Orrie's Story (20 page)

After a long pause, she left.

His sister rushed to the door, closed and locked it. She came to Orrie's side. Her voice was lowered. “It's not smart to be antagonistic. How can we get anything on them if we avoid them one hundred percent?”.

Orrie wished that honor would have allowed him to escape from the entire matter. He remained essentially alone, even with regard to Ellie.

“When they leave,” he said, “we'll go down and have some fried eggs.”

“If there
are
any eggs,” Ellie said, looking skeptically from the tops of her glasses. “I think I forgot to get any.”

He climbed to his lair and dropped the blanket and spread on the wadded sheets from his old bedroom. When they moved out of their former house, the one he had known since birth, his mother discarded or gave to the Goodwill a lot of extra stuff that might have made this attic more comfortable. Empty as it was, it could scarcely be called cozy. But how long was he going to live there? The question made him uneasy and he dismissed it, for the main purpose of moving up was to find a place of refuge in which he could establish a relative peace of mind in which to formulate his plans. He did not need still another question. He would stay as long as he had to: he was not taking anything away from anyone else.

Ordinarily he left beds unmade. At home, his mother took care of that when it occurred to her or ignored it, but at college he had been chided so much by Paul that he had already got into the habit of emulating his roommate and stretching sheets and blankets taut, then folding the corners into a crisp arrangement that Paul had been forced to learn at the military academy he had been sent to at one unruly stage of his life. Such established practices were therapeutic for the troubled spirit, providing standards to live up to without added moral effort. Orrie now made up the floorbound mattress as if it were a complete bed. He would lie only a couple of inches above the rough attic floor and such vermin as coursed there when night fell: a thought that in other situations would have been even more unpleasant than here, where it was merely a distraction and even welcome enough as such. If rats and roaches were his only problem, how sweet an existence it would be!

When the bed was made, clothes hung from the rafters, and the books and other possessions on or under the card table, he had established residence and could find no further excuse for avoiding the issue of why he was here at all: not why the attic, which was self-evident, but why was he staying home from college? To protect Ellie. But how long would that job go on, and how much of his life could he afford to spend on it? It was degrading for him even to think that perhaps he was foolish to discourage her from running away from home. The proposal of the Terwillens was useless, however generous, for even if Ellie agreed to it and his mother consented—two impossibilities—it would violate all standards of decent conduct for his mother scandalously to live alone in the house with Erie while her daughter was taken elsewhere as an ophan.

Furthermore, what would “protecting” Ellie consist of, in practical measures, if he was in the attic? Surely locking her door, which she could do herself, would be effective absolutely. Erie would hardly break in by force in the wee hours. But supposing one night she forgot to turn the key, or, improbably, Erie could pick locks, or intended to waylay her on her way to or from the bathroom? But to make the last-named at all likely would mean Erie had the capacity to predict when she might feel the call of nature in the middle of the night. Orrie had no sense of that himself, and he had known his sister all her life.

But supposing anyway that Erie got his dirty hands on or too near the girl, and Orrie caught him. What to do then? Call the police? …
Mother must be kept out of it
. It would be too shocking for her. If she found out at all, it must be by degrees, after much preparation. Whatever the exact nature of her own association with Erie, she had a regard for him, which might be misguided, but it was genuine enough. Orrie must protect both his women, each in another way.

His father's shotgun was propped vertically against the trunk, where he had left it. He wondered whether, if he revealed to Erie he had the goods on him, the man might want to do the right thing and commit suicide. If so, the means were at hand!

It was an asinine fantasy, and Orrie sneered at himself for having had it. When would he grow up?… The fact was that the shotgun could provide the answer, if he had the courage to use it, not of course actually to fire at Erie but to threaten him. Let Ellie alone or get shot! … But that too was ridiculous, which he realized as soon as he tried to imagine actually doing it, pointing a gun at this person he had known all his life. While never liking him, he certainly had not dreamed of threatening him with a lethal weapon.

Orrie lifted the gun, pointed it towards the rear window, and, feeling like a fool, lowered the barrel. A sensible idea came to him: how about writing an unsigned letter to Erie, saying that the writer had evidence he had been in the criminal habit of molesting female minors and could turn it over to the police but decided it would be better for all involved, especially the bereaved family of the late Captain August Mencken, if a warning would suffice. Cease this vicious behavior at once or go to jail! There would be no second warning.

But he had no implements or materials with which to write such a letter, and did not want so soon again to apply to Ellie, believing that his presence tended to influence her emotions towards extravagance. He would not go downstairs until his mother and Erie left for dinner. He lay down on his new bed, through which, compressed as it was, he could feel the hard floor against his back. It was even harder on his hip and shoulder, when he turned. The mattress would not have been relegated to the attic had it been in serviceable condition. Perhaps the same thing could be said of himself.

“Nobody's hungry,” Esther said. “They don't want to go out to eat, and neither do I.”

She expected an angry reaction from E.G. but no longer cared about such things. He however surprised her with a lack of response. He was preoccupied.

“I can't get over Orrie thinking I wanted to take his room away from him. I couldn't seem to talk him out of it.”

Though Esther herself was dismayed by Orrie's move to the attic, she now felt pride. “He's always been independent. There's
his
way and then the wrong one. No compromise.”

She was disappointed to see that the statement had sweetened E.G.'s mood. He began to smile faintly. “Yeah. Well, I can see the similarity at that. I was the same myself at his age. I guess I should keep in mind how young he is.”

Esther remembered Augie's telling her more than once that his cousin as a boy had already got a good start at becoming the master manipulator he proved to be later on, and of course she had her own memories of a younger Erie. Orrie resembled him in no way. As to who was Orrie's father, she could not have said. By now the matter was of no concern: it was exclusively herself whom she saw in her son and nothing of either of the two weaklings who could have provided the seed.

