“I’m ready,” Virginia said.
Roger held the door for her and she stepped outside, onto the entrance way. “I’ll lock it,” he said, putting his key into the lock. “You turned everything off?”
“Yes,” she said, “I listened. I can usually hear if any of the sets are on.”
After dinner, Virginia drove on home. Roger returned to the store to make use of the repair bench and equipment.
He switched on the fluorescent lights over the bench, dragged the tall stool up onto the mat, and then put on the meters and test apparatus. The soldering iron had its own special switch and plug; it was always individually disconnected. He plugged it in and hoisted it, holding the extra-hot trigger to its on position in the handle.
His newfangled antenna had been mounted to the ceiling of the service department. Twin-lead trailed down the wall to the bench, and from there to a turret tuner of a TV chassis. The antenna formed a circle of thin aluminum tubing, within which was a network of even finer tubes, going in various directions like spokes and counter-spokes of a wheel. From the many tubes a meshed network of leads had been gathered and clamped into a single cable which led into a control box of terminals and lugs, and from there to the twin-lead.
It’s not worth a fuck, Roger said to himself.
His idea was to provide an infinitely variable antenna controlled by the channel selector. As the selector was rotated, sections of the antenna were cut off and others were cut in. The idea was that ghosts could be eliminated, weak signals could be reinforced, static could be reduced, and so forth. In practice, however, the settings made no change in the quality of the picture.
With the soldering iron he changed some of the leads around, returned a few of the channel strips, and then gave up.
The hell with it, he decided. He turned off the chassis. The only thing that would affect the picture quality would be a raising of the antenna, and that would require a power source, such as a quarter horsepower electric motor. And that would price the system right out of the market.
So that’s that, he said to himself. He coiled his legs into the rungs of the stool and then rocked the stool back as far as it would go without passing the balance point. Behind him was a concrete floor, and he thought to himself, Let’s go all the way back. Let’s see how it feels.
But he brought the stool upright.
Not for me, he said to himself. He uncoiled his legs and stepped from the stool to the rubber mat. The service room was cold and the fluorescent light made his head ache. Shutting off the service bench he walked through the open door into the main part of the store.
Most of the store—the extended single room filled by television sets and stoves and refrigerators and washing machines—was dark. The window lights flooded out onto the street and lit up the displays near the front of the store. He walked past the counter, in the direction of the Philco display. It had been in two weeks, and it had not been much good to start with.
Lousy-looking thing, he thought. Why is it there? Who put it in?
But, he thought, why should I change it? What have I got to do with it?
While he stood there, looking out at the window displays, a shape appeared on the sidewalk and flashed a light in his eyes. Blinded, he put up his hands. The shape motioned him toward the door, and as he peered to see, he realized that it was the cop whom the merchants had hired to go about after dark trying the doors of each of the shops to be certain they were locked. The cop, holding his light in Roger’s eyes, brought out a pistol from his holster and held it pointed at him, still motioning him.
“Okay,” Roger said, lifting his hands in a mock-gesture. He walked away from the counter, to the door. With his key he unlocked the door and swung it open.
“Who are you?” the cop said. “Let’s see your identification.”
The light glazed down on his hands as he tugged out his wallet. “I was working in the back,” he said. “I came out front for a couple of seconds.”
“Are you related to Mrs. L?”
“Yes.” he said.
“You her husband?”
He nodded.
“Sorry I bothered you,” the cop said. He lowered his flashlight and put his gun away. “I thought you were standing in there by the till waiting for me to go by—” He nudged Roger on the shoulder. “Then you were going to stick your hand into it.”
“No,” he said. “I was just taking a breather.”
“Say, do you know anything about TV sets? I mean, you know what’s the matter with them?”
“I guess so,” he said.
The cop leaned near to him. “I got this Packard-Bell TV set; sometimes when I’m looking at it, like I’m looking at the Ed Sullivan show or something on Sunday night, the picture gets all grainy. What causes that?”
