Four Quarters Volume 17 Article 1 Number 4 Four Quarters: May 1968 Vol. XVII, No. 4

5-1968 Four Quarters: May 1968 Vol. XVII, No. 4

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The Things of Spring • Page 1 ^ Short Story by Claude Koch The Threat • Page 5 A Short Story by J. F. Hopkins Interruption in August • Page 11 A Short Story by Thomas A. West, Jr. The Pianists •Page 18 A Poem by Richard Loomis The Manipulators • Page 19 A Short Story by Gerald W. Sadenwater Sedation • Page 28 A Poem by James Atwell, F.S.C, A God for Thelma • Page 29 Joe Stout 90 A Short Story by Robert Vietnam • P«ge 38 A Poem by Paul Ramsey Two Poems • Page 39 Vesper Dome Spider's Fool by Judy Dunn g The Broken Iconoclast, To My Mother, Automat • Page 40 Poems by Brendan Calvin, R. F. Kaczorowski, Paul Kelly Woman with Aquarium, Litany • Page 41 Poems by Sister Maura, S.S.N.D., Nancy J. Wiegel At the Frontiers of Knowledge, Overpass at 6 A M • Page 42 Poems by Minna F. Weinstein, Sister Maura, 5-SJV.D. Lux Perpetua, Found and Lost • Page 43 Poems by Richard Loomis, T. Alan Broughton The Old Man • Page 44 A Poem by Nathan Cervo

Copyright 1968, by La Salle Collie Digitized by the Internet Archive

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http://www.archive.org/details/fourquarters91unse The Things of Spring

• Claude Koch

The last elusive freeze was in April whose arm she leaned wondered with around the twelfth, by mid-afternoon a familiar catch at the heart if this simply a bite in air, a slight bewilder- was what the afternoon was meant to ment in high sunlight. "Unseason- do. able," everyone said, though it hap- pened every year. On the playing II fields of St. Praed's, parents in light topcoats and young girls cocooned in Young Tilden came out early, their huge brothers' sweaters lingered while the managers were manhand- through the season's first track meet, ling low hurdles and raking the broad standing as indolently in small far jump pit. They were his classmates groups as those tranquil figures on in Upper School, but he turned away the Plaza of St. Mark's across a can- from them, bundled in his sweatsuit vas by Canaletto or Bellini. Light with his heart feathering and his and dark blues of St. Praed's, pale mouth puckered and dry. His legs blue and white of DeCourcy—all were like water under him for his cooling colors despite the sun, except first varsity meet. He cut across the for the odd high yellow-green of a field fanned with young green and peeled and tinted arching trunk of heard grackles singing fantasies they sycamore beyond the field against would forget by May in the boxhedge dark conifers that held the eye, a under the Headmaster's window. At summer spot above the milers pacing the far bend of the track where he there—yellow forsythia so distant would start his "kick" in an hour or and so spare they seemed like so, he tried to think how it would stringed butterflies rising from the be, but he could not imagine himself grass against Old Hall, and chaste thrust in a pack of runners—only far tone and even voices and the low behind, pulled to earth by the con- horizon of the hills beyond Fiddlers striction of his chest and the weight Run to the west composed the spa- of a tumbling heart. There were apple cious afternoon, elements of order trees beyond Middle School under and reserve. which he could stretch and, while a But runners rounding the final squirrel ticked above him, fall asleep turn revoked all that. Their anguish until it was over, forgetting and for- that distance had obscured, the heat- gotten—if he kept walking. . . . ed pounding of their feet, the bodies He had not noticed before how unstringing like spent dolls, startled dark and speckled the branches of those onlookers into sympathy and the apple trees were and how the buds wonder. A slight woman in a flopping spread like casual rain. He sat against rose-shaded hat pressed a hand to her a trunk, all his senses animal-sharp, mouth, and the clerkish man on and pulled his long legs up against —

Four Quarters

his chest, hugging them and shiver- changing and not just the season. . . . ing. He closed his eyes to slits, and the His parents would be out there managers diminished and the track soon. "Youngsters running about in was far away. Thrusting his hands their BVD's," his father had remark- underneath his jersey and rolling the ed the night before at supper ; "I nev- cloth up around them he pulled some- er could see what it was all about." It thing in to protect himself. Is this was the way he said something wry, what his mother did? He'd held his his head bent to his plate and his scholarship for a year now, and as voice muffled, as though he were far as he knew, his summer work had dead sure no one would even smile paid the extra costs, if that was it. though they always did; and now he He dropped his head back against the was confessing he'd never seen a trunk and closed his eyes, and pro- track meet: "Not in all my life." jected on the lids he saw himself ris- "Your father and I are hardly the ing and walking away, though he did athletic type, Billy." not know where. Perhaps he dozed, Young Tilden was frightened into forgetting where he was. When he a detachment like a dream's, so that opened his eyes, it was to the illusion this time he thought of them without of a bright figure tangled in the the lonely dryness in his chest of the branches of the flowering trees, while last year or so whose meaning he birds sang the scents of other flow- could never comprehend. He was six- ers, not yet there, up from the earth teen, and his parents seemed to be of his youngest memories. receding from him, growing stranger "Son," the figure disengaged from and more frail, though their physical the trees, and young Tilden saw that appearance hardly changed. His its jeweled and wavering outlines mother now—he breathed deeply to were compounded of his tears, "what still the unnerving throb of his breath are you doing out here?" and filled his thought with the fra- "I'm scared, Coach," he said, star- grance of all the springs of his life tled into a frankness that bewildered —his mother he could see quite clear- him. He rubbed his sweat jersey over ly as though she were stepping to- his eyes, busy with it longer than ward him through the lattice of low his shame required. branches that protected him from The man held out a hand and field and track. She was bent slightly swung Tilden to his feet. "Your moth- at the waist, and she pressed her hand er and dad are out there. I was just to her side; but her face under the talking to them." He was a wiry, odd loped brim of the rose-colored little middle-aged person, with eyes hat she'd made herself was serene. and skin tightened as though to shield Why did she hold her hand so to her himself from sunlight or dust that side? She never spoke of herself might rise like a whirlwind at any alone, and sometimes he felt that moment. both he and his father were perform- He squinted up at Tilden. "You're ing before her—that she'd taken that going to be a runner," he said. part on herself in her life, to be an "You've got what it takes to be up audience of one to applaud them. there with the best of them." Such crazy thoughts he'd been hav- The boy bowed his head and smiled ing, as though the whole world were like his father. They walked in, bend- "

The Things of Spring ing under the blossoming limbs. It "He'll be all right once he gets kept him occupied so that he need not started, Bob." The familiar phrase answer and need not look at his was what his mother would say. coach. He thought how it was true "Your coach was talking to us. that they all protected him, but from He's a quiet little man." His father what he could not know. They came spoke to his mother, but young Til- out of the grove, and the greensward den knew it was for his benefit. "I spread, field beyond expansive field, didn't expect that." His father's ap- through the largess of bright air to proval was always indirect. Now he the low evergreen horizon and the raised his eyes to the boy and smiled, town. A pole vaulter lifted himself and looked quickly to his wife again. with a lazy, blue insouciance into that "He spoke to us because he said he air, and the thin edge of applause saw the family resemblance. Imagine drifted like a scattered code to where that!" they stood. His parents were alone by "But you're not scared," Tilden the starter's position at the track. He said. saw the flopping brim of his mother's "Most of my life, Bill," his father hat and his father, leaning on the said, "about one thing or another" stick he would have picked up out "Now, now." His mother lifted two of habit when he touched the hem of small hands, with the knuckles puck- the country. No one else was there, ered and slightly swollen, and folded but they waited for him. The spec- the flaps of his hood under his chin. tators had followed the shotput and "Everyone is nervous at first." She pole vault and the broad jump across patted his hair up under the hood. the field. "And your father has made out all "How did you know where I was. right, no matter what he says." This Coach?" with the little smile that brought her The crow's-feet deepened by the lips together in what would have been little man's eyes, and before they had a kiss when he was younger. But closed in a nod and a smile, young her remark was for his father, and Tilden saw himself fully reflected in Tilden, still as alert and vulnerable the pupils, framed in an iris as blue as a young animal in his fear, won- as the numbers of DeCourcy. "Go on, dered that they spoke to each other son," the coach waved to his par- through him, and to him through ents, "talk to them, and then come each other. Was that a family resem.- over here, and I'll give you a few blance too? He'd never noticed it tips." before. "I'm going to be sick," he said. Ill "Sit down on that log, son, —and "You look fine," his mother said. put your head between your knees "I like those uniforms." But before he could obey, he heard "Suits," said his father; "you call the starter calling through his mega- them track suits." He lifted a heel phone: "Milers up! Milers up!" and picked at it with his stick. "I've His heart flopped over like a live been boning up on these things." fish trapped in his chest. "I'm not going to do so well," Til- "Well, Mother, I guess this is it," den said. "I'm pretty nervous." he heard his father say. Four Quarters

