Ordinary People by Judith Guest
He hates fighting, and last night they had fought—over London.
“I think you’re being unreasonable,” she said, “not even daring to ask him about it. Why don’t you just admit that it’s you who doesn’t want to go?”
“You ask him, then! What am I? The official interpreter here? You see him every day, don’t you? Show him the travel folders, give him the pitch.”
“I don’t see him any more than you do,” she said coolly. “What are you afraid of? It’s a question. It requires a yes or a no. You certainly ask him enough other questions—How did he sleep? How does he feel? How did I sleep? How do I feel?”
“Okay,” he said. “How did you sleep? How do you feel?”
“That’s not it!” she said. “If we could all just relax a little! If things could just be normal again. I don’t want you to start asking me the questions, I want you to just stop!”
Well, okay. Fair enough. If she knew, though, that it is not only of Conrad but of himself that he is asking questions now; basic, hopeless questions that mock him, finger him as a joker, a bumbler, a poor dope. Who the hell are you? as he walks down the street, and who can step in time to that music for more than thirty seconds? He ducks into a drugstore for respite, buys himself a cigar. Who the hell are you? follows him inside, leaning on the glass counter, waiting. Maybe everybody does it, that is the thought he hangs on to, like a drunk at a friendly lamppost. Who in the world knows who he is all the time? It is not a question to ask a guy over a sandwich at the Quik-Lunch. If you must ponder it, then do it alone at isolated periods with long intervals in between, so as not to drive yourself bats.
I’m the kind of man who—he has heard this phrase a million times, at parties, in bars, in the course of normal conversation, I’m the kind of man who—instinctively he listens; tries to apply any familiar terms to himself, but without success.
Arnold Bacon. There was a man who knew who he was. Years since he has thought about him. In 1967, Ray noticed his obit in the Tribune “... nationally known tax attorney dies at seventy-two.... Tragic loss to the profession, ABA president says....”
He was seventeen years old when he first met Arnold Bacon. Seventeen, a senior in high school, his plans for the future not extending past the next afternoon, and Bacon had come up to him at, of all places, a Christmas Tea in the lounge of the Evangelical Home. “Well, young man, what are you planning to do with the rest of your life?” He had laughed politely, looking for a neat and pleasant exit to the conversation, but Bacon was serious. “I’ve looked at your grades,” he said. “You’re smart. You know the importance of a good education. You ever thought about going into law?”
He had thought about being a Soldier of Fortune, after reading The Three Musketeers. Or a fireman. A professional athlete. He was a good tennis player, he was well coordinated. He learned games quickly. Those vague and wistful occupations faded out of the picture after that December afternoon. He did more than think about the law. He applied and was accepted to prelaw at Wayne University; he took a part-time job clerking in Bacon’s office; he graduated from Wayne and was accepted into law school at the University of Michigan, backed by Bacon’s influential recommendation, he later found out from one of the deans.
A lucky accident. Bacon took him on; decided to be his mentor; told him what courses to take and which ones to stay away from; which scholarships to apply for; which professors he must not miss. He came to his aid financially whenever it was necessary. It was the closest thing to a father-son relationship—it was a father-son relationship, he thought. Bacon had one daughter; no sons. Bacon’s daughter might have made a smashing lawyer; but women lawyers were rarer, then, and suspect. And he had this reverence, this vast, eclipsing love for the law that had to be coalesced. He needed a student, an apprentice. He needed to know that he was leaving his baby protected.
Bacon had not approved of law students who married while they were in school. Diffusion of energy, he called it. And so, of course, everything had changed, after Beth. Bacon was a man of strong views. He had principles. Integrity. He knew who he was and where he stood on certain—what he considered—inviolable issues. Bacon had been Cal’s first actual experience with loss.
When he was eleven, he learned the association of that word with death. The director of the Evangelical Home had called him in to tell him of his “loss.” His mother had “passed away”—another term he was more familiar with, having heard it used frequently in connection with the elderly, wraithlike beings who inhabited the east wing of the Home, coming and going very quickly. He remembered the feeling of awe that possessed him that day. He was aware that an event of some magnitude had happened to him. Someone close to him had passed away and it was his loss, and his alone. For a short time he became a figure of some importance to his peers. And he was invited to the director’s office for cocoa and sermons on Love and Loss, and How a Christian Deals with Grief. The only difference he perceived was that he no longer had any visitor or presents on his birthday, or at Christmas. Well, that wasn’t true, really. He had presents, they just weren’t from anyone he knew. But he did not, at the time, understand the meaning of loss. And of grief. He still had not experienced those words at all.
He had grieved over Arnold, though. Not when he died, it was too late, then; years since he had seen him. But when he discovered that it had been a business venture, after all, that had felt like grief. It was grief. He and Beth had, together, repaid the money. It was, as Bacon pointed out to him, a financial obligation. It took five years, but it was not a hardship. Beth had her own money; he had a good scholarship, and they hardly felt the monthly bill. But Arnold’s indifference, after the marriage—that had hurt him so much. It had undermined him, taken away something that he hadn’t even realized he possessed; he had regarded it so lightly, so casually.