Roger said, “You mean a pattern on top of the picture?”
“No, I mean all grainy. You know.”
“Probably interference.”
“You mean some guy’s interfering with the picture?”
“It’s static,” he said. “Only you see it instead of hearing it.” He began to close the door; the cop noticed and immediately prepared to leave.
“Thanks a lot Mr. Lindahl. Say, if I keep on getting it, can I bring the set in and have you people look at it?”
“Sure,” he said. “Bring it in any time.”
“About how long does it take to have it worked on?”
“A couple of days.” He shut the door and locked it. The cop waved through the glass, said something that he could not hear, and then passed on with his flashlight.
Christ, Roger said to himself. I might as well not be here. I’m not getting anything done.
He made sure that the soldering iron and the other equipment in the service department were off, and then he left the store.
Where now? he asked himself. Home. Where I’ve been going for ten years, except for a little period a couple of years back.
He thought about the Los Padres Valley School. Today was Wednesday, so in two more days, the day after tomorrow, he would make his weekly drive to pick up Gregg.
I wonder if I can hold out that long, he thought.
22
He lay in bed after Virginia had left the house. Outdoors, the red Ford station wagon started up and traveled down the street. He listened to the sound diminish. I’m glad she remembered to leave the Olds, he thought. I wouldn’t get very far without it.
Getting out of the bed he padded barefoot to the telephone and called Dunn, Inc. to tell them that he would not be in. After that was done, he removed his pajamas and got into the shower. By nine-thirty in the morning he had shaved and put on a decent enough suit. He got the newspaper from the porch and tossed it on the kitchen table. Later, as he ate breakfast, he read the news and the comics and the various columns.
Plenty of time, he thought.
At ten-thirty he called Mrs. Alt up at the school.
“I thought I’d drive up early today,” he said.
“Fine,” Mrs. Alt said genially. “You want to have lunch up here? It’s at one, today.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“You know what you might bring? You might stop at a stamp store and pick up some packets for Gregg. He’s trying to build up his Austria collection. Yesterday he said he was going to ask you. Just tell the stamp dealer you want a couple of dollars worth of Austrian stamps; he’ll know what to do.”
“What if Gregg already has some of them?”
Mrs. Alt said, “Then he’ll trade them to the other boys.”
“Have you heard from her this week?” He felt deep tenseness throughout his body: this was always the moment for it.
“Yes,” Mrs. Alt said. “She called me on Tuesday.”
“Will she be up?”
“I think so. You know how she talks.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll see you by one o’clock, then.” He hung up, and then he wrote out a note to himself about the packet of Austrian stamps for Gregg.
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Just before eleven o’clock he left the house, got into the Oldsmobile, and drove north along the highway until he passed a postage stamp store. Parking, he bought the Austrian stamps, and then he went on, following his regular route to the freeway that connected with Highway 99. He had driven it so often that he barely noticed the alternate cut-offs. His goal was to make the best possible time, and he figured that he would arrive in the Ojai Valley and the school in plenty of time for lunch.
The scenery did not interest him. I am going farther and farther from Los Angeles, he said to himself, and that’s what matters. He watched only for obstacles.
At five minutes to one, he turned off the grade from Ojai, onto the school grounds. The closeness of the time gratified him. I really have it, he thought. Right down to the second. He shut off the engine and got out of the car, locking the doors after him.
No one saw him arrive.
He smelled the engine smell; the car gave off heat from beneath its hood, and waves of motion rose up from it, into the air. Here and there, trees responded to the mid-day wind, the autumn wind that he had heard as he drove through the range of mountains. It made a sound as if something were being poured from a height. Looking up, he saw the tops of the fir trees whipping. It gave them a presence of violence. A group of birds were dislodged; the birds fluttered and tried to regain their positions. Now they’re mad, he thought. The cheeping of the birds drifted down to him, where he stood. The birds thought that someone had dislodged them purposefully.