Licking his dry lips and pulling one there was crying "Kick . . . kick the jersey against his errant heart . . .!" To him? The voice was again, young Tilden attempted a strange. But he did, though it was smile. He had a fly glimpse of his not where he had planned. father's fingers tightened so that the Almost immediately he knew it was knuckle bones stood out white on the too soon, and the yards unraveled stick, and his mother with a thin slower and slower, like tendons sepa- hand held to her flopping hat. He lating from his body and caught on wished he could comfort them. The a spindle far away. Suddenly the man lower field spread, empty, behind before him lurched, and he felt the them; and if the grackles sang, it thud of the uneven step as a blow was far away toward a sunburst high against his temples, while his blood in the dark evergreens. He felt the or a red patch he vaguely placed in cold of some other season. space bleared in his eyes, and there was nothing else before him except IV distance like a void in which he would drown and the track an incom- The first lap settled him down. prehensible corridor down which he race, There were seven in the and fell grotesquely because so slowly and four. he kept his position at number painfully. And then his fall was ab- At first he gulped air and lost his solute, and he grunted and vomited stride, but then he saw that the oth- as the field spun away. ers did not immediately pull out- rageously ahead of him as he was convinced they would, despite all his coach had said. Number three paced "Didn't I make it?" he said. "Did- him, and he kept outside the boy's n't I make it?" loose, jogging step, that beat like a "Of course you did," his coach metronome in a dream. draped a sweatshirt around his shoul- At the last turn of the second lap, ." ders. "You kicked too soon, is all . . he began to pick out voices, and he

. .?" leaned strove for a second wind. "Where . he on the little man's arm and looked beyond At the last turn of the third lap, him to where, at some distance, his when it seemed that whatever had parents stood. possessed and obstructed his chest would burst and fly into the sun "Not bad, boy," his coach said, ." burning there and not in the far "third place in your first meet . . trees of his memory, he had his sec- They were straining toward him, ond wind. Out of a corner of his eye though they did not move. Young Til- he caught a patch of red. His coach's den said, "Thank you. Coach," and voice rose up as the red went by on stepped over on the grass. Then they .!" one side: "Last lap, son . . . last . . moved, coming tentatively toward He had not heard the gun. Blurring him, almost apologetically. He knew into the distance before the immedi- that he would be able to say nothing ate antagonist, the two leading run- to them about how they had waited ners moved hopelessly beyond his and how he had striven, though some reach. He turned the far curve. Some- day he might say it through another. —

The Threat

J. F. Hopkins

Nate Kramer was at The Rook gracefulness of the gesture—towards every Saturday night. He preferred to The Rook. stand around outside until darkness He laughed, partly because of her set in. He usually had three or four calling The Rook an outfit. It differed of the kids for company. The night from the other coffee houses only in the little old white woman stopped to its proximity to the home of the dis- speak to him he happened to be alone. trict attorney. That was the only rea- He was accustomed to having older son a cop from the Juvenile Aid Divi- white men stop and say, "Pardon me, sion was assigned to it. The owner but didn't I used to see you on tele- soon stopped complaining about the vision? Weren't you a football play- special attention. Big Nate became er?" So he wasn't exactly surprised a drawing card. when the woman stopped. But what The fact that he had been an out- she said surprised him. "I bet you standing football player didn't im- can take care of yourself." press the kids. It didn't seem to im- He was leaning against the wall press Nate either. If he took being but even so, he towered over her. For a cop seriously, it didn't show. It an old woman—he guessed she was helped that he wasn't in uniform and a little past seventy—she was easy that he found it easy to smile, and it to look at. She probably lived in the also helped that he was a Negro, a Cavanaugh apartments, in the next very black one. Like all the coffee block. It was full of old white wom- houses. The Rook was interracial, al- en, but there weren't many like this though sometimes you wouldn't know one. it. Whites predominated. A colored He knew what she meant but pre- cop was easier to accept than a white tended that he didn't. "What do you one. mean, ma'am?" "For God's sake, you don't look "In a fight," she said. "I bet you like the characters I see going into could take care of yourself in a this place. Do you work here or fight." what? Is that it? You work here?" "Not me, ma'am. I'm a peace-lov- "In a way." ing man." "I thought only bars needed bounc- "I mean if you had to. If you got ers. These fairies never stir up any in a fight, you could really take care real trouble, do they?" of yourself." whether she knew He didn't answer. He only smiled, He wondered makes you in the hope she would move on. what a fairy was, "What "What's a big guy like you always think I'm a bouncer?" hanging around an outfit like this "Are you kidding? From the size for, if I may ask?" She gestured of you, you ought to be able to and he noted and appreciated the bounce the bouncer." Four Quarters

He laughed. "Like I say, I'm a Two hundred and seventy-five peace-loving man." pounds?" She sounded incredulous. "I'm sure you are. A man as big "As a matter of fact, I'm within a as you are doesn't go around looking pound or two of three hundred. I'm for trouble. A real guy doesn't." not in the best of shape." Nate smiled self-consciously. He "But you wouldn't have any trou- weighed various excuses for wishing ble handling three or four of these her goodnight and going inside The characters I'm sure." She indicated Rook. But he had reasons for staying The Rook. where he was, too. He wanted to com- "Ma'am, I'm not really a bouncer. pliment her on her appearance but To tell you the truth, I'm a police- didn't know what to say. She had a man. I'm with the Juvenile Aid Divi- way of using her hands that was very sion." graceful and they were very young- "You're a policeman?" She looked looking hands. She had a very pleas- at him in mocked horror. "Well, I ant voice and he would have liked to was really going to put my foot in it." tell her that too. "How is that?" "You never have answered my She leaned back and laughed. It question," she said. was the laugh of a far younger per- "Ma'am, you've asked a lot of ques- son. He liked the sound of it. My tions." God, as a young woman she must Her look said maybe she had and have been something, he thought. maybe she hadn't but either way it "I was going to see how you felt was her privilege. about throwing a good scare into "About taking care of yourself in somebody for me—threaten to beat a fight. That was the one you passed him up. But I guess as a policeman off by saying you were a peace-lov- you could hardly do that." ing man." Had he heard correctly? He knew "As I recall, you made a comment. that he had. He also knew that she You didn't ask a question." was serious. "Oh, my. I'm dealing with a gram- "You're putting me on," he said. marian, I see." "I know a nice lady like you wouldn't "Hardly. I went to Michigan State want me to do anything like that." on a football scholarship. I didn't "Oh, yes I would. I didn't say beat take any of the academic prizes." him up. I just said threaten to beat "Now the truth is coming out. You him up. I tell you he'd die on the are an athlete." spot. Oh, how I'd love to see that!" "Was an athlete." She again leaned back and laughed. "An athlete and a grammarian. Her laughter carried all the way You look as though you could take across the street. He saw passers-by that ball through the middle of the looking over. She gave him a good- line right now^" natured poke on the arm. "My job was to bring down that "Don't look so worried," she said. man with the ball, ma'am. Even the "You're as bad as my son. I don't pros—and I was a pro for six years mean actually die. I mean he'd col- —don't have two hundred and seven- lapse. He'd shake all over. He'd be ty-five pound ball carriers." the most scared man in Philadel- "Is that how much you weigh? phia!" The Threat

Quite clearly, her mental image of word now and then where it'll make the intimidated man's terror was pro- the biggest splash." viding her with more pleasure than "If he drops any four-letter word she had had in many a day. in front of me. I'll drop him." "Your son looking worried—did it Nate laughed. "Ma'am, I don't have any connection with this idea of know who this Roy is or what he's yours to threaten this man with a done, but you don't need me or your beating?" son to take care of him. You can do "My son won't so much as speak the job." to the manager about him." A down- "A couple of years ago," she said, ward flip of her hand indicated that "I could more than hold my own. ." no belligerent action could be expect- I'd have told him off . . She paused. ed of her son. " 'Mother, he'd sue me For the first time, she seemed sad, " for every cent I have.' sorry for herself. "Never get old, big Nate was sure it was a good imita- man. It's no fun." tion. "You can still hold your own," he "It sounds to me like your son has protested. "More than hold your own. a lot of good common sense." I think you're remarkable." The woman didn't look as though He was happy to see that she was she rated common sense very highly. pleased. "I never brought him up to be a "I go at a snail's pace, with this coward," she said. "I brought him up heart condition," she said. "It drives to stand on his own two feet and people crazy to walk with me. I can't speak up to people. I always have." help it. I can't go any faster." "I'm sure you have." "You just take it easy. No need for "He's not nearly as big as you you to rush, is there?" but he's six feet two and two hun- "No, I can't rush. If my life de- dred pounds and he won't tell off that pended on it, I couldn't rush. That's little pipsqueak Roy." what my life depends on—not rush- "Maybe your son's like I am, a ing. It takes me forever to get any- peace-loving man. But you haven't where. I was on my way to the square told me who Roy is." to sit awhile, when I saw you didn't Two of the regulars came along, a have anybody with you. Usually you bearded man in his early twenties and have two or three of the Great Un- his girl friend, a nurse in uniform. washed for company. That's what my Nate knew him only as Ben. Ben was son calls them," found of shocking people, a favorite "There aren't many in that cate- technique being to follow a respect- gory who come in here. There really able sentence with an outrageous one. aren't. Where you're going—over He surprised Nate by passing into there in the park—that's where you The Rook without first commenting see the Unwashed." on Nate's companion. "Don't I know it? They practical- "I've seen that combination be- ly own it there in the middle. But fore," she said, "With a boy friend there are still some decent people who like that, I wouldn't want her for a sit in the square. They just stay away nurse." from the middle, that's all. Well, if

"Oh, they're all right," said Nate. I'm to get over there while it's still "He just likes to drop a four-letter light, I had better be on my way." 8 Four Quarters

