The End of the Road (24 page)

“I don’t believe you,” Rennie said.

“It’s the truth, I swear it.”

“What’s her name, then? Don’t make up one.”

“Peggy Rankin. She teaches English at the high school.”

Rennie went to the telephone at once and looked for the name in the directory.

“8401,” she said. “I’ll call her and ask her.”

“Don’t be silly! She’s not married. Would she admit something like that to a stranger?”

“You call her, then. Right now. You must not be a stranger if you know that about her.”

“You’re making it impossible. Women don’t work that way—other women, anyhow. I’ll see her tomorrow and let you know tomorrow night.”

“I think you’re stalling, Jake,”

“Well, think it, damn it! Are you so trigger-happy you can’t wait twenty-four hours?” I felt as though I’d explode any instant from sheer desperation, but still Joe watched us impassively. There were books and notebooks open beside the telephone on the writing table: he’d been working on his dissertation! Rennie thought a moment.

“I’ll wait till tomorrow night,” she said, and went back to waxing the floor.

Rennie had stated the matter exactly when she accused me of stalling in hopes that she’d change her mind, but I could no longer entertain such hopes. Certainly I hadn’t the slightest idea whether Peggy Rankin had ever had an abortion, and I had no reason to expect that she’d help me even if she could, for I’d not seen her since the time early in September. She had telephoned me—first hopefully, then angrily, and at last pleadingly—a number of times in the past few weeks, but I’d received her calls without warmth or encouragement. The next morning, Sunday, I telephoned her.

“This is Jake Horner, Peggy. I have to see you about something important.”

“Well, I don’t want to see you,” she said.

“This is something awfully serious, Peggy, believe me.”

“Yes. It has been about a month, hasn’t it?”

“Listen, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. I’m trying to help somebody who needs help very badly.”

“You’re a real humanitarian, all right.”

“Peggy, for God’s sake! I won’t pretend I’ve been very thoughtful of you, but this is a pretty desperate thing. I realize there’s no reason why you should do me any favors.”

“That’s right.”

“Look, you’ve got me over a barrel. You might not be able to help these friends of mine even if you wanted to, but they’re in such a spot that I’d do absolutely anything to help them out. Name your own conditions.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“All I want you to do is let me talk to you for a few minutes. As I said, you might not be able to help at all, but there’s just a chance that you might.”

“Who are the friends?”

“I can’t talk over the phone. Can I see you today?”

“Jake, if this is another line I’ll kill you.”

“It’s no line!” I said vehemently. “This doesn’t have anything to do with me. When can I see you? The sooner the better.”

“Well. All right, then. Come on over now. But, God, Jake, be straight this time.”

“This is straight.”

I drove over to her place immediately, and she received me with great suspicion, as though she expected to be assaulted at any moment.

“I don’t even like to have you in here,” she said nervously. “What is it?”

“The wife of one of the guys at school is pregnant, Peggy, and she’s going to kill herself if she can’t get an abortion.”

Peggy’s face went hard. “What a monster you are! And you come to me for help!”

“You don’t understand yet. They’re both good friends of mine, and they don’t know where to get the abortion.”

“Am I supposed to know? Why doesn’t she have the kid, if she’s married?” This last with some bitterness.

“She’s got two already, and frankly there’s some question about who’s the father of this one. That’s why she’s desperate. Her husband knows all about it. She just made one slip.”

“Jake, are you the one?”

This I took to be a crucial question: her willingness to help might hinge on my answer, and I had no idea which answer she wanted to hear.

“That’s right, Peggy.” I looked her straight in the eye, putting all my money on honesty. “It was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life, and now she’s going to shoot herself. I’ve messed them up completely. All I can do now is try to clean up as much of the mess as I can.”

“When did you start cleaning up your messes?”

“Two days ago. If I can’t find a way to help them by tonight, it’ll be too late. That’s all the time I’ve got.”

“She won’t kill herself,” Peggy said contemptuously. “If women killed themselves out of remorse I’d have been dead at least since July.”

“She will, Peggy. She’d be dead now if I hadn’t stopped her, and she’ll be dead tomorrow if I can’t help her.”

