People Who Knock on the Door

  On his bed that night, Arthur found one of his father’s little pamphlets whose title in bold black letters was FOR DISBELIEVERS. Well, not tonight. Tonight he believed in a lot of things, even in himself, in himself and Maggie, but not in this crap! And what had he done wrong today?

  He carefully unbuttoned his new shirt. “All signals go,” he said softly, picked up the pamphlet with two fingers, and dropped it on the floor by his closed door. Tomorrow it could get lost among the other stuff in the living room.

  7

  June spread itself over the town, making lawns green, the woods lush, gardens bright with flowers, in day after day of sunshine. Sometimes at 6 p.m. when Arthur cycled home from Shoe Repair, there would be a half hour of light rain, as if nature were doing the exactly correct watering that year. Arthur felt it was the happiest month of his life. His grades had averaged 88, a 75 in French having pulled him down and a 96 in biology having pulled up the average of six subjects.

  He had even attended the Chalmerston High School graduation rites in cap and gown, after hesitation. A stuffy ceremony with beaming parents was Arthur’s idea of hell and absurdity, because if you passed the exams, you made it and that was that. But Maggie was going, with an attitude of “sure it’s silly, but it doesn’t take long and people expect it.” So Arthur went, and his family was represented by his mother and a slightly reluctant Robbie in the auditorium audience. His father said he had important clients to see that Tuesday morning and couldn’t get away. When Arthur came home with his mother at noon, she told him there was a surprise for him on the table in his room. This was a new typewriter, a beautiful blue Olympia portable, clean and shining, lovely. Arthur had had his present typewriter since the age of ten, though it still worked perfectly.

  “I thought you could use a second to take with you east,” said his mother. “Then you’ll have your old one here when you come home on visits.”

  He had sent off his report card to the Columbia admissions officer, a Mr. Anthony Xarrip, with a letter reminding Mr. Xarrip of the favorable comments six months ago of Mr. Cooper of the biology department of Chalmerston High School. Arthur wrote the letter twice to get it right and showed it to his mother before he sealed it. His mother was now not a hundred percent sure that his father would agree to pay all of Arthur’s Columbia fees, or not without a little more groveling, Arthur gathered, but he could also see that his mother was hopeful.

  “There’s such a thing as paying a family back,” Arthur said to his mother. “I said that to Dad. I don’t like the idea of a part-time job while I’m at Columbia. I suppose Dad’ll think that sounds lazy.” College was a full-time job, Arthur thought, and he had said that before to his mother.

  “Well—we’ll see,” said his mother.

  One evening Arthur overheard his father saying to his mother in the kitchen, “But what does he do with his mornings? Sleep? He’s never even out of bed when I leave the house.”

  “He’s at the library a couple of mornings a week. He reads science books there—the ones people can’t take out,” his mother replied.

  Arthur was tempted to linger in the hall to hear more, but he went on into the living room, where he had intended to go. So his father wanted him to take a full-time job now, or maybe another part-time in the morning. And his father had stopped his allowance. Arthur did not think Tom Robertson had enough work for him on an eight-hour-day basis, because one of the repair shop boys helped out as salesman whenever there were a lot of customers.

  Maggie came twice for dinner, and his mother liked her quite well and said so, though his father had been merely polite and made no comment later. Robbie had only stared at Maggie, hostile or curious, Arthur couldn’t tell.

  “My grandmother’s coming the last week of June,” Arthur said to Maggie. “I want you to meet her. She plays golf. And she doesn’t let herself get pushed around by my father.” He told Maggie that his grandmother had been a dancer in several musicals in New York and that when his grandfather Waggoner had died ten years ago, she had opened a dance school in Kansas City, which she was still managing. “Tangos and stuff, what she calls ballroom dancing,” Arthur said. “But she has ballet classes for kids—and they go on from there or not.”

