Confessions of a Crap Artist

9

In the evening, Nathan Anteil sat at the kitchen table of their one-bedroom home, studying. He had shut the door to the living room to diminish the sound of the tv set; Gwen was watching Playhouse 90. The oven, propped open, let heat out to warm the kitchen. Beside him he had put a cup of coffee where he could get at it, but he had become too involved in his studying and the coffee had cooled.

Dimly, he noticed that Gwen had opened the door and come into the kitchen. “What is it?” he said finally, laying down his ball-point pen.

Gwen said, “It’s Fay Hume on the phone.”

He had not even been aware that the phone had rung. “What’s she want?” he said. When they had seen her last he had taken pains to tell her that he would be tied up all week studying; he had an exam, to be taken down at the San Rafael public library.

“She’s got her bank statement and she can’t get it reconciled with her stubs,” Gwen said.

“So she wants one of us to come over and help her.”

“Yes,” Gwen said.

“Tell her we can’t.”

“I’ll go,” Gwen said. “I told her you were studying.”

“She knows that.” Picking up his pen he resumed taking notes.

“Yes,” Gwen said, “she said you’d mentioned it. She thought maybe I could come over. She really can’t do that kind of thing—you know she hasn’t got any head for finances.”

“Can’t her brother do it?”

“That goof,” Gwen said.

“You go do it,” he said. But he knew that his wife could not because she was no better at reconciling a checkbook than Fay Hume was, possibly even a little worse. “Go on,” he said, with annoyance. “You know I can’t.”

Dithering, Gwen said, “She says she’ll drive over and pick you up. I really think you ought to go… it’ll only take you half an hour—you know that. And she’ll fix you a steak sandwich; she promised. Please. I think you should.”

“Why?”

Gwen said, “Well, she’s all alone there in the evenings, and she gets nervous; you know how nervous she gets with him in the hospital. Probably it’s just an excuse to get somebody over to talk to; she really needs company. She’s going down to that analyst three times a week, now; did you know that?”

“I know,” he said. He continued to write. But Gwen did not go out of the room. “Is she still on the phone?” he demanded. “Is she waiting?”

“Yes,” Gwen said.

“Okay,” he said. “If she’ll pick me up and drive me back.”

“Of course she will,” Gwen said. “She’ll be so pleased. And it’ll only take you fifteen minutes; you’re so good with math.” She left the room, and he heard her, in the living room, telling Fay Hume that he would be glad to help her.

He thought, If it’s just a pretext so she can have company, then why can’t Gwen go? Because, he realized, even though she does want company—and in a sense, then, it is a pretext—she also does want somebody to balance her checkbook. She wants both. Very efficient. Both things done at once.

Putting away his pen he went to get his coat from the closet.

“You do object, don’t you?” Gwen said, as he stood by the front door, waiting to see the headlights of Fay’s Buick flash at the corner.

“I’m busy,” he said.

“But often times even when you’re busy you don’t mind stopping and doing things.”

“No,” he repeated. “I’m just involved and I don’t like to be disturbed.” But she was right. There was more to it.

The Buick’s horn brought him from the house and onto the porch. As he started down the front steps, Fay leaned out and called,

“You’re very sweet—I know you’re studying. But this won’t take a minute.” She held the door open for him as he got into the seat beside her. Starting up the car, she continued, “Actually I guess I could have done it myself; there’s one check in particular—evidently I forgot to mark a stub. It’s a check for one hundred dollars that I cashed at the Purity in Petaluma.”

“I see,” he said. He did not particularly feel like talking; looking out the window he watched the dark trees and bushes go by. She did drive very well; the car sailed around the curves.

“Are you still thinking about your studying?”

“Somewhat.”

“I’ll get you right back as soon as I can,” she said. “I swear I won’t keep you very long; I hesitated a long time before I called—as a matter of fact, I almost didn’t call. I hate to bother you when you’re studying.” She did not mention Gwen and he was aware of that. No doubt she had known that Gwen was out of the question.

He thought, I shouldn’t be doing this.

One afternoon, over at her place, he had happened to notice an opened bill lying on the coffee table in the living room. The bill was from a clothing store in San Rafael, for children’s dresses. The amount would have paid his and Gwen’s bills for the entire month, all of them. And this was for the girls’ clothing alone.

His income, from his part time job, and Gwen’s income from her two-day a week job in San Anselmo, added up to about two hundred dollars a month. It was barely enough for them to squeeze by on. To the Humes, two hundred dollars amounted to nothing; her psychiatrist bill, he knew, often came to more than that a month. And their heating bill—even a utility bill, he thought. One utility. The money would keep us alive. And she wants me to go over her check stubs for the month. I have to scrutinize every check. See all that money, all that waste. Things they don’t need …

One night, when he and Gwen had eaten dinner at the Humes’, he had stood by watching while Fay handed the dog a t-bone steak which she had unfrozen, along with the others, but which had not fitted onto the grill of the barbecue pit. He had asked her, trying to keep his feelings out of sight, why she simply didn’t put the uncooked, uneaten steak into the refrigerator and have it in the following day or so. Fay had stared at him and said,

“I can’t stand leftovers. Little remains in the bottoms of cups. I always throw what’s left from dinner to the dog. If he won’t eat it then it goes down the disposal.”

