” Nephew. He listened now in disbelief as his mother recounted his activities of the past week and it was as if she were speaking of someone else. She told of the math test for which he had received a B+; the English composition that Mr. Parker had asked him to read aloud to the class, bringing both embarrassment and triumph; she told her what he ate, what he wore, the new shoes he had bought—all the trivialities of his life, with no mention of the things that mattered: Amy or the poetry he wrote late at night in his room, his longings, his hopes …
“… he’s such a good boy. I feel bad about what’s happened …”
“Now, Louise, you’re in a black mood tonight—please, cheer up a little …”
“I know, I know. We have so much to be thankful for—I have so much—David and Adam and, of course, you, dear Martha—”
A noise caught Adam’s attention: his father’s footsteps. He removed the receiver from his ear but realized he couldn’t simply hang up—the click would echo like an explosion across the wires. The footsteps grew closer as his father came up the stairs. Adam excruciatingly watched his own hand, with the receiver in it, approach the instrument. He put the receiver in the cradle, softly, gently, with tenderness. And then whirled as his father walked into the den. Thankfully, his father was reading one of his insurance contracts as he walked along and did not notice Adam standing guiltily at the telephone. But more than that, he did not see the terrible look of astonishment that Adam knew was shining in his eyes.
They’ve been lying to me, he thought with horror. All my life, they’ve been lying to me …
T: And so, for the first time, you had actual and direct evidence that there was something wrong, that something was askew.
(5-second interval.)
T: Do you feel well?
A: I’m not sure, I feel—dizzy.
T: An anxiety reaction, nothing more. Oh, the dizziness is real, I grant you. But the cause is anxiety, the sudden sharp memory.
A: May I rest? I’m tired now.
T: Are you retreating?
A: No. Really. But I’m dizzy and tired and my stomach feels queasy. I feel as though I’ve been here, in this room, forever.
T: I agree, it has been a long session, the longest thus far. More than an hour—almost two. Let us suspend, then.
A: Thank you.
END TAPE OZK006
There are three of them.
They are huddled around a table in the corner near the jukebox, eating popcorn. They toss the popcorn in the air and catch it in their mouths as if they’re onstage and expect people to applaud. The jukebox is old and decrepit, no neon lights, no fancy touches. I wonder if it has “The Farmer in the Dell” but that is impossible, of course. “The Farmer in the Dell” is not a jukebox kind of song. I am worried about the three guys eating popcorn. They glance my way once in a while and then whisper among themselves.
This is a small restaurant, a lunchroom really, and we are the only occupants. The counterman is a small thin fellow with a toothpick sticking out of his mouth and he is always on the telephone. No sooner does he hang up the phone than it rings again and the toothpick dances in his teeth as he talks.
The clam chowder is hot. It burns the roof of my mouth and I take a gulp of water and then chew the small soda crackers. The chowder soothes my stomach and dissolves the rock there.
I look at the three guys and I am glad that my bicycle is at the police station. When I arrived in Carver a few minutes ago, the first building I saw on Main Street was a combination post office, police department, and fire department. I went inside and asked the policeman at the desk if I could leave my bike for safekeeping while I found a place to eat. He was reading a newspaper and didn’t even look up. “Sure, kid,” he said, “we aim to please.” The weird thing is that he didn’t look at me at all. I mean, I could have had two heads or been carrying a rifle or anything and he wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t leave my father’s package with the bike. I untied the belt that held it to the bike and took it outside with me. On the street, I noticed that Carver is such a small town that it doesn’t even have parking meters. I spotted the lunchroom—the faded sign said Eats, that’s all. I like that kind of thing—Amy does, too—nothing phony or fancy about it.
The counterman ladled out the clam chowder while talking on the telephone. The telephone was cradled between his chin and shoulder. I figured the chowder would be good for sustenance on my journey, all that milk and stuff. The man dropped a huge chunk of butter into the chowder and grimaced at me. I realized the grimace was actually a smile. The butter immediately began to melt. I don’t particularly like butter melting in my clam chowder but he seemed to think he was doing me a favor so I smiled and said “Thanks.” He waved me away, still talking on the telephone, his voice so low I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Something hits my arm as I eat and I look down at the floor and see where the piece of popcorn has landed. Another piece arrives, barely missing the chowder. Like in school, when the wise guys threw spitballs. I don’t look at the troublemakers and I concentrate on my chowder. I blow on the chowder to cool it off. I remove my father’s package from the other chair at the table and put it on my lap. For safekeeping. I hear the popcorn guys giggle. You can tell them a mile away, the wise guys. I recognized them as soon as I stepped into the place. They are everywhere in the world, in schools and offices, in theaters and factories, in stores and hospitals.
Now one of them gets up and walks toward me. He’s about sixteen or seventeen and he has freckles and straight white teeth and he looks like a million other kids his age except for that subtle difference that marks him for what he is.
“Never saw you around here before, kid,” he says, stopping at my table. Looming above me.
I take a spoonful of the chowder. It’s getting cooler and I can swallow it without burning my throat.
“I’m just passing through,” I say.
