Family Linen (12 page)

Arthur knew all right.

“But she's worried, I can tell. And I've been worrying too.”

Arthur sat down in the rocker and looked at Verner Hess. He was a country man, it was hard for him to come right out with whatever it was.

“Why don't you come on down and work at the dimestore,” said Verner Hess, looking out the window so he wouldn't have to look straight at Arthur's face. “I'm at a point where I could use some good help, I'm getting on up to retirement age, you know. Think about it.” He was a little old stooped-over man, real sweet.

“I don't know,” Arthur said. Verner Hess was not his own daddy, and he was thinking about that. Arthur wished he was. But he was not, and somehow that had made some difference in his life, he'd be hard put to say just how. Arthur looked for his daddy for years and years and never found him, all he found was a string of women who said they'd known him, years ago. All he got from his daddy was the gun he had as a boy, which Nettie saved for him, and two records he cut in Bristol. They say he cut a third one, too, but Arthur doesn't have that.

“Well.” Verner Hess lit a cigarette and smoked it all the way down without saying a thing. “You get a hold on yourself,” he said. “Do you need any money?” and Arthur said, “Yes,” and Verner gave him a folded-over hundred-dollar bill.

“That offer's still open,” he said right before he left. Arthur sat there rocking Brenda and watched him walk out and get in his Buick and drive away. It was early April, everything blooming. Alta had planted tulips and daffodils all over the yard.

Now, Arthur can't see how it happened. God knows he loved her. He loved those girls. But things went from bad to worse. He sold air conditioners, he worked as a lineman for Appalachian Power. He joined the church and quit drinking, but it didn't take. He sold insurance. He was a tree surgeon. Alta used to leave him and take the girls, and then come back. They'd make up like crazy. Arthur really loved her, and she loved him. He managed the Holiday Inn for a while. He got drafted, then not. He has a bad heart. Alta moved out, then back. They had a mobile home not far from the One Stop, for a while. In the prettiest little stand of pines. He and Alta used to take a blanket out there at night, in the summer, after the girls were asleep, and listen to the wind through the pines. Sometimes they'd listen to the radio. Disco was big, then. Saturday-night fever. Alta got softer, sweeter, as time passed.

Brenda started to nursery school, she used to bring Arthur these pictures of houses she drew, with smoke coming out of the chimney, and things like blue cats in the yard. One time he was gone for three days. Forrest Wood came over and said, “Arthur, I'm either going to kill you, or move to Florida,” and Alta said “Don't kill him, Daddy,” so Forrest and Ruby moved.

Then one time Arthur really got into it with some boys, and Verner had to come and bail him out of jail in Whitesburg, Kentucky, a sorry town. He couldn't remember how he got over there. Verner drove him home.

“This is your last chance, Arthur,” Alta said. She wore her hair in a pageboy then, right below her ears. She looked so pretty. He could tell by something new in the tone of her voice that she meant it.

“All right, Alta,” Arthur said. He went to working for Verner Hess, after all those years.

And he had to hand it to Verner. Verner didn't even seem surprised when he went over there and went up to the office to ask for the job. “I'd be pleased to have you, Arthur,” was all he said. Arthur started off on the floor, as the assistant manager, and things went along just fine for a while. Arthur liked the job. He was good at it, too. He got Verner to put in an arts-and-crafts section, which went over big. They started carrying a bigger line of ready-to-wear.

Then they hired Rena Clark. Arthur didn't hire her, himself. Verner did. She was a little girl from out in the valley with nothing to recommend her. Dressed in jeans just like a boy. Slight, looked almost sickly. Rena Clark couldn't hold a candle to big, pretty Alta. Rena had frizzy, sandy hair and freckles, thin sandy eyebrows and eyelashes, she was kind of popeyed. Arthur doesn't know, to this day, how it happened. One day he was showing her the ropes—they started her off in records, tapes, and posters since she was so young—and then the next thing he knew, they were taking off their clothes. This started one Friday night, late, in the coatroom, when they had been taking inventory. Rena Clark was so thin that her shoulder bones showed white beneath her skin, like wings. It was foolish. They used to lock the Ladies and do it in there. Finally they were caught by Lorene Swift, who worked in housewares and called up Alta. “That's it, Arthur,” Alta said. She packed up and moved to Florida, to live with her folks. Took his girls.

Arthur got good and drunk then. He was in the detox place at Princeton for a long time after that, and it was while he was in there sitting on those vinyl chairs and sweating it out that he formulated a plan.