"You're leaving me high and dry still as she had appeared to be at a wondering who this Roy is." distance. Her fingers were fumbling "I'll tell you some other time. You with her purse. weren't going to do anything about it "I'll open that," he said. "Is there anyway." medicine in here?" "That's the truth. You listen to that She nodded. "Pills," she said. son of yours now. He's got a lot of He saw the plastic container im- common sense." mediately. She gave a little wave which both "Are these the ones?" said goodbye and denied that her She reached for it, nodding, and he son's common sense was an attribute. quickly withdrew one of the pills and Whoever this Roy was, the son held it to her mouth. "I'll get that should have done something. Not hit nurse," he said. "Will you be O.K. if him surely, nor even threatened to hit I leave you for a few seconds?" him but something. Straighten the The movement of her head was matter out. But then he thought it slight, but there was vehemence in it, was better not to jump to conclusions. and he knew if there was one thing The old lady might well be a difficult she didn't want it was that nurse. If customer. She had a tongue in her the attractiveness had gone out of her, head and was probably as demanding the spirit hadn't. as hell and used to getting her own "I'll be all right. Just let me stand way. But he looked after her, as she here awhile." walked down the block, fondly. She "Are you sure you don't need a had more life in her than most of the doctor?" He was now reasonably kids who sat around in The Rook sure she didn't. He could tell she had by the hour. been through these things before. She was walking as slowly as she "No, I'll be all right." said she did. He could see that it He stood with her and tried to would be maddening for a person ac- come up with the name of the kind customed to a normal pace to try to of pill that heart patients take. It was walk with her. probably that kind of pill. He had He suddenly became aware she had read or heard about it somewhere. come to a dead halt. She was standing The first-aid course? Whatever it at the end of the block. She stood as was, it was working. The pain was though frozen. He grew alarmed. It subsiding, he could tell. She con- wasn't the posture of someone satisfy- tinued to stand very still. The name ing her curiosity about something. came to him: nitroglycerin tablets. She gave the impression of being in "I think I'd better go home," she great pain. said. "Hey, lady, are you all right?" he "I'll walk you back." called. He took a few tentative steps Under the circumstances, he didn't towards her, and when she didn't find the pace maddening. She occa- turn, he broke into a trot. sionally stopped to rest. The effect of It was clear that she was having the pill was remarkable. He was an attack of some kind. He saw no amazed that she had recovered so reason to take hold of her. She was well. obviously in great pain but in no "I live in the Cavanaugh." danger of falling. She wasn't quite as "It seems like a very nice building. The Threat

I imagine you're quite comfortable loed, 'Why, Mrs. Jannifer, why would " there." Roy do a thing like that?' She grimaced. "T would be, if it This old woman should have been weren't for that Roy." on the stage! Nate would know who "Roy works there?" the manager was if he ever heard him "He doesn't work! He just devils speak. me. That's all he does." She was sufficently rested to re- "What's he paid to do? He's sure- sume walking. ly not paid to devil you." "I guess I couldn't blame him for "Oh, he's in charge of the main- not believing me, when I don't think tenance men or something. I don't my own son does." think he could raise a stuck window "Doesn't this pounding on the by himself. But he can bang on the pipes or stomping on the floor ever pipes at six in the morning, just when happen when your son is visiting I'm finally getting to sleep, or stomp you?" he asked suddenly suspicious. around the floor above me at all "He knows when Jack is visiting hours." me, the devil." They had stopped in front of a "Then your son never has heard delicatessen. this, the pounding on the pipes or "I eat in here sometimes, but it's the stomping?" too expensive," she said. "You don't believe me either." She had probably never looked at "Now, I didn't say that. It just the autographed pictures of the star strikes me as a coincidence. That's players of the last fifteen years on all." the local pro team. There was one of "It's no coincidence. When he cre- himself. The owner, Weinberg, was a ates a ruckus, it's usually about six pro-football nut. in the morning. And my son isn't vis- "You said stomp around on the iting me at six in the morning." floor above you. He doesn't live "Of course not. But you say it's not there, does he? On the floor above always at six in the morning?" you?" "Not always. But my son's a very "He might just as well. The old busy man. And he lives in the sub- woman who does live there, Mrs. urbs. It's not easy for him to come Byrnes—she must be ninety—has in to see me, so he's not what you'd been in a nursing home for months. call a frequent visitor." A moment So he simply moved in and made later she said: "I'm keeping you from himself comfortable." your job. I'll be all right now. It was "You know this for a fact?" very nice of you." "You're as bad as my son. That's "I'd feel better if I can see you all the kind of question he would ask. the way home." Well, I might not be able to prove it "It's really not necessary." in court but he's up there all right. She wasn't persistent and he con- It's nobody else up there stomping tinued to walk with her. around, just to devil me." It was his intention simply to es- "Have you complained to the man- cort her to the entrance of the build- ager : ing, but she had left a small bag of "I'd look like an old fool, com- groceries with the doorman and Nate plaining to him. Roy's got him buffa- took it himself. 10 Four Quarters

"Not feeling well, Mrs. Jannifer?" return to The Rook, when the noise the doorman asked, from above came. It was a regular "I've had one of my spells, Henry," pounding, a heavy foot coming down Her apartment was on the eighth again and again, floor. It was an efficiency and he "Well, that's no ninety-year-old didn't have to ask where to put the woman," said Nate. groceries. There was a small shelf op- "Now do you believe me?" posite the refrigerator. The space was "I believe you." too small to accommodate a table. "One word from you—the very The smallness of the apartment and sight of you—and he'd never do it the inadequacy of the kitchenette sur- again," prised him. He had thought her able Roy, he now knew, was a white to afford something more spacious. man. But except for that, everything was "I'll speak to him," he said, "But as nice as he thought it would be. you come up with me, I'll just threat- He knew it had been no small project en him," he assured her, "I won't dis- to decide where every picture should turb a hair on that man's head." ," be hung, whether the settee should be "Do you think . . one place and not another. He looked "I want you to come with me." looked around him admiringly. His They took the elevator. Even one lone criticism was that she had more flight of stairs was too much for her. plants than so small an apartment She waited six or seven feet away could accommodate, as he stood in front of 9H and lis- "You sure have this place looking tened. The name in the slot was M. nice, ma'am." Byrnes. Mrs, Byrnes, he remembered. "You think so?" She had dropped A radio was playing softly. The into the first chair she came to, as stamping had ceased. He could hit the though she couldn't have gone an- door hard enough to splinter it, but other step. he restrained himself. He hit it twice, "I do. Can I get you something? hard enough to let the man know he A glass of water?" could break it down if he wanted "You can get me a drink. A little to, whiskey and water." She pointed to- "Roy, you hear me?" wards the kitchenette. "And get your- Except for the radio, there was no self something." sound. "Thank you, but during working "There's something I want you to hours I'm supposed to stick to espres- know, Roy. You stop this foolish busi- so." ness, you hear me? You stop annoy- "And you stick to it?" ing my mother, or I'll make you sorry "I'm a good cop." He replaced the you ever started this foolishness. You ice tray, and the door of the old mod- hear me?" el refrigerator closed with a surpris- Only the faint sounds of the radio ing slam. "Sorry," he said. came from 9H, Nate gave the door a He gave her the drink. "Are you final pound and, careful not to look sure you won't have anything?" she at her, he walked rapidly past Mrs. asked. Jannifer. He jabbed the elevator but- He was saying that he wouldn't ton for her, but he himslf used the have anything, that he had better fire tower. —

Interruption in August

• Thomas A. West, Jr.

Ned Crankshaw heaved himself up roof, and he waited, mind working to a sitting position on his narrow slowly, heavily, gathering speed, then cot. He was more depressed than rapidly building dreams of wealth, usual on this particular morning. All miraculous cure: glandular balance it ever takes, he thought, is one boy restored, physique young, muscular out of twelve or twenty or a hundred until fantasies of handsome, bold ... to ruin a man's summer. women opened their doors to him. He rubbed his eyes awake, then Above all, he must not sleep late, let them gently close until the lids for then the campers would see him, joined, suddenly stuck, as if their and they would talk about him and stubby white lashes were small mag- nudge each other, laughing as he nets. His body relaxed. A sinus pain walked by them. lanced its point deep alongside the One boy more than all the rest. socket of his right eye. Barely frown- He removed his pajamas as quietly ing with his albino brows, Ned di- as he could, but there were enormous rected the aching sensation away. In pungs, spraining sounds squeezed essence, he told it to smother itself from the springs beneath the mat- in the endless maze of his brain. tress. For an instant he allowed a I am a pure snowbank, he thought, cooling window breeze to bathe his feelingless, cool, exquisitely formed. nakedness. A gust of it seemed to But at this last word he had to smile. snarl through the screen like a gigan- Is there a drift so pure and exquisite tic mosquito gone berserk, and at this that looms so large and weighs a second there was a click and a simul- thousand pounds? taneous flash, followed by laughter. It was of course an exaggeration Ned gre\M' hot. He prickled at the which Ned's inner being constantly skin, and breathed hard as he metho- launched at him. The last scales he dically worked his way into his had shambled up onto read 332, He clothes. smiled again, remembering the doc- "Who did it?" he asked the cabin. tor's thin-ice patience as he kept shov- "Who?" ing steel weights to the other end of Silence enlarged itself like a bal- the bar. loon, but was burst by another series Perilously close to sleep, he was, of raucous laughter. and he caught himself from falling Crankshaw had already made up backward onto the bed. He had to his mind, and he moved to the bed- dress himself in the semi-darkness of side of Tommy Rinehart. the dawn. At all times there must be "All right, son. Let me have the clothes surrounding his body, every camera." moment of the day, at least, until the It was light enough for Ned to see deliverance of night. Toward early the child's face, which had the exact morning his eyes stared at the cabin same expression as it had when he 11 "

