Let’s move forward thirty years from the incident of Rufus Briggs the soft-starched clod, from 1940 to 1970. By 1970 most legal impediments to equality between the sexes were gone. This incident involved a board meeting of Skyblast Freight, a D. D. Harriman enterprise. I was a director and this was not my first meeting. I knew all the directors by sight and they knew me or at least had had opportunity to know me.
However I admit that I was looking younger than the last time they had seen me. I had had my pendulous baby-chewed breasts reshaped, and at the same Beverly Hills hospital I had tucks taken up under the hairline to take the slack out of my face, then I had gone to an Arizona health ranch to get into top condition and to lose fifteen pounds. I had gone next to Vegas and splurged on ultra chic, very feminine, new clothes—not the tailored pantsuits most female executives wore. I was smugly aware that I did not look the eighty-eight years I had lived, nor the fifty-eight years I admitted. I think I looked a smart forty.
I was waiting in the foyer outside the boardroom, intending not to go in until called—board meetings are dull rituals…but a crisis is sure to come up if you skip one.
Just as the light outside the boardroom started to blink a man came slamming in from outside, Mr. Phineas Morgan, leader of a large minority bloc. He headed straight for the blinking light while shucking off his overcoat. As he passed me, he chucked it at me. “Take care of it!”
I ducked aside, let his coat land on the floor. “Hey! Morgan!” He checked himself, looked back. I pointed at the floor. “Your coat.”
He looked surprised, amazed, indignant, angry, and vindictive, all in one second. “Why, you little bitch! I’ll have you fired for that.”
“Go right ahead.” I moved past him into the boardroom, found my place card, and sat down. A few seconds later he sat down opposite me, at which point his face managed still another expression.
Phineas Morgan had not intentionally tried to use a fellow director as a servant. He saw a female figure who, in his mind, must be hired staff—secretary, receptionist, clerk, whatever. He was late and in a hurry and assumed that this “subordinate employee” would as a matter of course hang up his coat so that he could go straight to roll call.
The moral? In 1970 on time line two the legal system assumed that a man is innocent until proved guilty; in 1970 on time line two the cultural system assumed that a female is subordinate until proved otherwise—despite all laws that asserted that the sexes were equal.
I planned to kick that assumption in the teeth.
August 5, 1952, marked the beginning of my bachelorhood because that was the day on which I resolved that from that time on I would be treated the way a man is treated with respect to rights and privileges—or I would raise hell about it. I no longer had a family, I was no longer capable of childbearing, I was not looking for a husband, I was financially independent (and then some!), and I was firmly resolved never again “to send out the laundry” for some man merely because I use the washroom intended for setters rather than the one set aside for pointers.
I did not plan to be aggressive about it. If a gentleman held a door for me, I would accept the courtesy and thank him. Gentlemen enjoy offering little gallantries; a lady enjoys accepting them graciously, with a smile and a word of thanks.
I mention this because, by the 1970s, there were many females who would snub a man unmercifully if he offered a gallantry, such as holding a chair for a woman, or offering to help her in or out of a car. These women (a minority but a ubiquitous, obnoxious one) treated traditional courtesy as if it were an insult. I grew to think of these females as the “Lesbian Mafia.” I don’t know that all of them were homosexual (although I’m certain about some of them) but their behavior caused me to lump them all together.
If some of them were not Lesbians, then where did they find heterosexual mates? What sort of wimp would put up with this sort of rudeness in women? I am sorry to say that by 1970 there were plenty of wimps of every sort. The wimps were taking over. Manly men, gallant gentlemen the sort who do no wait to be drafted, were growing scarce.
The principal problem in closing the house lay in the books: what to store, what to give away, what to take with me. The furniture and the small stuff, from pots and pans to sheets, would mostly be given to Good Will. We had been in that house twenty-three years, 1929 to 1952; most of the furniture was that old, or nearly so, and, after being worked over by a swarm of active children all those years, the market value of these chattels was too low to justify placing them in storage—since I had no intention of setting up a proper household in the foreseeable future.