He had seen her put smoked oysters and artichoke hearts down the disposal; the dog did not care for either.

Aloud to her now he said, “You should keep a stub for every check you write, regardless.”

“Oh I know,” she said. “Sometimes I’m overdrawn at the bank by two or three hundred dollars. But they always put through my checks; they never send them back. They know me. They know I’m good for it. God, if they ever sent back one of my checks I’d never speak to them again; I’d raise such a ruckus there that they’d never get over it.”

“If you don’t have funds,” he said, “they ought to send the check back.”

“Why?” she said.

“Because it’s not good,” he said.

“Oh, it is good,” she said. “Don’t you know that? What do you mean, not good? Don’t you think I’m good for it?”

He gave up and relapsed into silence.

“Why so quiet?” she said.

“They put them through for you,” he said, “but if I’m overdrawn they don’t put them through. They send them back.”

“Do you know why?” Fay said.

“Why.”

She said, “Because they never heard of you.”

Turning toward her, he stared at her. But there was no malice on her face, only the cautious alertness for the road. “Well,” he said with hard irony, “that’s the price you pay for being a nonentity. For not being a big person in the community.”

“Do you know what I’ve done for this community?” Fay said. “I’ve done more for this community than anyone else; when they were trying to get rid of the Principal over at the grammar school I went down to San Rafael and got my attorney and paid him to look up the laws and see how Mr. Pans, the Principal, could be kept on in spite of the school board; we found six or seven ways.”

“Good for you,” he said.

“You bet good for me,” Fay said. “And I got the petition up and circulated it for putting in the street lights; when we moved in up here there wasn’t a single street light in Drake’s Landing. It’s unincorporated. And we did a lot to get the old firehouse torn down and the new one built.”

“Incredible,” he said.

“Why do you say that?” She shot him a brief glance.

He said, “You’ve practically made this area over singlehandedly.”

“It sounds as if you resent it.”

“I resent your making so much out of it.”

To that, she said nothing; she seemed to shrink back. But then, when she had turned the Buick into the cypress-lined driveway of their house, she said, “You know, you didn’t have to come over. I know how you feel about me; you think I’m heedless and demanding and indifferent to other people’s welfare. But I’ve done more for other people’s welfare than anybody else around here. What have you done for this area, since you moved in?” She said it all calmly, but he saw that she was upset. “Well?” she said.

I think he’s night, he thought. Charley is right about her. At least to some extent. She does have a childish quality, a sort of brashness.

Then why am I here? he asked himself.

Can’t I say no to her?

“You want to go back?” Fay said. Stopping the car she put the automatic transmission into reverse, and, with a squeal of tires, backed out of the driveway, swinging the car wildly into a turn as it reached the road. The front end missed the mailbox on its post by inches; he automatically tensed himself, waiting for the sound of metal against wood.

“I’ll drive you back,” she said, shifting into forward range and starting back down the road. “I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to do. The decision’s yours.”

He said, feeling as if he were talking to an angry child, “I don’t mind helping you with your bills.”

At that, to his surprise, she said, “I didn’t ask you to come over to help me with the bills. The hell with the bills.” Hen voice rose. “What do I care about the bills? That’s none of my business. It’s up to him to pay them, the god damn bills. Fuck the bills. I wanted you to come over because I’m lonely. Good god—” Her voice grated. “Charley’s been in the hospital for over a month and I’m going crazy sitting around the house; I’m about ready to go out of my mind. Cooped up with the kids driving me nuts! And that nutty motherfucking brother of mine. That fruit.”

She sounded so mad, so fed-up and exasperated, that he was amused. The strident clamorousness of her… it did not go with her appearance, her leanness, her slight, almost underdeveloped body. Now she had begun to cough: deep, hoarse coughs, as if a man were sitting beside him coughing, a man’s cough.

“I’ve been smoking three packs of L & Ms a day,” she informed him. “Good god, I never smoked so much in my entire life! No wonder I can’t gain any weight. God.” She said it with stunned amazement. “What do I pay that hick psychiatrist three hundred dollars a month for? That asshole…

“Calm down,” he said to her. “Drive back to your place; we’ll get the bills done, and then we’ll have a drink or a cup of coffee and then I have to get back to my studies.”

“Why didn’t you bring your books over, you asshole?” she said.

“I thought I was coming over to work.”