12 Four Quarters was caught removing the intestine of the cabin; so he about-faced and from a live leopard frog. Tommy's returned in time to see Tommy and eyes were bulging, and there was a three of his friends smashing Ned's grin somehow jamming his mouth all flashlight, his own camera, a clock, wrong, as if he had wires yanked and a glass-framed picture of his taut at the edges of his lips. Yellowed mother and father. teeth were bared as he slowly handed They stopped. his camera to the counselor. Ned Tommy stood defiantly facing the opened it, removed the film, letting counselor as the others scampered to it play out on its spool; it shined their bunks, and waited there, swal- black and purple in the glint of sun. lowing and looking at their feet. "You'll pay for that," Tommy said, Ned let Tommy's camera fall to his smile vanished, his eyes squinted the floor. His boot crushed it. He almost shut. reached out, grabbed the boy by the "I won't lecture you, Tom. But you back of the neck, and then dragged might try to think how I felt when him screaming, kicking, biting, you snapped that picture of me." scratching—all the way to the lodge There was no reply. on the hill where they both roused "How would you feel if I did some- the director. thing like that to you?" "Fine, sir, just fine." II Ned began to walk away, his head ponderously shaking the sadness and It took a while for Mr. Rinehart to bewilderment off. calm them down. In his bathrobe at "My camera! You give me my his office desk he heard the counselor camera!" Tommy shouted. out. Then he listened to Tommy. The counselor stopped, turned, and When the boy was through ranting, spoke. "You can have it back. I'll just every one of his words edged with hold on to it for a while, son, until I spittle, Mr. Rinehart spoke slowly get some sort of apology from you." and deliberately, "It's my camera. My father gave it "I take this—this ridiculous cam- to me. Brand new." era-smashing as the—act of children, "That makes no difference.'' and, Mr. Crankshaw "I'll tell him! I'll tell him!" "May I speak to you alone, sir?" "I couldn't care less, son." "Please do not interrupt, Mr. "Don't you call me that. I'm not Crankshaw, I personally feel there is your son. You're too fat to have a less excuse for your action than for son. Tommy's. You are a grown man with Ned was suddenly faint. The boy's many years' experience—perhaps too final words plunged into his already- many? You are a teacher as well as a retreating mind, and he left the cabin, counselor. What I'm saying, Crank- then. He heard the campers' voices shaw, is this: control. Control is up- raised in excited pitch. Tommy Rine- permost, should be uppermost in the hart's was foremost. It shouted, "I'll minds and in the hearts of every get him, I'll get him for that." staff member. My cadre here at Camp As he glanced ruefully back over Evergreen have never given in to ex- his shoulder, he thought he saw or changing tantrums with children. sensed violent activity at his corner Never." He paused. " " " " " "

Interruption in August 13

"Boys will be boys, Mr. Crank- day. I haven't even dressed, let alone shaw. Tommy's snapping that picture shaved, and there's— so much to be of you was not a crime." done, so much "Sir.—Are you so insensitive, are "Mr. Rinehart, why are we all so you so blind to the deep trouble living—in- "Please, Mr. Crankshaw. I have not side those closest to us? Sir, I given equal time to the boy." "There is nothing wrong with Tom- "Equal time? Even if Tommy is my." your son gives you no right to treat Ned felt pressure rise in him like a us as two equal persons, Mr. Rine- great caldron. He was suddenly hot, hart, as if we were in fact two errant then cold as if he had plunged his campers— whole body into a boiling vat and Rinehart snorted and began pacing then leapt out into the snow. He saw the room, puffing furiously on a cig- the destroyed photograph of his par- aret. "Yes, equal. Are you a victim ents. He remembered the days and of prejudice, sir, because this boy is days of swallowing remarks from my son? I'll tolerate no lack of pro- Tommy Rinehart. He saw in the eye fessional attitude in my camp!" of his brain those crystal images of

"Professional? Attitude?" Tommy . . . Ned looked around him. His eyes "By God you'd better at least lis- fell on Tommy's, and there was a ten to my side, Rinehart. I'm an out- second of knowledge which struck raged man in case you've failed to the counselor with the force of the recognize the fact. I could work my- hatred which was in back of it: Tom- self up into another case of coronary my's eyes said, "I am going to kill thanks to you and that little tortured you." son you just let go undisciplined. "You heard me, Crankshaw! Now Tommy loves to operate on animals, let's not have this meeting degenerate did you know that,— sir?" into a verbal brawl. I won't have it. "Stop—please Now, Tommy?" "Living, writhing, struggling ani- "Yes, sir?" Tommy stood at at- mals." tention. "Then if he is sick, why in hell did "You do understand, naturally, you smash his camera? If he is so that what you did was wrong, damag- sick, why did you respond to his an- ing your counselor's possessions." ger by violently dragging him up "Yes, sir." here in front of the entire camp? Ap- "Good. Now if this happens a sec- parently you treat him as you would ond time, I will have to punish you." any other child; yet you say that he "Yes, sir." is sick." "You may go. Tommy." "He needs control, sir. And he The boy nodded, yes-sirred again, needs—his home, his mother, and he and sauntered out of the office. needs "Just one thing, Mr. Rinehart," "I am well aware of what that boy Ned found himself saying. "Your son needs. I am his father. Mr. Crank- needs help. He needs professional shaw, I realize Tommy is different. guidance." He has a terrible temper—as do you, "You may leave too, Mr. Crank- apparently. As for his mother, she shaw. After all, it is time to start the frankly does not know how to handle " "

14 Four Quarters him any more than you do. In fact, your department. Hey—why don't sir, in utmost confidence she cannot you start your new life by punching stand to be with him more than two Tommy Rinehart's rotten little face weeks. The boy has to learn, sir. He in?" has to be thrown in with boys his own "All right, Cassius. That's enough." age so they will indirectly teach "And then follow up with a—right him—" hook to the director's gut, and "Mr. Rinehart, your son is teach- "Shut the devil up, friend." ing them." Ned banished him as he ap- The director sighed impatiently. proached the range, where the boys "Leave this office, sir. I don't like from his cabin were in line. Of all what you are implying." mornings, he thought, the morning Ned swallowed a building anger of mornings to instruct Tommy Bine- and swore under his breath as he hart and Company at riflery. labored down the hill to supervise "Good morning, gentlemen." the children. Silence came from them, though Benny McCormick smiled bravely, Ill and looked as if he wanted to return the greeting. He saw the withering The day was going to be brutally stare from Tommy, however, and hot, at least to Ned, who felt more thus shamed, he looked away from than ever the ponderous luggage of Ned. his flesh whenever the furious sun There was no use in pursuing the followed him. It added to the sludge matter, Ned believed. He unlocked in his veins and arteries. He thought, the gunroom and began issuing rifles if ever he were gunned down at noon and ammunition. Within ten minutes on a brassy day similar to this one, the targets were clipped to parallel what oozed out of him would not be wires fifty feet downrange, strung blood, but lava. along in front of a barricade of sand On the path to the rifle range a and logs. An uneasy quiet settled on quarter-mile distant from the cabin, the platform where a dozen campers he amused himself with silent con- lay on mattresses, awaiting the order versations. There was a friend in him to load. called Cassius, one who cursed his Ned gave the command. He added " Stoicism, his readings of Zeno and —and lock," and twelve bolts Aurelius; who cursed his fat, who clacked forward and down in an reminded him of all the trouble there oiled-steeled interruption in August. was in the world. "Safeties off. Fire when you are "Why don't you quit this hole?" ready." Cassius snarled. The first volley was ragged. Sharp "I may— yet. If it weren't for the reports snapped the day, and Ned money settled down for three hours of giv- "Hell, money, money, money—you ing commands, offering advice, pen- are a slave to the lack of it. Before ciling scores—but all at once he saw it's too late, Crankshaw, do some- dirt fly in front of two positions on thing with yourself." the right. To the left, bullets cried "What?" off the stone wall in fearful agony, "Hell, how should I know. That's while on center line, the bovs deli- Interruption in August 15 berately aimed at and occasionally A giant knot grew in his stomach, hit the clothespins attached to the tar- moving upward, opening and fisting gets. like an enormous hand. Fingers ur- "Cease fire!" Ned shouted hoarse- gently poked and pried and wrenched ly. Yet with the exception of Benny in him, while his mind waited. McCormick, the campers continued Where was Cassius? shooting, now into the woods, now at Where were the Stoics, now? rocks, now at the ground, until their "I'm waiting," he said obviously, ammunition was expended. and one of the boys laughed a nerv- Ned was on his feet, bewildered, ous, girlish laugh. And then the oth- perspiring freely, and his anger ers followed suit, laughing, all laugh- mounted in him like a great ocean ing, some of them—one in particular, turbulence. Yet he could not speak laughing uncontrollably. for the longest stretch of moments. "Stop it! Stop it this instant!" When his voice did emerge, it was Ned raved at them, but he soon re- cracked, and he swallowed and alized it was useless. He saw, too, that coughed once to give it strength. His his control was almost gone. hands were trembling with agitation. "Hey, Mr. Fatman, how do you "What is the meaning of this?" he like our joke?" said. Tommy's remark had a devastating There was no sound, except a cica- effect on his comrades. They hooted da's monotone and a rasping crow and some held their stomachs as their call from far away. laughter cramped them, and others "I asked you boys for an explana- wiped away tears. tion, and by God I'll have one even This was better, Ned thought. The if we have to spend all day here." silence was ruinous, but he had al- He waited, standing, and the min- ways known how to handle a smart utes inched along, wounded and with remark. silent pain. He sat back down, leaned "Come here, Tom." forward, placed his elbows on the The boys calmed down and waited, table in front of him, and he rubbed "Sir?" his eyes which suddenly itched in "I said come here." their puffy inflamed sockets. "What're you gonna do, sir, belch The campers stared ahead until by me to death?" two's and three's they leaned their There was the laughter again, but faces on their rifles or on the mat- it did not have the staying power tresses, as if they would sleep there. as before. Cassius was quiet. He had at the "If you don't come here, Tom, I outset shrunk back, afraid, leaving guess I'll have to go to you." Ned to fight the mutiny by himself. Tom grudgingly unslung his rifle, Ned tried picturing his apartment flopped it on the mat, got up and —the hundreds of hard-cover vol- wandered over to the counselor. umes lining a whole wall from top to "Well?" bottom, and not a one of them having "You realize w^hat you did, Tom prepared him for this. Nor had all Rinehart? I'll withdraw the question the years of his experience dealing and make a statement. You know with youth prepared him. damn well what you did. Your actions He grew frightened. could have killed somebody down " —

