Helen in trouble, p.9
Helen in Trouble, page 9
“Well, let’s see.” Papers rustled. “How about ten fifteen?” Almost there. Sound calm. “That would be fine. Thank you.”
“Of course, dear. Glad to help. Your name?” “Sandy Swiggart.”
“Okay, Mrs. Swiggart, ten fifteen it is. We’ll need your first urine of the day. Let a few drops go in the toilet and catch the rest in a clean glass jar. Results on Tuesday.”
Helen had assumed that a pregnancy test, like the well-known marriage test, involved blood. Urine? Was she kidding? Why the first urine of the day? Why do you need a blood test to get married? How much blood and from where? Do they take the first blood of the day? The ways of adulthood were strange and disgusting.
12 A Compromising Position
The next day, Dave Bird drove home from work preoccupied with an encounter with his boss, Senator Ball of West Virginia. This government job had many aggravations. Today it was a set-to over a press release. A Kentucky lawyer named Harry Caudill had just published a book condemning the Appalachian strip mining industry for impoverishing communities and ruining the land, and Dave had drafted a response to be issued from the Senator’s office. Even though Dave had admired the book and agreed with its views, he had taken pains to write what he thought was the sort of bland statement the Senator would want, acknowledging that strip mining presented some “environmental challenges,” listing the coal industry’s efforts to meet those challenges, and extolling the “vital importance” of the “natural resource of coal” to West Virginia and its people. But when Senator Ball read the draft, he was livid. Barreling into Dave’s office, his ordinarily red face an alarming scarlet, he slammed the sheet of paper on the desk with the flat of his hand, shouting, “What the hell is this?” Dave just looked at the man. What could be the problem?
“Son,” the Senator yelled, “the next tahm y’all eat breakfast take a good look at the bread and see if y’all cain’t fahnd the buttah. Because if y’all cain’t even fahnd the buttah, y’all won’t be eatin’ much, period.” He paused to collect himself. Then he lowered his voice. “And in case y’all don’t get my drift, son, any critic of the coal industry is mah sworn enemy. Your lily-livered writeup is bull crap, pure and simple, offerin’ comfort to the enemy. That’s treason, son! Got it?”
Dave got it. He had tossed the offending release and written another, quoting in his lead the Chairman of the Board of Black Gold, Inc., who called Caudill’s position on strip mining “outrageous” and “uninformed at best” and adding a short statement by Senator Ball about his life-long commitment to the coal industry and to the great people of West Virginia. Dave looked forward to washing away the foul taste of his day with a strong, icy martini.
When he pulled into the driveway, Quentin’s old Chevy convertible blocked his way to the garage. For some reason the top was up and the windows shut tight despite the early summer heat. He could see Quentin’s and Helen’s heads in the front seat, apparently deep in conversation. Thank god they weren’t in a clinch. Dave shrank from the memory of finding them passed out last summer in this car, in this driveway, at two a.m., with Quentin’s hand in Helen’s underwear.
Although Dave had long ago shed religion, his habits of mind remained Presbyterian. In his universe there was right and there was wrong, there was truth and there were lies, there was honor and there was dishonor. He was ashamed of the dishonorable, murderous rage he often felt toward his idiot boss and even toward his so-called liberal friends when they parroted that war-mongering, anti-Communist crap. He was also ashamed of his random lust, which regularly attached itself like a lamprey to friends’ wives, office typists, and strangers in bars. While he wouldn’t dream of acting on these fantasies, they confused and disgusted him.
Catching Helen in a compromising position was a shock, and Dave had had no idea how to deal with it. After some discussion with Rosemary, who did most of the discussing, they had grounded Helen for a month for being drunk and late, in that order. They had not known how to address the matter of the hand and so had said nothing. “They’re kids,” Dave had said to the outraged Rosemary. “Kids make mistakes. Helen’s too smart to make that mistake again.” He knew he was in over his head, yet he wanted to seem like a sophisticated dad. For her part, Rosemary had wanted to believe what he said and had buried her doubts about how smart Helen was in the sex department. Dave had been right about one thing: Helen had accepted her punishment with uncharacteristic submission. She seemed truly sorry and embarrassed.
