Walter sighed. “How’s it going? How’s it going? Jesus, Barry, what happened to you?”
“What?”
“I was there at two.”
“Whoops! Sorry, man.”
“Jesus, Barry.”
“I fucked up, I guess.”
“Barry. Jesus.”
“I’m a fuck-up.”
Walter thought the virgin might be laughing now, in a private way that barely showed. She was young, in her prime, with nice breasts and a horse face, and still wore the white dress she’d been sacrificed in that night. Despite his wrath, Walter thought first and foremost that he’d like to fuck her. “Sorry,” he said, “whoever you are. You shouldn’t have to listen to all of this.”
It was as though he hadn’t spoken. She didn’t even say “Whatever,” or shrug. Not a flicker of an eyelash, nothing to acknowledge him. And this nothing was the worst, the most disappointing response of all, which he was sure she understood. She was wielding the weapon, so female, of disdain, and that made Walter even more furious at Barry. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“DeeDee.”
“Well, DeeDee, Barry is my son, and Barry was supposed to meet me in his dorm room, but Barry never showed up.”
More nothing—and so intensely was it nothing that it was also, from Walter’s point of view, everything. “I suppose you guys are headed off to fuck,” he heard himself say—and he was saying it to DeeDee. “Well, go ahead.”
“Dad,” said Barry.
“I hope you enjoy yourselves,” said Walter.
Now DeeDee—at last—put her head down, where it belonged, and he and Barry were face to face. “Hey,” said Walter, “you’re shaking.”
“Dad.”
“I pay for everything, remember?” said Walter. “If I stop now, you’re in trouble, Barry, because then you’d have to get a job.”
No answer. It was satisfying, for Walter, to humiliate his son in front of DeeDee. To see him on his heels, shaking in his leather pants, devoid, for once, of a comeback. At the same time, Walter felt terrible, because letting loose on Barry wasn’t good parenting. It was something he was doing because he’d lost control of himself. He’d always held back, sensibly—until now.
Barry, scowling, spat on the concrete and said, “Why are you so fucking blind?”
“What?”
“I don’t want your money. Keep your money, Dad. Wake up, okay? Take a look at yourself.”
Walter answered, “Nice meeting you, DeeDee,” and walked away.
It was a rough night in Room 15 at the Cougar Land. From Room 14 came another Battle of the Bands, and when that finally drew to a merciful close, the relative quiet revealed that in Room 16 someone was snoring with the television on. Walter, a pillow over his head and wads of crumpled paper in his ears, lay awake replaying the parking-lot confrontation, particularly his part in it, which he felt acutely. By the time he fell into an unsatisfying half-sleep, there were cleaning carts rolling along outside, car doors opening and closing in the parking lot, and the voices of people walking past. Walter woke after ten with a headache, showered, and lay on the bed again.
At eleven-thirty, he paid his bill, then bought doughnuts in a bag for the road, and got out of Pullman. Passing between wheat fields, he festered over Barry, and over himself, and over Lydia and Tina, and the more he festered, the more disconsolate he felt. What a mess it all was, and what a waste of time, coming all the way out here like a good Samaritan, or like an envoy—of Lydia’s—on a peace mission. Time, money, goodwill, all wasted, and now, blue and at a loss, he was going home to Lydia with her tin of peanut-butter cookies admonishing him from the passenger seat. What would he say about the fact that her cookies remained undelivered, despite her repeated exhortations? And why did there have to be repeated exhortations? For that matter, why Lydia’s vapidity, condescension, sentimentality, and moral superiority? Why her constant leveraging? Why the guilt and punitive slavery? Why was she doing all of this constantly? Why did she treat him like he was serving a life sentence? What was in his oppression for Lydia? Walter, of course, knew the answer to these questions. It was that—as Barry might have put it—he was a fuck-up.
“What have I ever done right?” thought Walter. “My son despises me, my daughter hates me, my wife doesn’t trust me, and everyone at work probably thinks I’m a jerk. On top of that, I’m a serial adulterer. I’m a shitheel who slept with his wife’s best friend. I’m a chronic, fucking liar. I got blackmailed to the tune of two fifty a month by a goddamn teeny-bopper. It’s been payola through the teeth for … for more than sixteen years. That’s, what, almost fifty grand? Jesus, what else? How low can I go? I know how low—I’m a fucking statutory rapist. I’ve got a kid out of wedlock who I don’t know a thing about. That’s the real story of my life.”