The smaller the birds, he thought, the angrier.
He started up the path towards the main building. When he reached the terrace he had to stop to let a gang of children go rushing by in the direction of the dining room. The children yelled and shoved; hone of them noticed him. Off somewhere, the school bell rang, signifying lunch time. Split pea soup and bread sticks and milk and peaches. Coffee for the adults. After the children had squeezed by the glass doors into the dining room, he followed.
At a rear table, Edna Alt spied him and waved to him. He walked in that direction. “Hi,” he said.
“You didn’t forget the stamps, did you?” she said. With her at the table were Mr. Van Ecke and Mrs. McGivern. They both said hello to him.
“I left them in the car,” he said. “In the glove compartment.” Drawing back a chair, he seated himself and unfolded a paper napkin. “I smelled the soup,” he said. “So I know what’s coming.”
“That’s why we have a work-gang,” Mr. Van Ecke said. “To give the bad boys something to do…we have them splitting the peas for half an hour every day.”
From his pocket, Roger got out the weekly report that the school mailed him on the conduct and standing of his son. “Half hour on the work-gang,” he read. “What did he do?”
“He made a bean shooter out of a curtain rod,” Mrs. Alt said.
“The dirty little rascal,” Mr. Van Ecke said, and they all laughed.
“The bigger boys have something that’s a little more deadly,” Mrs. McGivern said in her practical manner. “They’ve been making themselves match guns out of clothespins. The thing fires the match about eight feet, and ignites the head at the same time. The boys—the bigger ones, not your boy—get out in a group of ten or fifteen, and shoot live matches at one another.”
“But the unexplainable thing,” Mrs. Alt said, “is that nobody ever seems to get burned or hurt or lose an eye. Its automatic suspension for a month, if they’re caught. But they still do it. They sneak into the lavatories and load their match guns and carry them around in their pockets, sometimes all afternoon. Then when none of us is watching—” She made a firing motion. “Bang. Right in little Jimmy Morse’s face.”
Mr. Van Ecke said, “And little Jimmy Morse fires back, right into little Raleigh Hinkle’s face. And then little Philip Adams gets both of them, with his pair of match guns.”
The cook wheeled out the first metal cart carrying the split pea soup. The two Mexican girls began serving the tables; the children chattered away. At each table of children one teacher kept order and served his eight children from the main plates. Bowls of split pea soup were now being passed from hand to hand. The cook wheeled her cart toward the table of teachers. Mrs. Alt accepted their soup and began dipping it out with a ladle, into the smaller bowls. Roger’s was presented to him by Mr. Van Ecke.
“You missed grace,” Mrs. McGivern said to Roger. “So you can’t have anything to eat.”
“Say it now,” Mr. Van Ecke said, starting to spoon up his soup.
“He doesn’t have to say grace,” Mrs. Alt said, as she served herself. “That’s only for the little prisoners, as Liz calls them.”
Roger said, “Is she here yet?”
“She showed up a little while ago,” Mrs. Alt said, “but she drove her two boys down into Ojai. They wanted to see if they could buy a carbide lamp. I don’t think they can. She’ll have to get it for them in Santa Barbara.”
“We’re going on an overnight hike tonight,” Mrs. McGivern said. “That’s why they need the light today.”
As she ate, Mrs. Alt said to Roger, “You ought to come along. You’ve gone hiking with us before, haven’t you? We’re not going far. The forest has been closed during the summer, but now its wet enough for people to go in. We have a place where they let us build a campfire. We cleared it ourselves.”
“Maybe so,” Roger said.
After lunch, he and Mrs. Alt searched out Gregg and gave him his packet of Austrian stamps.
“Hey!” Gregg yelled, leaping up and down. “Look at this! Can I go show them? I’ll be right back; we’re not going to leave right now anyhow, are we?” He ran about in a circle, clutching the stamps. “Can I take them with me to arithmetic class?”