Verner said he could have his old job back, he thought he'd have a promising future if he'd lay off the ladies and the booze, but Arthur said no. No, he was going to make amends. He was going to make amends to Alta, and this is how he came to give up the only sure thing he ever had and move to Florida. By the time he got back, it was gone. Verner Hess had died, and the rest of them had gotten together and sold the store. Not that he blamed them either. Arthur took what he got out of it and bought a Sun Box. He put a Sun Box in the mall. This is a tanning franchise. You pay so much per hour, you can get a tan all winter long. Arthur thought it would go over big, especially with the college girls. Wrong. He went bust on that one, and then Inez Nation, who was his employee in the Sun Box at that time, took what was left and ran off with the driving instructor. Arthur can't stand to think about Inez Nation. She was tan all over, and left him in total despair.

But first, he went down to Florida with high hopes of making amends.

He went down there to be near his daughters and court his own wife.

But this was easier said than done. Alta was living with her parents, who hated him, and vice versa, in a bright pink house on a corner in Vero Beach, with palm trees and a chain-link fence around everything. Ruby had bought a Chihuahua and named it Baby. Baby was barking behind the fence. Alta was a secretary in an insurance agency. She had cut off all her hair in a pixie, and refused to give him the time of day. Brenda and Susie were in school down there, where their classes were half in Spanish. Arthur did first one thing, then another. He worked in a men's shop, he was a maitre d'. Every week, he got the girls for two days, he and Alta worked out the details on the phone. Alta wanted them to see him, she said. Over her parents' objections. Alta said she knew the father was important, she'd read books.

Alta wanted
them
to see Arthur, but
she
didn't want to. She talked to him exactly like he was some guy who came up to her door selling encyclopedias, like he was a total stranger. They had come to that point, and passed beyond it, where she didn't care what he thought. Nothing he said could move her. She just didn't give a damn. Anybody else would have given up then, and come on back, but Arthur stuck it out for a while. Once you become determined to make amends, you can't believe that you're not going to get to do it. He kept thinking she'd change her mind, that she'd remember all those good times, that she'd come back. Arthur still thought she loved him, you see. He believed it. He was banking everything on that. He banked it all. He wore Bermuda shorts and kept his apartment as neat as a pin, for his daughters. Women he had in there, he got them out when it was time for Brenda and Susie to come. He took them to the beach a lot. He took them to Disney World. But they were growing up, they got some eyeshadow, they didn't want him to kiss them goodnight.

Then Alta announced, all of a sudden, she's getting married.

This almost killed Arthur.

He knew Alta had been seeing a guy, he was really a jerk. Worked for the post office, wore glasses, looked like Woody Allen. Arthur knew she was seeing this guy but he had continued to hang around, waiting for her to come to her senses.

So then Alta said she was getting married. She's taking a civil-service exam, she's going to work for the post office too, they're going to sort the mail together. Wearing uniforms.

Arthur went a little crazy at that time. He stayed up all night drinking and bought a gun. The day of the wedding, he went over to the pink house in the morning to kill the guy, or himself, or somebody. He had the gun in his pocket. Baby started barking behind the fence. Arthur thought he'd kill Baby, at least. But then here came Brenda and Susie running out, all dressed up alike in little pink dresses with bows. For the wedding. “Daddy! Daddy!” they said. They were always so glad to see him. “You all look real pretty,” Arthur said. He never fired a shot, he stood there holding on to the fence and crying until Ruby Wood came out in a big awful purple hat. “Arthur, get lost,” she said. So he did.

Arthur came home, and got all mixed up with the Sun Box and Inez Nation, and went flat bust and ended up house sitting for his old buddy Fred Bright who has found it a good idea to leave town.

Arthur needs to get back on the track again, get settled. The girls are coming for a visit this summer, he can't have them out at Fred's.

A lot of people have told him, “Arthur, you ought to swear out a warrant, you ought to be reimbursed.” But he just hasn't got the heart for it. He is in despair. He imagines bloodhounds, chasing them through a swamp. He can see Inez Nation right now, tripping along through mud in her high heels. He hasn't got the heart. Also, Arthur has to say, fuck it. If his own wife Alta prefers to look for cocaine all day long with her new husband in Vero Beach, Florida, then fuck it. That's what he says. His girls are close to his heart. If Alta or any of them ever try to keep him from seeing his girls, he will kill them, they know that. His girls and him are in it together for life. But as for the rest of it, just fuck it, Arthur says.

