Ordinary People by Judith Guest
“We’ve got popcorn and cranberries to string,” Conrad says to her. “You want to help?”
She looks at him for a long moment. “Of course.”
“So what happened that was so interesting?” Cal hands her the glass. Scotch she likes in the evening, short, and no ice.
She swirls the oily liquid, looking down into it. “Not what happened,” she says. “What I heard.”
“From whom?”
“From Carole Lazenby.”
Something is wrong. The lunch that day? He should have told her, probably, but he hadn’t thought anything about it. Just a lunch. Nothing to tell.
“It’s not my news,” she says, “it’s Conrad’s. Maybe he should tell it.”
“Tell what?” Cal asks.
Conrad is looking at her warily.
“It was rather embarrassing,” she says, not looking at either of them. “Carole thought I knew. After all, why wouldn’t I know? It happened over a month ago.”
“What happened?” he asks.
“Dad,” Conrad says, “I quit the swim team.”
“Quit? Why?” And then it hits him: the nights he sat waiting for six-thirty, the newspaper in front of him, unconcerned. He knew exactly where his kid was. At practice. Riding home with Joe in the car. A month ago. And another picture, of Mr. Knight and Mr. Hellwarth at the meeting. They suggest that he call the counselor’s office on Fridays, for a “progress report.” “Just so we stay on top of things, Mr. Jarrett.” He had rejected that plan immediately. No, it was too much like spying. A month ago.
“Where have you been every night?” he asks.
“Nowhere,” Conrad says. “Around. The library, mostly.”
“I don’t get it,” he says flatly. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I was going to. I’ve been meaning to—”
“I’m sure you would have told us before the first meet,” Beth says. “When is it, next Thursday?”
“I’m sure I would have told you,” Conrad says, “if I thought you gave a damn!”
And the wellspring of anger erupts, engulfing them all.
“What the hell does that mean?” Cal demands.
“Never mind,” she says. “It’s meant for me. Isn’t it? I wish I knew, Conrad, why it is still so important for you to try to hurt me!”
“Hurt you? Me hurt you! Listen, you’re the one who’s trying to hurt me!”
“And how did I do that? By making you look like a fool in front of a roomful of people? Did you have to sit there, getting those looks? Poor Mrs. Jarrett, oh the poor woman, she has no idea what her son is up to, he lies and lies and she believes every word of it—”
“I didn’t lie—”
“You did! You lied every night that you came into this house at six-thirty. What do you mean, you didn’t lie?” She presses her hands tight to her head. “I can’t stand this, I really can’t! If it’s starting all over again, the lying and the disappearing for hours, the covering up—I won’t stand it!”
“Don’t, then!” he snarls. “Go to Europe, why don’t you? Go to hell!”
“Con—”
But he backs away from Cal’s hand. “Listen, don’t give me that, the only reason you care, the only reason you give a fuck about it is because someone else knew about it first! You never wanted to know anything I was doing, or anything I wasn’t doing; you just wanted me to leave you alone! Well, I left you alone, didn’t I? I could have told you lots of things! Like, up at the hospital there were rats! Big ones, up on three, with the hopeless nuts! But that’s okay; see, I was down on two, with the heads and the unsuccessfuls—”
“Con, shut up, stop it—”
“Damn it!” he says. “Tell her to stop it! You never tell her a goddamn thing! Listen, I know why she never came out there, not once! I know! Hell, she was going to goddamn Spain and goddamn Portugal, why should she care if I was hung up by the goddamn balls out there—”
“Christ! That’s enough!”
He takes a swift, sobbing breath, fixing them both with a look of utter fury. And then he is gone, his feet pounding up the stairs. Moments later, the shattering slam of his bedroom door.
Beth has her back to Cal, her hands clutching at her head. “I won‘t, I won’t!”
He goes to her; puts his arms around her. Her body is stiff. She is trembling, but she does not relax against him.
“What happened?” he asks. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know!”
“Somebody’d better go up there.”
“Go!” she says. “Go ahead, that’s the pattern, isn’t it? Let him walk all over us, then go up there and apologize to him!”
“I’m not going up to apologize.”
“Yes, you are! You always do! You’ve been apologizing to him ever since he came home!”
“Ah, Beth, crissake, lay off, will you? I feel like I’ve been at a goddamn tennis match tonight! Back and forth, back and forth—”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” She twists violently away from him. “Don’t talk to me like he talks to you!”
He grabs her, holds her, his cheek colliding with her skull, hard. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry, let’s not fight....” He rocks her in his arms, gently, and her hands are up between them, clenched into fists on his chest. She lets him hold her, but only for a moment.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he says.
“No. You go. He wants you. He wants somebody who’s going to accept everything he does. Without question, without criticism ...”
“And you think that’s what I do?”
“I know it is!”
“I think,” he says cautiously, “that there might have been a better way to handle this.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it.” Her voice is bitter. “For openers, he could have come to us and told us the truth.”
“No, I meant tonight.”
“I know what you meant! You see? Everything he does is all right! Perfectly understandable! And everything I do is—is mixed up, and wrong, and could have been handled a better way!”
“That’s not true! That’s not what I’m trying to say!”