Cherry swings into the room with her smile, to put the papers on his desk. Seductively, that is how she does it. She works hard at it. Too hard. She has a good telephone voice. That’s about it. Can’t take dictation worth a damn, and she won’t file. He wonders where she found this one; she must have had to do some hunting for it. Her boy friend goes to Northwestern, gets out of class at five o’clock each day, she has informed them. She is firm about leaving the office at exactly that time. Her habit of sneaking error-spotted letters on the desk for his signature, as she gives him the look of wide-eyed innocence, drives him crazy. What would Bacon have to say about a secretary like this? “Calvin, you get what you deserve.”
I’m the kind of man who—hasn’t the least idea what kind of man I am. There. Some definition. He is no closer than he was back in the director’s office, back when he listened to the sermons, his mind wandering, not even aware, then, that he was searching.
So, how does a Christian deal with grief? There is no dealing; he knows that much. There is simply the stubborn, mindless hanging on until it is over. Until you are through it. But something has happened in the process. The old definitions, the neat, knowing pigeonholes have disappeared. Or else they no longer apply.
His eyes move again to the calendar. Wednesday, November fifth. Of course. Obvious. All the painful self-examination ; the unanswered questions. At least he knows what is wrong today. Today is Jordan’s birthday. Today he would have been nineteen.
7
Karen smiles at him. Deep dimples in her cheeks. He had forgotten that about her, had forgotten how she lowers her head when she is embarrassed or nervous. Nervous now as she sits down across from him in the narrow booth. It makes him feel protective. She doesn’t have to be afraid of him.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Fine. And you?”
He grins; shrugs his shoulders. “Not bad. Light, scattered paranoia increasing to moderate during the day.” He means merely to jog her memory, but she frowns and looks away. He has offended her. “Hey, I’m only kidding. I’m fine. Really.”
She leans awkwardly to the side, shrugging out of her coat; folds it neatly beside her on the
“I like your hair that way.”
“Thank you.” She touches it. She touches and straightens her coat again. They look at each other. Slowly sinking in the awkwardness of the moment. He didn’t want that to happen. They were good friends at the hospital. They still are. No reason to be uncomfortable, is there?
She asks, “When did you come home?”
“End of August.” A place where they were both safe. They talked for hours on the stone bench outside the rec-room door. Sometimes Leo would come and sit with them, cracking jokes, finding out they were alive. Surely she must remember.
“It’s great to see you,” he says.
“Good to see you.” Again she ducks her head. “I can’t stay too long. I’ve got a meeting at school. Our drama club is doing A Thousand Clowns—the Herb Gardner play—do you know it? We’re going wild trying to get it together. I’m secretary this year, that’s probably why we’re so disorganized—”
He says bluntly, “Well, don’t let me hold you up, then.”
All that time to get here so he can have a Coke in this drugstore because it is near her house in Skokie, and she sits there as if she is being held prisoner. What a stupid idea. Sorry he thought of it, sorry he called her at all.
“I came because you asked me to,” she says quietly.
And sorry again for being rude, and for exposing himself and his goddamn needs again. Jarrett when will you grow up?
“You kids gonna order or what?”
The counterman doubles as the waiter when things are slow, as they are on this Saturday morning. He eyes them with hostile boredom.
“I’ll have a Coke,” Conrad says.
“Just black coffee for me.” Karen gives him a pleasant smile. Nothing doing. He scribbles off a bill and slaps it down on the table with a grunt of annoyance. Not the type to be won over so easily. Have to come up with something better. A million-dollar order, maybe. Conrad pulls his eyebrows together, mocking him, and Karen giggles. She bites her lip, looking down at the table. There, that’s better.
He says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to sound so rah-rah, either. And I really did want to see you. Only I was sort of afraid. You seemed so down, over the phone.”
“I’m not down,” he says quickly. “Hey, everything’s going great. I’m back in school, I’m swimming—”
“Oh, really? I’m glad.”
“Well, we haven’t had any meets yet. I could end up on the bench all year.”
“Oh, no, you’ll do fine, I’m sure.”
The man returns. He is small and undernourished-looking. Sour. In silence, Conrad slides out of the booth to pay him. He looks at the coins suspiciously; turns away without a word.
Conrad shakes his head. “Hostile.”
She giggles. “Definitely a low-self-image day.” And they relax. She, the seasoned veteran, out six months to his three, asks, “Are you seeing anybody?”
“A doctor? Yeah, are you?”
She shakes her head and, obscurely, he feels ashamed. Another black mark against him.
“Dr. Crawford gave me a name,” she says, “and I went for a while, but then I finally decided it wasn’t doing me any good. I mean, he wasn’t telling me anything I couldn’t figure out for myself. Really, the only one who can help you is you. Well, you and God.” She stops, but it is only to take a breath. “Anyway, that’s what Dad says, and I know he’s right. It’s what they told us in the hospital, too, didn’t they? That you have to learn to help yourself, and this guy was over in Elk Grove Village and expensive as hell.” She looks at him and smiles. “That isn’t why I stopped going, though. And I don’t mean that there isn’t any value in it, if you need it. I mean, for some people it could be just the right thing—” She looks to him for help, afraid that she has wounded him.