Now, to signal his arrival, Dave slammed his car door before approaching Quentin’s window and tapping on it. Quentin fumbled with the window crank, which seemed to need force to operate, and managed to roll it down half way. Sweat was dripping down his forehead. “Hi, Mr. Bird,” he said. “How are you?”
Helen quickly added, “Hi, Dad, we’re just talking.” Dave saw no reason to intrude. He wanted to see
Rosemary and he wanted his martini. “Hi, kids,” he said. “Coming to dinner, Quentin?”
Before Quentin could say a word, Helen burst in. “No! I mean, he has to study, Dad. He’s got finals next week and Sunday is shot because of a family thing.”
Dave nodded. “Okay, then how about moving your car so I can get in the garage. And break a leg on those finals.” Quentin started to cough. He managed to raise a hand to acknowledge the good wishes, and Dave returned to his car. Jesus Christ–his job was torture. He was impatient to get inside.
13 Pen-Ass
Coughing his head off, Quentin was so agitated he thought he might actually ralph. He and Helen had had what he thought was a nice reunion at St. Joan’s, with a long kiss in the parking lot, and what he thought was a companionable ride home with the top down. Helen had sat close to him, hip to hip, with her left arm around his shoulders as he drove. He had tried to start a literary conversation, stating his opinion that Last Exit to Brooklyn had great dialogue with no “he saids” or “she saids.” She had just sat there. No reaction. He should have known something was up. For the rest of the trip they had listened to the radio, the early summer heat rushing around them in the open car.
When they arrived at her house, Helen had insisted on putting the top up and rolling up all the windows. Rather than turning to him for more kissing, she had scooted way over to the passenger door. Anxiety bloomed in the middle of Quentin’s chest. Was she going to break up with him or something? After an agonizingly long pause, she had looked down at her hands and said, “I think I’m pregnant.”
Before he even had time to process her words, her weird, tiny voice had scared the hell out of him, and then Dave’s car door slammed behind them. Quentin had managed to get through the ensuing parent charade, but it was brutal. Somewhere in there Helen had said some crap about him having finals, even though he didn’t have finals for another week, and he absolutely hated lying. None was necessary in his family: his mother never asked what he was up to, and Maggie seemed to know everything without asking.
Moving the car brought his coughing fit under control. Helen’s dad disappeared into the garage, and Quentin let Helen’s words sink in. He shut his eyes tightly, praying that this was a nightmare from which he would soon wake in his grubby dorm room. In trade he offered a week of sobriety— no hard liquor anyway. He confessed that he was a jerk and a pseudo when he wrote that “We fucked a flame into being” stuff. He confessed his true opinion that Lawrence’s writing was a creepy mix of cussing and porn and goopy romance. He reminded God, to whom he had not spoken for years, not since his dad died, that he had never sent the stupid letter. If Helen turned out not to be pregnant, he would give serious thought to joining the priesthood and . . .
Quentin! Did you hear me? Say something!”
He opened his eyes. This was no dream. Could it be some twisted relationship test from a magazine? Words spilled out of his mouth. “Come off it, baby. This is impossible. We’ve never really gone all the way, okay? Come off it.” Hating himself, he looked down, away from Helen’s stare. The floor of the car was a mess. Mentally he started itemizing: Pabst beer bottle, bottle caps, crushed Marlboro pack, hardcover Ulysses, matchbook, crumpled paper . . .
The sound of Helen crying intruded. Oh, God, she had covered her face with both hands. She was actually sobbing, going “a-hoo-hoo,” punctuated by sharp gasps. Quentin had seen Helen cry before, but he had never seen her sob like this. What to do? A small, craven part of his mind wanted to beat it out of there. He put his hand on her heaving left shoulder. “Helen?” he said. “I’m with you all the way. No matter what.” She took her hands from her face and looked at him angrily. “Y-y-you damn well . . . you know . . . Easters! The l-l-library! Wh-wh-why . . . why are you acting like such an ASSHOLE?”
Quentin pulled his hand back and started to twirl the hair over his ear, but he didn’t turn away. Neither did she turn away from him, and after a while she stopped crying.
”Okay,” he said, “the day after Easters, I was definitely worried. I wasn’t sure what we had done, but since I couldn’t remember it seemed like anything or nothing could have happened. I wanted to believe nothing. I wrote you a really dumb letter and threw it away.”