  The atmosphere in the Alderman house improved as soon as his grandmother arrived. She had presents, a striped cotton bathrobe (dressing gown, she called it) made in England for Arthur, a pressure cooker for his mother, an electronic game for Robbie, something for his father who was not yet home. It was not quite 6 o’clock.

  “You’ve grown—oh, two inches since I saw you, Arthur.”

  Arthur smiled, knowing it wasn’t true, since Christmas.

  His grandmother Joan had brown wavy hair which she kept free of grey with some kind of rinse, she had told Arthur, but the result was nice. She was shorter than his mother, sturdier in a fit and athletic way, though there was a resemblance between them in their blue eyes with their sharp-cornered lids. It was hard for Arthur to realize that his grandmother was sixty.

  In the few minutes before his father’s arrival, Arthur told his grandmother about his 88 average on his finals and his afternoon job, and since his grandmother asked about “any girlfriend,” Arthur said he quite liked a girl called Maggie.

  “I told Maggie you were staying a week. Hope it’s longer.”

  “Oh, we’ll see,” said his grandmother cheerfully.

  They were in the kitchen, Arthur making the salad, and Robbie had gone to his room with the new electronic game.

  “And—I’m doing some yard work for a woman called Dewitt,” Arthur said. “Dirty old dump full of cats. You’d have to smell it to believe it. Bet she’s got twelve!”

  “Didn’t I meet her once, Loey?” Joan asked. “Four feet square and a lot of white hair?” Joan laughed and turned her blue-mascaraed eyes toward Arthur. “Seems to me I met her at a church thing here. She was going on about cats then.”

  “Speaking of church,” Arthur began, smiling.

  “Now, Arthur,” said his mother. “Yes, Mama, I’ve got to tell you, Richard has discovered God, as Arthur puts it. Maybe that’s the best way of—”

  “He’s a born-again,” said Arthur.

  “I wrote you a little about it, I know, Mama. Now we say grace and it’s church every Sunday—since Robbie pulled through with that tonsil crisis, remember?”

  Joan was listening attentively and had glanced at Arthur. “Ah, yes, I’ve heard of these things. So Richard talks about walking with God, things like that?”

  “Yes!” Arthur said.

  “Yes,” said his mother. “So we’ve bought an ecclesiastical encyclopedia and subscribed to a few magazines that keep turning up in the mailbox—” She laughed a little. “Just wanted to warn you that—” She broke off, because Richard’s car at that moment was visible out the kitchen window, turning into the driveway.

  “You should see these magazines, Grandma,” Arthur said. “They’re anti-everything, anti-liberal, anti-abortion, anti-women’s rights—really anti-Catholics and Jews, but they don’t exactly say so.”

  “All right, Arthur,” said his mother.

  Arthur heard his father’s car door slam in the garage. “Have to add,” Arthur said to his grandmother, “when Christ comes again, we’ll all speak one language. English, of course.”

  The kitchen door opened. “Well, Joan!” said Richard. “Welcome to our homestead! How are you?”

  They kissed cheeks.

  “Just fine,” said Joan. “You’re looking very well!”

  “I’ve put on three pounds, don’t tell me!” Richard said, tugging his seersucker jacket down. “All having drinks? Where’s mine?”

  “In the fridge, dear.” Lois swung around to open it for him.

  Arthur watched his father take the alexander from the top shelf of the fridge. His mother always made him this
sweet drink on special occasions.

  “To you, dear mother-in-law!” Richard said, holding his glass aloft. “We’re pleased as can be to see you!”

  Half an hour later, his father was saying, “Now we will all bow our heads for a moment.”

  His mother’s laugh at something died abruptly. They were all seated, the five of them, at the pretty table in the kitchen. Arthur’s grandmother bent her head obediently, even clasped her hands.

  “Father, we thank Thee for the blessings spread before us.

  Enable us to be worthy of Thy love and kindness. Protect our home and fill—fill our souls as you have filled our—table.”

  Arthur tried to suppress a laugh, but still it came out, because he had thought his father, at a loss for a word, had been about to say filled our bowls or bowels or even stomachs.