A fat rodent ran across the road in front of Walter and, while he hovered between speeding up to hit it and slowing down not to, made it to the safety of the wheat. Now and then he saw doves on the phone lines, as still as glass insulators, inert in the heat. Nothing else seemed to live here, especially not people, and the farther Walter drove into this stark, friendless landscape, the more deserted it felt, and the more deeply he experienced it as a last hiatus of relative peace before, as he thought of it, Lydia’s hammer fell.
“I should just lie back and enjoy the ride,” he thought. “I should be grateful for the beauty of this drive in the countryside, savor my freedom, and forget all the rest, since it isn’t here right now.”
At a dilapidated barn, he slowed to thirty, because in front of him a car was in the middle of the road, straddling the centerline. Maybe it was someone having engine trouble, he thought, or a photographer interested in the rural picturesque who’d stopped to weigh the barn’s merits as a subject. Walter saw the silhouette of someone by a tree, and was prepared to give whoever it was a pass, cut him some slack, until it turned out to be a young punk taking a piss. Who did the little fucker think he was, hogging the road like that while someone—Walter—needed to get past, and had every right to get past? How could anyone be this dumb? Didn’t this kid have any sense?
“Asshole!” thought Walter, and, pressing the accelerator, laid on his horn with the same irritation he’d felt when he’d let Barry’s dorm phone ring a million times. He gave the kid the finger furiously. Until now, irritation had been as far as it went for him when it came to other drivers, but this time he was seized by rage. He felt murderous, capable of anything. Unbridled, cut loose, he screamed “Fuck you!” and punched it. Passing, he noted that the car had racing stripes, and that a girl in a leather jacket was watching him from the passenger side. There was freedom, he knew, in reckless speed, and the whole operation, his defiant pass, left him with a keen sense of victory.
But he wasn’t victorious. The kid gave him the finger back—two fingers—ran, and jumped into his car. “Oh, no,” thought Walter. “Stupid of me again.” Fearfully, he watched the kid gain in his rearview mirror, and then, even more fearfully, watched him ride his bumper. Walter rolled down his window in a panic and waved him off, gestured for surrender, but the kid just rode his bumper all the harder. There was no way to shake him, because his car was souped up. In a straightaway, the kid pulled neatly alongside so his girlfriend could flip Walter off with both hands. Walter had a fleeting view of his adversary’s face—the face of a raging, powerful young warrior—and the remaining manliness and heat went out of him. He felt scared into a thorough and quaking submission. Trembling, he hit the brakes to indicate docility, but as he did the kid forced him off the road into a wheat field. Poor Walter. He was turned upside down. He hung from his seatbelt with his head against the roof. He survived, in terror, the first of four rolls, but as the roof overhead hit the ground a second time, it caved in and broke his neck.
5
Mrs. Long
Jim Long was disciplined and didn’t drink insensibly, especially compared with his brothers. He’d come home in the evening from Long Alpi
ne headquarters, ask Diane about her day, listen to her answer, ask follow-up questions, make her a cocktail if she wanted one, and, if she was at the sink in the kitchen or bathroom, pin her from behind and plant a kiss beside her ear. She liked Jim, at first, despite his conventionality, because he treated her like a princess. Jim was her hero, defending her against the pettiness and testiness in his clan of snobbish ski barons, and enjoying, literally, kissing her feet, due to what emerged as a foot fetish. He squired her to concerts and plays, and took her out for prime rib, king crab, or oysters on the halfshell. When they dined at the Benson, Heathman, or Seward, Diane felt self-conscious and feared she’d be revealed as the onetime consort of well-to-do hotel patrons. On the other hand, she’d left behind Blonde Ponytail Barbie and, on her way toward thirty, embraced Impeccably Arranged. Impeccably Arranged meant that, with enough money on hand and time to spend preening, no one would notice that she wasn’t perfect anymore. Why this was so important to her at such an early age was a question Diane pondered in a self-punishing way; she wondered if she was neurotic or normal, an obsessive narcissist or an average woman with an average concern about the degradations of time. Sometimes she felt like the victim of chauvinism, someone who had thoroughly objectified herself because of forces beyond her control. Other times she felt that she was pulsing with power—that, because she still looked relatively spectacular, men were putty in her hands. Looking spectacular was a fascinating game—without it, Diane felt, life might be boring. The only problem was that looking spectacular got harder as she got older. Gradually, adjustments to makeup, hairstyle, and wardrobe became less like fun and more like work, demanded rigor as the window for good results began to close, and took not only too much time but too much emotion. On any given day, Diane could be made to feel good or bad by the results of her labors at her mirror. That made her feel like a shallow twit, someone who spent time wondering if her current bad-hair day was a harbinger of unending bad-hair days to come instead of spending it wondering what she was going to do with her life. Diane thought about her looks with a terrible constancy. It was the monologue in her head for lonely hours at a time, the one that animated her current persona as the Impeccably Arranged Mrs. Long.