“God,” she said. “Good god. I never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. My goodness.” She seemed utterly floored. “I went to so much trouble to find something that wouldn’t bring that—1926looking wife of yours along. It doesn’t bother you if I talk about your wife, does it?” Slowing the car, driving with one hand, she turned toward him, saying, “You know you’ve stimulated me even since I first laid eyes on you. Don’t you? My god, I’ve as much as told you half a dozen times. Remember that night I asked you to wrestle with me? What did you think I wanted to wrestle with you for? I was sure your wife caught on. And my god, all you did was throw me on the floor and walk off and leave me. Did you know I had a black and blue mark on my ass for a week afterward?”

To that, he said nothing; his head was swimming.

“God,” she said, more composedly, now. “I’ve never been so attracted to a man. I was attracted to both of you, you in your big old wool sweaters … where did you ever get those sweaters?” Without pausing she said, “Why do you ride a bike? Didn’t you have a bike as a child? Didn’t your family give you a bike?”

He said, “There’s nothing wrong with a grown person riding a bike.”

“Can I ride it sometime?”

“Sure,” he said. “Of course you can.”

“Is it hard?”

He said, “You haven’t ever ridden a bike?”

“No,” she said.

“This one has a gearshift,” he said. “It’s English.”

Now she did not seem to be listening to him; she drove in a preoccupied manner, her face somber. “Listen,” she said after a while. “Are you going to go running home to your wife and tell her about me propositioning you?”

He said, “Are you propositioning me?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not. You propositioned me. Don’t you remember?” She said it with absolute conviction. “Isn’t that why you came over? Good god, I wouldn’t dare let you in the house. That’s why I’m driving you back.” They had gotten almost to his house, now, and he realized abruptly that she really intended to drop him off. “I’m not letting you into my place,” she told him. “Not without your wife. If you want to come over you bring her along.”

With anger he said loudly, “You’re a nut. A real nut.”

“What?” she said, faltering.

“Don’t you pay any attention to anything you say?”

That seemed to crush her. “Don’t pick on me,” she said. “Don’t you get picky. Why do you pick on me?” Her tone reminded him of the younger child’s tone, the whining, self-pitying tone. Perhaps she was calculatedly imitating her child’s tone; he had an intuition to that effect. It was both a satire and a theft. She used it and satirized it simultaneously, waiting to see how he reacted.

“I think you’re a real kick,” he said. And he did. She intrigued him, her flashing moods; he could not tell at any moment which way she would jump. She seemed to have an infinite supply of energy. She went on and on, without fatigue.

“You don’t take me seriously at all,” she said, and then she smiled at him, a mechanical, even formal, smile. “Well, thanks for wanting to help me.” They had come to his house and she was stopping the car. She evidently was quite angry at him, quite cold. “I really am furious with you,” she said in a dead, level voice. “I really am. I’ll never forgive you for your treatment of me. The hell with you.” She leaned over and grabbed at the car door. “So long.”

“So long,” he said, stepping out.

The door slammed; the can roared off. In a daze, he started up the steps to his own porch.

The next day he telephoned her, not from home but from his real estate office. “Hi, Fay,” he said. “I hope I didn’t catch you when you’re busy.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not busy.” On the phone her voice had a thin, brisk quality, as if he were talking to a woman accustomed to doing a great deal of her business transactions on the phone. “Who is this? Not that fink Nathan Anteil?”

He thought, And this is a thirty-two-year-old woman. He said, “Fay, you use the worst language of any woman I’ve even known.”

“Stick it up your ass!” she said animatedly. “Did you phone me to pick on me some more, on what? Yes, why did you phone me? Just a second.” He heard her throw down the phone and then go shut a door. Back again, she said deafeningly in his ear, “I’ve been sitting here going over what happened last night. Evidently I don’t understand the masculine mind. What got into you? For that matter, what got into me?”

Today, she seemed to be in a sportive mood, taking nothing very seriously. She seemed to be in, for her, a relatively good mood. “Why don’t I come over for a while tonight,” he said, feeling himself become tense. “For a little while.”

“All right,” she said. “Want me to pick you up?”

“No,” he said. He had an old Studebaker that he used to get into Mill Valley to his job. “I’ll get over there on my own power.”

“You’re not bringing that wife, are you? Whatever her name is. Say, just what is her name again, anyhow?”

“I’ll see you,” he said. He hung up.

Hen tone had been stank and overly loud, once she had realized who it was and why he had called. She knows, he thought..We both know.

What do we know?

He thought, We know that something is up; we are doing something. It does not involve my wife or her husband.

What is it? He asked himself. What do I have in mind? How far do I want to go? How far does Fay Hume want to go?

Perhaps, he thought, neither of us knows.

Then he asked himself why he was doing it. I have a really wonderful wife, he thought. And I like Charley Hume. And, he thought, Fay is married and she has two children.

Why, then?

Because I want to, he decided.

Much later in the day, as he was driving back to north west Marin County, he thought, And because she wants to.