Asa, as I Knew Him (6 page)

On Friday night Parker turned up for dinner at the Thayers’. He was a cousin—his mother, Emily Graves, now Whiting, was the younger sister of Uncle John’s wife. “Not a blood cousin,” Asa’s mother had muttered at ten-thirty on another evening after Parker had shown up unexpectedly and eagerly eaten seconds. “Julia, what difference does it make? Ten generations ago we were all William the Conqueror,” Dr. Thayer said. “Robert, Robert,” said the mother. Asa loved his father in these moods. Too often he behaved as though he were
himself William. “This family thing can be carried too far,” he said to Asa, who had planted himself in a chair hoping his father would continue. “It cannot,” said Julia Thayer. “In the end, everyone except the family is a stranger.”

“What’s wrong with strangers?” asked Asa. His parents turned toward him. His father coughed. “They don’t understand,” said his mother.

“Pure xenophobia,” said Asa to the mirror at midnight. It was a word he had learned recently. “I suppose I am to marry a cousin as well, a third or fourth cousin so as not to be inbred.” He thought of the Solas, who were not even the same race—whatever that was—and the girls who appeared at their house on weekends, who had long white necks, pressed linen shorts, no curfews. Some of them were cousins of his, probably; some of them were not at all, not possibly.

So, Friday night, the night before the party at the Solas’, Parker sat with the Thayers in the dark dining room with mauve walls and red-purple wood furniture, and ate six thin slices of roast beef, five boiled potatoes, and a few string beans. Both he and Asa drank milk from cobalt glasses; the Thayers drank a fair red wine. For dessert there was pound cake and strawberries. Dr. Thayer ate white grapes, his passion. He never shared them. They were placed before him by his wife every evening, in a small cut-glass bowl rimmed with silver.

“How’s school, boys?” he asked, between grapes. Asa and Parker didn’t say anything. “Harvard or Yale?” persisted Dr. Thayer.

“Oh, Harvard for sure,” said Parker. He kicked Asa gently under the table.

“I don’t know yet,” said Asa. “We don’t have to decide until November. Maybe I’ll go to Princeton, Dad.” He had no desire to go to Princeton.

“Playboys.”

“No, sir, it’s really become a serious school.” Parker, earnest and confidential, leaned toward Asa’s father. Asa hated this transformation of his friend and dreaded the cynical post-conversation comments he would hear as they biked to the Solas’ later. “I think Asa might really enjoy himself there. Very good English literature courses there—”

“Not your interest,” Dr. Thayer said. He did not meet Asa’s eyes. “Southern atmosphere, not conducive to study.”

“Much too far away,” put in Asa’s mother.

“It’s just a thought,” said Asa.

“Parker, do have some more cake. I’m afraid we seem to have finished the strawberries.”

The Thayers were going to a piano recital given by a niece of Dr. Thayer’s, at Paine Hall. Julia Thayer stood in front of the hall mirror patting her hair while Parker downed his cake. “You’ll clear, won’t you, dear,” she commanded, lifting her voice into the dining room. “Robert.” Dr. Thayer rose. Grape stems wiggled on the damask in front of his place.

“Going swimming, boys?” He sounded hopeless; Asa felt a surge of strength. He would go to Princeton, he would go swimming, he would marry a Phoenician.

“It’s a hot night,” said Parker.

“Give my love to Lilly,” Asa said. He did like Lilly, the pianist. She hadn’t gone to college at all, nor married, and lived in a bit of a slum near the river.

“You ought to have come,” said his mother, “but it
is
a hot night. It must be lovely,” she went on, turning to her husband, “to have a pool.” He wasn’t paying attention to her; he was putting his black bag into the coat closet, on the shelf next to the hats.

“Ah, Friday,” he sighed. “Summer. Let’s go over to the island next weekend, Julia?”

“We’ve got the Whitings for dinner Saturday. Not yours,” she called hastily to Parker. “Your Uncle Johnny.”

“Who gives a damn?” Parker muttered into his cake.

They left. Beyond the curtains the sky was pale, pale blue and changing. The boys sprawled in their chairs, silent, hot. Asa rummaged through the stems, looking for just one grape. None. The crickets began to whir, then stopped. The clock in the hall clicked into place and boomed the half hour. Parker poured himself a glass of wine. Asa, nervous, wanting to protect the remaining food, cleared the table.

“Do you always do what they tell you?”

