People Who Knock on the Door

  To my non-girlfriend with quite a lot of love and thanks. A.

  If she received it, she didn’t telephone that evening, but Arthur didn’t mind that. He had to study for what Professor Jurgens called a “preparatory exam” in microbio. Again Arthur was alone in his dorm room, oblivious of the mess in Frank’s half of it. He studied until after 1 a.m.

  On the following afternoon, the class took Jurgens’ special exam, and Arthur was sure he passed and would score high, maybe the highest. The marks were not to be put on a bulletin board as at the finals, but the papers returned to each student individually. Since he hadn’t seen Francey in over a week, he decided to call her and ask her for a date, not necessarily for that night but for during the coming weekend.

  A girl answered and said Francey was under the shower and to wait a minute. Then Francey came on.

  “Hello?—Oh, hello, Arthur.”

  “Hi. I was wondering when I could see you? Maybe Friday? Saturday?”

  “Well—” She sounded slightly breathless, as if she were drying herself with a towel. “I made it up with my boyfriend. So I’m sorry to say I don’t think we should see each other again. Not for the moment. You understand?—Sorry. But that’s the way it is.”

  “Yes, sure I understand. Yes, well—”

  “And thanks for the flowers! They’re still here. Looking nice.”

  “Yes, well—I wish you lots of luck, Francey.”

  Then they hung up. Arthur felt as if he had been shot in the stomach or the chest. He took a shower and put on different clothes to change the atmosphere, if he possibly could. He was trying not to think about anything, certainly not Francey. However, to think of Francey was unavoidable, and he thought: What had he lost? A girl who was willing to go to bed with him, or maybe anybody, a girl whom he hardly knew, and who he knew had been in love with another fellow, and therefore he had known that exactly this might happen.

  Still, it was awful. Not only Maggie was gone, but Francey, too. The bottom had really fallen out. But this phrase reminded him of what he had felt when Maggie had written the letter about Larry Hargiss. That had been the bottom falling out, not Francey now.

  For a few seconds, Arthur was scared stiff. He went down the hall to the toilets, thinking he was going to be sick. His stomach tightened, but he didn’t retch, and in fact there was nothing in his stomach now, he realized with some relief. He wasn’t sick at all, he told himself, and looked at himself in the mirror and ran his comb through his hair. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead like condensation on cold glass.

  The thing to do was take a walk, he thought, so he put on his favorite old sneakers, turned out the lights and departed. He had remembered to take a pocket flashlight with him. When he finally looked up at a street marker, he found that he had walked a long way southward, or so he thought. The street names S. Morgan and Tweeley didn’t mean a thing to him, but the glow of the light, which meant the center of town, was behind him, and he could tell north from south by the very visible position of Vega and its attendant diamond-shaped constellation. For want of any other objective, he started back in the direction of C.U. and his room.

  Suddenly he found himself standing beside his own car, as if the brown Ford had been his objective. And where to go? Arthur looked at his watch and saw to his surprise that it was ten past 11. He had been walking for more than three hours.

  “God’s sake,” he murmured, and leaned his head on the roof of his car. His hands were in his pockets, and he had the keys with him. He got in his car and sat for a minute, then started the motor. The Silver Arrow would be a fitting place tonight, he thought, those brutal lights, the cruddy customers, that female clown Irene, so full of virtue. That had amusement value! Arthur drove with deliberate calm, taking every corner in second gear, because the image of an impact had come to his mind. He had not thought of a car accident, but of an impact against his chest. He suddenly remembered himself at thirteen, crashing into the chest, the abdomen of a big fellow who had stepped into his path to block a door. This had been when he had run off from home and caught a bus to New York, with fourteen dollars in his pocket, he recalled. He had left a note on his bed saying: “Don’t worry. Back in four days,” or something like that, but his parents had guessed that he had gone to New York, because he had been there a couple of times with his parents and the city had fascinated him. So his parents had alerted police there, and when Arthur in the evening of the second day had inquired at a modest-looking hotel for a room for the night, the man behind the desk had asked his age, and Arthur had bolted for the door and encountered a security guard or some employee of the hotel. End of that adventure.

