People Who Knock on the Door

  “Here,” she said, handing him his.

  It tasted good. The first couple of swallows went straight to Arthur’s head. “I’ll bet Dad wouldn’t have minded an abortion in this case,” he said softly, and laughed.

  “Don’t be so cruel, Arthur.”

  Cruel? He cruel about abortion? Slightly hysterical amusement rose, but he kept a straight face. It was what the girl wanted that mattered, he remembered thinking last year, and now Irene wanted this child.

  A door latch opened sharply in the hall, and Arthur braced himself for his father, but it was Robbie, standing suddenly in bare feet and droopy pink pajamas in the doorway, very upright and frowning. “What’s—what’s going on? What’s he laughing about?”

  “Laughing?” said Lois. “Maybe we were a little loud. I’m sorry, Robbie—that we woke you up.”

  “Is Arthur laughing—” Robbie’s frown became intense, and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand vigorously. “—laughing about Irene?” Robbie spoke softly.

  “No, Robbie, no,” said their mother. “Goodness, what’s funny about her?”

  “Nothing,” said Robbie. “She’s mentally sick. Well—what were you laughing at?” Robbie addressed his brother.

  “I forget—now.” Arthur folded his arms in an attitude of boredom at his brother’s presence.

  “Like a glass of milk, Robbie?” asked Lois.

  “No. That chocolate cake, if it’s still here,” said Robbie, advancing toward the refrigerator as if the chocolate cake were an objective that he might have to fight for.

  Their mother had the cake plate out of the fridge first and found a fork for Robbie.

  “How’s the hunting going, Robbie?” Arthur asked.

  “Not the hunting season now,” he replied, frowning, eating. “I’m busy. School and stuff.”

  “Robbie’s going around sometimes with Richard,” Lois said. “Calling on people, you know?”

  “Insurance clients?” Arthur asked.

  “N—well, not so much, but the church people. Old people and young people who just want to talk or who have problems,” his mother said.

  Silence.

  Robbie surely hadn’t been with his father on the nights when he crawled into bed with Irene for half an hour, Arthur thought, and just now he didn’t feel like smiling at the idea. Did his father keep most of his clothes on? It was disgusting to imagine! And it was absolutely creepy to imagine Irene’s whining voice saying, “Won’t you get into bed for me just for a few minutes,” or maybe she’d turn on the tears and say, “I’ll just kill myself or go out on the street if you don’t stay with me a little while tonight.” Did prostitutes have real sexual desires? Was his father supposed to give her an orgasm? “I’ll push off, Mom.” Arthur set his glass on the drain board.

  Robbie had finished his cake and disappeared.

  “Must you, Arthur? Have another half one. The water’s still hot.”

  Arthur declined.

  “You could stay the night,” said his mother. “Why not, it’s so late. Your bed’s made up same as ever.”

  “No, Mom, it’s easy to drive back.” Arthur couldn’t bear the atmosphere of the house. If he and his mother had been alone in the house, it would’ve been a different matter.

  His mother went out with him, glancing shyly to right and left as if someone might see her in her dressing gown on the front walk, though the tree-lined streets were deserted and almost black. Even Norma’s house light was out.

  Then Arthur drove off. His mother had pressed his hand and looked as if she wanted to say something important to him, but she had said merely “Good night and take care.” Arthur too had wanted to say he was worried about what Robbie might do to Irene. He had had a few seconds ago a premonition that Robbie would hit her in the face with something, or worse.

  25

  At a quarter past 4 that morning, Arthur was still awake in his bed. He had got up at 3 to drink a can of beer, usually a slight soporific, but he knew that it was one of those nights when he wouldn’t sleep at all, even though Frank Costello was not in and probably wouldn’t be.

  Arthur’s thoughts were a mixture of Francey, his father’s mess, and Maggie, but the thoughts of his father and Irene were strongest. His mother hadn’t wanted to say outright that his father was responsible, yet she certainly had said as much in the course of their talking. It wasn’t funny now; it was a tragedy, or a social tragedy or shame, Arthur supposed. One night a few months from now, he and Gus might stop for coffee at the Silver Arrow and Irene wouldn’t be there, because she’d be in some hospital, giving birth to a baby who would be his half-brother or half-sister!