His nerves are raw. His eyes feel as if they have sunk back into his head, pulling the flesh down. “Beth. Please. Let’s just go upstairs!”
“No! I will not be pushed!” she says. She moves away from him to stand before the window, looking out. Calmly she says, “I will not be manipulated.”
He stands, looking over her head at the black window, then at the tree with its strings of lights dangling loose from the branches. Disjointed. Unfinished. “All right,” he says. “I’m going.”
She does not turn around, nor does she make a sign that she has heard him.
Conrad lies face down on the bed, his body outlined in the light from the hall. One hand covers the back of his neck; the other is limp at his side. Cal moves to the nightstand and snaps on the light.
“I want to talk to you.”
“I need to sleep,” he groans. His voice is muffled in the pillow. “Let me sleep.”
“In a minute.”
He pulls the chair over from the desk and sits beside the bed. Outside the window, heavy flakes of snow splatter and stick fast to the glass, sliding down to make miniature hills and valleys at the lower edge of the sill. “First. I give a damn,” he says, “about everything you do.”
Conrad’s head jerks on the pillow. He rolls onto his back, shielding his eyes with his arm. “I didn’t mean that,” he says. “I didn’t mean any of it, I’m sorry. Please. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” Cal says. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened down there.”
“I don’t know what happened! I don’t know! I’m sorry about everything! I—look, can’t we talk about it tomorrow, Dad, please! I feel lousy tonight, everything is shit—Listen, I didn’t mean to say any of that, you tell her, will you? Tell her I’m sorry.”
“Why don’t you tell her?”
“Nol God
“Why not?”
Abruptly he sits up, clasping his arms about his knees. His eyes are dry. There is a red crease along his cheek. He wipes his mouth nervously, staring at the window. “Because it won’t make any difference.”
“What do you mean?”
“It won’t change anything. It won’t change the way she feels about me.”
“The way she—Con, she was upset tonight. She was angry—”
“No, I don’t mean tonight.”
“What, then?”
But he shakes his head. “No. I can’t. Everything’s jello and pudding with you, Dad. I can’t—you don’t see things—”
“What things?”
He continues to stare out the window at the snow, rocking slightly, back and forth, his arms clenched around his knees.
“What things?” Cal asks gently. “I want you to tell me.”
His eyes flick over to Cal’s face; instantly flick away. “All right, then. She hates me. There’s nothing I can do about it.” His voice is curt and flat—without hope.
Something terribly wrong. He stares out the window, now, too, thinking of last year and Mr. Knight calling him at the office with the grade reports: “Something terribly wrong, here, Mr. Jarrett, a straight-A student dropping to D’s and E’s in three months’ time. Most of the papers are not completed. Tests with half of the answer spaces blank, tests not handed in at all....” Cal had asked him, “Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble?” Conrad said, “I’m not in trouble. I’m passing, aren’t I? D is passing.” And he had tried to be gentle, knowing that something was terribly wrong. “It’s not a matter of passing, Con. Going from A to D like this, it doesn’t make sense.” And they had looked at each other over the words. What makes sense?
“Conrad,” he says, “that’s ridiculous. Your mother does not hate you—”
“Okay. All right, you’re right, I just—Please, let me go to bed, now.”
He jumps up and goes to the closet, stripping off his shirt.
“What do you think of this Dr. Berger?” Cal asks. He tries to keep his voice calm, neutral. “Do you think he’s helping you?”
“Dad, don’t blame it on Berger! It isn’t his fault.” He stands, facing the closet door. He does not undress any further, and Cal knows he is waiting for him to leave. The snow, piled high against the windows, seals them inside its softness, its silence.
14
Afterward. The hammer blows of guilt and remorse. He has no weapons with which to fight them off. No words of comfort, none of Berger’s advice applies. He has slandered her, to her face and behind her back. He has pushed everyone away who tries to help. If he could apologize. If he only could but they are no longer at home to him and it is not their fault. All his fault. All connections with him result in failure. Loss. Evil.
At school it is the same. Everywhere he looks, there is competence and good health. Only he, Conrad Jarrett, outcast, quitter, fuck-up, stands outside the circle of safety, separated from everyone by this aching void of loneliness; but no matter, he deserves it. He does not speak to anyone. He does not dare to look his classmates in the eye. He does not want to contaminate, does not wish to find further evidence of his lack of worth.
Music is his only escape. It makes the weight of his crimes bearable. The melody harmony rhythm a visible structure as it winds through his mind. He can concentrate completely in here as they practice obscure French carols for the Christmas concert, and Faughnan, pushing all the time, ignoring all protests—“Tenors! Too heavy on the ‘Everlasting!’ And save the ‘s’ for ‘sting,’ will you? Don’t be cute. Sopranos! Screeching again, what am I gonna do with you girls? Everybody! Watch, for pete’s sake, watch!”
So he watches. He never takes his eyes off Faughnan the whole hour as the music fills out the corners of his mind. It is where all danger resides. Not the same as listening to his records at home. That is dangerous, also. Flipping through album covers gives an eerie feeling of time past, like last year’s calendar, carrying too much of the weight of Before. There is no possibility of a return to that period when he believed in the summer lyrics of John Denver, the easy philosophies. Seals and Crofts, Traffic, The Guess Who. And television. Merely bright patterns of color that jump around on the screen and do not soothe or settle his brain. He wonders what it would look like inside his brain. All brown and dusty from disuse.