16 Four Quarters

here. For all you know there was a Finally he finished, panting, his camper in the woods where your bul- eyes extremely wide, senses reeling. thought of that lets went. You never "Anyone else want to try?" he angle, did you? In your vengeance, asked. in your sick vengeance, you never The campers stood, rooted. gave one single thought to any other human being. I know your father "Let's shoot!" Tom said. "Come won't discipline you, Tom. But by on, we've got the whole world, the the good Lord, / will." whole place to ourselves. Let's shoot When he lunged for the boy he was at tin cans—hey! Let's go on a hunt- ing party caught off balance, and his chest fell in the woods up on Gerald's onto the table which gave immediate- Hill. Who's with me?" ly, and he was crashing to the floor They hung back. Their eyes before he was aware of a bursting studied him with a new wonderment. sensation at his heart. He heard Then a boy named Jerry Straus said, laughter, but it meant little to him "I didn't—I mean, Tom, I never then as he gasped like a huge fish thought you'd go this far. I thought washed ashore. we were going to have a joke, like

"Look ! He's turning purple," cried you said, and that was it, you know?" one. The others nodded agreement. rushed to the Benny McCormick Ned's chest worked with horrible shoving out of the counselor, Tom rhythms now. He imagined that lava over and over, "You way and crying was pouring from the slack crater of See what you've done! fools! Fools! his mouth, but he saw no reddening Look at what you've done!" of the floor. A mosquito whined to a be- Several campers stepped away, settling on his left hand which he wildered, then afraid. could see through a watery gauze that ''He's all right," Tom said. "No grew clearer until he realized the out- need to worry about him." line of a group of sneakered feet. Be- Benny began to sob and wring his cause of a ringing vacuum in his hands. mind, he heard nothing. He imagined "Shut up you little— chicken. Shut pain, but there was none. He tried to up before I belt you move, but there was no commanding "Hey, Tom, we better get Doc Hol- an arm or a leg, or even the hand den." where the insect filled himself with

"Forget it, forget it, see? The old nourishment. whale just had too much exercise "You coming or not?" Rinehart right, Fatman? Right?" shouted at them and listened to Mc- Benny ran for the exit but Tom Cormick crying softly, almost whim- was on him, swarming over him and pering, and he heard Fatman's enor- flailing with his fists and kicking mous breaths gulping and wheezing, with intensity until Benny lay dou- but there were no other sounds. bled over on the cement platform, the He filled his pockets with twenty- wind temporarily gone, while Tom's two bullets from the gunroom, right foot shot out at least a dozen snatched a rifle from one of the mats, times, aimed at Benny's head. and began to run toward Gerald's No one moved to stop him. Hill. " "

Interruption in August 17

IV I can safely prescribe ; three—a mind- The voices Ned heard were alien to less job with no responsibilities. Oh, him, and his mind carefully sorted you needn't look so blasted upset; I memories until it grew aware of a merely stated what you should have, hospital room, of machines and bot- how you should behave, not what tles he knew too well, and of a nurse. you'll do. Heart patients are a pecu- "Hello? Awake, are you?" liar breed, Mr. Crankshaw. They are "In ... a manner ... of speak- most determined to die, and they pur- ing." sue this objective with every final But why was it so damned hard to ounce of vigor. breathe? The last attack had pressed "Now before I attend to more re- down on his chest like a block of sponsible clientele, here is an enve- iron; but this, this was almost in- lope from Mr. Rinehart, containing your paycheck and probably a get- "How long—?" Ned asked. well-quick note. I assured him, how- "Not long enough, Mr. Crankshaw. ever, that you would not be allowed The two days you've been here—one by this hospital to return to work. under heavy sedation—are just not "Good-day. Until the 'morrow, as nearly enough. In fact you might well they say in Haiku—and damn it, fol- spend the rest of the summer with low the nurse's orders!" us, I fear." — Ned tried to smile, and fumbled the "God, no. I can't—afford letter out. "Of course you can't. Now please, Dear Mr. Crankshaw, sir, keep still and I'll go fetch Doc Allow me to express a portion of York." my grief that you are so ill. I had no With a name like that, Ned thought idea, but then, few people do—few —don't bother—and then he nearly are capable of identifying with oth- panicked as he remembered the rifle ers' problems, apparently. range. "The Rinehart boy," he said Enclosed is a check for the entire to the ceiling. He tried to raise him- camp season. It is admittedly a small self but he collapsed. Instead of per- amount, but right now I am certain spiring, Ned grew cold and clammy. you need all you can get for the hos- "Good afternoon, Mr. Crankshaw. pital expenses. I assume you are How do you feel?" York, a gliding, properly insured? If there is anyone chestless man whose legs and arms you wish me to contact in this re- seemed overly long, eased to the edge spect, do let me know. of the bed and through green eyes ob. As for my son. served his patient. — I was told that he and others di- "Not good—here—all crushed rected a "rebellion" of sorts at the "That was a close call, Mr. Crank- range, and that this is why you tried shaw. I understand from Mr. Rine- to strike him, and in so doing, nar- hart that you have been witness to rowly missed his head. previous coronaries? Yes? Just nod Rest assured, Mr. Crankshaw, I or shake your head. You need not AV'ill not say a word of this to what- waste good air." ever future employer you might have, Crankshaw nooded. should he ask me for a recommenda- "Point one, Mr. Crankshaw: you tion. Nor will I report the incident need rest; two, the most rigorous diet to your present school, where you 18 Four Quarters

teach. I take it for granted that you Ned allowed the letter to slip will benefit from this experience, and through his fingers. A soft breeze never again attempt to raise a hand from the open window brushed it in anger against a mere child. onto the floor, where it scraped to a Hoping your recovery is quick and corner like a dead leaf, merciful, I remain, Listening to distant thunder shud- Sincerely, der the wooded hills, Ned closed his Albert T. Rinehart eyes and dreamed of home. Director

The Pianists

• Richard Loomis

The fingers drop their melody like crystal:

Sounds of shining That make us see that beauty Is in the run of things.

The startling juxtapositions That scatter waves to sparkles And gather particles to summer pools Clarify the air with speed.

What poise does this? What force?

What is the spring of this thousand-figured progression?

It is joy, I suppose.

Joy is helpless control: A child at breast. Lover in arms. Mother sewing in sunlight by a half-curtained

Window. "