She enjoyed repeating the earlier announcement that nobody wanted to go out to dinner.

In his brightening state E.G. said, “I figured that might be the case. This has been a hard day on all of us. So I brought back a big steak a guy was aging for me. It's got to be two inches thick.”

“Nobody wants to
eat”
Esther said, though Orrie had not gone so far as that.

It was some satisfaction to see the spark go out of his eye once again. “Everybody's got to eat some time.” He glanced resentfully at the ceiling. “Hell, they didn't see him for four years. There's no difference in their lives.” He got up from the chair beside the drum table, that which Esther had lately used when in the living room, though she would not have called it “her” chair, having little feeling of proprietorship for particular inanimate objects: that was a male emotion. As soon as he went into the Army, she had thrown out Augie's chair, a thick, graceless leather thing in which he sat to brood about the raw deal he had got from life. Esther was proud of her gift for interior decoration. With any encouragement she might have made a career of it, but there had never been enough money to purchase the fine things with which she could furnish only the rooms of fantasy.

E.G. went to the kitchen and came back with a bottle of whiskey, which he displayed to her as though it were a new baby. “Red Label. Prewar. Years since you could find that in any liquor store.” He used a thumbnail on the seal. “There hasn't been a time throughout the war I couldn't lay my hands on meat, gas, booze, and I got a whole set of new tires in the middle of ‘forty-two, if you recall. The rationing didn't slow me down any.”

“While Augie was dodging German bullets,” Esther said, though in a nonjudgmental tone.

“Or so he claimed anyway.”

“He was wearing the medals to prove it.”

“Hell,” E.G. said, “you can buy a chestful of those on any street corner in the country.” He gestured loosely. “Go get glasses and ice. And that bottle of club soda on the sink.”

She had vowed to stop serving him but, with the children upstairs, did not want to start a row.

She returned from the kitchen to see that he had not only opened the Scotch but had apparently already drunk some of it from the bottle, which was empty to well below the neck. She had never, over the years, known him to be a drinker. That was Augie's vice.

“He wouldn't even sell me that picture,” E.G. said. “I sincerely offered to buy it.”

“What picture?”

“The dog.” He seized a glass from her and splashed Scotch into it, holding onto the bottle when done.

“You want ice?” It was in a bowl, on the tray with the bottle of soda.

He ignored the question. “I can't let him move up to the attic. He'll resent me more than ever.”

Esther lowered the tray to the coffee table. She had brought no glass for herself. She had no interest in E.G.'s supposedly paternal feelings.

“I've been thinking,” said he. “It's been eating at me. It's the only thing that could justify the other night —”

She jerked her head in fear and chagrin, violently pointing at the ceiling.

He poured himself a refill. “I guess I just thought you weren't really serious at first, but one thing led to another and on and on —”

In a strident whisper she said, “Will you shut up! Voices carry in this house.”

“Nuh-no,” said he, touching his lips with his index finger. He was suddenly acting drunker than he possibly could yet be on what he had drunk from the bottle.

Concerned by his performance, she said, “Sit down with your drink.”

He sat on the sofa. “I got this feeling that for some reason you're not going to get anywhere trying to collect that G.I. insurance money.”

“That's ridiculous. He was in the service, wasn't he?”

“Who knows what Augie might do? Maybe he just didn't take any out.”

“I heard it was compulsory.”

“Yeah, but…” He looked at the carpet and went to another subject. “I'm feeling my age. God damn it, I'm not going to last forever. I tell you I want that boy to know who his real father is.”

“Will you keep your voice down?” she cried, though in an undertone.

He shouted, “I've waited long enough!”

She thrust both hands at him. “Are you crazy?”

He gestured at her with the glass. “I did it for
him
. At least I can say that much. I didn't do it for the money.”

The slur infuriated her, but she still kept herself under control. “On second thought, I
would
like to go out to eat.”

“I want to get this settled.”

At last she sat down beside him, not in companionship but with a purpose to lower the volume of the conversation. “You've had all these years. Why now?”

“Augie was alive.”

She could have laughed at that statement, but given his emotional state, did not.

He took a quick drink, and said, “You don't have any idea of what being a man is.” He seemed in some kind of burgeoning despair. She felt no sympathy for him. She could not remember what she had ever found attractive in him, after wasting twenty years. He sighed and continued. “My dad used to kick the living shit out of me for the least little thing. Augie, never to my knowledge anyway, ever got punished for anything. Maybe you could say he never did anything to get punished for.” He swallowed some Scotch and narrowed his eyes as if in speculation. “You could say that. Now you can sneer at this, but let me tell you something: I even admit Augie might be a better father than I could ever be. Maybe I hated my own father too much, you see?”

She finally asked, “Aren't you drinking more than usual?”

He brandished his glass at her. “You can't stand to hear this kinda thing, can you?” And added almost as an afterthought, “You fucking bitch you.”

Because of the offhand nature of the abusive term, she was not as angered as she might otherwise have been, but she would not let him get away with it.

“Don't take it out on me if you're having trouble being a man.” She sneered and drew away.

He stared into his empty tumbler. “Augie should have whipped your whore's ass from the beginning.” He looked up, smirking, his eyes focusing on something, or nothing, past her shoulder. “Old Augie always suspected you were giving it to everybody in town
except
me.”

“Why?” she responded, smiling poisonously. “Because he thought you were queer?”

“You're lying!” E.G. shouted. Then he strangely became very quiet and mumbled as if to himself, “You're trying something I'm not going to let you get away with.”

“Pull yourself together,” she said with disgust. “You're just going to feel worse with all that whiskey in you.”