“What do you care?”

I still looked her straight in the eye. “I said I’m trying to clean up my messes.”

“You mean
this
mess.”

“I mean all my messes.”

“Some of them it’s too late to clean up.”

“Maybe. But I’m going to do my best.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know, Peggy. I’m new at this. Right now I’m doing whatever people want me to do. I said you could name your conditions.”

Peggy stared at me awhile.

“Who’s this girl?”

“Rennie Morgan. Her husband teaches history at the college.”

But obviously Peggy was more concerned about herself.

“Do you think I’ve had abortions before? I guess you’d assume that, though, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m not assuming anything. I hoped you’d know somebody who has had one, or that maybe you’d have heard of an abortionist.”

“Suppose I did know of one?”

“I said already there’s no reason why you should help me, and I take it you don’t feel one way or the other about Rennie Morgan—or maybe you dislike her, I don’t know. All I can say is that this is my last chance to keep her from committing suicide, and I’ll do anything to get your help.”

“You must love her a lot.”

“If I do I don’t know it. Do you know of an abortionist, Peggy?”

After a while she said, “Yes, I do. I had to find one myself, two years ago.”

“Who was it?”

“I haven’t decided yet that I’m going to help you, Jake.”

“Look,” I said, in the straightest tone I could manage, “you don’t have to assert your position; I’m aware of your position. You don’t have to hold out for anything; I’ve already told you to write your own ticket.”

“I could help you,” Peggy said; “this man’s still around, and he’d do the job. His price is two hundred dollars.”

I thought it would be effective if I stood close in front of her, laid my hands on her shoulders, and leaned down to look into her eyes. And so I did.

“What’s yours?” I asked, with appropriate calm.

“Oh, Jake, I could name a high price! You’ve been desperate for a day or two, but I’ve been desperate for fifteen years!”

“Name it.”

“Why? Once she’d had the operation, you’d leave me.”

“You want me to marry you, Peggy?”

“That would be my price,” she said.

“I’ll do it.”

“You probably would. Then which would you do afterwards? Just leave me flat, or torture me for the rest of my life?”

“Neither one of those sounds like a good way to clean up messes,” I grinned.

“You couldn’t possibly do anything else but hate me. No man ever loved a woman he was coerced into marrying.”

“Try me.”

Peggy was extremely nervous, excited by the position she had me in, a little afraid of her temerity.

“How can I believe you, Jake? You haven’t done one single thing to make me believe you can be trusted.”

“I know it.”

“And yet you say you’re being sincere this time?”

“That’s right.”

“You don’t love me.”

“I don’t love anybody. But I’ve been a bachelor a good while, and even without this abortion thing I owe you enough to last a right long time.”

Peggy shook off my hands and whipped her head in a manner quite like Rennie’s.

“What is it about you? Even when you’re being kind you put me in a false position—a humiliating position.”

“Well, you be quiet, then. Let me propose to you. I’ve decided that I want to marry you. If I ever said an honest thing in my life, that’s it.”

“You never did say an honest thing to me, did you?”

“I just said one. I’d marry you today if we could get the license on Sunday. We’ll get it tomorrow and get married on Wednesday.”

“You said she had to know tonight.”

“That’s right. All you have to do is tell her you know a guy. You can call her right now. I think that’ll do it. Tell her that for personal reasons or something you can’t give his name until Wednesday. If she agrees to wait, I’m satisfied.”

“But if she doesn’t, that’s that?”

Another crucial question, but the proper answer was obvious.

“If she doesn’t, there’s nothing else I can do for her, but I don’t see where that would change my obligation to you. You’d have done all I asked, and I’d do everything I promised.”

Now Peggy began to cry, squirming with indecision.

“I’ll marry you and love you as much as I can ever love anybody, for the rest of my life,” I swore.

