Small Changes (43 page)

Funny how he had not been able to tell Jackson. He had started out feeling Jackson was the one person who might listen. Maybe one of the ways Jackson maintained a kind of dominance over his friends, his buddies, was that father confessor act. He had told Jackson how frightened the girl was. He had been able to tell Jackson about how he was excited at first and then scared and turned off. But when he started to tell the rest, it came out that he had not wanted to and the others had been angry. There was something about the way Jackson was listening, saying with a laugh at one point that he had never raped anyone except his wife Sissy, and grinning, that made the story come out with him being fastidious instead of scared shitless. Suddenly he felt Jackson’s all-American suburban background there and thought, aw, your ass, they don’t go out and jump some girl in the street when they want a gang bang, those ex-Boy Scouts, they hire some broad and call it a smoker or they get some guy’s date
drunk at the fraternity. It’s all legal, it’s social. If he had told Jackson how they nearly made a pansy of him, it would have given Jackson more points finally.

He could have told Miriam about the impotence. She did not make that big a fuss: good if he could get it up, if he couldn’t, next time he would. But if he told her about the rape, she would identify with the girl. She would immediately see herself seventeen coming home on a fall evening from the library. She would say, “Do you imagine if that had happened I’d have gone with you two years later in the museum?” She would never understand that he still did not know, could not tell if he felt guiltier for having taken part in the assault or for not having been able to take part in the rape. He still could not know. Part of him mocked the idea of manhood that consisted of torturing a girl in an alley and part of him judged with his peers that he was less a man for not being able to get it up when they could. Part of him still thought he had failed.

His cool clear high was blown. That little bitch Beth had brought him down. His ass was frozen to the bench. Stiffly he rose and strolled toward the square. Miriam, he wanted her now: to fall into bed and talk. He wanted to feel cared for. He didn’t feel like fucking, he felt like being held and cherished. But she was at work, every damn day now, never around when he needed her.

Walking stiffly, like an old man: his ass still numb. Old. Thirty creeping up on him: two months and he’d be over that magic line. Like a lousy trick, a bad joke: he was still Phil the kid. How could he be arriving already at thirty? James Wright poem with the punch line, “You have wasted your life.”

So he started looking. It was rule one that you could always find a woman. Men were off at jobs in the daytime but women were around waiting. He cruised the square but didn’t see anything he fancied. He didn’t want a Cliffee, he didn’t want to have to come on and impress, and he didn’t want someone strung out from a missed connection. A young housewife was the ticket, someone who’d appreciate him.

There was a bike standing outside a tobacco store, fancy humidor tobacconist. Not locked. Quickly he got on and rode off. Aw, fine. The pavement was wet but not too bad. Over the bridge and into Allston. Past all the new Harvard
stuff. He could remember the little houses here, nice sprawly working-class neighborhood with lots of trees and back yards and toward the end, when they were fighting the crunch from Harvard, big signs in front of every house about Save Our Homes. Long gone. Off down North Harvard Street strung with ratty-looking Christmas decorations in the direction of Brookline. Pedaling along, he found it a good English bike with lots of gears and nice handling in the slush. The warmth came back into his body and he felt alive. A fine edge. He left it outside a shop and walked on toward Coolidge Corner. Somewhere along here someone would cuddle him. Scent of bagels from a bakery, onion, garlic. Food smells from a delicatessen. He wanted a nice lunch.

Through the plate-glass window of a laundromat he saw Laverne Ryan, sitting disconsolately watching the dryer churn clothes past her gaze while her toddler kicked in his stroller. He looked her over, trying to decide. Her hair was pinned up and she was chewing gum. He could remember the elegant Laverne skinny as a clothespin but dressed to the nines. She was looking not exactly bedraggled but a little haggard. Still she was Ryan’s woman, even if separated, and that counted. He owed Ryan a few small favors, indeed he did. Ryan wanted her back and he definitely would not want Phil messing with her. Besides, she looked like she needed the company.

“Laverne, what are you doing around here? It’s fantastic to see you. Thought you’d moved?”

“No, still in the old apartment. It really is a bargain and moving’s such a drag, and Bonnie’s in nursery school here. What on earth are you doing in Brookline?” Surreptitiously she spat the gum into her hand, faking a polite cough, and he saw her stick it under the bench.

