We Were the Mulvaneys. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ “Is Homo sapiens the only species that laughs? What’s the evolutionary advantage in laughing, does anyone know?”

      Mom said thoughtfully, “Laughing is a way of getting out of yourself, laughing at yourself—mankind’s foibles, pretensions.” Dad said, “Hell, it’s a way of letting off steam. Nervous tension.” Judd said, “It’s just something that happens, you can’t force it.” Patrick said, “But why? Why does it happen? What’s the point?” Mom said, sighing, laying a hand on Patrick’s arm, “Oh, well, Pinch—if you have to ask, you’ll never know.” And everyone laughed at Patrick who was blushing, embarrassed.

      Everyone except Marianne who was at the counter cutting more slices of bread. She smiled, and returned to her seat. What had they been talking about?

      It’s as if I am already gone. Just my body in its place.

      She’d seen Patrick glancing at her, sidelong. Not a word from him.

      There was the Mulvaney cork bulletin board on the wall. Festooned with color snapshots, clippings, blue and red ribbons, Dad’s Chamber of Commerce “medal,” dried wildflowers, gorgeous seed-catalogue pictures of tomatoes, snapdragons, columbine. Beneath what was visible were more items and beneath those probably more. Like archeological strata. A recent history of the Mulvaneys. The bulletin board had been there forever, Mom’s contribution to the household. At its center was a large calendar with the handprinted * * * WORK SCHEDULE * * * above. High Point Farm had to be run like a boot camp, the elder Mulvaneys believed, or chaos would sweep in and bear them all away like a flood. So painstakingly, with the judiciousness of Solomon, Corinne drew up each month a schedule of chores—house chores, mealtime chores, trash-related chores, all variety of outdoor/seasonal chores, horse chores, cow chores, barn chores, pet chores, and what was unclassifiable—“misc.” chores. (These, the Mulvaney children agreed, could be the most treacherous. Helping Mom clean out the cellar, for instance. Helping Mom sand, scrape, caulk, paint in the antique barn. Helping Mom put flea collars on all the dogs and cats in a single afternoon.) Like any month, February 1976 presented itself to the neutral eye as a phenomenon of white squares arranged symmetrically along proportionate grids as if time were a matter of division, finite and exacting; each square mastered by Corinne Mulvaney’s meticulous hand-printing. Corinne was famous for her terrible fair-mindedness, as Dad said she spared no one the worst, not even herself and him.

      True, the Mulvaneys sometimes made deals with one another, switched chores without Mom’s approval. So long as the chores got done there was no problem but when the * * * WORK SCHEDULE * * * failed in any particular, as Dad said there was hell to pay.

      Still it was nice wasn’t it, comforting. Knowing that at any time you could check the bulletin board, see exactly what was expected of you not only that day but through the end of the month.

      Most prominent on the bulletin board as always were the newer Polaroids. Button in her pretty prom dress. Before the luckless Austin Weidman the “date” arrived in his dad’s car to take her away. Strawberries ’n’ cream! Dad teased, snapping the shots. But of course he was proud, how could he not be proud. And Mom was proud. Pride goeth before a fall Mom would murmur biting her lower lip but, oh!—it was hard to resist. Marianne had sewed such a lovely dress for her 4-H project, not due until June for the county fair competition. And Marianne was so lovely of course. Slender, high-breasted, with those shining eyes, gleaming dark-brown hair of the hue of the finest richest mahogany. In one of the shots Marianne and Corinne were smiling at Dad the photographer, arms around each other’s waist, and Corinne in her baggy SAVE THE WHALES sweatshirt and jeans looked wonderfully youthful, mischievous. The white light of the flash illuminated every freckle on her face and caused her eyes to flare up neon-blue. She’d been photographed in the midst of laughing but there was no mistaking those eyes, that pride. This is my gift to the world, my beautiful daughter thank you God.

      The meal was ending, they were eating dessert. Talk had looped back to Dad and his triumphant or almost-triumphant squash games that afternoon. Marianne listened and laughed with the others. Though her mind was drifting away and had to be restrained like a flighty unwieldy kite in a fierce wind. No telephone calls for Button that day. Not one. Corinne would surely have noticed.

      Dad was being good, amazingly good for Dad—eating a small portion of cherry cobbler and stoically refusing another helping. He complimented Mom and Marianne on the terrific supper and went on to speak of his friend Ben Breuer whose name was frequently mentioned at mealtimes at High Point Farm. Mr. Breuer was a local attorney, a business associate and close friend of the Democratic state senator from the Chautauqua district, Harold Stoud, whom Michael Mulvaney Sr. much admired and to whose campaigns he’d contributed. “Ben and I are evenly matched as twins, almost,” Dad was saying, smiling, “—but I can beat Ben if I push hard. Winning is primarily an act of will. I mean when you’re so evenly matched. But I don’t always push it, you know?—so Ben thinks, if he happens to win a game or two, he’s won on his own. Keeping a good equilibrium is more important.”

      Patrick pushed his wire-rim schoolboy glasses against the bridge of his nose and peered at Dad inquisitively. “More important than what, Dad?” he asked.

      “More important than winning.”

      “‘A good equilibrium’—in what sense?”

      “In the sense of friendship. Pure and simple.”

      “I don’t understand.” Patrick’s mild provoking manner, his level gaze, indicated otherwise. A tawny look had come up in his eyes.

      Dad said, pleasantly, “Friendship with a person of Ben Breuer’s quality means a hell of a lot more to me than winning a game.”

      “Isn’t that hypocritical, Dad?”

      A look of hurt flickered across Dad’s face. He’d been spooning cherry cobbler out of Mom’s bowl which she’d pushed in his direction, seeing how he’d been casting yearning glances at it, and now he said, fixing Patrick with a fatherly patient smile, “It’s sound business sense, son. That’s what it is.”

      After supper there was the danger of Corinne knocking at her door. Of course the door could not be locked, impossible to lock any door at High Point Farm and violate family code.

      In fact there were no locks on the children’s bedroom doors. For what purpose, a lock?

      God help me. Jesus have pity on me.

      During the meal Marianne had had a mild surge of nausea but no one had noticed. She’d conquered it, sitting very calmly and waiting for it to subside. As Dad said, An act of will.

      But it was there, still. The nausea that had spread through her body like that species of thick clotted green scum that, if unchecked, spread through the animals’ drinking pond and despoiled it each summer. Microorganisms replicating by an action of sunshine, Patrick explained. Only drastic measures could curtail them.

      But the nausea remained, and a taste of hot yellow bile at the back of her mouth. Like acid. Horrible. It was the vodka backing up, vodka and orange juice. She hadn’t known what it was, exactly. Zachary prepared the drink for her saying it was mild, she wouldn’t notice it at all. How happy she was, how elated! How easily she’d laughed! You’re so beautiful Marianne he’d said staring at her and she’d known it was true.

      Jesus have pity on me, forgive me. Let me be all right.

      As soon as she’d come home that afternoon she took two aspirin tablets. To get her through the ordeal of supper, two more. It seemed to her that the pain in her СКАЧАТЬ