Mrs. Long’s life was a veritable vacation punctuated by actual vacations. Her in-laws liked holidays at upscale destinations, and also liked to argue about upscale destinations, so usually airline tickets couldn’t be reserved until a spate of factional politicking had subsided. One brother would argue for Lake Tahoe, another would speak for Jackson Hole, a third would stump for Vail. Diane pretended to have opinions about the resorts, hotels, ski slopes, beaches, and golf courses in play, but really it was all the same to her as long as no roughing it was involved. While her in-laws skied, golfed, or snorkeled, Diane idled in shops or read in a chaise longue. Eventually, they’d limp in from their exertions, and then it would be time for cocktails with pupus, chips and dip, or fondue. Listening to the Longs relive their day—the transparent boasts, the fraternal animation—left Diane more antagonized than the day had.
The Longs were energetic social drinkers, and when they got on a roll, they loosened up. The vacationing clan would gather at poolside, and the brothers would compete as cannonball artists or shove their wives into the water. The characteristic family laugh was a cackle that, at these times, moved up the registers of frequency and decibel and spread like a contagion. It ricocheted from one side of the pool to the other when the Long wives perched on their husbands’ shoulders, grappling, grunting, giggling, and cursing while their lesser halves made uproarious comments. The commentary became more subdued and solemn when the men engaged in underwater contests of aerobic capacity, only to devolve again toward the bawdy and inane when the women tried synchronized swimming. Finally, the Longs would haul out at poolside to chat, snack, and bask in the late sun. After showering, they’d eat on a terrace. Then they’d descend on a bar or a club, where one or more of Jim’s brothers might parody disco and, as the night deepened, strip-tease. The day after raucous benders like these, the Longs emerged from their rooms around noon, drank plain coffee, and described their hangovers. Soon, though, they were arranging to make their headaches go away via tennis, golf, or a run.
At home base—Portland’s Riverside Club—Impeccably Arranged kept most men at bay, but it didn’t slow down the “alpha males,” a term Jim used to describe the more aggressive players on the club’s tennis ladder. They flirted with Diane at dinner dances and cocktail parties, on the golf-course veranda, and on the terrace by the pool. Unimpressed by well-to-do pretty boys who, in the end, could do her no good, Diane focused on her complicated cosmetics, artificial nails, elaborate salon work, and faultless, stiff wardrobe. At least once a week, she made an appointment—for electrolysis, say, or to see a dermatologist, or for a pedicure or exfoliation. She knew that all of this was extravagantly bankrupt, because eventually you had to get old and maybe hideous. And how could you face being old and hideous if you didn’t practice for it when you had the chance? Mostly, though, Diane dismissed this line of thought, and told herself such questions didn’t need to be answered, that they mercifully came later and could stay in the background, that they could be met head-on when old age arrived. For the moment, though, the battle should be waged, because the battle—if not the war—could be won, hands down. In the name of this sort of limited victory, Diane had a lit mirror installed in her bathroom on an accordion-style hinge, the better for self-scrutiny. She tortured herself with tweezers to prevent pubic hair from showing near her bathing suit. She plucked down from her chin. She was meticulous with mascara. At the end of a long session of intensive primping, Diane looked so good, in her own eyes, it was thrilling. “Yes,” she sometimes said to herself, “all is vanity, it’s true, but I’m the May Queen.”