I hesitated over my old upright piano. It was an old friend; Briney had given it to me in 1909—second (third?) hand even then; it was the first proof that Brian Smith Associates was actually in the black. Brian had paid fourteen dollars for it at an auction.
No! If my plans were to work out, I must travel light. Pianos can be rented anywhere.
Having resolved to give up my piano other decisions were easy, so I decided to start with the books. Move all books from all over the house into the living—no, into the dining room; pile them on the dining table. Pile them high. Pile the rest on the floor. Who could believe that one house could hold so many books?
Roll in the big utility table; start stacking on it books to be stored. Roll in the little tea table; place on it books to take with me. Set up card tables for books to go to Good Will. Or to the Salvation Army? Whichever one will come and get the stuff, soonest, can have the lot—clothes, books, bed clothes, furniture, whatever. But they’ve got to come get it.
An hour later I was still telling myself firmly: No! Don’t stop to read anything! If you just must read it, then put that book in the “take with” pile—you can thin it down later.
When I heard the mewing of a cat.
I said to myself, “Oh, that girl! Susan, what have you done to me?”
Two years earlier we had become catless through the tragic demise of Captain Blood, grandson of Chargé d’Affaires—sudden death from a hit-and-run driver on Rockhill Boulevard. In the preceding forty-three years I had never tried keeping house without a cat. I tend to agree with Mr. Clemens, who rented three cats when he moved into his home in Connecticut in order to give a new house that lived-in feeling.
But this time I resolved to struggle along without a cat. Patrick was eighteen, Susan was sixteen; each had received his Howard list. It was predictable that each would be leaving the nest in the near future.
Cats have one major shortcoming. Once you adopt one, you are stuck for life. The cat’s life, that is. The cat does not speak English; it does not understand broken promises. If you abandon it, it will die and its ghost will haunt your nights.
At dinner the day Captain Blood was killed none of us ate much and we were not talkative. At last Susan said, “Mama, do we start watching the want-ads? Or do we go to the Humane Society?”
“For what, dear?” (I was intentionally obtuse.)
“For a kitten, of course.”
So I laid it on the line: “A kitten could live fifteen years, or longer. When you two leave home this house will be sold, as I have no intention of rattling around in a fourteen-room house, alone. Then what happens to the cat?
“Nothing. Because there is not going to be a cat.”
About two weeks later Susan was a bit late getting home from school. She came in and said, “Mama, I must be gone a couple of hours. An errand.” She was carrying a brown paper sack.
“Yes, dear. May I ask why and where?”
“This.” She put the sack on my kitchen table. It tilted and a kitten walked out. A jellicle cat, small and neat and black and white, just as described in Mr. Eliot’s poem.
I said, “Oh, dear!”
Susan said, “It’s all right, Mama. I’ve already explained to her that she can’t live here.”
The kitten looked at me, wide-eyed, then sat down and started pin-pleating its white jabot. I said, “What is her name?”
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sp; “She doesn’t have one, Mama. It wouldn’t be fair to give her one. I’m taking her down to the Humane Society so that she can be put to sleep without hurting. That’s the errand I have to do.”
I was firm with Susan. She must feed the kitten herself. She must clean and refill its sand box as long as it needed one. She must train it to use the cat door. She must see to its shots, taking it back and forth to the veterinary hospital at the Plaza as necessary. The kitten was hers and hers alone, and she must plan on taking it with her when she married and left home.
Kitten and girl listened to this, round-eyed and solemn, and both agreed to the terms. And I attempted not to get friendly with this cat—let her look entirely to Susan, bond only with Susan.
But what do you do when a square ball of black and white fluff sits up on its hind legs, sticks out its little fat belly, waves its three-inch arms beside its ears, and says, plain as anything, “Please, Mama. Please come fight with me.”
Nevertheless Susan remained committed to taking her kitten with her. We did not discuss it but the deal was never renegotiated.