  This sickening thought made Arthur blink and stare at the ceiling. The corners of his room were becoming visible. He imagined the infant, male or female, a half-wit, frowning with gray eyes, like his father or Robbie. He sat up and turned his bedside lamp on, picked up a chunky microbiology text, and for several minutes flipped the pages, looking for details that he thought might be asked on the final.

  The dawn reminded him of waking up here with Francey, or of staying awake with her. What did Irene do in bed? Arthur writhed and put the book down, recalling her awful perfume, and she was thirty if she was a day, but of course thirty would be young to his father. Could his father possibly have been attracted to Irene? How could he have had an ejaculation if some kind of attraction hadn’t been there? Incredible! While her sister slept behind some other closed door? Or partition?

  His father would deny the child, his mother said, but what was his mother going to say to his grandmother if there was any talk about the child? Arthur imagined a court scene: Irene screaming that Richard Alderman was the father of her child, and a pair of cops strong-arming her out, somebody else putting a straightjacket on her, maybe. It was mad. But could it happen? And if his father was saying to his mother, “I was in bed with her a couple of times . . .” and not going on from there, then his father was being cowardly. If he wasn’t guilty, why was he being vague? His father would know if there had been any men in Irene’s life lately, because his father kept such an eye on her and Irene told all her troubles and sins. His father knew, yes or no. That was Arthur’s conclusion.

  “Oh, Maggie!” Arthur said, and turned over to try to sleep. He had no class until 10.

  He awoke to the ringing of the telephone, which seemed part of a dream.

  “Hello, Arthur, it’s Betty. I’m phoning you early before you go off to classes. Can you come for a drink tonight—or tea, dinner? Or all of those things?”

  Arthur glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it was just past 8. “I’d like to, but just now it’s exam time. I’d better stay in tonight, thanks anyway.”

  Then he made some strong instant coffee on the hot plate, having fetched fresh water from Frank’s empty fruit juice bottles. Around 9:30, he parked his car deliberately far from the building where his class was, hoping a walk would clear his head.

  “Hey!—Hey! You in a daze, Art?” Gus approached him on the steps of Everett Hall.

  “Oh, hi, Gus,” Arthur said.

  “Had some bad news?” Gus asked. “Something about Maggie?”

  Arthur shook his head. “Na-a. Just can’t wake up this morning.”

  Gus invited him to come for dinner on Sunday night, if he felt like it. It was Gus’s birthday. Then he loped down the steps on the way to another building.

  At just past 5, after his last class, Arthur went to a booth in a downstairs hall and dialed Betty’s number. He asked if he could change his mind and come over.

  “Of course, Arthur! Soon? Now?”

  “Half an hour, all right? . . . Thank you, Betty.”

  Arthur drove to his dorm, had a shower and put on a clean shirt. This didn’t pick him up much. The day was hot and breezeless, with a faint promise of rain that did
n’t come, like yesterday. Then Arthur was walking up the curving flagstoned front path of the Brewsters’ house, aware of the tall blue spruce to his left on the lawn, of the climbing red rosebush that he had used to tend, now blossoming and looking as happy as ever under Betty’s care, or maybe she’d found a part-time gardener.

  “Hello, Arthur, come in!” Betty said at the door.

  She had set a pitcher of iced tea and half a three-layer chocolate cake on the coffee table, reminding Arthur of Robbie’s hunk of cake last evening. Betty asked his news, and Arthur confined his replies to class work and exams.

  “And how’re your folks?” Betty asked. She wore an embroidered pajama suit of black satin, which Arthur had complimented her on, because it was pretty.

  “All right, thanks. Saw my mother last night.”

  “And—your brother?”

  Maybe Betty had forgotten his name. “Robbie. Same as ever. Skinny and getting taller.—He doesn’t talk much.”

  “I remember you saying that.—You’re not looking very cheerful, Arthur.”

  “Maybe it’s the heat. It’s great to be here for a while.” He meant in the Brewsters’ air-conditioning, and he was sure Betty understood.

