30 Pieces of a Novel (72 page)

The Yearling
. “Don't tell Dad what you thought of it, because you know it was one of the dumbest and slowest pictures you ever saw. All about a geeky boy and baby deer. Who could care? And you know they only made it to get our tears.” Robert took him to
Bambi
. Gould ducked under his seat when the fire started in the woods, or maybe it was when the mother got shot. “Don't be a sissy,” Robert said, trying to pull him out by his collar. “Face life; this is what can happen, everything suddenly going from good to bad. And it's a long cartoon and the animals are talking, so it's not like there are real people and places up there. Nothing bad's now happening anyway. If it does, don't worry; your big brother's here to protect you.” Gould came out. Soon the next frightening scene came, either Bambi's mother getting shot or the woods on fire and Bambi running from it. “Put your coat over your head if you can't take it; I'll tell you when the so-called scary part's over. But don't jump under the seat again. Chewing gum's there from the dirtiest mouths and all kinds of dried nose snot and other gook. Check your hair to see if any got in it and we have to go to the bathroom to wash it off…. That movie was for kids your age and younger,” Robert said when they left the theater. “I'm never going to another cartoon movie again. From now on it's only real movies with older people saying and doing older things, even killing and kissing each other and rubbing their bodies together and having smart conversations and things like that. If I'm forced to buy an adult ticket, which you notice I had to today because I'm over twelve and big for my age so can't lie about it anymore, then I'm wasting my time with these silly kid things.” “Then who'll I go with?” and Robert said, “By yourself or with a friend.” “You're my friend,” and Robert said, “You have others who are okay. Lookit, it's bound to happen one day, so start getting it
through your
head. Plenty of times you'll have friends you'll want to be with more than me, and before that I'll have mine. But we'll always be brothers—tell me how you can take that away. And like brothers do, unless one really cheated on the other with money or did something for the other to detest him for life, which will never happen to us, we'll see each other in the future and go to movies, but adult ones, and things like that, but not most of the time like it's been.” “I understand that,” Gould said, although he didn't get all of it. “You're right; that's what'll happen and makes lots of sense,” but he worried about it, didn't want to split up from his brother like that. He loved being with him. People used to say he worshiped him. All right, his father said it, mostly to tease him, but a lot. When Robert was fourteen he got a job as a movie usher in a theater downtown. The Broadway, he thinks it was called. Some Saturday nights he didn't get home till one o'clock. Gould would wait up for him. “What are you waiting up for me for?” “I wanted to know how things went tonight and to make sure you got home.” “Oh, get out of here, I'm a big guy. And I'm fast and I know what to say and it's only a few short stops on the subway. I don't need some noodging shrimp worrying about me. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, because I actually appreciate your concern, but it makes working late at night worse. Then I feel I have to hurry home so you'll get back to sleep.” A little explaining: Robert was always tall for his age and got the job because he told the theater manager he was eighteen. He was six feet by the time he was thirteen and grew another two to three inches. One night after he got home he told Gould he'd had a long chat with Charlie Chaplin in back of the orchestra when the movie was on. Gould had made Robert a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich the way he liked it, under the stove broiler with the bacon previously fried semicrisp and drained on paper napkins. Made one for himself the same way: white bread pretoasted a little, sandwich grilled open-faced and then lettuce, sliced tomatoes, mayonnaise, and bacon put on and the two sandwich halves placed together and cut diagonally. The bacon actually put on during the last thirty seconds under the broiler and the cheese always Velveeta. They sat at the kitchen table eating the sandwiches and drinking milk. “How come? I didn't think he spoke,” Gould said. “He does in this one because it's a new movie and everyone important in it speaks. He made it; produced, directed, wrote the music—the whole thing.
Monsieur Verdoux.”