To reassure her, he says, “Well, I don’t know how long I’ll keep it up, either. I got shoved into it, sort of. My father—I don’t think he’s got that much confidence in me. He’s pretty nervous about it all. Anyway I only go to get my mind flushed out. After an hour with this guy, you’re not too sure about him, but you know you’re okay.”
Berger, and his visits with him, have gotten to be something that he looks forward to; a chance to feel better twice a week, even if the feeling doesn’t have much carry-over yet. Now, on top of the shame, is disgust with himself for his slandering words. Not just Berger, but his father, too. Christ Jarrett but you’re a two-faced bastard.
She says, “Things were so different in the hospital. People were, you know, turned on all the time. And you just can’t live like that. You can’t live with all that emotion floating around, looking for a place to land. It’s too exhausting. It takes so much energy, just to get through a day, even without all that soul-searching we used to do—”
“Hey,” he says. “Remember Crawford, how he was always telling you to go with the things that made you laugh? Yesterday I heard a guy on the radio talking about how to take care of your trees. If you water after five, be sure to water only every other root. ‘In other words,’ he says, ‘the U.S. Department of Agriculture requests that you use alternate roots after five o’clock. ’ ”
She is laughing at him at last. “Con, you made that up!”
“No, the guy said it, I swear. I laughed for five minutes. It made me feel good. To know the nuts still have a chance to take over the world.”
In the hospital, he was the only one who could make her laugh. His heart swells with pleasure and gratitude. Calmly, so as not to alarm her, he says, “You know, losing a whole year out of your life is turning out to be sort of a disadvantage, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think about it,” she says. “You shouldn’t either. Just keep going, get into things, forget about that. Try to be less intense.”
Well, that’s what he was asking for, wasn’t it? Then why do the words irritate him so? With an imaginary pencil he writes in the palm of his hand. “Just a minute, ‘less intense,’ let me get this all down, gee, you sure do make it sound simple, Dr. Aldrich.”
She frowns and looks away. “It isn’t simple. And I’m not saying everything’s perfect. But at least I try.”
“I’m trying,” he says. He makes a face, teasing her. “Don’t I act like I’m trying?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really know you, Con.”
This hurts. And then she looks at her watch, and this hurts, too. “I’m late. I’ve got to go.”
“So, okay. Go.” He spreads his hands, palms down on the table.
She hesitates. “Listen, call me again. I’d like to see you. Really. I mean it. Will you?”
“Sure.” Call me, I’d like to see you. But just not real soon. I might be crazy but I’m not dumb. I read.
She gathers her coat about her shoulders. “The thing is,” she says, “we should both be careful about who we see. It isn’t good for either of us to get down.”
“I’m not down!” It is definitely not the thing to be. More calmly, he repeats it. “I’m not down.”
“Well, it’s contagious, you know that.” Her voice is flat, accusing. “We can’t risk it.”
“Okay.”
Nothing more to say. He glances across the aisle at the rack of paperbacks, reading the titles in despair: What to Wear and How to Wear It; How to Make the Most of What You’ve Got; Twenty-five Ways to Better Love-Making. Oh, God, he did not come here to drain strength away from her he would not do that to anyone least of all her. They are friends aren’t they?
She gets to her feet. “I’m sorry. I wish I could stay longer. You look great, Con. You really do.”
“Yeah, thanks. You too.”
“And you will call me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
And then she is gone. He sits awhile longer, palming the empty Coke glass back and forth between his hands. He had thought, this morning, that he would ask her to one of the swim meets. How stupid even to think that she would go for that. Dull stuff anyway, compared to A Thousand Clowns. Ah come on Jarrett don’t be a shit she is a nice girl and she is right it’s a dangerous business how would you like it if some screwed-up bastard kept coming around asking you for help asking you to make him feel Necessary?
There is a sign over the door: NO LOITERING. The counterman / waiter keeps glancing over, getting ready to catch him in the act. He carefully folds his straw into a small rectangle and drops it into his glass. Getting to his feet, he puts on his jacket. Okay Karen we’ll see you around who needs you anyway who the fuck needs anybody?
8
This Saturday he has repaired a broken doorknob, watched Michigan beat Navy on television, played two sets of tennis with Al Cahill, his next-door neighbor. A familiar and comforting pattern of triviality; the things that move time. First, sitting in the den with his feet up, a glass of beer beside him; then the tennis. He was even pleased about the doorknob; it gave the day that tiny period of purpose, and protected his soul from the sin of idleness.
He pours himself a scotch and water. This first drink of a Saturday evening, made for himself, and drunk in his own company is another pleasure. Later on, he may become bored and drink too much. Or else he will enjoy himself, relax, and drink too much. Another familiar pattern. He has noted this about himself lately: that he drinks too much when they go out. Because drinking helps. It has gotten him through many evenings, either deadening the pain or raising him above it to where small events seem pleasurable and worth recording. It isn’t likely that this will happen tonight. Tonight will not be memorable. He will have to take care not to get blitzed.