I went to the front door—no cat. Then I went to the back door. “Come in, your Highness.”
Her Serene Highness, Princess Polly Ponderosa Penelope Peachfuzz, paraded in, tail high. (“It’s about time! But thank you anyway and don’t let it happen again what’s for lunch?”) She sat down, facing the kitchen cupboard where canned cat food was kept.
She ate a six-ounce can of tuna and liver, demanded more and did equally well on veal in gravy, then ate some crunchies for dessert, stopping from time to time to head-bump my ankles. At last she stopped to clean.
“Polly, let me see your pads.” She was not her usual immaculate self and I had never seen her so hungry. Where had she been the past three days?
I was certain from examining her paws that she had been on the road. I thought of some grim questions to ask Susan when she telephoned. If she did. But in the meantime the cat was here and this was home and the responsibility was now mine, by derivation. When I moved out of this house, the cat had to go with me. Unavoidable. Susan, I wish you were unmarried just long enough for me to spank you.
I rubbed Vaseline on her paws and got back to work. Princess Polly went to sleep on a pile of books. If she missed Susan, she didn’t say so. She seemed willing to pig it with just one servant.
About one in the afternoon I was still sorting books and trying to decide whether to make do with a cold sandwich or go all out and open a can of tomato soup—when the front door chimed. Princess Polly looked up. I said, “You’re expecting someone? Susan, maybe?” I went to the door.
Not Susan. Donald and Priscilla.
“Come in, darlings!” I opened the door wide. “Are you hungry? Have you had lunch?” I did not ask them any questions. There is a poem by Robert Frost, well known on that time line in that century: “The Death of the Hired Man,” which contained this definition: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Two of my children had come home; they would tell me what they wished to tell me when they got around to it. I was simply glad that I had a house to let them into and that I still had bed clothes for them. Cat and children had not changed my plans—but those plans could wait. I was glad that I had not managed to clear out the day before, Monday the fourth—I would have missed all three. Tragic!
I got busy rustling lunch for them—fancy cooking; I did open Campbell’s tomato soup, two cans. “Let me see. We have quite a lot of not too stale cake left over from the reception, and a half gallon of vanilla ice cream that has not been opened. How much can you two eat?”
“Plenty!”
“Priss is right. We haven’t eaten anything today.”
“Oh, my goodness! Sit down. Let’s get some soup into you fast, then we’ll see what else you want. Or would you rather have breakfast things, seeing that this is breakfast for you? Bacon and eggs? Cereal?”
“Anything,” answered my son. “If it’s alive, I’ll bite its head off.”
“Behave yourself, Donnie,” said his sister. “We’ll start with soup, Mama.”
While we were eating Priscilla said, “Why are the books piled all around, Mama?”
I explained that I was getting ready to close the house, preparatory to selling it. My children exchanged looks; they both looked solemn, almost woebegone. I looked from face to face. “Take it easy,” I advised. “There is nothing to look sad about. I’m not faced with any deadlines and this is your home. Do you want to fill me in?”
Most of it was fairly obvious from their condition—dirty, tired, hungry, and broke. They had had some sort of trouble with their father and their stepmother and they had left Dallas “forever”—“But, Mama, this was before we knew that you were planning to sell this house. We’ll have to find somewhere else to go…because Donnie and I are not going back there.”
“Don’t be in a hurry,” I said. “You are not out on the street. I’m going to sell this house, yes—but we’ll put another roof over our heads. This is the right time to sell this place because I let George Strong—he’s in real estate—know that this place would be available once Susan was married. Hmm—” I went to the screen and punched up Harriman and Strong.
A woman’s face came on screen. “Harriman and Strong, Investments. Harriman Enterprises. Allied Industries. How may I help you?”
“I am Maureen Johnson. I would like to speak to Mr. Harriman or to Mr. Strong.”
“Neither is available. You may record a message—scramble and hush are on line if needed. Or our Mr. Watkins will speak to you.”