In his state of total despair, Miss Elizabeth dying is one more thing. He couldn't get his mind around it, for a fact. She'd been a thorn in his side for years. “Arthur, how
could
you?” is all she said. He remembers her falling asleep in the glider on the side porch, waiting up for him to come home. After a while he used to stay at Nettie's. Nettie pulled into the hospital parking lot about the same time Dr. Don came sliding in, in his new yellow BMW. Dr. Don looked grave. He put his hands on Arthur's shoulders and squeezed. “
Arthur
,” he said. Don has been in seminars, you can tell. How to touch other men. Arthur didn't give a damn anymore, his Mother was dying. Candy told them when they got off the elevator. Candy's a toucher, too. She ran her hands over Arthur's hair, his collar, straightening. Candy always makes you feel better. “The preacher is here,” she says. “The young one, that Mother liked.”

Miss Elizabeth was in Intensive Care. They couldn't go in. Not that Arthur would want to, either. He'd just as soon let the dying go alone. He's got a bad heart, himself. Arthur looked around the waiting room, outside of Intensive Care: Nettie, Lacy, Dr. Don, Myrtle, Candy, Sybill, and his niece Theresa, Myrtle and Don's daughter. Lacy winked at him, he's always liked Lacy, a pretty little thing with troubles of her own now. Sybill and Nettie were smoking. The preacher was a young thin guy who looked intellectual, like he was in some kind of pain. Everybody was sitting in molded aqua chairs beneath the fluorescent lights. Arthur didn't care for the lights, himself. It seemed to him after a while that they were humming, and then that they were humming louder. He hated it the way they hummed.

“Does anybody want anything from the machines?” Lacy asked. “Coffee or anything?” She winked at Arthur again.

“No, honey,” Candy said, and Sybill said, “No, thank you,” in a hard tight voice like a goddamn queen. Arthur remembered how they all used to have to mind her, when they were kids. Later she told on them. Lacy went off down the hall, looking like a girl herself. The lights were hurting Arthur's ears and he couldn't figure out how any of them had grown so old. All these old children. He could see them again on the hillside, having apple wars. He could close his eyes right now and see Verner Hess. Who he loved. Who was not his daddy, that he never knew. Candy was crying. Candy's old too, Arthur realized, soft and wrinkled, kind of like me, we were the two who refused to amount to a hill of beans. Lacy ate a Hershey bar. Myrtle was crying too, her makeup running around her eyes. Dr. Don gestured, talking to the preacher. Who was Episcopal, maybe you call them a priest. Mother had nothing to do with born-agains. The last time Arthur saw his mother, she said he needed a haircut and that he had been for her a source of constant pain. Two of Mother's old lady friends, Miss Elva Pope and Miss Lucy Dee, came in crying. The jig was up. Some of Myrtle and Don's friends, these fancy young marrieds from Argonne Hills, showed up. The lights got louder. Sybill was walking back and forth, she was grinding her teeth. Arthur thought of his girls, raising their hands to answer questions in Spanish. They'll pierce their ears, like Spanish girls. The lights were killing him. Sybill walked back and forth, grinding her teeth. A big pretty nurse with her gray hair pulled back in a bun ducked in and out, in and out of Intensive Care, closing the door behind her. Although in total despair, Arthur enjoyed her looks. Her hips moved smoothly beneath her uniform, like the movement of horses across a field. Her big white shoes squeaked slightly. Another nurse and several more doctors went in and out. Lacy was crying and Candy was patting her. It's funny how it's clear when it's all over, you know it even though nobody's said. “Can we turn off some of these lights please?” Arthur asked then but nobody said.

“You'd better come in now.” The taller, gray-faced doctor threw open the door. They jostled each other, crowding into the room. Arthur wouldn't go in, he couldn't stand to see it, he's got a bad heart. He would remember his mother dressed up for church, standing at the end of the walk waiting for Verner Hess to come around in the car. The lights hurt his head too bad. He should have been here when Verner Hess died but he was not. He should have gone to work for Verner right away and left the help alone and stayed married to his own sweet Alta and raised his girls. It's too late to make amends. Too late to make amends to Alta or Mother, or Verner either. People will die on you. Arthur wondered where his own father lay, if he was buried, or where he lived. Arthur wondered if his father ever thought of him.