“Oh, I had a reading last night around B.U. Party afterward. You might say I just got up.” He remembered she had been susceptible to the Great Poet come-on.

“Oh, a poetry reading? That’s wonderful. I wish I’d heard, I’d love to have come. Though it’s hard for me to get sitters. You don’t look like you were up all night partying. I mean, you look … fine.”

“So do you, so do you.” He sat beside her on the bench, extending his arm along the back. She looked better close up, color in her face now. He lit a cigarette for her and she still
had that neat little flip of her wrist. Hollow cheeks and soft blue eyes all attention to him. Her lips slightly pouted: pretty good. She was getting it on for him. “So you’re on your own now? Won’t pretend I’m sorry. You’re too good-looking a woman for Tom Ryan, the old goat, you know that?”

She laughed lightly, giving him a dip of the lashes. “Oh? Who am I for then?”

“I should be so lucky to guess. I’ve been watching you a long time, a poor lonesome waif with his nose pressed up against the window. Longing for a kind look, a sweet word.”

“Phil, you’re something else. You’ve never been lonesome in your life for five minutes!”

“I’m lonesome right now.”

“Go on. Partying all night. I bet some girl took you home from the reading, didn’t she?”

“Ever heard of being lonesome in a crowd? Nobody took me home, Laverne. I passed out in a chair, and I feel like a ghost.”

“Hey!” she shrieked. “Those are my clothes! Where do you think you’re going with my clothes?”

The woman turned to survey her. “Why don’t you watch your machine then? It’s been off for ten minutes. Sitting there carrying on.”

“Ten minutes, my foot. I looked away for an instant.” Laverne collected her clothes and began to fold them into the cart.

“Laverne … how about lunch? Come on, have lunch with me. I’m starving.” He probably had fifty cents on him, but he figured she couldn’t go out with him carrying her laundry.

“Phil, I’d love to.” She patted at her hair. “But Tommy would scream his head off. He gets awfully cranky. He hasn’t had his lunch yet and he gets his nap after. I’d love to eat lunch with you but I just can’t.”

He took her arm. “How about making me some lunch then? It’s silly to run into you after so long and lose you to a pile of sheets.”

She laughed. “There’s not much in the house. Some eggs.”

“Eggs would be fine, don’t fuss. Anything you eat, I’ll eat too.”

“Oh, don’t bet on that. I eat yogurt.”

“So I’ll eat yogurt too.” By this time he was pulling the clanking squeaky cart of laundry and she was pushing the
stroller with Tommy in it. He couldn’t imagine how she’d done both on the way there. Must have been quite a sight, Laverne in the middle and the cart behind and stroller in front like a choo-choo train.

“Oh, I know men don’t eat yogurt.” She gave him an arch look. She seemed nervous but willing enough to let him come along. She was still up on the hill behind Harvard Street on the ground floor of a three-flat house with faded-looking junipers beside the steps. She disappeared immediately to comb her hair and probably to change. When she came back her ash-blond hair was loose and combed out on her shoulders and her face looked more together and she was wearing a soft green sweater and well-fitted gray pants.

First she fed Tommy slop from a jar, spooning it into him in his high chair. Then she made scrambled eggs for them. He helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator. To judge from the water collected on top, it had been there awhile. She had one with him. She was nervous still but in an appealing way: she punctuated every few sentences with a short soft laugh. The laugh did not say she was amused but was an offering to him to be pleased with her, to let her please him, not to judge what she was saying if it was not pleasing. It was obsequious and playful. He felt better already. She had always been soignée and unapproachable, Ryan’s wife. He touched her shoulder and her arm and once her hip, and although she laughed each time and pretended not to notice, she did not withdraw. He had another beer as she continued to sip her first.

“How about his nap?” he suggested. Time to get on with it.

She agreed, but Tommy, who understood at once, started yelling and banging. There followed half an hour of confusion. He lay down on the couch beside the white plastic tree with its lights blinking like a soft advertisement. He was mildly bored but contented, feeling her wanting him to be there. He did not feel specifically sexual response in her, not even when she came back from the kid’s room and after hesitating, sat down on the couch where he beckoned her. Immediately he slid his arms around her, pulled her alongside him to kiss. She had said something about getting the daughter from nursery school at four. He did not feel in her body that she wanted him particularly but he sensed she was acquiescent. She felt obliged.