Jim was openly glad that she looked spectacular. She also knew he had no idea how much effort was involved, and how much anguish and ambivalence. One day, as soon as he left the house, she stripped and stood before a full-length mirror without holding back her shoulders, sucking in her gut, or adjusting the lights beneficially. What she saw was shocking. Her side view in particular was horrifying, because it showed how clearly everything was sagging, how her body was getting wrinkled and dimpled. Face-to-face with herself in the mirror, Diane hated herself for hating herself, because it was one thing to be ugly, another to be fixated on it. Who was it who said that, whatever the inroads and humiliations of age, the inwardly graceful remained beautiful by definition? Mahatma Gandhi? Mother Teresa? Whoever it was, Diane didn’t believe it, because the evidence for error in this theory of beauty was everywhere to behold. What made more sense was whoever had said that there’s melancholy in seeing yourself rot.
Jim, on the other hand, by the time he was thirty-four, seemed perfectly able to go about in a bathing suit looking like a five on a scale of ten, as if flab, sag, back hair, narrow shoulders, spindly legs, and a droopy chest were not embarrassing. Diane could see that Jim wouldn’t avoid the destiny of the Long males, which was to be thin at the lip, high at the forehead, and swollen in a way that looked painful at the belly; these signature flaws would pronounce themselves as Jim aged, in fact already pronounced themselves. No matter what he did at the health club or on his fields of play, Jim had the depleted look of his Anglo-Saxon forebearers. Before long, like his father, he’d lack a posterior presence—it would look as though, inside his pants, his rump had dehydrated and shriveled. The older brothers were increasingly like this, junior versions of their faltering dad, whose knees were obviously killing him as he battled down slopes and returned tennis balls. Yet Jim grew older the way Diane knew you were supposed to grow older—he let go, somehow, of the need to be perfect, and he didn’t let it bother him, on the beach or by the swimming pool, when other men, younger and older both, looked better than he did. “I can either let it bother me or accept it,” he told Diane. “I golf, try to eat well, go to the weight room, and play tennis,” he droned on. “I work at keeping
my perspective on life humble, and if I’m lucky enough to one day have children, I’ll feel completely at peace and really blessed.”
Diane was on the pill but didn’t tell her husband. It seemed to her the least damaging way, for both of them, to deal with something she didn’t want him to know about: that she didn’t want to have kids. The pill, thought Diane, meant at least five extra pounds. She was past thirty and her thighs were getting bigger. Also, her butt was expanding. It was time to put up a more serious fight, so Diane began to use Jim’s Ab Blaster and to walk on the treadmill in the basement. It cut against her grain to do these things, but the facts were plain now in the mirror.
Exercise, besides hurting, had another downside—after ten minutes of ab work and twenty minutes of treadmilling, Diane wanted to go out and order nachos. She began shopping at a health-food store, so that when the fatal urge hit her, there was something around that didn’t go immediately to her backside. For about six months, she held the line—sort of—but not without having to increase her efforts and face up to her propensity to avoid exercise. Then it became necessary to join Jim’s health club and to suffer on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays through an hourlong, deafening aerobics class.
Difficulty in conceiving began to needle Jim, who said he’d always thought that by the time he was his age he would have had at least two or three kids. When his patience with God and destiny wore out, he broached the idea of a fertility specialist. Diane treated this as a rhetorical suggestion for as long as she could, then told him she would “do a bit of research,” while hoping—in private—that time would do the trick. But Jim’s campaign was just beginning. There began to be enthusiasm for the prospect of his progeny in other quarters of the family, most assertively from Jim’s sister Sue, the one who’d married into long-haul trucks and, for reasons Diane never understood, was deemed a wise voice by her clan. Sue was the Long who spearheaded vacations, spoke to travel agents, and reserved blocks of rooms. She was also the one who arranged loge seats for The Nutcracker every year. Whenever a Long daughter reached thirteen, Sue made sure that the females in the family were invited to an elaborate afternoon tea in a reserved room at the Heathman. Sue had two daughters of her own, and three sons, and her husband was such a talented golfer that he gave eight strokes to Jim when they played. Sue golfed, too.