Roger and Mrs. Alt let him go off to class with the packet of stamps. The one-forty bell rang, and gradually the children dispersed to their classrooms. Except for the boy operating the switchboard at the desk, the lobby was pretty much empty.
“How’s Virginia?” Mrs. Alt said.
“Fine.”
“How’s Chic’s hayfever?”
“About the same.”
“He came up here, you know, about a month ago. To see the boys.”
“She told me,” Roger said. “Liz I mean. The boys mentioned it to her.”
Mrs. Alt said, “You know, I wish you two could have got married.”
“So do I,” he said.
“Is there any chance Virginia would change her mind? Maybe when Gregg is older and she feels less concerned about him.”
“It’s possible,” he said. But he did not really think so. “As long as she keeps looking out for my best interest,” he said, “I doubt if she’ll give me an uncontested divorce.”
“Virginia is so moral,” Mrs. Alt said. “What a blight it is. In her anyhow. For your sake, and Liz’s sake. I suppose if you believe you’re right you can do almost anything.”
Roger said, “Even if I got a divorce and was able to marry Liz, I’d have to give up Gregg. And I’d have to raise Chic Bonner’s two boys.” He had never liked either of the boys. They reminded him too much of Chic, both of them so large, heavy, bullying, red-haired and freckle-faced. Both had that noisy, driving-quality. He could not see a real family coming out of them, out of himself and Liz and the two Bonner boys. Of course, he and Liz would have children of their own.
I keep telling myself that, he thought. But the fact is that Gregg is my son. And, when it comes down to it, Virginia is my wife. Even I—not just Virginia—recognize that.
Mrs. Alt said, “Liz would be a wonderful woman for you to have as your wife.” She gave him a short, stern, sympathetic smile.
“This isn’t too bad,” he said. But both he and Mrs. Alt knew that it was bad. It was something, but it was lousy as hell. But it was all they could manage, as much as they knew to do. “Has Virginia ever called you or written to you about it?” he asked.
“No,” Mrs. Alt said. “Except for business about Gregg, I never hear
from her.”
He and Mrs. Alt walked into the library. Through the window he made out the fir trees, and the path, and beyond that the parking lot and his car. “She should be back soon,” he said, “shouldn’t she?”
“Unless she gets tied up somewhere along the way. If you stayed overnight and went on the hike, she probably would, too. Why don’t you?”
“Maybe so,” he said. But he wanted to make sure that Liz would be along. That was what he cared about, and he had never made any pretense of anything else. Mrs. Alt had given them a place here at the school where they could stay; it was a room on the floor of the main building where the teachers’ rooms were, and in it he and Liz felt themselves to be safe. Nothing could come and pry them out. Mrs. Alt’s room was between theirs and the stairs to the main floor, and she had trained herself, because of her job, to wake up at any unusual sound.
Roger said, “You certainly have done a lot for Liz and me.”
“I’ve always liked Liz. I’ve always considered her a friend of mine. I feel the same toward you.”
“Thanks,” he said.
At three o’clock, Liz and her two boys entered the building. Sitting in the library by himself, Roger heard their voices; he listened as the boys hurried off, and then he listened to the sound of Liz, in Mrs. Alt’s office, putting down whatever she had bought in town and saying hello to Mrs. Alt.
“…I knew you wouldn’t find it there,” Mrs. Alt said.
“…Well, we had fun. You know what we saw? We went into the park and watched them practicing a play. I don’t know what the play was. Something where there’s a character who’s a butterfly. What would that be?”
“…I have no idea,” Mrs. Alt said. Then the voices diminished.
He continued sitting where he was, with his magazine on his lap. The nervousness crept through him, as it always did; his arms weakened and his skin got that cold, moist sensitivity. I’ll never believe it’s for me, he said to himself. I’ll never really be able to accept it: I’m waiting for the loud steps on the porch and the front door flying open. I keep waiting to be destroyed.