  “Arthur!” said his mother.

  His father gave him a look.

  Robbie, unperturbed, gazed with interest at the big steak that his father had begun to slice.

  “What’ve you been doing today?” Joan asked Robbie.

  “Experimenting with worms,” said Robbie.

  “How?” asked Arthur. “Sticking pins in them, I suppose.”

  “In water.” Robbie looked at his brother with the sudden seriousness that his lean face could take on. “They drown.”

  “They’re land creatures. Of course they drown,” Arthur said. “Phylum Annelida, lumbrica terrestris, amen. Why’d you do that?”

  “Pass me your grandmother’s plate, Arthur,” said Richard with impatience.

  “Because I’m going fishing again,” said Robbie.

  “Where do you go fishing?” asked Joan.

  “Delmar Lake. Fellows I met at the swimming pool. “Older fellows,” said Robbie with a glance at Arthur. “Men.”

  “How old? Twenty? Gosh! Any girls?” asked Arthur.

  “Robbie, what kind of boat were you in? Ordinary rowboat?” Lois asked.

  Robbie hesitated. “A canoe.”

  “That’s not true!” said Arthur. “Never seen a canoe at those boat houses on Delmar Lake.”

  “Arthur, cool down,” said his mother. “All right, Robbie, I want you just to tell me next time you go. When you go. Do you understand? I’ve heard of people—”

  “You’re collecting worms for the next fishing trip?” asked Joan.

  “Not yet. I was experimenting to see how long they’ll keep wiggling if they’re under water for so long.”

  Arthur groaned. Submersion, drowning, and then their limp forms would be stirred on the hook by the water. That was the way it would go in fishing. “How many times has he been out fishing?” Arthur asked his mother, mildly interested, because Robbie was accident-prone. Robbie would lean over a boat’s side, reaching for something, and just fall in.

  “I don’t know.” Then Lois said to her mother, “We’re treating Robbie like a big boy this year, leaving him on his own in the afternoons, and he promised not to go off anywhere without telling me. Didn’t you, Robbie?”

  “I did say I was going fishing last Friday, and you said okay,” replied Robbie, and his face grew a little pink.

  “Just always say where you’re going, Robbie,” said Richard, “and tell your mother who you’re with. These older fellows, who are they?”

  “Reggie Dewey—He’s eighteen. St—”

  “School drop-out,” Arthur put in. “I know him.”

  “Steve and Bill,” Robbie went on. “Bill and a man named Jeff are much older.”

  “How do you get to Delmar Lake, on your bike?” Arthur asked. The lake was nearly three miles away.

  “Reggie or Jeff picks me up. Once I went on my bike.”

  “I don’t think I like the sound of that,” Richard murmured in Lois’s direction. “You’re not the best swimmer in the world, Robbie, and you can’t depend on another fellow in the boat—risking his life just to jump in after you.”

  “Maybe I can count on God,” Robbie said.

  Arthur laughed and almost swallowed something the wrong way. He looked at his grandmother, who was smiling and listening to all this with interest.

  “Now, Robbie, God helped you through one really— bad—spot,” said Richard, trying to make every word sink in. “Don’t you tempt Him by your own foolish behavior. God might not be ready with a second miracle just to save you.”

  Robbie’s blondish brows drew closer together. “I dig worms for the fellows. I bait the hooks. The fellows like me.”

  “Sure,” Arthur said. “I bet you’re their slave.”

  “They say I can keep quiet when everybody’s got to be quiet,” Robbie continued to his father. “That’s why they like me.”

  Around midnight, his grandmother rapped on Arthur’s door. He had been hoping she would do exactly that and had left his door the least bit ajar. He was in bed, reading.

  “Come in,” Arthur said with a big smile. “Close the door. Can you find a place to sit?” He jumped out of bed, but he had already cleared his armchair and turned it facing his bed.