  “You know, if that dorm’s getting you down—” Betty smiled. “I’ve heard about those dorms! You really are welcome here. Think about next fall. Long way off, but think about it.”

  Betty’s words felt like a prison sentence: next fall. And the year after that. Arthur had hoped to get a small lift from merely entering the house, but he hadn’t. The staircase with its pretty banister, every picture on the wall, recalled Maggie and at the same time shut him off from her.

  “Why don’t you stay for some dinner, Arthur? Just a cold snack, potato salad and some cold meat. It’d do you good. I think you’ve lost weight.”

  “I did, but I’m gaining it back.”

  “Any plans for this summer?”

  Arthur at once thought of diving into some cool lake and not coming up. “I’ll find a summer job—set some money aside.— Haven’t been thinking too much about it.” He rolled his glass between his hands, feeling awkward.

  “I’m such a fool! Where’re you even going to be this summer, Arthur?”

  “There’s a dorm arrangement students can make. Not difficult.”

  Betty continued to look at him with concern.

  “How’s Maggie? What’s she doing this summer?”

  “Ah. Well, Maggie’s decided not to come home till mid-July. She’s going somewhere in Massachusetts. With her new friend. For two weeks, anyway, she says. We’ll see.”

  Arthur felt as if another missile had hit him. His ears rang, as if they were full of little bells. That was a prelude to a faint. “Yep,” Arthur said meaninglessly. He started to get up, sat down again, then stood up. “I really should be taking off.”

  “Now I’ve said the wrong thing. But you asked about Maggie.” Betty had not risen from the other sofa opposite the coffee table. “Now listen, Arthur.”

  These things happen, Arthur expected.

  “You’ve got good friends—in me and Warren. How do we—all of us—know what Maggie’s going to do? Finally?”

  She’s no doubt sleeping with Hargiss since Easter, Arthur was thinking. Arthur pressed his nails into his thumb and stood listening politely.

  “There’re other girls in the world. It never seems as if there are, I know. You mustn’t torture yourself, Arthur.”

  He nodded, and moved toward the door.

  Then Betty got up.

  Arthur thought, with a blaze of shame, that it would be a matter of weeks, maybe only days, before the Irene story got around town.

  Betty’s hand was on his left shoulder. “You won’t change your mind and stay? Please?”

  He shook his head. “Thanks, Betty. And thanks for the tea.”

  He went to his car and didn’t look back at the Brewster house. He went back to the dorm, where as luck would have it, Frank was in, with his cassette blaring rock.

  The added annoyance of lousy loud music just didn’t matter that evening, and the music was going to go on until Frank’s departure for the night’s fun, probably 10 p.m. The room smelled of pot. Arthur took still another shower, put on pajama pants, and settled down on his bed to try it for another hour: facts. He reviewed DNA, a pet subject of Professor Jurgens, and Arthur paid attention to spelling because Jurgens was a stickler. After twenty minutes, Arthur’s thoughts had changed, and for the better. He was going to pass his exams with ease. Half the students at C.U. were plain lazy, Arthur had noticed, variations of Frank Costello, and they passed. Arthur had braced himself for higher standards. “Minorities” simply couldn’t be flunked out, Arthur had been told by other students, and he also had observed it himself. Students who showed the minimum of effort or will were allowed to scrape by, even praised.

  This made him think of his grandmother. What had she written in her last letter? Something quite cheering. He had forgotten her exact phrases, her nice adjectives, but the idea was that she thought he was doing well and that she was proud of him. Arthur remembered: “. . . a pity Richard can’t be a more concerned father now when you need one, instead of spending so much time with those drifters and failures whom he may never help to any extent . . .”

  Arthur’s first exam was physics on the Friday of that week. He rated himself as passing, and pretty well. At half past 5, when Arthur had been in his dorm room for about fifteen minutes, the telephone rang. The fellow in the adjacent room answered before Arthur could. Frank Costello was face down asleep on his bed.

  “Who?” Arthur heard the next room say. “Oh, yeah, just a minute.”

  The swivel platform turned toward Arthur.