“You did? You wrote me about the library?”
“Yeah, but I guess I didn’t want to tempt fate or, or, I wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, or, see Helen, all that kept coming to me were these moron clichés and I just shoved the whole thing out of my mind. I decided there was no problem.” He was quiet for a moment. “But you didn’t say anything either! You wrote me all those happy little letters. They were just a bunch of bullshit, weren’t they! I can’t believe you kept me in the dark!”
They looked at each other miserably.
Then she said, “I guess I did the same thing. I was afraid if I told you it would end up being true. I didn’t tell anybody, Quentin.” He slid over to her, and they clung to each other. “Well, okay, I did tell Francie. I’m three weeks late. We have to do something.”
No more than a half hour ago Quentin had been in a great mood, looking forward to a fun weekend home from school. Do something? What was she talking about? Flee to Madagascar? Kill themselves? Oh, of course! She meant they’d have to get married like Maggie’s best friend did last year and, according to Maggie, like Mom’s youngest brother, Uncle Jay, did a long time ago. Uncle Jay and Aunt Mary now had seven children. Ever since Maggie told him about their secret, Quentin had felt funny about the oldest cousin, Sherry, a skinny girl who was a math genius or something and on full scholarship to Duke. Technically, Sherry was conceived in sin. She was born in wedlock, though, so not an actual bastard.
Helen looked tense. She was waiting for him.
“Well, okay,” he said, his jaw quivering. Be a man. He looked Helen in the eye. “Okay, I, um, love you and all and, um, we can get married. No, sorry, I mean, will you marry me? Our kid won’t be an actual bastard.”
Helen’s mouth flew open, aghast. “Tinnie, I don’t want to get married! I want to get rid of this thing, but I don’t now how.” She started to cry again.
Quentin reached for her, and again they clung. He was remembering the sound she produced a few minutes ago, that cartoon-sounding “a-hoo-hoo -hoo,” and wondering if he could do that, too. Maybe when he was by himself in the car. Right now he felt kind of dead or numb or something. Oh god, there was Helen’s mom at the top of the driveway. Casually he disengaged from their embrace, as if they had merely been saying goodbye.
The instant Helen saw Rosemary, she stopped crying, waved, and mouthed, “Coming.”
“Baby, I have no idea what to do,” said Quentin. “Do you mean what I think you mean?”
She grabbed his hands. “Look, first I have to find out for sure. I have an appointment to get a test tomorrow. Pick me up at quarter to ten, okay? Gotta go.” She grabbed her books and got out of the car without even a kiss goodbye.
Quentin watched her move farther and farther away and disappear into the house. By rote he started the car, backed it out of the driveway, and drove the familiar route home. He tried to sob, but he couldn’t do it. Hearing that sound escape from his own throat creeped him out. When he got home, his sister and brother were out on the front porch, with Etta James on the portable record player. Between their chairs was a crab pot filled with ice and bottles of Rolling Rock. Bless them.
When he sat down with his first beer, Maggie and Mac were in great spirits. “Quentin, me lad,” boomed his older brother, “what do ye have to say fer yerself?”
Maggie lit a Marlboro and handed it to him. “Yeah, little brother,” she said, “how’s it hangin’?” She and Mac laughed merrily.
Quentin gave them a sickly grin and took a long pull of beer. He bobbed his head to “Tell Mama,” as if life was so mellow that words were unnecessary. He saw that Maggie was watching him worry that lock of hair over his ear and dropped his hand.
“So, Q , seriously, what’s up?” she asked, sliding her empty into its six-pack holder and flipping off the top of another cold one. Then she got to her feet, stepped into the middle of the porch, and began performing a surprisingly professional girl-group routine to the music, one hand on her hip, the other rhythmically gesturing at Quentin with her bottle, twirling in place, and singing over Etta, “You know you can tell Maggie all about it, tell Maggie all about it.” Mac stomped his feet to the beat, egging her on.
Quentin felt embarrassed. It was always like this with his older siblings. “Cut me some slack, sis,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Nothing’s up.” He tilted his head back and drained his beer.
Maggie stopped dancing and sat down. “Suit yourself,” she said. “But I can read you like a book.“Yeah,” Quentin countered, “like Ulysses. I’d like to see you read that. You can read me like Ulysses.” Good one, he thought. Pretty witty. He opened another bottle.