  Second gear again. Ritual, he thought, kept people on an even keel. He remembered thinking this in the days just after Maggie’s letter of good-bye to him, remembered making himself do things in the same old way, when he really felt like breaking something, maybe a piece of furniture. He remembered thinking that ritual kept people calm and that it was a major part of religion, the getting up and sitting down in church, the singing of hymns when nobody bothered to think much about what the words meant. Outward form. And what was inside half the time? Misery, hell and confusion. And why didn’t people face it? Because they couldn’t.

  And there was the Silver Arrow glowing on the right side of the road ahead. Arthur slid up between two ordinary parked cars this time, though at least one mountainous truck stood out in front with its blunt nose pointed toward the boxcar-shaped diner.

  Arthur went in. There was a steamy smell of onions and bacon, and a girl’s voice sang on the jukebox. A woman in one of the booths laughed loudly.

  “Make it three coffees!”

  “. . . with a slice, I said that!”

  Arthur headed for an empty stool at the counter. There were two waitresses behind the counter, in silver caps, neither Irene. Rather promptly, he was asked what he wanted. “Hamburger medium and a coffee, please,” Arthur said.

  “With or without a slice?” asked the girl.

  “With.”

  She had set a glass of water in front of him, and Arthur sipped this, looking around for Irene. It would be rather nice if she weren’t here, he thought. Then suddenly she appeared on his left, coming through a doorway which was out of his range of vision, though he saw part of the door when she opened it. She looked in high spirits, smiling, carrying paper napkins that went into the metal containers, and from the way she walked, he knew she was wearing high heels. And her waistline! Yes, there could be no doubt now, and how soon would she have to stop working, in fact? What would the other two girls behind the counter be thinking these days as to who the father was? Or did they bother to wonder? The girls looked pretty tough themselves, though both were younger than Irene.

  The waitress with coppery hair delivered his hamburger in its steamy brown-topped bun and thumped a mug of coffee down beside it. Arthur opened his little cream container and dumped it into his coffee.

  Irene hadn’t seen him. She was yelling something through her smiling mouth at someone several stools down on Arthur’s left, and then she rocked back, laughing. She had bright rouge on her cheeks this evening, really like a clown.

  Arthur bit into his hamburger and chewed it as if it were sawdust, though there was nothing the matter with it. If he ate slowly and thought about something else, it would stay down, and that was all to the good. He couldn’t afford another tailspin now, just before the final exams.

  Irene spotted him and reacted with a start of surprise. “Well, Arthur!” she said, taking a second to lean toward him. Each of her hands gripped two mugs of coffee. “How’ve you been?—You’re looking a little down tonight. Gotcha friends with you?” Her eyes flitted somewhere behind Arthur.

  “No.” Arthur thought her smile looked wild and demented.

  She came back after delivering the coffees somewhere. “And I suppose you notice I—
Well, you oughta know.”

  She had glanced down at her waistline, and Arthur realized with embarrassment that she was talking about her pregnancy. He shook his head and gulped. “Didn’t know.”

  “Your father’s. Yes.” She nodded with the same dazed smile and somewhat unfocused eyes. Then she gave the counter in front of Arthur an absent wipe with a damp cloth. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Irene!” yelled one of the other waitresses with urgency. “Scrambled ready to go there!”

  Irene swung around and went to the open window on the kitchen to Arthur’s left. Plates of eggs and bacon steamed on the windowsill, and Irene bore these away to some booth behind Arthur.