The Manipulators

• Gerald W. Sadenwater

Sebastien Barreau sat in a private dared to address him as Sebastien, room on the second floor of The Fort, casually read the letter, then returned in conference with his trusted friends. it. Leaning back in his chair, he In those days he was still a most in- studied Barreau's red, perspiring face fluential man in the Objibway Valley, in his cool, appraising manner. although his formerly unchallenged "What do you have in mind, Se- position as leading citizen had al- bastien?" ready begun to deteriorate. The ac- Barreau's fat stumpy fingers played tion taken three months before by the with a pen he had picked up from the newly created Board of Supervisors, table, twirling it round and round. He over his objections even though he raised his eyes without lifting his was chairman, represented a case in head. The lawyer's eternal calm, even point. And it galled. It galled. in tight situations, even in this atro- The flickering light of the candles cious heat, irritated him. It always formed huge shadows on the chinked did. He choked back a peevish re- walls; their acrid effluvium added to mark and said, in a carefully re- the discomfort of the men assembled strained voice: "I don' know, Calvin. in the hot, airless room. The closed I don' know." He lifted an admonish, door and the two shuttered windows ing forefinger. "But we mus' do protected not only against the admit- something ! tedly remote possibility of a prying Obie Smith stirred on his stool. eye or ear but also from the swarms He scratched his bald head with a of mosquitoes and other insects grubby finger and peered at Sebas- which rose from the swamplands and tien with his red-rimmed, winkerless marshes on warm spring nights to eyes. "It's kind of late, Mr. Barreau. plague the villages. Adam, Barreau's The stakes are already in place." boy of all work, stood sentinel out- Obie Smith was, like Adam, in Bar- side the closed door. reau's employ, so to speak, and was, Barreau looked from one to an- again like Adam, a man of many hats, other of the trusted circle with his now serving as bartender or waiter or shrewd eyes. "Well, Zhentlemen. even as chef in the tavern, now as What do you think?" traveling companion and Indian in- Sebastien fished a dazzling white terpreter to his chief, or perhaps as handkerchief from his waistcoat and tender of Barreau's dwindling trap- wiped his brow. He shoved the letter lines. But Sebastien had little regard from the state commissioner of lands, for his mental processes. His im- which he had just read aloud, across patient eyes flicked past him and set- the table to Calvin Beardsley, who tled on Semi Gibbs, the massive red- also could read. head Irish blacksmith. Beardsley, the only man in the Gibbs, a cheerful, ruddy giant, had valley, except George Van Oyer, who married his benefactor's light-heart- 19 20 Four Quarters ed, hot-blooded daughter, Lucie, and the commissioner, comes next Wed- had managed, Barreau was thinking, nesday. We have a week to do some- to calm her down with three children thing." Barreau snatched up the pen in three years. again, threw it down, shifted im- "The cour'ouse mus' be built 'ere, patiently in his chair, turned his not across the rivaire in the bastard scowling face to Semi Gibbs once village of that lan'-grabbing New more. "Sam?" Yorker, Zheorzhe Van Oyer!" Gibbs sat quietly, a new light, a His son-in-law was the one to wily glint in his eyes. He looked side- whom Sebastien turned for new ideas, ways at his father-in-law. for daring solutions to vexing prob- "This Major Holcomb, Mr. Bar- lems and doubtful situations, but reau." He called him Grandpa at from the noncommittal, affable smile liome, but this was hardly suitable in on Semi's face it was clear that he public. "Does he know this country?" was not yet ready to offer any of his " 'ow do you mean, Sam?" oblique advice. Barreau turned back "I mean, has he ever visited the to Beardsley. With a mirthless smile valley? Does he know Van Oyer? he said : "I should 'ave appointed you Things like that." the chairman of the site committee, Barreau slowly shook his head. Calvin, instead of Zheorzhe. That was "No ... I don' know ... I think 'e a bad mistake." is new in Michigan. Another grasping Beardsley nodded. He looked down New Yorker, I 'ear." and became most interested in the Gibbs hitched forward in his chair. cuffs of his gray frock coat, which he "Does George know that Holcomb is had declined to shed despite the heat. coming?" Barreau, taking his silence for " 'e knows the commissioner 'as to agreement, and a reproof the lawyer approve the site. But 'e knows noth- was too courteous to voice, shrugged ing of this letter." his shoulders and threw up his hands. "Has Van Oyer had any corres- '"But I never thought they would re- pondence with Holcomb?" fuse my offer of free Ian' over 'ere." "Not unless 'e 'as done so behin' Beardsely looked up. "That only my back. I 'ave 'andled the corres- gave Van Oyer the idea of donating pondence myself." Barreau frowned. some of his own land." The suspicion had never entered his Obie Smith got up from his stool, mind. The thought offended him. ." passed around the table behind Bar- "Now. . . Semi Gibbs paused reau, and spat into the dead ashes of pointedly. His blue eyes narrowed as the fireplace. he watched the expression on Sebas- "It's on that high ground back of tien Barreau's face change again to the bayou." one of impatience. He smiled care- Obie spoke with authority in the fully. "Does Major Holcomb know matter of location, for Sebastien had the exact site proposed by Van Oy- thought it expedient, regardless of his er?" disappointment and opposition, to of- Barreau jumped up excitedly, tip- fer Obie's assistance in plotting the ping backward the chair in which he proposed site, because of his alleged had been sitting. "Ah," he breathed, background in surveying. ignoring the fallen chair. "Yes." For "Zhentlemen, this Mazhor 'olcomb, a full minute sunk in thought, he —

The Manipulators 21

stood with his pudgy white fingers on ter arriving on the Objibway as the the table, leaning on them, breathing first permanent settler. rapidly and rather heavily. At last he It was the latter part of May; the smiled gratefully at Gibbs, then unseasonable heat had departed, but turned to Tom Sharp, a tall gan- the mosquitoes that had exploded in- gling unshaven man who sat in- to existence, impelled by its inviting dolently on a stool between Semi warmth, abounded. They rose from Gibbs and himself, but back a little the dark, damp forest by the myriads from the table, as Obie did. "Call to torment the travelers. It will be Adam, Tom. We will make our better, Beardsley mused, later on, plans." when we reach higher, drier ground Sullenly, but with alacrity, Tom and the sun drives the little demons Sharp untangled his long lower limbs to cover. A flock of jays, brilliant from the legs of the stool and patches of blue and white and gray slouched to the door. Obie Smith has- flashing against the smoky green of tened to right the prostrate chair. the new-budded forest, crossed and Gibbs and Barreau settled back in recrossed the path in their headlong, their chairs, pleased with themselves. careening, screaming flights through Calvin Beardsley sat glumly in his the treetops, desecrating the stillness. chair, drumming his dry fingers on The old Indian trail had been the table, but he kept silent. He widened by use as a man is broad- owed a great deal to Sebastien, who ened by experience, so that they could had brought him to the valley directly have ridden abreast, but Beardsley from an eastern university and had rode ahead and Adam behind, like subsidized his law practice until it a knight of old and his squire. had, recently, through the gradual in- Calvin Beardsley was by his own crease in population, attained a self- admission like a man out of context supporting level. in the crude life of the frontier. Cap- tured by Sebastien Barreau's enthu- On the day before Major Holcomb siasm and promises of riches and v/as expected, Calvin Beardsley, empire, ignorant of the primitiveness dressed in his pearl-gray frock coat Barreau had skillfully withheld, he and white broad-brimmed hat and had left the amenities, the social and accompanied by the boy, Adam, set physical comforts of New England. out from Fort Objibway at dawn. Now he had to deal with blackguards Beardsley was on his own black geld- like Tom Sharp, with practical vision- ing. Miracle, and Adam rode a pony aries, pious frauds like Barreau, illi- from Barreau's stable. A day's provi- terate, uncouth clowns like Obie sion of fried bacon and corn bread Smith, with half-wild half-breeds like was in Beardsley's saddlebags. Adam. They crossed the river on Barreau's The boy trailed along behind him, ferry and headed south-by-east along riding bareback chanting: a barbaric, what at this end was known as the unmelodic strain that did nothing at Detroit Trail and at the other end all to allay Beardslev's fear—not of was called the Objibway Trail, cross- Adam, but of the natives in general ing the marshy bayou on the cause- a fear unreasoning and unconquer- way Sebastien Barreau had built able, although Beardsley's own ex- twenty years before, in 1818, soon af- perience had shown him that those 22 Four Quarters

who lived in or passed through the need for haste. They established an valley were for the most part, though unhurried but steady pace. The day ignorant, shiftless, and not very clean, grew warmer as it waxed. The chiff- peaceable and friendly. Official tradi- chiff of the horses' hooves on the tion said that Adam was a white child resilient earth fragmented minutely of unknown parentage who had been the hours and the miles. Beardsley stolen by savages as an infant and dozed in the saddle. had lived among them for years until At noon they reached the Brush, Barreau rescued him from barbarity another branch of the Objibway, and re-introduced him into civiliza- three miles below Brushford. Beards- tion. Backstairs gossip on the other ley turned off into a little clearing, hand had it that he was Sebastien's once the much-used overnight camp own son, by a squaw before his of travelers, now fallen into disuse French wife finally joined him in the since the building of the tavern at wilderness, a son unacknowledged the ford. They dismounted and led but nurtured. To determine the truth their mounts down to the oak-fringed of the matter seemed to Calvin river. There was a satisfaction, a Beardsley both difficult and unprofit- pleasure in watching the animals able. thrust their muzzles deep into the At the point where the trail met water, roiling its placid surface and the Lewis, a wandering tributary of muddying its clarity with their stamp- the Objibway, Calvin Beardsley ing forefeet. stopped. Adam pulled up beside him. They led the horses back into the Here it was also that the trail, com- meadow. Adam loosened the cinch ing from the south, branched off to- and removed the saddle and saddle- ward George Van Oyer's upstart vil- bags from Miracle's broad back. lage. Beardsley, staring pensively Then they turned the animals loose down at the forking trail, noted that to graze, while they ate their own the offshoot looked more traveled meal of cold bacon and buttered corn than the original road back to Bar- bread. reau's ferry and Fort Objibway. They sat on the ground in the lush Beardsley unobtrusively studied the green meadow grass of spring, be- boy, his long black hair, the high neath a lone tree near the circle of cheekbones, the way he had of look- old ashes from long-dead fires. The ing as if into a great distance. His tree was not yet leaved out fully, but habitual silence, which seemed to the light, delicately traced shade was lend plausibility, if it were not a welcome after the long ride in the [earned trait, to his hypothetical sav- morning sun. age blood, suited Beardsley's mood When they had finished eating, perfectly. Beardsley leaned back against his They rode on. The trail skirted the saddle, wishing he had brought his river for a mile upstream to the ford- pipe and tobacco. Adam stretched out ing place, then forsook the stream on on the ground. the other side, and struck out cross- "We'll wait here for Major Hol- country again. Adam fell back and comb, Adam. He has to pass this took up his low unearthly chant. way. Since their mission was to intercept The boy grunted and turned over Major Holcomb's party, there was no on his side. He was soon asleep. The Manipulators 23