“Well,” Berger says, biting a corner of his thumbnail. “Quite a recitation. So, how come you’re such a rotten kid?”
He sits in the chair, staring at his hands. He has dreaded this session, knowing that they would end up talking about it, knowing that he no longer has control in here. Press a button; out it comes. “I don’t know,” he says dully.
“Ah, come on. Sure you do.”
He gives him a fierce look. “I don’t know! Look, if you think you do, why don’t you tell me, and we’ll quit going around in circles!”
“That’s what happens when you bury this junk, kiddo. It keeps resurfacing. Won’t leave you alone.”
“Crap,” he says. “I went off the deep end, that’s all. Jesus, now I sound like my grandfather. The deep endl I just shouldn’t have done it, it was stupid, it didn’t make any sense.”
“Nope.” Berger shakes his head. “There’s sense here. Proportion, that’s the problem. The stuff came out too strong, and now you won’t let yourself buy any of it. The feelings are real enough. Trust that guy in the closet, will you?”
As an answer, he slides, resting the end of his spine on the seat of the chair, his legs outstretched. He stares at his boots, at the lower edge of Berger’s desk, at the grainy patches of color in the rug.
“Listen, Tuesday you felt great, didn’t you? You went out for dinner, you bought a Christmas tree, everything’s okeydoke, am I right?”
“You’re the doctor.”
Berger grins. “Hey. The doctor thinks the patient has a bad habit. He takes refuge. He throws out one-liners, like ‘You’re the doctor.’ So, when does he start talking in French, huh? I never took French. I wouldn’t understand a word of that. That what you want? See, kiddo, this problem is very specific. It is not necessary to pull the whole world in on top of you, it is only necessary to finish with Tuesday night. Everything’s fine until you up and have this fight with your mother. Then, everything’s lousy. A equals B.” He leans back in his chair, also, his hands behind his head. “So, have you tried to talk it out with her?”
“Jesus, no.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure!”
“Have you tried?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Tough to be sure if you haven’t tried.”
“Listen, you don’t know her. She—it’s impossible. Not that I blame her—I don’t blame her. I mean, she’s got reasons. After all the shit I’ve pulled—”
“What shit have you pulled?”
He looks down at his hands.
“Come on,” Berger coaxes. “You oughta be able to come up with at least one example, huh?”
“Okay,” he says. “All right. Once I tried to kill myself, how’s that?”
“That,” Berger says, “is an old turkey. I am talking about what have you done lately.”
“Lately! Listen, if you—listen! I am never going to be forgiven for that, never! You can’t get it out, you know! All that blood on her rug and her goddamn towels—everything had to be pitched! Even the goddamn tile in the bathroom had to be regrouted. Christ, she fired a goddamn maid because she couldn’t dust the living room right, and if you think she’s ever going to forgive me—”
He stops, staring at Berger, whose eyebrows are raised in mild surprise, his body sitting motionless in the chair. The wave of anger recedes slowly, leaving a tightness, a burning sensation in his chest. With an effort, he pulls air into his lungs, clenching his fists on his thighs, breathing slowly. He gets u
Behind him he hears Berger get up; pour himself another cup of coffee. He turns his head to watch him. “I think I just figured something out,” he says.
“What’s that?” Berger asks.
“Who it is who can’t forgive who.”
Reclining on an elbow on the floor, Berger doodles on a scratch pad with his silver pen. Conrad sits beside him, his back against the wall, knees up, holding a cup of coffee in his hands. “Jesus, am I tired,” he says.
“Yeah, well, that’s a helluva big secret you’ve been keeping on yourself,” Berger says.
“So what do I do now?”
“Well, you’ve done it, haven’t you? Revelation. She’s not perfect. Recognize her limitations.”
“You mean, like she can’t love me.”
“Like she can’t love you enough. Like she loves you as much as she’s able. Perspective, kiddo, remember? Maybe she’s afraid, maybe it’s hard for her to give love.”
“No,” he says. “It isn’t. She loves my father, I know that.” He closes his eyes. “She loved my brother, too. It’s just me.”
“Ah, now we’re back to the old rotten-kid routine. She doesn’t love you because you’re unlovable. So where does that leave your dad? How come he loves you? Doesn’t he know what a rotten kid you are?”
“That’s different. He feels responsible. Besides, he loves everybody.”
“Oh, I get it, the guy’s got no taste. He loves you, but he’s wrong. See, kiddo, you keep asking the same old questions, but you only listen for the one answer. Give yourself a break, why don’t you? Let yourself off the hook.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean, there’s somebody else you gotta forgive.”
“You mean me? What for? For the other night, you mean? For trying to off myself?”
The eyes have pinned him to the wall. A hard blue light.
He shifts uncomfortably. “I haven’t done anything else,” he says. “I haven’t.”
The beams switch to low, and Berger smiles be nignly. “Okay. You haven’t.”