Now Mac was the one to leap to his feet. He ran in the house and was back in a moment, flopping down in a chair in front of a lamp. He opened a small book, more like a pamphlet. He said to Quentin, “Joyce is good, man, but wait till you dig this!” In a loud, theatrical voice, he began to declaim: “‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked . . .’” Maggie leaned forward and grabbed the book. “Hey!” he said, “I was just finding my groove!”
“Not now, Mac,” she said, giving him a look. “Let’s talk to Quentin a little more, okay?”
“Well, Jeez, I was just picking up on his Ulysses angle with a little Ginsberg, Mags. That’s called conversation.” “And I’m all for it,” she said. “But maybe there’s something Q wants to tell us, and I didn’t want to cut him off is all.” Mac nodded. In unison, he and Maggie turned to Quentin. Like it or not, he had the floor.
During the brief poetry interlude, Quentin had managed to finish his second beer and open a third. He was feeling a little better, a little less wracked with anxiety and confusion. As his brother and sister patiently waited for him to say something, he took a thoughtful sip and twirled the lock of hair. Should he tell them? Helen had said she hadn’t told anyone but him and Francie. She never said he couldn’t tell anyone. Mac and Maggie were his blood! Caffreys don’t lie to each other!
Still, he didn’t speak. Getting pregnant was shameful and he was pretty sure Helen wouldn’t want Maggie or Mac to see her in this diminished light. The music had changed—now Etta’s big voice moaned about losing her lover, about missing his kiss, his tender touch. “I’d Rather Go Blind.” He and Helen loved this song. Tears started rolling down his face.
Maggie got up and sat next to him. She took his free hand—the other had a white-knuckled grip on his bottle— and said, “What is it, Q? Did Helen break up with you? Is that what it is? You can tell us.” She tried to look into his eyes.
Quentin took another long glug, as Etta belted out her desperate pain, the pain of rejection, of being left all alone. He heard himself sob, “A-hoo-hoo-hoo.” That was it.
“Helen’s pregnant,” he choked out. “Or she’s pretty sure she is.” Mac moved to the chair on Quentin’s other side.
Quentin let go of Maggie’s hand, put his bottle on the floor, and lit a cigarette. More than anything he did not want to lose face with his brother and sister by bawling like a little boy. This was a manly problem and he wanted to behave like a man. He sat back in his chair and looked at Maggie to his right, then at Mac to his left. He took another drag on his Marlboro and said, “So that’s the story. Any suggestions?” He hoped he was cutting a more mature figure.
Maggie leaned across Quentin and gave Mac a quizzical look. His eyebrows flew up and, ever so slightly, he shook his head. She glowered at him. He tightened his lips and repeated the tiny headshake. “Okay, so be it,” said Maggie, “I’ll tell him myself.”
“Tell me what?” Quentin turned to his older brother. “All right, I knocked up a girl once. She went away and had the kid and gave it up for adoption.” Mac took another beer from the crab pot.
“See, Quentin,” Maggie said, “you’re not the first guy in this family to get in a pickle. You’re not alone. We can help.” Quentin looked at her. “How the hell can you help? I told
Helen I’d marry her, and she doesn’t want to.”
“Hold it right there, Q. Of course she doesn’t! Helen’s only sixteen! She’s smart. She’ll get into a great college. Forget that, if she gets married and has a baby to take care of. And you’ve barely started college. How about your future? Where would you live? How would you support a family? You’re not listening, bozo.” Maggie tapped his head with her finger, and he swatted her hand away. “Mac’s girlfriend . . .”
“Oh, come on, Mags, she wasn’t my girlfriend and you know it,” said Mac.
“Fine, Mac’s plowed-one-night-stand-whose-name-he-couldn’t-remember went to a nice Catholic unwed mothers’ home in Pennsylvania. She took a year off from college, the nuns took care of her, an agency found a nice couple to adopt the baby, and she came back to school with nobody the wiser. Mom and Dad helped her parents foot the bill. And since Mac insists on facts, to my knowledge he never paid them back. You know, Mac, Mom could still use that $1,000. Feel free.” Mac gave her a dirty look. She waggled her fingers at him in a friendly little wave.
