Raising Demons (33 page)

He was not pleased with the telephone call. It was a Wednesday evening, and our family was assembled at dinner. It was the kind of dinner I think of as a Wednesday evening dinner, because on Wednesday I always begin to think of economizing so we can have dinner on Thursday and Friday. As a result—although it hardly mattered, anyway, since my husband never did eat any dinner that night—we were having Monday night's meat loaf warmed over. Laurie had seized control of the conversation as we sat down, and I was trying to serve the meat loaf and gesture to Jannie to put her napkin in her lap and gesture to Sally to take her napkin ring out of her lap and gesture to Barry that he would not be served any meat loaf unless he put away his space gun and sat in his chair correctly and at the same time I was trying to ask my husband if he wanted noodles.

“Isn't it?” Laurie demanded of the table at large. “Because suppose I did and then no one but me danced with her, what could I do?”

“Certainly,” his father said.

“Noodles?”

“Besides,” Laurie said, waving his fork, “you figure it's forty cents if I go stag, and sixty cents I take a girl—I don't know any girls
worth
twenty cents. And I'd have to dance with her, maybe every dance except if she wanted to sit down or something.”

He stopped for breath, and I opened my mouth, but Jannie said, “But if no one took any girls there wouldn't be any girls there and who would you dance with at all?”

“There's
always
girls there,” Laurie said drearily. “And Mrs. Williams always coming up and saying whyn't you go ask that nice girl over there if she wants to dance. Yeah.”

“Elbows off the table,” I said.

“Why go at all?” his father asked. “Why not stay home and save forty cents?”

Laurie sighed impatiently. “Because I already save twenty cents by not taking a girl, and I need the money. Anyway, they match pennies in the cloakroom.”

His father frowned. “Young man,” he said, “I will not have you gambling. Other people's money—”

The phone rang. “Stop her!” Laurie yelled, and I made a fast grab, but Sally had gotten away in a nice running start and was out in the hall before anyone else could move. Sally can move with unbelievable speed from a sitting position, and also she is the only one in the family except Barry, who is slow, who can fit under the telephone table.

“Hello?” she said in her sweet clear voice, and Laurie sighed irritably. “It's a wonder anyone bothers to call here any more at
all
,” he said. “Rob tried to call me all day yesterday and Sally answered every time.”

“Well, whose daddy did you want to speak to?” Sally asked.

My husband looked up, alarmed.

“How do you know it's my daddy you want to speak to if you don't know my name?” Sally asked shrewdly.

I got up and followed my husband out to the hall. Sally, eying us, retreated still farther under the telephone table and sat hunched up around the phone. “Because if he doesn't want to talk to you I have to say he's taking a shower,” she explained.

“Sally,” I said, “give me that phone.”

“Do you have a little girl six years old named Sally?” Sally asked into the phone.

“Sarah,” said her father.

She poked her head out and looked up innocently. “Will I say you're taking a shower?” she asked. “It's just some man who hasn't got any children.”

My husband started to speak, checked himself, and held out his hand. Unwillingly Sally put the phone into it and crawled out between his legs. “No one ever telephones
me
,” she said sadly.

“Hello?” my husband said into the phone. I took Sally by the wrist and led her back to the table and sat her down firmly. “No dessert,” I said, and she snarled. “Stop it,” I said, and she giggled.

“Fifteen cents?” Jannie said to Laurie.

“Half a buck?” Laurie countered.

“Twenty cents?”

“Forty?”

“What?” I said.

“If Laurie clears the table tonight and scrapes the dishes and stacks them,” Jannie asked me, “is it worth any more than fifteen cents if I pay him from my allowance?”

“That's a lot of dishes,” Laurie said. He poked scornfully at his butter plate. “Look at all this stuff,” he said. “Thirty cents.”

“If you practice my piano lesson for me I could make it twenty-five,” Jannie said.

My husband came back to the table. He sat down in his chair and stared straight ahead of him. The children looked at him curiously, and then Jannie said, “Every time we let Dad talk on the phone something happens. Remember when it was the man about the dogs stealing deer hides?”

“Or the library with the books overdue,” Laurie said.

“Or that lady,” Jannie said, “the one who keeps calling to find out if the phone is working all right and Dad never knows.”

“Or girls for Laurie,” Sally said.

Laurie turned to look at her balefully. “Yeah?” he said. “Yeah?”

“At least,” my husband said to me suddenly, “we still have the children. Our dear children, and a roof over our heads.” He thought. “I hope,” he said.

“You always worry about every little thing,” I said. “The man told us clearly that the roof would last through this winter and maybe even on into spring.”

“Trusting little creatures,” my husband said, reaching one hand out toward Sally, who looked as though she might bite it. “An affectionate family, a warm hearth, a scrap of bread on the table—a man needs little more than that.”

“
I
don't know,” I said to Laurie, who was making faces of astonishment at me. “Yes, dear?” I said to my husband. “Go on.”

“I want you all to be brave,” my husband said, looking around the table at us. “When misfortune strikes, a family must face the world together.”

“Twenty cents?” Laurie whispered across at Jannie.

“Son,” his father said, “I am afraid that your dancing days are over. All allowances will very likely be cut, if not withdrawn altogether. There will be no color television set this year. Your mother will stop squandering all that money every week and learn to make simple nourishing meals out of rice and perhaps oatmeal. On gala days we will share an egg. Laurie can perhaps take a newspaper route—”

“Jannie can support us with her needle, as far as that goes,” I said.

“Where are
you
going to be?” Laurie asked. “In jail?”

His father turned pale. “Please don't
talk
like that,” he said.

“You might as well tell us,” I said. “So we can start facing the world together. Who was on the phone?”