When he got his hands under her sweater—she wore a brassiere and it took him awhile to get the stiff thing off—she interrupted and said she had to do something, please, she would be right back. She trotted into her own bedroom. He followed, deciding why not use the bed. She was rummaging in the top drawer, red with embarrassment. “It must be in the bathroom. I’m so sorry! It’ll only take a minute! Please.” She ran into the bathroom and started pushing things around in the medicine chest. Apparently there she found what she was looking for because she shut the door and then in a while came out. In the meantime he took off his clothes and opened up the bed. She came out of the bathroom still dressed and stood there flatfooted till he got up and put his arms around her.

She was a green stiff-feeling woman, but he was gentle and patient. Maybe he was enjoying the idea of it better than the thing itself but she was pretty and Ryan’s wife and it was a pleasant thing to do on a snowy afternoon. He had just got on her when the kid in the next bedroom started hollering. Then if she didn’t give a quick buck and, mumbling apologies, cram herself into pants and sweater and run off. The cries continued, diminished, and finally turned off. By the time she came back, stripped and hopped in again, still saying her soft apologies, he was limp as a worm.

When she discovered that she seemed upset, though he couldn’t see why as she hadn’t taken more than a polite interest in the proceedings. But a few minutes later she was curled up in his arms crying and telling her troubles. “Before I married Tom, lots of men wanted to marry me and anyway lots wanted to go out with me. I still don’t know why I married Tom, he’s shorter than me, honest to God. He’s a mean person; I used to think sometimes, that he just must hate me.… My family liked him, he even bought me a solitaire diamond. But now, with two kids, it seems like nobody cares for me any more. I got married so young, I hardly had a chance to enjoy it all, being young and pretty. I think I’m still … pretty?” Waiting for his reassurances. “But now I don’t meet any men. How can I? I have to keep house and take care of the kids. I joined the neighborhood association but all those men are married. I even tried bowling! Honestly, all I meet are married men, and who wants somebody else’s husband? Tom still wants me back. He’s living with some
girl, I don’t know what kind of slut she is to live with somebody else’s husband! But he still wants me back. I don’t know! He’s smart, after all, and they’re his kids. And I don’t really believe in divorce.…”At that point the kid started crying again. Up she hopped and dressed and ran off. Phil lay a moment making faces at the ceiling and then he got dressed.

“Are you going?” Her face pinched with disappointment.

“No, no. Just thought we could have a cup of coffee, something like that.” Actually he had meant to go, but in the face of her desolation, he couldn’t. She thought she had some real coffee but after looking in all the cupboards decided maybe she’d used it up when she tried to give a party. Finally she made cocoa.

“I haven’t had cocoa in years. Jesus, makes me feel like a kid. Winters are different for kids. When was the last time you touched snow?”

Tommy was up by now, so they bundled him into his outdoor clothes till he was round as an onion. Then they pitched out the back door. There was about two inches of snow by now, not much but it packed well. Phil tried to show Tommy how to make a snowball but he was too young and just squeezed it in his hand and laughed. Then they went back in and she made more cocoa for him and Tommy to have with animal crackers.

She seemed like a pretty good mother. Maybe because she’d always been so soignée she didn’t seem to mind when Tommy splashed the milk and spat up the cocoa. Or maybe she was in a good mood because he had stayed. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes seemed bluer and brighter, even if she did leave the room every time she had to blow her nose.

They sat on the couch with Tommy banging blocks together and screaming and carried on a conversation when they could hear each other. She cuddled up to him and showed him a sweater she was knitting. It was a handsome fisherman’s knit.

“Oh, I’ve made three little outfits for Tommy and a scarf and mittens and a cute little hat for Bonnie and a blue sweater for her, she’s blond like me. I made myself a scarf and a cardigan and a blue beret and a sweater from the same yarn as Bonnie’s, and a heather tweed sweater. If you really like this sweater, I could make one for you.”