“What else is there to do?” Asa held the roast on its silver platter in one hand and a clutch of linen napkins in the other. “I’m not here most of the time. I hate arguing with them. They’re so”—his eyes shut—“sort of dead, you know? They just go dead. It makes me feel awful. Hell with them. I clear the table, they don’t tell me when to come home.”

“But they do. You say they do.”

“Yes, but they don’t mean it.”

“Don’t mean it,” repeated Parker. He drank some wine.

“It’s a reflex, I think.”

“Let’s get them now.” Parker looked around for more wine, but Asa had taken it. “Do you know where the bag is?”

“In the coat closet.” Asa didn’t want to do it, he didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but Parker was staring at him like a conscience—a bad conscience—and he was trapped. “Let’s forget it,” he said, brave for an instant.

“Come on, chickenshit. Come on.”

Asa went to the hall, lifted the bag down, and slammed it onto the table. Then he turned his face. Parker opened it. Inside a stethoscope glittered, bottles jingled against each other, bright, full of colors. There were also a pipe, an extra pair
of glasses, an Agatha Christie novel, a bone-handled brush. Asa felt sad to see his father’s mute possessions strewn on the tablecloth. Parker rummaged with determination.

“Hey,” he said, “codeine.” He pocketed a brown bottle.

“No, you said just the amyl nitrite.”

“Come on.” Parker didn’t stop poking through the pockets. “There.” He held up a small glass vial winking a flicker of violent yellow. “That’s one.”

“I don’t know if there are any more.”

“Sure there are. We need at least four, one for each of us. Or don’t you want any?”

Asa said nothing. Parker seemed to be taking hours finding them. Asa heard the ghost of his parents’ car in the driveway, the door opening. The clock boomed again. Eight-fifteen. Parker had found another ampule.

“You have to leave some,” said Asa. “He’ll be suspicious. See how many there are and leave at least half.”

“Suppose there are only two? Nah, I’ll take them. He’ll decide he’s getting old and forgot when he used them.”

Asa knew his father would never decide that. In truth, he saw no way to avoid a scene in which his father, pale and clenched, accused him of stealing. The only way would be if the whole bag vanished, as in a robbery. Silver, portraits, black bag—he wondered if they could arrange it. Leave the door unlocked. Then he’d be careless, reprehensible, but not a thief. That seemed too elaborate, and so calculating as to make him guiltier. Asa blanked his mind out and waited for Parker to finish. The bag was full of treasures, and Parker wanted them all.

“What’s this—phenobarbital. We could really get high on this. This is terrific. And here’s some, some—”

“It’s aspirin, for God’s sake. Just hurry up. Just get the ampules and let’s go.”

“You are chickenshit.” Parker’s face was too even-featured to express much emotion; his face appeared every year in the school catalogue, poring over a book in the sunlit library. “Building young men of character …” To compensate he had developed a gravelly, rather ominous voice. “I bet you’re not even going to try it.”

“I don’t have to try it.”

“Because you know what it’s like? You’ve never tried it. You’re just scared.”

“So what,” said Asa. “Let’s go.” He took the bag and put it back on its perch. He wanted to ride off on his bicycle to New Hampshire and disappear into the woods.

Instead the two of them rode down Brattle Street away from the sunset. Asa had left the back door unlocked in case he decided to stage a burglary in the middle of the night. Parker’s pockets jingled. The street flashed below their tires; they moved as fast as airplanes through the humid night. At the intersection in front of the Solas’ they stopped, Parker jamming his brakes hard enough to skid himself around facing Asa.

Somnolent evening in July, the crickets, the first patches of light in windows, Parker’s form dense against the approaching dark—Asa saw all this, all this crept toward him oppressively. He swallowed, blinked, tried to clear his head out. But his head was as full as if he had a flu. “I’m off,” he said, and rode away, down Brattle Street past the long curved driveway that drew Parker in like an arm.

It was Friday and he had money, so he went to Harvard Square. He ate a hot-fudge sundae at Schrafft’s. He went to the Out-of-Town News and leafed through
Look
until he was told to “buy it or put it away.” He put it away. There was nothing left to do except try to sneak into the movie at the
Brattle Theatre or stand in front of the entrance to the Casablanca, the bar under the theatre, and hope some seniors from Andover or Choate would appear and take him in. He was not in the mood for a solo confrontation with the bartender about his age; groups were less likely to be harassed and more likely to cajole the bartender into serving a few beers.

