The Stories of John Cheever (114 page)

“I can’t marry you, darling,” she said.

“Why not? Do you want a younger man?”

“Yes, darling, but not one. I want seven, one right after the other.”

“Oh,” he said.

“I must tell you. I’ve done it. This was before I met you. I asked seven of the best-looking men around to come for dinner. None of them were married. Two of them were divorced. I cooked veal scaloppine. There was a lot to drink and then we all got undressed. It was what I wanted. When they were finished, I didn’t feel dirty or depraved or shameful. I didn’t feel anything bad at all. Does that disgust you?”

“Not really. You’re one of the cleanest people I’ve ever known. That’s the way I think of you.”

“You’re crazy, darling,” she said.

He got up and dressed and kissed her good night, but that was about it. He went on seeing her for a while, but her period of faithfulness seemed to have passed and he guessed that she was seeing other men. He went on looking for a girl as pure and fresh as the girl on the oleomargarine package.

This was in the early fall and he was digging a well for an old house on Olmstead Road. The first well was running dry. The people were named Filler and they were paying him thirty dollars a foot, which was the rate at that time. He was confident of finding water from what he knew of the lay of the land. When he got the rig going, he settled down in the cab of his truck to read a book. Mrs. Filler came out to the truck and asked if he didn’t want a cup of coffee. He refused as politely as he could. She wasn’t bad-looking at all, but he had decided, early in the game, to keep his hands off the housewives. He wanted to marry the girl on the oleomargarine package. At noon he opened his lunch pail and was halfway through a sandwich when Mrs. Filler came back to the cab. “I’ve just cooked a nice hamburger for you,” she said.

“Oh, no, thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve got three sandwiches here.” He actually said “ma’am” and he sometimes said “shucks,” although the book he was reading, and reading with interest, was by Aldous Huxley.

“You’ve got to come in now,” she said. “I won’t take no for an answer.” She opened the cab door and he climbed down and followed at her side to the back door.

She had a big butt and a big front and a jolly face and hair that must have been dyed, because it was a mixture of grays and blues. She had set a place for him at the kitchen table and she sat opposite him while he ate his hamburger. She told him directly the story of her life, as was the custom in the United States at that time. She was born in Evansville, Indiana, had graduated from the Evansville North High School, and had been elected apple-blossom queen in her senior year. She then went on to the university in Bloomington, where Mr. Filler, who was older than she, had been a professor. They moved from Bloomington to Syracuse and then to Paris, where he became famous.

“What’s he famous for?” asked Artemis.

“You mean you’ve never heard of my husband?” she said. “J. P. Filler. He’s a famous author.”

“What did he write?” asked Artemis.

“Well, he wrote a lot of things,” she said, “but he’s best known for
Shit
.”

Artemis laughed, Artemis blushed. “What’s the name of the book?” he asked.

“Shit,”
she said. “That’s the name of it, I’m surprised you never heard of it. It sold about half a million copies.”

“You’re kidding,” Artemis said.

“No I’m not,” she said. “Come with me. I’ll show you.”

He followed her out of the kitchen through several rooms, much richer and more comfortable than anything he was familiar with. She took from a shelf a book whose title was
Shit
. “My God,” said Artemis, “how did he come to write a book like that?”

“Well,” she said, “when he was at Syracuse, he got a foundation grant to investigate literary anarchy. He took a year off. That’s when we went to Paris. He wanted to write a book about something that concerned everybody, like sex, only by the time he got his grant, everything you could write about sex had been written. Then he got this other idea. After all, it was universal. That’s what he said. It concerned everybody. Kings and Presidents and sailors at sea. It was just as important as fire, water, earth, and air. Some people might think it was not a very delicate subject to write about, but he hates delicacy, and anyhow, considering the books you can buy these days,
Shit
is practically pure. I’m surprised you never heard about it. It was translated into twelve languages. See.” She gestured toward a bookcase, where Artemis read
Merde
,
Kaka
,
and r
OBHO
. “I can give you a paperback, if you’d like.”