“No. Relay me to George Strong.”
“I am sorry. Will you speak to Mr. Watkins?”
“No. Just get this message to Mr. Strong: George, this is Maureen Johnson speaking. That parcel is now available, and I punched in to offer you first refusal as I promised. I have carried out my promise but I am going to deal today. So now I will call the J. C. Nichols Company.”
“Will you hold, please?” Her face was replaced by a flower garden, her voice by a syrupy rendition of “In an Eighteenth-Century Drawing Room.”
George Strong’s face came on. “Greetings, Mrs. Johnson. Good to see you.”
“Maureen to you, old dear. I called to say that I am moving. Now is the hour if you want to bid on it. Do you still want it?”
“I can use it. Do you have a price in mind?”
“Yes, certainly. Just twice what you are willing to pay.”
“Well, that’s a good start. Now we can dicker.”
“Just a moment. George, I need another house, a smaller one. Three bedrooms, within walking distance of Southwest High. Got something like that?”
“Probably. Or across the line and close to Shawnee Mission High. Want to swap?”
“No, I’m planning to skin you on the deal. I want to lease by the year, automatic renewal unless notice given, ninety days.”
“All right. Pick you up tomorrow morning? Ten o’clock? I want to look over your parcel, point out to you its shortcomings and beat your price down.”
“Ten o’clock, it is. Thank you, George.”
“Always a pleasure, Maureen.”
Donald said, “Dallas phones are all tanks now. How come KC still uses flatties? Why don’t they modernize?”
I answered, “Money. Donald, any question that starts out ‘Why don’t they—’ the answer is always ‘Money.’ But in this case I can offer more details. The Dallas try-out turns out not to be cost effective and the three-dee tanks will be phased out. For the full story see the Wall Street Journal. The back issues for the past quarter are stacked in the library. It’s a six-part series, front page.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up. They can use smoke signals for all of me.”
“Be glad you brought it up and make use of the opportunity I offered you. Donald, if you intend to cope with the jungle out there, you need to make the Wall Street Journal and similar publications such as the Economist your favorite comic bo
oks.” I added, “Ice cream and cake?”
I put Priscilla into Susan’s room, and Donald into the room Patrick had had, just beyond my bath. We went to bed early. About midnight I woke up, then got up to pee, not bothering with a light, as there was moonlight streaming in. I was about to flush the pot when I heard an unmistakable rhythmic sound—bed squeaks. Suddenly I was goose flesh all over.
Priss and Donnie had left here almost as babies, two years old and four; they probably didn’t realize that this old house was about as well soundproofed as a tent. Oh, dear! Those poor children.
I kept very quiet. The rhythm speeded up. Then I heard Priscilla start to keen and Donald to grunt. Shortly the squeaks stopped and they both sighed. I heard Priscilla say, “I needed that. Thanks, Donnie.”
I was proud of her. But it was time for me to hurry—much as I hated to, I must catch them in the act. Or I couldn’t help them.
Seconds later I tapped on Donald’s door. “Darlings? May I come in?”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Cats and Children
It was after one o’clock before I left the children; it had taken that long to convince them that I was not angry, that I was on their side, that my only concern was to see that they did not get hurt—because what they were doing was exceptionally dangerous in all sorts of ways, some of which I was sure they knew but some of which they might not know about or at least had not thought about.
When I had gone in to see them, I had not grabbed a robe. Instead I had gone in as I was, bare naked, because a fully dressed authority figure such as a parent, walking in on two children caught in delectable flagrente, is all too likely to scare it out of them—cause bladder and bowel to cut loose. But another human as naked and vulnerable as they were themselves simply could not be a “cop.” As Father had taught me years earlier, to know which way the frog will jump, you have to put yourself in the frog’s place.
They still would not like being caught—they didn’t!—but, if I did not catch them in bed together, they would lie about it later if I tried to question them. It is parallel to the old rule about puppies: If you don’t catch a puppy at it, it is useless to bring the matter up later.