For fifteen minutes he stood at the door to the Casablanca, a sorry figure with his hands pushed all the way in to the pockets of his pressed khakis. He had a sense of himself looking forlorn and ungainly and had just determined to leave—to bike to Walden Pond for a midnight swim—when Parker’s older brother, Clem, appeared with a girl. Clem was a junior at Harvard; the girl looked to be Asa’s age. She was lanky and dressed in red, and she had a wide-jawed face. Her full skirt swung out, then wrapped itself around her thighs as, twirled by Clem, she turned to greet Asa.

“Hey, meeting the boys?” asked Clem. He held the girl close with a heavy arm. He was a lacrosse star; his nose had been broken twice before his senior year at Choate. “Oh yeah, you’re not of age.” Clem moved his hand from the girl’s waist to her neck, so her bare skin shone between his broad fingers. “Come on in, we’ll buy you a drink.”

“Great,” said Asa. He extended his hand. “Asa Thayer.”

“Oh, this is Jo,” said Clem. He opened the double doors and pushed her in before she and Asa could touch. “My cousin,” he added, over his shoulder. He winked.

“First cousin?” asked Asa, when they were seated.

“Third,” said Jo. She had large teeth, very white and well tended, and a rough, low voice like Parker’s. She took a package of Luckys from her red skirt and put one in her mouth. Asa, who had no matches, looked at Clem, but Clem was ordering drinks. “Hey,” growled Jo, and she put her
hand on Clem’s arm. The cigarette dangled from her lip. “Hey, light me.”

They had vodka martinis and Asa got drunk. It happened suddenly, in the middle of his second drink. A film of pleasure softened the contours of the bar and the two faces opposite him, giving everything a promising glisten. He felt hopeful; Jo leaned her head toward him when she talked, which she did more and more as Clem settled into his third martini. She talked about her hockey team at Winsor, about the sailing she was hoping to do over Labor Day, about her sister Anne’s new spaniel—“he loves to go out on the boat with us”—and the Pontiac she’d been promised for graduation. Clem leaned back and didn’t listen, but looked at her pale throat, which vibrated in the dark. She never asked a question, although her speech was dotted with interrogatives: “Do you see what I’m talking about?” “Isn’t that a sketch?” “Don’t you agree?” She tossed these first at Clem, then at Asa, snapping her wide, wicked eyes from one boy to the other. She was wicked, Asa saw through his haze, she was wickedly, deeply full of her flesh and her lanky limbs and her raspy, monotonous voice. There was an untidiness about her—a spot on her skirt, grit under her nails—that gave Asa an erotic tingle. She was not, quite, a girl he could imagine taking to a dinner dance. Undoubtedly she was taken to them, but he knew she would be the only one of her kind there.

So they drifted through their third drink, Clem watching Jo, Asa interjecting ums and reallys, which were hardly needed. It was ten o’clock and the bar was starting to fill up. It was an odd bar, serving three distinct groups who segregated themselves automatically. Hard-drinking lawyers in their thirties with no reason to go home sat at the bar itself, in low conversation with the whiskey-colored bartender. Harvard boys and their dates sat in the wicker booths that lined three
walls. In the middle, at wobbling tables meant for two, quartets of homosexual men spilled their stingers on the checked tablecloths. These groups were not absolute—doctors, writers, and professors joined the lawyers at the stools; the homosexuals included women with brightly colored stockings who were not homosexual; and prep-school boys toting finishing-school girls passed themselves off as their older brothers and sisters along the wall. Still, as in all bars, sorrow, sex, and love were the preoccupations, and a man hoping to swamp his sadness in gin doesn’t talk to a man thinking to score, or thinking of how those cashmere shoulders will look at forty. The only overlap occurred when one of the younger boys caught the eye of a man in the middle. Asa and Reuben and Parker had drawn many unacknowledged glances on other nights. Only Reuben had noticed them; when he pointed out admirers (“That fellow in the yellow shirt, he’s sweet for you, Asa”) the others cringed. “Knock it off,” Parker would say. “Fresh flesh,” Reuben said, pinching Asa’s thigh, which hung over the arm of his chair. He alerted them to this other world, this distorted mirror world, and to their own power in it. “For a little handjob you could get a Peugeot ten-speed.” “Yucchh,” said Parker. He spoke for them all, despite Reuben’s bravado. They bent their blond heads over their beers and the man in the yellow shirt sighed. “Like a young lion,” he said to his stinger and his three companions, seeing in his drink Asa’s lips open from sleepiness and the pale beard he didn’t need to shave.