  “Well, well, nice to be here, Arthur,” said his grandmother, sitting down. She was in slippers and nightgown and a pretty robe of blue and yellow.

  Arthur put on his new dressing gown and sat on the edge of his bed. “So—you didn’t hear as much about religion tonight as I’d feared, but—what do you think?”

  “About Richard? About life?” She leaned forward and laughed heartily but softly. “Does it bother you so much?—You’re looking well, Arthur. Happier than the last time I saw you.”

  Had he been moping over a girl at Christmas? He couldn’t remember. “I told you I met a nice girl. I have a nice girl. She’s different—from most girls.”

  “How different?”

  Arthur looked at the ceiling. “First, she’s quite pretty and she doesn’t use it. And she’s reliable.”

  “I see,” said his grandmother. “And what’s she interested in? She’s going to go to college, too?”

  “Radcliffe. Interested in puppets. Stage designing. Something to do with people, she says, but she doesn’t know exactly what yet. So she wants to start with liberal arts at Radcliffe until she—decides. Oh, you’ll meet her, maybe this week.—But what did you think of the prayer tonight, the blessing? Doesn’t it make you feel sort of stiff?”

  “Well—” His grandmother let several seconds pass. “Harmless, though, isn’t it? If it makes him feel better. I forgot my cigarettes and I’d love one. One minute while I—”

  “Allow me!” Arthur said before his grandmother could rise from her chair. He whisked his package of Marlboros from the top of his chest of drawers. “These okay?”

  “Perfect. I limit myself to five a day, but I love every one.”

  “It’s this holier-than-thou stuff that bugs me,” Arthur went on, returning to the edge of his bed. “Dad walks around as if he’s holding God’s right hand. Well, maybe so am I—in a way. But I’m not telling other people to read a lot of—nonsense,” Arthur said instead of the word crap. “I’m talking about the pamphlets around the house. And I don’t tell other people to work their fingers to the bone.”

  “Is that what he’s telling you to do?”

  “Yes. Not that I mind so much.—I might’ve taken a summer job without his pushing, because I have to set some money aside for Columbia, I don’t think Dad’s going to finance me. Not for all of it, anyway. That’s something new, too.”

  “Well, well!” She drew on her cigarette thoughtfully, then leaned forward and whispered, “Did they join a new church?”

  “No, it’s the same old church, First Church of Christ Gospel.” Arthur could see that his grandmother was relieved at this, because some of the churches in town were pretty wild and there were gatherings at least twice a week at places in town w
ith gospel singing and public confessions, something like the Holy Rollers, and certainly his parents hadn’t gone that far. “Church every Sunday now, as Mom said. I have to go sometimes to please Mom. I—” Arthur realized that he would not be going to church, if it weren’t for Columbia. He was sucking up.

  8

  Arthur and his mother decided on Thursday as the evening to ask Maggie for dinner. He telephoned Maggie, and to his surprise she seemed shy about coming.

  “I’m not feeling very social these days,” Maggie said. “Don’t know why.”

  After another effort, Arthur persuaded her, however. Arthur had telephoned from Shoe Repair, and he had hoped to be able to see her that evening, even if only to take a walk, but she said she had to stay alone and finish her homework for the math cram course. Arthur offered to help her with it, but Maggie declined that, too.

  That afternoon, his grandmother looked in on him at Shoe Repair, as she had promised to do. Yesterday and today she had driven his mother to the Beverley Home for Children around 1, then kept the car to cruise around in with Robbie or go to the Chalmerston Golf Club, which was not really a club, because anyone could play there.

  “I think this is charming!” Joan said, looking around at the shoebox-lined walls of the little shop. “So old-fashioned!” She was whispering, so that Tom Robertson, who indeed looked like the owner and was near them at the repair counter, wouldn’t hear her.

  “Doing a lot of business!” Arthur whispered back.

  “I’ll look around,” his grandmother said, when Arthur was accosted by a woman carrying a pair of white shoes.