“I’d like to read it,” said Artemis.

She got a paperback from a closet. “It’s too bad he isn’t here. He would be glad to autograph it for you, but he’s in England. He travels a lot.”

“Well, thank you, ma’am,” said Artemis. “Thank you for the lunch and the book. I have to get back to work.”

He checked the rig, climbed into the cab, and put down Huxley for J. P. Filler. He read the book with a certain amount of interest, but his incredulity was stubborn. Except to go to and from college, Artemis had never traveled, and yet he often felt himself to be a traveler, to be among strangers. Walking down a street in China, he would have felt no more alien than he felt at that moment, trying to comprehend the fact that he lived in a world where a man was wealthy and esteemed for having written a book about turds.

That’s what it was about: turds. There were all shapes, sizes, and colors, along with a great many descriptions of toilets. Filler had traveled widely. There were the toilets of New Delhi and the toilets of Cairo and he had either imagined or visited the Pope’s chambers in the Vatican and the facilities of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. There were quite a few lyrical descriptions of nature—loose bowels in a lemon grove in Spain, constipation in a mountain pass in Nepal, dysentery on the Greek islands. It was not really a dull book and it had, as she had said, a distinct universality, although Artemis continued to feel that he had strayed into some country like China. He was not a prude, but he used a prudent vocabulary. When a well came too close to a septic tank, he referred to the danger as “fecal matter.” He had been “down on” (his vocabulary) Maria many times, but to count these performances and to recall in detail the techniques seemed to diminish the experience. There was, he thought, a height of sexual ecstasy that by its immensity and profoundness seemed to transcend observation. He finished the book a little after five. It looked like rain. He killed the rig, covered it with a tarpaulin, and drove home. Passing a bog, he tossed away his copy of
Shit
. He didn’t want to hide it and he would have had trouble describing it to his mother and, anyhow, he didn’t want to read it again.

The next day it rained and Artemis got very wet. The rig worked loose and he spent most of the morning making it secure. Mrs. Filler was worried about his health. First she brought him a towel. “You’ll catch your death of cold, you darling boy,” she said. “Oh, look how curly your hair is.” Later, carrying an umbrella, she brought him a cup of tea. She urged him to come into the house and change into dry clothes. He said that he couldn’t leave the rig.

“Anyhow,” he said, “I never catch cold.” As soon as he said this, he began to sneeze. Mrs. Filler insisted that he either come into her house or go home. He was uncomfortable and he gave up around two. Mrs. Filler had been right. By suppertime, his throat was sore. His head was unclear. He took two aspirins and went to bed around nine. He woke after midnight in the hot-and-cold spasms of a high fever. The effect of this was strangely to reduce him to the emotional attitudes of a child. He curled up in an embryonic position, his hands between his knees, alternately sweating and shivering. He felt himself lonely but well protected, irresponsible, and cozy. His father seemed to live again and would bring him, when he came home from work, a new switch for his electric train or a lure for his tackle box. His mother brought him some breakfast and took his temperature. He had a fever of 103 and dozed for most of the morning.

At noon his mother came in to say that there was a lady downstairs to see him. She had brought some soup. He said that he didn’t want to see anyone, but his mother seemed doubtful. The lady was a customer. Her intentions were kind. It would be rude to turn her away. He felt too feeble to show any resistance, and a few minutes later Mrs. Filler stood in the doorway with a preserve jar full of broth. “I told him he’d be sick, I told him that yesterday.”

“I’ll go next door and see if they have any aspirin,” said his mother. “We’ve used ours all up.” She left the room and Mrs. Filler closed the door.

“Oh, you poor boy,” she said. “You poor boy.”

“It’s only a cold,” he said. “I never get sick.”