“What's that mean?” “The title: it stands for Mister something, the name of the character he plays. He's a murderer who locks up and kills his wives. Based on Bluebeard. So maybe it means murderer or Bluebeard in French. How would I know? I take German in school. Or it could be Bluebeard's last name, if he was a real person, or his real last name in a book if it comes from a made-up story. Tonight was the first time it played in America. It was a big news event too because this is supposed to be Chaplin's chance for a comeback here. He seemed so nervous. Paced back and forth in back, smoked when he wasn't supposed to be smoking there, but I wasn't going to tell him not to, which I would with anyone else. He was worried if the audience liked it and asked me what I thought. I said it sounds like they do and he said he's only heard little titters, no large unified laughing, he called it. The critics will take this as a sign that nobody likes it, he said, and they'll call it a major bomb. I said so far I haven't heard anything but good things from people who have passed me. ‘Why are they leaving early then?' he said. ‘It has to mean they didn't like it.' I said some people have to get home early, or maybe they were going to the bathrooms downstairs. ‘People go together to them?' he said. ‘They can't go alone to urinate during a movie? No,' he said, ‘I'm afraid you're wrong, young man; they were walking out.' And then, what did
I
think of the movie? ‘Be frank,' he said. ‘Don't try to fool or flatter me.' I told him I saw it twice already and it was very funny and interesting and well made, when I really thought it was boring, stupid, and slow and the other actors were all bad in it and the movie in one word stunk and I wouldn't pay a quarter to see it, not a dime. He said, ‘Thank you for your honesty,' when I wasn't being honest. Or maybe he saw I wasn't and knew I was being polite while at the same time making it obvious to him what I thought. ‘But in spite of your good review,' he said, ‘I'm still worried about the movie's fate.' I said, ‘Listen, probably the worst thing you can do is stand here listening to every minuscule reaction from the audience and getting comments on the movie from people who don't know much. I'm sure if you leave now or just stay calm and relaxed while you're here, you'll pick up all the newspapers in the morning and find the movie got four stars from critics who know.' He said, ‘The truth is, the reviews are written already,' and called me a smart fellow—smart, no doubt, because I knew the right things to say to keep him from getting more upset. Then he patted my shoulder and left the back of the orchestra soon after that, but not outside, unless he left through another door but the lobby exit, and most likely not because of my presumptuous advice either. He's very short, you know, and old-looking, with white hair and bad teeth,” and Gould said, “I can tell about his height from all his movies.” “You're taller than him already, or maybe a couple inches shorter, so you will be taller.” “Maybe it's good in some ways to stay short; look how famous and popular he is, even with his bad teeth,” and Robert said, “I don't want a brother who's that much shorter than me. It'd look peculiar; people wouldn't even think we're related. They'd always be saying things when they'd see us together: ‘You two are brothers? You don't look much alike: one's a half foot taller than the other and you're both fully grown.' This is in the future, I'm talking here. Do what I did and keep saying you're going to be tall, with me it was ‘very tall.' And harp on it to yourself and eat the right foods—I'll give you my food plan I kept to for years—and sleep a lot and do stretching exercises like hanging from overhead bars, and you'll be tall, I guarantee it, but probably no more than six feet.” Robert was six inches taller than their father, who said he was the second tallest boy in his high school graduation class and played for his college basketball team. But that was then, when if you were five-ten you made center. Robert was better than he at everything, or Gould thought he could be if he tried whatever Gould was doing. He got into an elite public high school, excelled in all his subjects, was first-string end on its pretty good football team, and was also on the swim team and held an all-city record for some backstroke race for a few weeks. Fixed their radios and toasters, did some of the plumbing when the super didn't come, tuned and oil-changed the family car, could read a two-hundred-page book in two hours and memorize a sonnet in a minute and pull out hundreds of great appropriate quotations from his head. But where was Gould in this? Waiting up for his brother on weekends. Setting his alarm clock for twelve-thirty so he wouldn't seem tired when Robert came home at one. “Mommy says you shouldn't take the subway home so late,” Gould said. “That the buses stop a block from your theater and go right up Broadway.” “And