“Where you from?” he asks.
“Monument. In Massachusetts.”
“And where are you going?”
He is asking questions but it’s obvious that he is not interested in the answers. The questions are only a prelude to what he really wants: trouble.
“Rutterburg. Rutterburg, Vermont.”
“You hitching?”
“No. I’ve got my bike.”
All the time I’m talking, I’m gulping down the chowder and chewing the clams and the crackers.
“Well, where’s your bike?”
He walks to the window and looks out into the street. He looks back at his friends, who are still at the table tossing popcorn into their mouths and missing most of the time. “I don’t see no bike.”
“It’s at the police station,” I say. “I left it there for safekeeping.”
I realize immediately I have made a mistake by saying that. He had been walking away from the window, toward my table, and now he stops in mid-motion. He shakes his head, as if tremendously puzzled. He looks again at his friends. “The police station?” he asks, in mock amazement. “To keep his bike safe?” I know what is coming. And it comes: “I guess he doesn’t trust us,” he says, shaking his head, his voice phonily sorrowful. “I guess this boy from Massachusetts don’t trust the people in Carver, New Hampshire.”
I swallow the last of the chowder and cram my mouth with crackers. My hand trembles as I put down the spoon. I should have taken my pills this morning. I look at the counter and the man is still on the telephone, the toothpick still in his teeth.
The wise guy hovers over me. “Is that the real reason you left your bike with the cops—because you don’t trust us?”
“Look,” I say, pushing away the bowl of chowder. “I’m on
my way to Rutterburg and the bike is my only means of transportation. If somebody takes it, I’m dead.”
“Can’t you hitch?” he asks. “Hell, me and Dobbie and Lewis, we hitched all the way to Montpelier the other day. Right, fellas?” Glancing over his shoulder at them.
“Right, Whipper,” one of them calls.
I wipe my lips with the napkin and pick up my father’s package from my lap. My hands are shaking slightly.
“What’s that?” Whipper asks.
“What’s what?” I ask back, my voice quivering.
“That package there. In your hands,” he says, impatient. “You’re carrying it like it’s a bomb or something. So careful. Have you got a bomb there? You planning to blow up Carver, New Hampshire?”
“No,” I say. “It’s a present. A gift. For my father. He’s in Rutterburg, Vermont, and I’m bringing it to him.”
I stand up, pushing the chair away. The legs of the chair scrape the floor. The other fellows stand up, too. My heart races: I am such a coward. The counterman is still on the telephone, turned sideways from us.
“I’d like to know what’s in that package,” Whipper says, his voice low and deadly.
We face each other. I realize now that he is shorter than I am but heavier. His shoulders are wide. There is a scar on his forehead above his right eye. His eyes are small, imbedded in his face. My heart is beating dangerously and I feel the blood rushing to my face.
“Yes sir, that package must really be something,” he says. But he isn’t looking at the package, he is looking at me. Our eyes are locked.
I clutch the package. I think of my father and I stand there, not moving. My heart is threatening to explode in my chest and my lungs scream with pain—I realize that I have been holding my breath—but I look him in the eye. The package is for my father and nobody, nobody is going to take it away from me or prevent me from bringing it to him. I stand there like a tree. I will not bend. I will not give him the package. I am the package.
Finally, he takes his eyes away from mine and steps back, a pitying look on his face.
“Shit on your old package,” he says, shaking his head.
“Hey, what’s going on there?” the counterman calls. Finally. He still hasn’t hung up the telephone, it’s still cradled on his shoulder, but at least he’s become aware of what’s been going on in his lunchroom.
“Aw, nothing, Luke,” Whipper says, and fades from my sight, going back to his cohorts at the table.
I exhale. Then I draw sweet air into my lungs. The air caresses them. My heart is still pounding dangerously but the beats are beginning to soften. I grab my father’s package and I get out of there. Quick. Without looking right or left.
TAPE OZK007 0215 date deleted T-A
T: What’s the matter? How can I be of assistance?
(5-second interval.)
T: What’s wrong? Evidently, you are upset—but tell me.
(10-second interval.)
T: I do not want to seem unnecessarily harsh but it would assist the situation if you spoke, if you explained.
(5-second interval.)
T: My boy, it is two-fifteen in the morning. I told you at the beginning I would be available to you at any time of day or night. And that is true. That is why I am here. But you must also do your part. You must assist me.
(10-second interval.)
T: Tell me—what is wrong? Evidently, there is something wrong. What is it? I am here to help.
(6-second interval.)
A: What comes next?
T: What do you mean?
A: You know what I mean.
T: Explain, please.