  What did she mean, his father’s? That his father had made her pregnant? Was she spreading that story around? Arthur frowned and pushed his plate nervously away with the back of his fingers. He wanted to ask Irene a little more. But what? Irene was nuts. She’d say anything. “Hey!” Arthur said, as Irene flashed past, moving to Arthur’s right. She’d have a miscarriage if she kept up this mad pace, Arthur thought with sudden amusement. What should he ask her? What his father said about the situation? Would that enlighten him, or would Irene come out with some falsehoods, fantasies? “Irene!”

  Irene paused and gave him her attention.

  “What does my father say about this?” Arthur asked, aware of the presence of a man on either side of him, but the place was noisy and they didn’t seem to be listening.

  “I think he’s pleased,” Irene replied.

  “And my mother?”

  Irene shrugged. “Not sure she knows.” There was a flash of mischief in her face before she hurried away to the coffee taps.

  Absolute crap! It really put the icing on the cake tonight! And suppose people started believing it! Suppose she said it to the Reverend Cole at the First Church of Christ Gospel, that fountainhead of gossip? Well, at least she wasn’t claiming it was Jesus’ child or God’s! Arthur smiled wryly, seized his coffee mug and drank it all. His bill was a dollar seventy-five, and he left two singles and went out to his car.

  Now it was ten to midnight. Arthur had an irrepressible urge to phone his mother, to see her tonight. He had wanted to use the telephone booth in the Silver Arrow, but had not wanted Irene to see him using it, though he supposed it was doubtful whether it would have occurred to her that he was calling his parents. He could call from some other roadside place or a sidewalk booth in town, but what if his father answered and said no to a visit?

  Arthur drove to his parents’ house. By the time he got there it was a quarter past midnight, and the house was dark. Only old Norma had a dim light on in her living room. Arthur went up the front steps and knocked gently.

  After several seconds, he heard shuffling footsteps which he recognized as those of his father in house-shoes.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Arthur.”

  His father opened the door slightly. “Well, it’s a bit—”

  “I know. Sorry. I want to talk with Mom for a minute.”

  “Your mother’s tired tonight,” said his father.

  Then there was his mother behind his father, turning on the hall light. “Arthur! Something the matter?”

  “Oh, no, Mom. Can I talk with you a minute?”

  “Of course, Arthur. Come in.”

  “Just something personal,” Arthur said as he went in, hoping to get rid of his father.

  His father had to back up in the narrow front hall; then he turned and went to the bedroom, as if to get back to the serious business of sleeping.

  Arthur saw from a vertical streak of light in the hall that his father had not shut the bedroom door. His mother turned on a lamp in the living room, but this wasn’t private enough, either.

  “Let’s go to the garage,” Arthur whispered.

  His mother followed him.

  “I just saw Irene,” Arthur said in a voice hardly above a whisper. “What’s this about her saying—about her pregnancy—”

  “What’s she saying?—To you?”

  “Yes! Well, she’s saying that Dad is responsible for it.” He could tell that his mother had heard it before. “She’s full of crap, isn’t she?”

  “Now calm down, Arthur.”

  But Arthur couldn’t and he opened the kitchen door quickly to see if his father was standing behind it, listening. The kitchen was empty. “You heard it before.—Well, what’s Dad doing about it?”

  “About—”

  “About the story. It isn’t true, is it?”

  “Well—”

  “Mom, for gosh sake!” He grabbed his mother’s forearm, realizing that he was absurdly upset himself. “Mom, is it true?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well—holy cow! What does Dad say?”

  His mother’s shoulders twisted. She didn’t look at Arthur. “He said—Oh, I don’t want to talk about it, Arthur.”

  “I don’t either. But—I mean, if she’s putting out a story like that, somebody’s got to do something about it, no?—Are you saying it’s possible that it’s true?” How could anyone come near Irene, Arthur was thinking, except a drunken truck driver?

  “No, I’m not. But Richard said he did spend—some time with her. Not whole nights, I mean, but—because she was upset and wanted him there. But Richard—”

  “Oh, f’Chris’sake!” Suddenly it did seem just barely possible. “Well, Mom, it’s either yes or no, isn’t it?” He seized his mother’s wrist, because she was swaying as if she might faint. “Lean against the car, Mom!” Arthur whispered.