wait in the cold or rain a half hour, for that's how long it usually takes? Don't worry your little pointy head, I'll be okay.” They called the grilled bacon and cheese sandwich “à la Roberto.” “I can make an à la Roberto for you if you want,” Gould would say when his brother came back from ushering, “and you won't have to eat alone. I'll have one too.” “No, thanks, just a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich, please.” “They're the same thing,” he said, the first time Robert said this, and Robert said, “No joke, bumbo. Boy, when they made wooden heads yours must've been mahogany.” “Why mahogany?” They went to camp together for two summers. The counselors voted Robert all-around camper and best athlete the first year. Gould got a part in the big camp musical at the end of the summer, and after it, backstage, while Gould was wiping his makeup off, Robert said, “You really made me proud tonight. Even with that small role you stole the show with your acting and singing. Everyone in the audience thought so,” and he said, “Sure, you talked to everyone. Come on, nobody noticed me.” “No, I overheard them whispering during it—the parents—'Who is that kid, who is that kid? He's a standout, a natural.' You're the ham of the family and I'm the bacon and grilled cheese. I could never in a hundred years sing as well as you did. When I was standing in back for a few minutes I heard your voice in the chorus soaring above everyone else's,” and he said, “Now I know you're lying; I don't project at all.” The girls loved Robert. There was talk he was actually getting laid by a junior counselor named Gloria who was two years older than him. Someone claimed to see a rubber drop out of Robert's wallet. He was fishing in it for money to pay for a soda at the camp's canteen when it happened. “‘Well, look at this,' he was supposed to have said,” a bunkmate of Gould's told him. “Smiled, knowing everyone knew it was his, and nonchalantly picked it up, looked it over, and said, ‘Must have fallen to the ground out of some guy's wallet or even a girl's pocket. And for all the little kids to see? That isn't nice. But still in its package and never used. Well, waste not, want not, and all that other cloddy stuff and stocky clichés about rainy days with nothing to do,' and stuck it in his change pocket.” Another rumor had it that Robert and Gloria were caught on a blanket in the woods by some girl campers cutting through. “Gloria with her top off and boobs showing,” someone in Gould's division told him, “and your brother with his swimsuit around his knees and a stiff dick a mile long. The head counselor called your parents to tell your brother to behave or he'd be asked to leave.” Robert was a camper-waiter then. Gould asked him later that day outside the mess hall, “Does Uncle Walt want you to leave camp?” and Robert said, “Who told you that?” “I heard, I don't want to say where because I don't want to get anyone in trouble.” “And if I twist your arm back till it's about to come off?” and he said, “Then I'd tell you, but then you'd be using brute force.” “Of course I won't do that, and it's not important who told anyway. It's over a counselor—you've seen me with her: Gloria Mendelowitz, a real dish—but it's all worked out. I promised Walt I'd make sure to use a prophylactic. Just kidding ya. That we weren't doing anything but the normal girl-boy horseplay, deep kissing and heavy petting of each other's backs, and from now on we won't even hold hands if anyone's around.” “And the folks were called?” “Ah, easy as raising kittens. Dad told me I'm too young to get entwined and that my life would be screwed up if there was an accident, and Mom said to always remember to be respectful to the young lady and discreet about the situation.” “That's good; it wouldn't be the same here if you left.” Discreet, he thought after. There wasn't a dictionary in the whole camp; he knew even without looking. He could have asked Robert what it meant but wanted him to think he knew so Robert could always use words like that and talk about serious things with him. So he asked his counselor—“I got it out of a book I'm reading; I think it means slow”—and the guy said it could be but he didn't know. The next summer Robert worked as a waiter in the guest dining room of another camp. He visited Gould's camp on one of his days off. Both were on the Delaware, Robert's near Stroudsburg and Gould's across the river in Flatbrookville, New Jersey. How'd Robert get to Gould's camp? By hitching to Bushkill and then rowing a boat down the Delaware from the Bushkill landing and later rowing it back up? But there were rapids in between the landing and camp—Gould had canoed through them with a counselor and another camper—so a tough trip to make for just one guy, even Robert, who was a strong seventeen-year-old at the time and knew how to row and canoe. And how would he have got the boat, rent it? Doesn't remember any renters of boats or canoes near the landing. But