An hour later Beardsley's attentive by this convenient interpretation of ear detected the thud of approaching Sebastien's motive. Beardsley became hooves. He started up and poked the a bit more easy in his mind. What slumbering Adam. he had thought was assurance now They stood at the side of the trail, appeared to be only conceit, and what waiting. he had taken for discernment, a mere Around the bend from the river physical quality of the eyes, perhaps two men rode into view. Major Hol- reinforced by that conceit. Sebas- comb—it was surely he—attired as tien's crude manipulating was in no he was in a military uniform of some great danger from this pompous in- sort—led the way on a splendid white dividual. horse. His man, nondescript, shad- "I hope your journey has been owed, followed like a dog at its mas- easy and pleasant." ter's heels. They reined in at Beard- Major Holcomb drew himself up sley's signal. in the saddle and touched the small "Major Holcomb?" of his back. "Travel in these times "Yes." is never easy, Mr. Beardsley," he said The man said no more. Leaning on sententiously. "But it has been un- the pommel of his saddle, staring eventful. We met a small band of red down inquiringly, superciliously at men but they passed on quietly, Beardsley, he exuded confidence, as- scarcely took notice of us." surance. "You'll find that the savages in Beardsley inspected the thick, these parts are quite civilized, mostly well-manicured mustaches, looked up harmless and tractable." into the dark penetrating, dispassion- "Yes, of course." Holcomb glanced ate eyes, and conceived an instant dis- away over the head of Beardsley and like for Holcomb. Beneath the image surveyed the disused campsite. "Will of unruffled calm that Barreau ad- we pass the night here?" mired in Beardsley was a man uncer- Beardsley waved away a large fly tain and vacillating, who had gained that was buzzing about his head. "H his reputation for wisdom and saga- you are agreeable, we will push on. city through hesitation and equivo- We can reach Fort Objibway before cation, a man, therefore, who was nightfall. You can have a good possessed of an unreasoning aver- night's sleep in a comfortable bed at sion for persons of directness and the Fort, make your inspection in the decision. He smiled and extended his morning, and, if you wish, be on liand upward. your way back to Detroit before "Calvin Beardsley, Sebastien Bar- noon." reau's attorney. Mr. Barreau asked Major Holcomb agreed, and after me to ride out and accompany you a short rest they set out for Fort into Fort Objibway." Objibway. Major Holcomb reached down and grasped his hand. A broad, artless That night, soon after Adam had smile overspread and replaced his announced the arrival of Major Hol- rather dour expression. comb, Obie Smith and Tom Sharp, "Thank you, Mr. Beardsley. This while Sebastien Barreau went down- is highly thoughtful of Mr. Barreau." stairs to greet his guest, soundlessly He was obviously pleased, flattered descended a back stairway, crossed —

24 Four Quarters

the yard past the kitchen and the the canoe. With swift, sure strokes he stables, and left by the back gate. paddled off, keeping the nose of the It was the dark of the moon but canoe pointed upstream to compen- the glow of the lights from the inn sate for the current. lighted their way until they left the The night was cool and hushed, lee of the rear stockade wall and save for the steady hum of the do- slipped into the trees that bordered ings in the taproom at The Fort. The the river. Obie led the way, for he stars were dimmed by a thin overcast. was the vaunted woodsman and In- From far downriver the high rasping dian scout, and Tom Sharp laid no cry of a nighthawk was heard. claim to being more than an indolent, Obie was in good spirits. This was incompetent farmer and unscrupu- their sort of venture. They were Bar- lous rascal. They groped and stum- reau's perpetrators of knavery. Any- bled and slid down the steep slope to thing even slightly malodorous fell to the bank, where they stood listening their lot. to the ripple and wash of the water. The opposite bank at this point on Across the river, twenty yards the river was equally as high and downstream, the light in the ferry- steep as the one they had quitted. man's hut gleamed solitarily. The It lay shrouded in the heavy dark- ferryman was a Barreau man—and ness. Only the light in the ferryman's besides no suspicion would be hut enabled Obie to judge distances aroused since Obie regularly used the and set a course. Tom knelt in the ferry in his nocturnal visits to the bow, tense, hands clenching the gun- Widow Bartlett upriver in Salina wales, peering forward into the night. but Sebastien had instructed them to "Goddam it, Obie," he whispered, use the canoe. The shed that Barreau his surprisingly soft voice tight with utilized as a boathouse was a few feet apprehension. "I can't see a damn to the left, its tiny bulk more sensed thing!" than perceived in the murky dark- Obie had no affinity with fear. He ness. calmly dipped his paddle on alternate The two scamps conversed in low sides of the canoe. "We'll be there in tones as they crept along the bank a minute." toward the shed. Then, with three or four strong Obie was abristle with efficiency. rapid strokes on one side, he brought He opened the creaking door of the the light craft broadside to the bank. shed, groped his way inside, lifted He groped for and found a bush the far end of the canoe, whispered growing out of the bank, seized it, to Sharp: "You take that end. Be and pulled himself out of the canoe, sure to raise it clear." They carried then held it while Tom clumsily it the few feet to the bank. It slid scrambled ashore. They lifted the gently and smoothly into the water. boat and deposited it high on the Obie held the canoe. Tom Sharp bank. placed one long leg in the bottom of At the top of the slope they sought the craft, then awkwardly pulled the out the path that led from Salina other in after him. He sank to his downstream along the riverbank to knees and crawled to the bow. Obie Van Oyer's East Objibway. They pushed off with his right foot and stole past the ferryman's hut, past nimbly lofted his thickset body into the blacksmith shop and cabin of The Manipulators 25

Semi Gibbs, discernible against the would fume, in wrath and contempt, glow from The Fort, farther on, past pointing down at the puncheon floor George Van Oyer's mill, silent at this of the taproom. "Everyone knows the hour but seeming, by its very size, to true trail runs by 'ere! And it does- Tom Sharp's hypersensitive imagina- n't even end 'ere! It goes on to Macki- tion to breathe animosity, hatred. naw." Once, near a turn in the path as it Obie and Tom Sharp crept to the followed the contours of the river, very edge of the low crude porch and they heard hoofbeats and saw an er- stood in the velvety darkness peering ratic light through the trees. They in through the unshuttered window faded into the bushes and crouched beside the door. Van Oyer, a huge lacing the trail. The rider passed by hulk of a man, was standing in pro- at a walk, carrying a pineknot torch, file before the fireplace, talking, hold- which burned fitfully and smokily. ing a mug in one hand and gesturing "Who is it, Obie?" Sharp demand- freely with the other, as if harangu- ed, breathless. "Who is it? I can't see ing a group of his cronies. Obie expe- that far." rienced a combination of exhilara- Obie peered out over the under- tion and fear, standing there in the brush, muttering, craning his thick heart of the enemy camp, exposed to neck and moving his head from side momentary discovery by the chance to side. appearance of some night-roving East "It's that bastard, Labiche, from Objibwayan, looking in on Barreau's Salina. See the sash? He thinks he's antagonist, unseen, unsuspected. still a voyageur. Going home." They stayed for some time, gazing in He settled back on his haunches, as if bewitched. But the spell had to watched the scattered, bobbing rays be broken. They were too vulnerable. of the receding light. Obie finally turned away. "Maybe we should've taken the "Come on," he whispered. other path, beyond the bayou." They moved across the causeway, Sharp was a blend of cowardice found the path on the other side, and and bravado. "If we had a musket or followed it to the right. About two a rifle, we could've picked him off." hundred yards up the path Obie stop- "You know Sebastien don't like ped. violence." "Here it is," he said cheerfully, "I know. I was just speculating." a chuckle of satisfaction in his voice. "You better leave the speculation Tom Sharp ranged up beside him. to Sebastien." Obie stepped from the path and With the light gone, the darkness vanished into the enveloping dark- was complete again. They continued ness. Sharp could hear his stumbling their stealthy mission passing various footsteps, his grunting, muttered scattered cabins, until they came to curses. Finally, Obie uttered a low Van Oyer's causeway over the bayou. cry of triumph. At the foot of the causeway, beside "I found the son-of-a-bitch, Tom. the river trail, stood the inn kept by Bring the sack over here." Leon Snow, George Van Oyer's The dimensions and location of the brother-in-law. Snow called his estab- building had been marked out as well lishment Trail's End, an appellation as the proposed site. In the black that enraged Barreau. "It's a lie!" he night it took Obie more than an hour 26 Four Quarters