A: The blanks. All the blanks. If you know what they are, fill them in for me …
He had awakened from sleep as if shot out of a cannon. Out of the everywhere into the here. And now. The room, the bed, the cold moonlight chilling the room. He was in the bed and aware of the cold sheets but he was also suspended, isolated, inhabitant of an unknown land, an unknown world and he himself unidentified. Caught and suspended in time. Who am I? I am Adam Farmer. But who am I? I am Adam Farmer. But Adam Farmer was only a name, words, a lesson he had learned here in the cold room and in that other room with the questions and answers. Who is Adam Farmer? He didn’t know. His name might as well have been Kitchen Chair. Or Cellar Steps. Adam Farmer was nothing—the void yawned ahead of him and behind him, with no constant to guide himself by. Who am I? Adam Farmer. Two words, that’s all. He was oozing perspiration, floating in his own body fluids, the pajamas soaked with sweat. Lie still. Lie still, lie still and the panic will pass. That’s what they told him and sometimes the panic passed. But only with a pill and, some desperate nights, with a shot, the needle bringing peace at last.
But now at this moment he was a raw wound, bleeding panic, the bedsheet a shroud, crazy. He tried to send his mind in different directions, past and future, but it did not work. Faces passed by as if on a whirling merry-go-round but they vanished before he could focus on them, pin them down, bring them into sharp portrayal.
There was a strange sound in the room. And he listened, mouth agape, bones chilled. His own sounds, a moan issuing from his body. He tried to clutch at something in the dark, seeking something to hold on to, but there was nothing. He was surrounded by nothingness, here in the bed and here in his life. What life—whose life?
T: We have filled in many blanks. Or don’t you remember?
A: Not enough. Not enough.
T: These things can’t be rushed. You were told that in the beginning. You must relax. You must ride out these panics. I am as much in a hurry as you to fill the blanks but it’s a time-consuming thing.
A: Why can’t I remember? Why can I remember just so much, a little at a time?
T: Do you suppose it’s because you really don’t want to remember?
A: But I do, I do.
T: Perhaps one part of you wants to remember and another part doesn’t.
A: But why?
T: Who knows?
A: Is it because there’s something so terrible there that one part of me doesn’t want to know about it?
T: That’s what we must learn. Slowly and patiently.
(10-second interval.)
T: It is late—do you wish something to make you sleep? To ease, as you call it, the panic?
A: I’m tired of pills and needles.
T: Perhaps that’s a good sign.
A: Why do you have so many “perhapses” and “maybes” and “we’ll sees”? Can’t you help me?
T: This is the best way I can help you.
A: It isn’t enough.
T: Should we review, then? Review all you have remembered? All the blanks that have been filled?
A: No. I don’t care about the blanks that are filled in. It’s the ones that are still blanks that I want to talk about. What am I doing here? How long have I been here? I hate this place. The people here hate me, too.
T: Why should they hate you?
A: They know I’m not like them. That’s why they hate me.
T: Tell me, how do you know they hate you?
A: I know. I know.
T: But how?
(5-second interval.)
A: I’m tired now.
T: Is the panic gone?
A: Yes, I think I can sleep now. Without the pills.
T: You may have one if you wish.
A: Well, maybe one.
T: Fine. Fine. We shall meet again in only a few hours.
A: Good. I’m really sleepy.
T: Sleep well, sleep well.
A: Thank you.
END TAPE OZK007
I am about to get on my bike and leave the town of Carver forever when I spot the telephone booth down the street. At last. I lash my father’s package to the basket and push the bike toward the booth. An old lady looks at me as I go by and she smiles at the took on my head. She has a hat on her head, too. It looks like a red flowerpot. Complete with flowers. I smile at her. I am happy suddenly. I will
survive Carver and next comes Fleming and then Hookset and Belton Falls. There are long distances between Fleming and Hookset and then between Hookset and Belton Falls but this does not discourage me. I feel strong and resolute. I defeated the troublemakers in the lunchroom and I will defeat anyone else. But most of all, I am about to talk to Amy, to hear her voice again.
I fumble for change and insert the coin and the male operator comes on the line. I give him the number and go through all the rest of the routine and then the line is ringing, ringing. Please be home, Amy, please be home.
“Hello, hello.”
The voice is harsh and impatient: Mr. Hertz’s headline voice.
“Hello, may I speak to Amy?”
“Who is this?”
“Adam. Adam Farmer. I’d like to speak to Amy, please.”
“Amy who? There’s no Amy here.”
The voice is not the headline voice of Mr. Hertz, after all. This is not her father.
I see the three fellows from the lunchroom on the street. They are drifting in my direction. Two of them are walking side by side, slowly and leisurely but something threatening in their pace. The other one, Whipper, walks alone, ahead of them. I feel trapped in the booth. The bike is vulnerable, untied and unbolted outside the booth. And I have a wrong number.
“Listen,” the man on the phone begins, “I’ve got the bug and I been hacking away all day and I finally doze off and then the phone rings …”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
And I slam down the phone. I don’t like to hang up on people but the troublemakers are drifting closer and I have to get out of there. I’m sorry, Amy. I can’t even get a telephone number right. I don’t deserve you.
The boys are coming closer, slowly but surely and menacingly, and I swing open the door of the booth and grab the bike. I run along beside the bike and then leap upon it. My feet engage the pedals and I pump away. I shoot through a red light and a car blows its horn at me but I am away, leaving Carver behind, leaving the troublemakers behind, but I don’t feel brave anymore and my cheeks are wet even though it isn’t raining.