he came that day in a sport jacket and good pants, so he didn't do any arduous rowing, he's almost sure. (“Arduous,” another word he first heard from Robert.) He probably took a couple of buses and ended up in a town near Gould's camp—Newton, for instance—and then took a taxi or called someone he knew in camp to come get him by car. Or a couple of people from camp might have rowed or canoed up to the landing to get him and then taken him back. He thinks he asked Robert that day how he got there and was told but forgot. Next time he speaks to him he'll ask again and he's sure Robert will remember. Actually, he's not so sure, since Robert's memory for small things like that a long time back isn't as good as his. There: something he can do better than Robert and, he thinks, always could. If he asks, though, Robert might say—it'd be like him; he often doesn't answer the question right away but asks why you asked—“Why's it important? What've you got going that you want that information?” In words like that—bordering on the suspicious—and Gould would say, “Because it suddenly popped up, I don't know from what, after more than forty-five years, and I wanted to get it straight in my head because I'm interested in the particulars of one's journey and family history and stuff like that. And also, let's face it, as Mom liked to say—and both of us always seem to say, ‘as Mom liked to say,' and, while she was alive, ‘as Mom likes to say,' after we say that let's-face-it phrase—I'd also like to know if you came more to see Gloria than me, since she was working as a counselor there: Gloria Mendelowitz, your big love then”—if he asks, “Who's she?” which, with all the women he's known since he was thirteen, he might very well say—“or as much as or more to see me? But you probably can't remember that.” “Don't push your luck,” Robert might say, “as, let's face it, Mom never used to say, for you might find my memory's absolutely lucid on this matter, and I didn't come at all to see you.” In fact, it all comes back. Robert hitched the entire way to Gould's camp and got a ride back from someone there he knew from the previous year. And he definitely only came to see Gloria. She'd got a few hours off to spend with him; it had been prearranged weeks in advance with the girls' head counselor, Robert told him that day: “They gave the okay only if she swore to stay on camp grounds and no empty cabins or woods with me.” He first saw Robert—had no clue he was coming—when he strode into the mess hall while the whole camp was eating lunch. “Robert, Robert,” Gould yelled, “over here!” (And “strode” sounds too—well, something: vigorous, decisive, self-possessed, almost pushy, while his walk was usually slow and shuffling. “Cool” and “composed” would be good words for it, but he's talking about a walk so he's sure he can find one better, like that “vigorous,” et cetera, business.) Several counselors and waiters from the previous year went up to him, shook his hand, punched his upper arms, clutched the back of his neck or pretended to, actions like that and lots of good-to-see-you's and laughs. “Hey, there's my big brudder,” Robert said, when Gould got permission to leave his table and went over to him. “What're you doing here—you lose the job at your camp?” and Robert said, “As I was telling them, it's my day off, so I hitched.” Gould said he could probably get an hour or two to be with him, and that's when Robert said he mainly came to see Gloria: “You, you little stiff, I can see all year in the city. She I get to see once or twice a year when she visits New York or if I'm willing to shell out the dough for a train to Philly. So if you don't mind, and if your feelings won't be too hurt? And quick,” he whispered, putting his arm around his shoulder and walking him away from the others, “before she can hear us, have you seen her with any other guys?” and Gould said, “I never thought to look. Should I have?” Just then Gloria came over, big smile at Robert, took his hand and said, “Hiya, peanut,” which sounded so stupid to Gould and in some ways an insulting nickname to his brother. What an idiot she must be, he thought, good looks and great body as she's got, and Robert said, “We're going to take a walk, Gould, see ya later,” but he never did. He was hurt but he understood. Robert wants to be with a girl whom he's probably already laid, so today he can at least kiss and pet and stuff like that and maybe even get more. Would he do the same if Robert were his younger brother and Gloria was his girlfriend and everything else was the same: hitching a ride here and so on? Probably, sure, but he would have been nicer about it and also not dumped him so fast. He would have spent an hour with him, then gone off with Gloria. Said, “Gloria, listen, I haven't seen my baby brother in a month and I want to catch up on things with him.” Or taken her off to the side and said, “Hey, he'll be hurt if I don't spend some time with him, so I have to. We'll still have