She wept for a while without replying, until I began to grow apprehensive. Something else had to be done, immediately. What? I considered embracing her: would that turn the trick, or spoil everything? I was aware that every move was critical now; any word or action—or any silence or inaction—could convince her suddenly of my sincerity or insincerity. Peggy Rankin! I was cursed with an imagination too fertile to be of any use in predicting my fellow human beings: no matter how intimate my knowledge of them, I was always able to imagine and justify contradictory reactions from them to almost anything. A kiss now: would she regard it as evidence that I was overplaying my hand, or as evidence that I was too sincere to care whether she thought me insincere? If I made no move, would she think my inaction proof that I couldn’t carry the fraud further, that I was so sure she was hooked that no further move was necessary, or that in my profound sincerity I was afraid to move for fear she’d think my proposal a mere stratagem after all?

I took her head in my hands and turned her face up to me. She hesitated for a moment and then accepted a long, hard kiss.

“Thank God you believed me, Peggy,” I said quietly.

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe a single lying word you’ve said since you walked in here. I should have hung up on you when you called. Please get out.”

“Good Christ, Peggy! You’ve got to believe me!”

“If you don’t get out I’m going to scream. I mean it.”

“Don’t you believe Rennie Morgan’s going to shoot herself?” I shouted.

She let out a yell, and I had to clap my hand over her mouth to stop her. She kicked and pummeled me, and tried to bite my hand. I forced her back into her chair, sat on her lap to keep her legs still, and clamped my other hand around her throat. She was fairly strong, and it was all I could do to hold her—with Rennie it would not have been possible at all.

“I’m more desperate than you think, damn it! I meant it when I said I’d marry you, and I mean it when I say I’m going to throttle you right this minute if you don’t help me.”

Her eyes got round, I took my hand off her mouth, and as soon as she tried to holler again I squeezed her windpipe hard—really hard, digging my thumb and forefinger into the sides of her neck.

“Stop it!” she squeaked. I let up, afraid I’d really damaged her. The breath rushed into her lungs with a great croak.

“Who’s the abortionist?” I demanded.

“There isn’t any,” she said, clutching her throat. “I don’t know any! I was just trying to—”

I slammed her as hard as I could and ran out of the place.

There was nothing else to do: whether I had been sincere or not, whether she had been lying or not, made no difference now. I went home and sat in the rocking chair, sick. It was already eleven-thirty in the morning. I was out of straws to clutch at, and out of energy, beaten clear down the line. I tried to force my imagination to dream up another long shot, but all I could think of was Rennie, eight or ten hours from that moment, going to the living-room closet without a word. Joe, perhaps, would be bent over a notebook on the writing table. He might hear Rennie put down—her newspaper?—and go to the closet. I could imagine him then either continuing to stare at the notebook, but no longer seeing the words he’d written, or maybe turning his head to watch her open the closet door. The boys would be asleep in their room. I didn’t believe Rennie would come back into the living room to do it. There in the closet, where the half-open door would stand between her and Joe, she’d reach the Colt down from the shelf, move the safety catch off, put the muzzle to her temple, and pull the trigger at once, before the feel of the barrel against her head made her vomit. I believed she might sit down on the closet floor to do it.

That was as far as I could imagine with any clarity, for I’d never seen a bloody corpse. For perhaps two hours—that is, until about one-thirty—this sequence of actions repeated itself over and over in my imagination, up to the moment of the explosion. Drastic courses of action: I could go out there and—try to rush for the gun? But what would I do with it? They’d simply look at me, and Rennie would use something else later. Grab Rennie and hold her, if possible. Forever? Call the police and tell them—that a woman was about to commit suicide. What could they do? She’d be sitting home reading the paper, Joe working at the writing table. Tell her I’ve arranged an abortion—with whom? For when? Tell her—what?

My rocking slowed to a nearly imperceptible movement. Except for the idea of the gun against Rennie’s temple, the idea of the lead slug waiting deep in the chamber—which was not an image but a tenseness, a kind of drone in my head—my imagination no longer pictured anything. My bladder was full; I needed to go to the bathroom, but I didn’t go. After a while the urgency passed. I decided to try to say
Pepsi-Cola hits the spot,
but after the first couplet I forgot to say the rest. The urge to urinate returned, more sharply than before. I couldn’t decide to get up.