The End of the Road (6 page)

“Are you making fun of me?” Rennie demanded mildly, as though asking purely for information.

“I am indeed!”

“You know, it seems to me that lots of times a person makes fun of another person because the other person’s opinions make him uncomfortable but he doesn’t really know how to refute them. He feels like he
ought
to know how, but he doesn’t, and instead of admitting that to himself and studying the problem and working out a real refutation, he just sneers at the other person’s argument. It’s too easy to sneer at an argument. I feel that way a lot about you, Jake.”

“Yes. Joe said the same thing.”

“Now you
are
making fun of me, aren’t you?”

I was resolved not to let Mrs. Rennie Morgan make me uncomfortable again. That was too easy.

“Listen, I’ll come eat your dinner tonight. I’ll come at six o’clock, after you’ve put your kids to bed, like you said.”

“We neither one want you to come if you don’t feel like it, Jake. You have to be—”

“Now wait a minute.
Why
don’t you want me to come even if I don’t feel like it?”

“What?”

“I said why don’t you want me to come even if I don’t feel like it? You see, the only grounds you’d have for breaking the custom of waiting a proper interval between visits would be if you took the position that social conventions might be necessary for stability in a social group, but that they aren’t absolutes and you can dispense with them in special situations where your end justifies it. In other words, you’re willing to have me to dinner tonight anyhow as long as that’s what we all want—social stability isn’t your end in this special situation. Well, then, suppose your end was to have another conversation and you had reason to believe that once I got there I’d talk to you whether I’d really wanted to come or not—most guests would—then it shouldn’t matter to you whether I wanted to come or not, since your ends would be reached anyway.”

“You’re still making fun of me.”

“Oh, now, that’s too easy an out. It’s beside the point whether I’m making fun of you or not. You’re begging the question.”

No answer.

“Now I’m coming to dinner at six o’clock, whether I want to or not, and if you aren’t ready to answer my argument by then, I’m going to tell Joe.”

“Six-thirty is when the kids go to bed,” Rennie said in a slightly injured voice, and hung up. I went back to my rocker and rocked for another forty-five minutes. From time to time I smiled inscrutably, but I cannot say that this honestly reflected any sincere feeling on my part. It was just a thing I found myself doing, as frequently when walking alone I would find myself repeating over and over again in a judicious, unmetrical voice,
Pepsi-Cola hits the spot; twelve full ounces: that’s a lot -
- accompanying the movement of my lips with a wrinkled brow, distracted twitches of the corner of my mouth, and an occasional quick gesture of my right hand. Passers-by often took me for a man lost in serious problems, and sometimes when I looked behind me after passing one, I’d see him, too, make a furtive movement with his right hand, trying it out.

At four-fifteen Dr. Schott telephoned and confirmed my appointment to the faculty of the Wicomico State Teachers College as a teacher of grammar and composition, at a starting salary of $3200 per year.

“You know,” he said, “we don’t pay what they pay at the big universities! Can’t afford it! But that doesn’t mean we’re not choosy about our teachers! We’re a pretty dedicated bunch, frankly, and we hired you because we believe you share our feelings about the importance of our job!”

I assured him that I did indeed share that feeling, and he assured me that he was sure I did, and we hung up. I was not pleased at being asked to teach composition as well as grammar-I was supposed to be strictly a prescriptive-grammar man—but, pending advice from the Doctor, I thought it best to accept the job anyway.

As a matter of fact I drove out to the Morgans’ place at five-thirty, for no particular reason. My day was no longer weatherless, but I was quiescent. I found Joe and Rennie having a leisurely catch with a football on the lawn in front of their house, although the afternoon was fairly warm. They showed no great surprise at seeing me, greeted me cordially, and invited me to join their game.

“No, thanks,” I said, and went over to where their two sons, ages three and four, were throwing their own little football at each other—adeptly for their age. I sat on the grass and watched everybody.

“I didn’t mean to get upset on the phone today, Jake,” Rennie said cheerfully between passes.

“Ah, don’t pay attention to what I say on telephones,” I said. “I can’t talk right on telephones.”