  “Hello, Arthur, it’s me,” said his mother’s voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure, Mom. And you?”

  “I sup—pose. Just wanted to know if you got through your exam all right. You had the first today, didn’t you?”

  “Physics. Just got out.—You by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  Arthur could tell she was worried about something. “What’s the latest? Any more peeps out of—you know, Irene?” He said the name softly, hating it.

  “No, not a word.”

  “Good. And Robbie—He still doesn’t know?”

  “Arthur, it’s not a matter of knowing—for sure. How can anyone believe what she says?”

  “All right, I meant her story,” Arthur replied rather sharply. “You can believe what Dad says, yes or no. Can’t you?”

  “Things are not so simple.”

  Why weren’t they, Arthur wondered. “Where’s Robbie?”

  “Oh, tonight’s his poker night, and he got started early. He went over to Jeff’s to have dinner. The game’s at Jeff’s tonight. Why not come over here for some dinner, Arthur?”

  Arthur hesitated. “Well, Dad’s there, isn’t he?”

  “He will be, yes.”

  “Then I don’t want to come, Mom, thanks.”

  When Arthur hung up, he had a few minutes of black depression.

  Saturday afternoon, Arthur had a glimpse of the fellow he supposed was Francey’s boyfriend. This was in a snack place called The Dungeon on a street near the campus, popular for its hamburgers and doughnuts and because it stayed open till 1 a.m. Arthur had entered and walked down its two steps onto its floor, when he saw Francey in a booth on his left, smiling at a fellow with short, wavy blond hair, whose face Arthur couldn’t see. Her radiant expression, her bright eyes—extra bright then—reminded him of a few happy moments with her, just after they’d made love, even. Arthur turned and left The Dungeon, glad that Francey hadn’t seen him.

  Frank had slept for something like sixteen hours and wanted to engage Arthur in conversation. “What’s all this study
ing about?—When you come out, y’know—and there’s no jobs and—Why make life more boring? Grinding away like you?”

  At that moment, life was boring, even maddening, and not just because of Frank Costello swaying pink-eyed in the middle of the room. “Yep,” said Arthur, leaning back in his straight chair to ease his shoulders.

  “Don’t you ever think about it? I start—feeling on the side of the blacks. They know what they’re in for—nothin’. But—” Frank said with the air of someone about to make a big pronouncement, “they’ve got music, no? That’s something and that’s plenty. They’re geniuses at that. When I piss outa this factory here, I’m heading for New York—maybe just for two weeks, till my five hundred bucks runs out. That’s all I can get out of my dad, I’m sure, but I’m gonna try my luck there—doin’ something hangin’ around music. Y’know?” Frank was barefoot and topless, wearing pajama pants now. “Mind if I sit down?” he asked, indicating Arthur’s bed.

  “I do just now—because I have to keep on with this stuff here, honestly.”

  Frank nodded, disappointed. “Mind if I take one of your beers? I can replace it.”

  “Help yourself,” Arthur said, and bent over his notes again.

  Frank popped the can open and swigged. “Mm-m.—Good when it’s cold.—I’m sorry I said you were old-fashioned. I didn’t—”

  “Oh, never mind,” Arthur mumbled, hoping Frank would just go away. Frank had never called him old-fashioned, except by implication, whereas Arthur thought Frank was unbelievably old-fashioned, the rah-rah college type that had died out with the dinosaur, even before his father’s generation.

  Luckily, Frank elected to go out that evening. There had been much telephoning, and Arthur had feared Frank was organizing a little party to be held in the room, but finally he departed. Arthur relaxed, stood up and stretched, and decided to go down to Hamilton Hall’s “living room,” where there was a TV. He wanted to forget about microbiology for ten minutes. The news was on, and it was about Reagan’s big budget demands for armaments, defense. Arthur had heard it before, and it seemed to get bigger every time he heard it. Some students, perhaps political science majors, were taking notes. Arthur went out for a short walk, ate something in the dorm cafeteria, and was back at his books when the telephone rang at 10. It was the third time the phone had rung since Frank’s departure, and Arthur supposed it was again for Frank.