“But you are sick,” she said. “You are sick and I told you you would be sick, you silly boy.” Her voice was tremulous and she sat on the edge of his bed and began to stroke his brow. “If you’d only come into my house, you’d be out there today, swinging your sledge hammer.” She extended her caresses to his chest and shoulders and then, reaching under the bedclothes, hit, since Artemis never wore pajamas, pay dirt. “Oh, you lovely boy,” said Mrs. Filler. “Do you always get hard this quickly? It’s so hard.” Artemis groaned and Mrs. Filler went to work. Then he arched his back and let out a muffled yell. The trajectory of his discharge was a little like the fireballs from a Roman candle and may explain our fascination with these pyrotechnics. Then they heard the front door open and Mrs. Filler left his bed for a chair by the window. Her face was very red and she was breathing heavily.

“All the aspirin they have is baby aspirin,” said his mother. “It’s pink, but I guess if you take enough of it, it works all right.”

“Why don’t you go to the drugstore and buy some aspirin?” said Mrs. Filler. “I’ll stay with him while you’re gone.”

“I don’t know how to drive,” said Artemis’ mother. “Isn’t that funny? In this day and age. I’ve never learned how to drive a car.” Mrs. Filler was about to suggest that she walk to the drugstore, but she realized that this might expose her position. “I’ll telephone the drugstore and see if they deliver,” his mother said, and left the room with the door open. The telephone was in the hallway and Mrs. Filler remained in her chair. She stayed a few minutes longer and parted on a note of false cheerfulness.

“Now, you get better,” she said, “and come back and dig me a nice well.”

He was back at work three days later. Mrs. Filler was not there, but she returned around eleven with a load of groceries. At noon, when he was opening his lunch pail, she came out of the house carrying a small tray on which there were two brown, steaming drinks. “I’ve brought you a toddy,” she said. He opened the cab door and she climbed in and sat beside him.

“Is there whiskey in it?” asked Artemis.

“Just a drop,” she said. “It’s mostly tea and lemon. It will help you get better.” Artemis tasted his toddy and thought he had never tasted anything so strong. “Did you read my husband’s book?” she asked.

“I looked at it,” Artemis said slyly. “I didn’t understand it. I mean, I didn’t understand why he had to write about that. I don’t read very much, but I suppose it’s better than some books. The kind of books I really hate are the kind of books where people just walk around and light cigarettes and say things like ‘good morning.’ They just walk around. When I read a book, I want to read about earthquakes and exploring and tidal waves. I don’t want to read about people walking around and opening doors.”

“Oh, you silly boy,” she said. “You don’t know anything.”

“I’m thirty years old,” said Artemis, “and I know how to drill a well.”

“But you don’t know what I want,” she said.

“You want a well, I guess,” he said. “A hundred gallons a minute. Good drinking water.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean what I want now.”

He slumped a little in the seat and unfastened his trousers. She dipped her head, a singular gesture rather like a bird going after seed or water. “Hey, that’s great,” said Artemis, “that’s really great. You want me to tell you when I’m going to come?” She simply shook her head. “Big load’s on its way,” said Artemis. “Big load’s coming down the line. You want me to hold it?” She shook her head. “Ouch,” yelled Artemis. “Ouch.” One of his limitations as a lover was that, at the most sublime moment, he usually shouted, “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” Maria had often complained about this. “Ouch,” roared Artemis. “Ouch, ouch, ouch,” as he was racked by a large orgasm. “Hey, that was great,” he said, “that was really great but I’ll bet it’s unhealthy. I mean, I’ll bet if you do that all the time, you’d get to be round-shouldered.”

She kissed him tenderly and said, “You’re crazy.” That made two. He gave her one of his sandwiches.

The rig was then down to three hundred feet. The next day, Artemis hauled up the hammer and lowered the cylinder that measured water. The water was muddy but not soapy and he guessed the take to be about twenty gallons a minute. When Mrs. Filler came out of the house, he told her the news. She didn’t seem pleased. Her face was swollen and her eyes were red. “I’ll go down another fifteen or twenty feet,” Artemis said. “I think you’ll have a nice well.”