I’ve never seen a girl who could catch and throw a football properly except Rennie Morgan. As a rule she was a clumsy animal, but in any sort of strenuous physical activity she was completely at ease and even graceful. She caught the ball with her hands only—so as not to injure her breasts, I suppose—but she threw it in the same manner and with the same speed and accuracy as a practiced man.

“What have you changed your mind about that you said, then?” Joe asked, keeping his eyes on the ball.

“I don’t even remember what I said.”

“You don’t? Gosh, Rennie remembers the whole conversation. Do you really not remember, or are you trying not to make her uncomfortable?”

“No, I really don’t remember at all,” I said, with some truth. “I’ve learned by now that you all don’t believe in avoiding discomfort. The fact is I can never remember arguments, my own or anybody else’s. I can remember conclusions, but not arguments.”

This observation, which I thought arresting enough, seemed to disgust Joe. He lost interest in the conversation and stopped to correct the older boy’s way of gripping the football. The kid attended his father’s quiet advice as though it were coming from Knute Rockne himself; Joe watched him throw the ball correctly three times and turned away.

“Here, Jake,” he said, tossing me the other ball. “Why don’t you pitch a few with Rennie while I put supper on, and then we’ll have a drink. No use to wait till six-thirty, since you’re here.”

I was, as I said before, quiescent. I would not voluntarily have joined the game, but neither would I go out of my way to avoid playing. Joe went on into the house, the two boys following close behind, and for the next twenty minutes Rennie and I threw the football to each other. Luckily—for as a rule I dreaded being made to look ridiculous—I was no novice at football myself; though not so adept a passer as Joe, I was able to throw at least as accurately and unwobblingly as Rennie. She seemed to have nothing special to say to me, nor did I to her, and so the only sound heard on the lawn was the rush of passing—arms, the quiet spurts of running feet on the grass, the soft smack of catches, and our heavy breathing. It was all neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Presently Joe called to us from the porch, and we went in to dinner. The Morgans rented half of the first floor of the house. Their apartment was very clean; what furniture they owned was the most severely plain modern, tough and functional, but there was very little of it. In fact, because the rooms were relatively large they seemed quite bare. There were no rugs on the hardwood floors, no curtains or drapes on the polished windows, and not a piece of furniture above the necessary minimum; a day bed, two sling chairs, two lamps, a bookcase, and a writing table in the living room; a small dining table and four metal folding chairs in the kitchen; and a double bunk, two bureaus, and a work table with benches in the single bedroom, where the boys slept. Because the walls and ceiling were white, the light pouring through the open Venetian blinds made the living room blindingly bright. I squinted; there was too much light in that room for me.

While we drank a glass of beer, the children went into the bedroom, undressed themselves, and actually bathed themselves without help in the water that Joe had already drawn for them. I expressed surprise at such independence at ages three and four: Rennie shrugged indifferently.

“We make pretty heavy demands on them for physical efficiency,” Joe admitted. “What the hell, in New Guinea the kids are swimming before they walk, and paddling bamboo logs out in the ocean at Joey’s age. We figured the less they’re in our hair the better we’ll get along with each other.”

“Don’t think we drive them,” Rennie said. “We don’t really give a damn. But I guess we demand a lot tacitly.”

Joe listened to this remark with casual interest.

“Why do you say you don’t give a damn?” he asked her.

Rennie was a little startled at the question, which she had not expected.

“Well—I mean
ultimately.
Ultimately it wouldn’t matter one way or the other, would it? But
immediately
it matters because if they weren’t independent we’d have to go through the same rigmarole most people go through, and the kids would be depending on all kinds of crutches.”

“Nothing matters one way or the other ultimately,” Joe pointed out. “The other importance is all there is to anything.”

“That’s what I meant, Joe.”

“What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t consider a value less real just because, it isn’t absolute, since less-than-absolutes are all we’ve got. That’s what’s implied when you say you don’t
really
give a damn.”