My husband sighed. “The Department of Internal Revenue,” he said. “A question has arisen about our income tax returns. The man will be here in the morning. I am to be ready with my books.”

“Well, that doesn't seem very bad,” I said. “It seems silly for them to check up on
you
, but of course you just have to tell them . . .” I looked at my husband and stopped talking abruptly.

“We learned in Social Studies class how to make out an income tax return,” Laurie said. “After dinner I'll be glad to help you, Dad.”

“I've
already
made out our return, thank you,” my husband said. “That's why the man is
coming
. And I don't think I want any dinner, thank you.” He got up and went into the study.

“Gosh,” Laurie said. “What's
he
so bothered about, anyway?”

Sally nodded wisely. “That man on the phone sounded pretty mad,” she said.

I saw the children through their dinner and then took my husband's coffee into the study. He was walking around and around in a little circle, carrying his checkbook. “Look,” I said, “I just can't see what you're so
worried
about. Here's your coffee. Why, that man probably checks income tax returns all the time, it's his job. Are you going to get all upset just because he's coming here to ask a question or two?”

“Yes, indeed,” my husband said.

“But we're honest citizens, aren't we? We're law-abiding, we pay our taxes—”

“Yes, indeed,” my husband said.

“Well, then,” I said, “all you have to do is tell this fellow that there's nothing to check over, all your deductions are in order, and everything will be—”

“Yes, indeed,” my husband said.

“Well,” I said helplessly, “I just don't see what you're so
worried
about.”

“Don't you?” said my husband.

I stopped following him around with the cup of coffee and sat down instead. He turned suddenly and looked at me. “When you drive the car into town, what do you think about?” he asked me.

“What?”

“When you
drive
the
car
into
town
, what do you
think
about?”

“Money,” I said. “Whether I have enough, or maybe even a little bit extra so I can maybe buy myself something. Shoes, maybe. I could certainly use a pair of shoes.”

“I took off a lot for business expenses for the car,” my husband said. He turned and waved the checkbook at me. “From now on,” he said, “you don't ever drive that car into town, see, unless it's on business.”

“What possible business could I have—”

“I don't care what you do when you're
there
, just so when you're driving the car into town you have in mind some business expense you're doing it for. Typewriter ribbons, maybe. If you went all the way into town to get typewriter ribbons, that would be going on business, see? Because I use a typewriter ribbon in my typewriter. And then once you got there for a typewriter ribbon, then you could do any fool shopping you wanted, and it would be a business trip anyway. See?”

“Not really,” I said. “If I buy a typewriter ribbon for you every time I go into town then pretty soon you'd have more typewriter ribbons than—”

“You don't really have to
buy
one,” my husband said impatiently. “You just
think
about buying it on the way into town. As though you were really only driving into town just to get a typewriter ribbon and planned on kind of sneaking off to do your other shopping, but it was really just a trip to get a typewriter ribbon, a
business
trip. See?”

“But they'd get to thinking I was pretty silly, around the stationery store,” I said. “Seeing me come in every day nearly for another typewriter ribbon, or else coming in
pretending
I was going to get a typewriter ribbon, because I have enough trouble now with running out of money all of a sudden and having to give things back.” He opened his mouth again and I said hastily, “All right, though. I'll put it on my shopping list right away, and then I won't forget.”

“Canceled checks,” he said. He sat down at his desk and began to open drawers. I sighed.

“I just don't know what you're so
worried
about,” I said.

“Four children?” he asked.

“Four.”

“I wish . . .” he began, and then stopped. “Look,” he said then, “I work in here, don't I? In this study?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“So I was certainly justified in taking off the rent for one room in the house which is like an office for me. Couldn't I?”

“I guess not,” I said, bewildered.

“And you better get Barry's train and stuff out of here before that fellow comes tomorrow. And I'll kind of leave my typewriter out and some papers lying around.”

“I could go right into town tomorrow and think about a typewriter ribbon,” I offered hopefully.

“I wish I felt better about that car,” he said.

“Well, after all, four days a week I drive you up to your classes at the college, and then I come and get you.
That's
a lot of wear and tear on the car.”

“No,” he said. “Commuting to and from your employment is not business driving.”

I stared at him. “You mean,” I said, and gasped, and caught my breath, “you mean I get up in the morning and I drive Barry to nursery school and then I come back and I get you and I drive you to the college and then I go back and I get Barry and bring him home and then I go back and get you and I bring you home and then I take you up again in the afternoon and then I go and get you again and they call that
pleasure
driving? Now, listen.” I got up and began to walk around and around the study. “Now, listen. There are a lot of things we have to put up with, like prices going up on everything and the children's overshoes nearly triple what they were last winter and even the laundry raising prices again and the turn-in they gave us on the old car, and the way the mail is getting slower every day, but I can tell you right now that no G-man covered with badges is going to come walking right into my own house and stand there with machine guns and tear gas and whatever else they carry and abuse his authority pushing me around and trying to tell me that this amateur taxi service I run has got to be called
pleasure
driving. Now you listen to me—”

“I don't
want
to listen to you,” my husband said. “And now I think of it, I would like you to go out somewhere while the man is here tomorrow. Maybe you better stay away for the whole day, because it says right on the tax blank in the small print that commuting back and forth to your place of employment is not a legitimate deductible expense for your car. Look,” he said. “If you drive me to the college, that's not deductible. But if I walk to the college and you drive along behind me with my briefcase in the car, well,
that's
deductible.”

“Drive your briefcase? Why can't it walk?”

“No,” my husband said. “No, no.” After a while he went on in a very quiet voice, “I really can't see that it will do any good for both of us to be worrying about this. I'll just look over these old checks, and you go count the children again.”