  “Don’t say anything to Robbie about this, will you?” She glanced at Arthur.

  “I had the idea the other night Robbie knows something already.”

  “No. He just knows she’s—in the state she’s in.”

  Arthur reached for his cigarettes. “Here, Mom. Want one?” Arthur lit both their cigarettes. “When did she start yacking about this?”

  “Oh—last month. That’s when I heard. She spoke to me on the phone.”

  “Oh, my God, Mom!—Didn’t you just ask Dad, one way or the other?” Arthur asked, aware of a mean satisfaction that his father was in this pickle, whether he was responsible or not, because his father had made his life wretched under the same circumstances. “Surely he’d tell you the truth.”

  His mother drew on her cigarette and stared down at her house-shoes. “Richard says it’s possible. He said he—one or two evenings—Oh, it’s so awful, I really can’t believe it, Arthur!” She began to weep.

  Arthur groped for a handkerchief, found none, and reached into the pocket of his mother’s dressing gown. He found a paper tissue and handed it to her.

  “Irene calls here—sometimes—and we try to answer the phone before Robbie does. But of course if he ever hears any of this, he’d just say Irene’s insane. He’s always saying that. Well, she is insane.”

  “Yes. So,” Arthur said, enjoying his cigarette, “the next question is, has she got a boyfriend or two? Doubt if she’d have anyone steady, but these one-night stands?”

  “Oh, she denies that completely, I know!” his mother said at once. “Since going to church, which started—last summer anyway. She swears it, Richard says.”

  Rather good of his father to say that, Arthur thought. “She sure flirts, Mom!” Arthur said with a laugh.

  “S-sh!”

  “There’s such a thing as—lying in bed with a girl,” Arthur began more softly, and at once wished he hadn’t begun, because he didn’t know how to finish. “My father must know—”

  “What?”

  “Whether it’s possible or not that he got a girl pregnant. So Dad says it’s possible. Christ! Who could get anywhere near her—even to be polite?”

  “Let’s go back in. Richard’ll think it’s
funny if we’re out here so long.”

  “Tell him I was talking about Maggie. Or Francey; that’s better.”

  “Okay.” His mother opened the kitchen door gently and went in. “I feel like a cup of tea, warm as it is. Tea’s comforting,” his mother murmured, as if to herself. She put the kettle on.

  The light had been on in the kitchen, and the single light was still on in the living room. Arthur looked into the hall. His parents’ bedroom door was now closed, he saw by going a little farther into the hall. So was Robbie’s door closed.

  “Robbie sleeps like a log,” his mother whispered when Arthur came back.

  Then his mother changed her mind. She would make hot toddies, if that was agreeable to Arthur.

  Arthur couldn’t have cared less. It was an insane night, and hot toddies with the temperature in the lower eighties didn’t seem especially more crazy. The fact was seeping in that his mother simply didn’t want to say outright that his father was responsible for Irene’s child-to-be.

  “Mom, the child’s going to be born, isn’t it?—Since Dad’s anti-abortion and—of course it’s awfully late now.”

  “Oh, abortion never was in the picture,” his mother said over her shoulder, whispering. “Oh, no, she seems to want it.”

  Arthur had to stand near his mother to hear. “Is Dad going to acknowledge it?” He knew this question would further agonize his mother, but he had to get at some facts.

  “I know he’s going to deny it,” his mother whispered. “It doesn’t matter what she says around town, because everybody knows she’s a bit off. And Richard doesn’t know—for sure.” She busied herself suddenly with boiling the water.

  That answered one question, and raised another. If his father wasn’t sure, didn’t that mean Irene had a boyfriend or two? But suppose the child was the image of his father and Irene kept on with her story? Arthur saw his mother’s hand slip nervously as she poured Four Roses into the two glasses, followed by hot water, sugar and lemon.