Well, it was Rennie’s ball—I watched them over my beer much as I’d watched them out on the lawn—but the game was interrupted by the timer bell on the kitchen stove. Rennie went out to serve up the dinner while Joe dried the two boys and assisted them into their pajamas: their physical efficiency apparently didn’t extend to fastening their own snaps in the back.

“Why don’t you have them snap each other up in the back?” I suggested politely, observing this. Rennie flashed me an uncertain look from the kitchen, where she was awkwardly dishing out rice with a spoon too small for the job, but Joe laughed easily and immediately unsnapped both boys’ pajama shirts so that they could try it. It worked.

Since there were only four chairs in the kitchen, Rennie and the two boys and I ate at the table while Joe ate standing up at the stove. There would have been no room at the table for one of the sling chairs, and anyhow it did not take long to eat the meal, which consisted of steamed shrimp, boiled rice, and beer for all hands. The boys—husky, well-mannered youngsters—were allowed to dominate the conversation during dinner; they were as lively and loud as any other bright kids their age, but a great deal more physically coordinated and self-controlled than most. As soon as we finished eating they went to bed, and though it was still quite light outside, I heard no more from them.

The Morgans had an arrangement with their first-floor neighbor whereby they could leave open a door connecting the two apartments and listen for each other’s children if one couple wished to go out for the evening. Taking advantage of this, we went walking through a clover field and a small stand of pines behind the house after the supper dishes were washed. The Morgans tended to walk vigorously, and this did not fit well with my quiescent mood, but neither did refusing to accompany them. Rennie, apparently an amateur naturalist, remarked on various weeds, bugs, and birds as we bounded along, and Joe confirmed her identifications. I can’t say I enjoyed the walk, although the Morgans enjoyed it almost fiercely. When it was over, Rennie went inside the house to write a letter, and Joe and I sat outside on the lawn in the two sling chairs. Our conversation, by his direction, dealt with values, since they’d come up earlier, and I went along for the ride:

“Most of what you told Rennie on the phone this afternoon was pretty sensible,” Joe granted. “I’m glad you talked to her, and I’m glad you told her it was beside the point whether you were making fun of her or not. That’s exactly what she needs to learn. She’s too sensitive about that.”

“So are you,” I said. “Remember the Boy Scouts.”

“No, I’m not, really,” Joe denied, in a way that left you no special desire to insist that he was. “The only reason I caught it up about the Scouts was that I’d decided I wanted to know you a little bit, and it seemed to me that too much of that might stand in the way of any sensible talking. It doesn’t matter at all outside of that.”

“Okay.” I offered him a cigarette, but he didn’t smoke.

“What really pleases me is that in spite of your making fun of Rennie you seem willing to take her seriously. Almost no man is willing to take any woman’s thinking seriously, and that’s what Rennie needs more than anything else.”

“It’s none of my business, Joe,” I said quiescently, “but if I were Rennie I’d object like hell having anybody so concerned over my
needs.
You talk about her as if she were a patient of yours.”

He laughed and jabbed his spectacles back on his nose. “I guess I do; I don’t mean to. When Rennie and I were married we understood that neither of us wanted to make a permanent thing of it if we couldn’t respect each other in every way. Certainly I’m not sold on marriage-under-any-circumstances, and I’m sure Rennie’s not either. There’s nothing intrinsically valuable about marriage.”

“Seems to me you put a pretty high value on
your
marriage,” I suggested.

Joe squinted at me in disappointment, and I felt that had I been his wife he would have corrected me more severely than he did.

“Now you’re making the same error Rennie made a while ago, before supper: the fallacy that because a value isn’t intrinsic, objective, and absolute, it somehow isn’t
real.
What I said was that the marriage relationship isn’t any more of an absolute than anything else. That doesn’t mean that I don’t value it; in fact I guess I value my relationship with Rennie more than anything else in the world. All it means is that once you admit it’s no absolute, you have to decide for yourself the conditions under which marriage is important to you. Okay?”

“Suits me,” I said indifferently.

“Well, do you agree or not?”

“Sure, I agree.” And, so cornered, I suppose I
did
agree, but there was something in me that would have recoiled from so systematic an analysis of things even if I’d had it straight from God that such happened to be the case.