to find the eight stakes and pull them. a glowing coal from the dying fire, They returned to the canoe along and applied it to his pipe. Going back the second, the hayou trail. to the table, he dropped the tobacco At the postern gate of The Fort pouch on the table. Obie said, "I'll get a lantern and a "Do you smoke, Mazhor?" mallet. Sebastien wants them placed Hoicomb looked up and smiled. tonight." His dark penetrating eyes burned happily. The twirled ends of his full On the following morning Sebas- mustaches seemed lifeless. He laid tien Barreau and Major Hoicomb sat aside the napkin and began searching at one end of the long trestle table at his pockets. which they had partaken of a hearty "Oh, yes. Indeed, I do. I have my breakfast and a number of judicious- pipe here somewhere." ly plied nips. Barreau sat down. "Yes, Mazhor. The taproom of The Fort was a This is a fas'-growing vicinity. Al- long narrow low-ceilinged room, a ready we 'ave almos' a thousan' of former barracks room, to which Bar- persons in the county. In ten years we reau had added a large field-stone 'ope to 'ave another thousan' more." fireplace at one side and a little port- Sebastien paused to puff on his cullissed bar at one end, between the pipe. Major Hoicomb smiled benign- door to the courtyard and the stair- ly without answering. He had found way to the upper rooms. his pipe and was cheerfully spilling Sebastien had carefully avoided in- tobacco on the table as he filled it. troducing Hoicomb at the common "An' why not?" Barreau went on. breakfast that was served at an early "There is fertile Ian', abundant tim- hour for the convenience of depart- ber, a navigable rivaire, plentiful fur ing guests. an' game animals." He raised his Food and drink deepened Bar- hand and flourished it in a sweep- reau's color and, so he thought, ing, all-embracing arc. "Oh, yes. heightened his mental powers. Ruddy There is a great potential. A great of face and neck, his mind racing, he potential." rose and strode over to the fireplace, When they had finished their took his tobacco pouch from the man- pipes, Barreau stood up. "Well, Ma- tel, and began to fill his pipe. zhor, shall we inspect the site?" He stood with his back to the Hoicomb rose and stood in his hearth, tamping the tobacco into the place at the end of the table, gazing bowl with a blunt forefinger. From at Sebastien with rapt attention. beneath lowered eyelids he observed Barreau, glancing quickly and cov- Major Hoicomb, The visitor sat at ertly at Hoicomb, picked up the near- the table, amiably wiping his lips ly full bottle from the table. He put with a napkin, unaware that he was down an impulse to pour the Major being watched. It goes well, thought another drink. He had wanted only Barreau. Obie Smith and Tom Sharp to recreate the fellowship of the pre- were stationed at the ferry crossing to vious night, but after that riotous intercept Van Oyer or any of his time the effect had been stronger and men. The site was ready. He had in- more rapid than he had anticipated. spected it before the Major arose. "Adam!" he bellowed at the top of He took up the pipe-tongs, plucked his voice. The Manipulators 27

Major Holcomb giggled at this. Se- site nearly adjoined it. And here was bastien looked sharply at Holcomb a salient point in Barreau's concern and mutely congratulated himself for the location of the new building. for his perspicacity. Those persons from outlying parts of Adam appeared in the open door- the country, when they had occasion way to the courtyard, glided across to visit the courthouse would have to the room, and stood before Barreau, stay in town overnight, unless they looking down and aside in his dark, were prepared to endure the risks of sullen secretive way. Barreau handed travel after dark. Of necessity they him the bottle and clapped a pudgy would stop either at The Fort or at hand on his thin shoulder. Trail's End, the inn of Leon Snow. "Adam boy, put this in the Ma- Sebastien walked Holcomb around zhor's saddlebags. It will 'elp to sus- the site, pointing out to him the stake tain 'im on the long zhourney 'ome," at each corner, then led him to the Barreau said with a carefully roguish center of the plot. "And 'ere, Ma- wink at Holcomb. The Major grinned. zhor," he said, "is the 'proximate lo- The lad silently accepted the bottle cation of the building itself." and disappeared up the stairway. Bar- Major Holcomb looked around reau turned back to Holcomb, "Come grandly, knowingly. "Yes. Fine," he along, Mazhor." He took his arm. murmured. "Very good." They stepped from the dusky light "Of course," Barreau continued, of the taproom into the sunlight of a "the plans are not completed, but it late spring morning. Blinking rapid- will be a two-story building, about an ly, Sebastien stopped, glanced swiftly 'undred feet long and fifty feet wide." to the right, down the slope to the Holcomb again mumbled vague ferry crossing, then steered Holcomb agreement, approval. Then, pointing to the left, westward. to a long, low-structured cabin he The clearing in which The Fort said, "What's 'at over there?" stood was extensive. On the edges of "Oh, yes," Sebastien said. "That it the forest looked cool, dark and is my ol' fur shed. It is no longer cool, but in the clearing the sun shone used an' will be torn down. You see," bright and unobscured. Plumes of (He smiled broadly and looked di- smoke rising from the chimneys of rectly into Holcomb's softened eyes.) the cabins across the trail were shad- "I am donating this Ian' for the pur- owed thinly on the ground. pose." Major Holcomb adjusted his mili- "Very commendable, Sebastien. tary slouch hat to an even more rak- Very commendable." ish angle. His fingers strayed to the Sebastien turned his head away but neck of his tunic, fumblingly loos- continued to watch Holcomb out of ened the top buttons. "Are the horses the corner of his eye, slyly, calculat- ready?" ingly. "Also, I 'ave a gift for you, "No, no, Mazhor 'olcomb," Sebas- Mazhor." He pointed southward, be- tien remonstrated. "We 'ave no need yond the fur shed. "That square over for the 'orse. It is just over the path there. It is equal to this one in area. we 'ave to go." It will be valuable Ian' some day." The path paralleled the river on Again, he smiled broadly. this side also and passed beside Se- Major Holcomb smiled in return, bastien's inn, so that the surrogate rather vaguely. His face looked as if 28 Four Quarters

it were about to fall apart. "That's Holcomb, his hand straying to the very commendable." collar of his tunic, discovered his par- Barreau, looking smug, triumphant, tial disarray, quickly buttoned up, steered Holcomb back toward The brushed imaginary lint from his Fort, saying, "I know you are im- breast. "Splendid. Then I'll look in patient to begin your 'omeward on him and pay my respects on my zhourney, Mazhor. While you are way back to Detroit. H you will point making out your report, I will 'ave the way, Mr. Barreau." Monsieur Beardsley make over to you Sebastien kept smiling. He took the the deed of your Ian'." Major's arm again and urged him At the stockade gate Major Hol- through the gate into the taproom. suddenly comb stopped and turned to "Unfortunately, Zheorzhe 'as left yes- face Barreau, breaking Sebastien's terday morning on a zhourney to the hold on his arm. The quality of hard north." He waved his hand indeter- calculation had reappeared in his minately. " 'e 'as interests up there. penetrating eyes. Barreau blue If I am not mistaken, 'e will be gone dropped his arm, glanced at his guest, a week." alerted by this abrupt change in man- Inside, he spied Adam, raking the ner, coals of the morning fire. "Mr. Barreau. You must know "Adam boy," he said, rather loudly, George Van Oyer. He is said to have "secure pen an' ink for the Mazhor. settled in this region. I knew him Then go to Monsieur Beardsley's slightly in New York." Sebastien smiled his broadest. "Of 'ome an' ask 'im to come here to the course! Zheorzhe is my dear frien'. inn. An' then, my boy, prepare Ma- He lives across the rivaire. A mile or zhor 'olcomb's 'orse. 'e is planning to so downstream." leave as soon as 'e can."

Sedation

• James Atwell, F.S.C.

Dream a dream I told myself Of sunlit water washing mossy rocks: That will be a comfort in the night.

But when I closed my eyes I saw Gray, silent wolves Standing fire-eyed Under twisted trees On moon-lit, crusted snow. —

A God for Thelma

Robert Joe Stout

Thelma Foxhall parked her ancient inhabited. Before moving to San Angel, LaSalle at the foot of the slope, across she had described the little outskirts from the market. An artist, a young colonia with the conventional quaint, Mexican with taut brown features and really Mexico, charming, refreshing. intent squirrel-like eyes, was standing She had believed the terms, but her on the sidewalk, legs apart, sketching belief had been an intellectual assump- with brush and ink. He held the small tion based on general opinion and bottle in his left hand, like a cup of cliche. Like the rest of the city, San tea, and stirred his brush into it as he Angel was drab, dirty, and uninterest- daubed a heavy skyline across the ing. Briefly, she wondered how many square of illustration board in front of of her convictions had similarly absurd him. foundations. Why do they always come to San Maria was sweeping the patio, a va- Angel to paint? Cuajimalpa was better, cant expanse of rooftop decorated with far enough from the city to have a dis- two enormous cracked earthenware tinctness of its own vases and a wooden garbage box. See But she was looking at the skyline, ing Thelma, the maid scuffled across visualizing it done with pastels. The sky the concrete, an automatic smile expos- first, she thought, a heavy gray; then ing large uneven teeth. the blue and green buildings pressed "Buenos dias, senora" together on the hill, two-dimensional "Buenos dias, Maria." Dropping her end flat. On top of the buildings, the handbag on the ponderous table inside clotheslines, the laundry on them hang- the doorway, Thelma went into the tiny mg slack, tinted the same shade of dull parlor, set off from the entranceway by red that emerged from the cobblestones. a high bookcase constructed of loose Perhaps, for contrast, the nose of a bricks and oak planking. Undoing the yellow tramcar visible at the intersec- top buttons of her blouse, she stretched tion. and went to the record player. She had The scene depressed her. She lived clicked it on before she remembered in one of the houses; the cobblestone- that it was broken. tinted clothes on one line belonged to "Damn!" her. Without really wanting to know "Me hablo, senora?" Maria's round the time, she looked at her watch. One face popped through the doorway. fifty-two. Maria would have finished "No." the cleaning and would be waiting for "Unn," the maid grunted retreating. instructions about lunch. Again Thelma "Crei que me hablo." Trying to ignore glanced upwards, at the concrete bal- her Thelma paced disgustedly through conies and iron grillwork that protruded the room, aware of the stare that fol- into the gray pattern. lowed her. "Va-a comer, senora." Somehow all the houses seemed un- The lash of her anger evaporated be- 29 30 Four Quarters

fore Thelma could whirl and expose it. again. She had considered letting the Va-a comer? Va-a corner? The constant, maid go, but Maria had insisted on unchanging intonation, the persistent staying, having no other place to sleep. blank smile followed her like a pen- Unable to bear the guilt of not being ance. "Puppet!" she had screamed once, provident, Thelma continued to pay but Maria had not understood, and her. Thelma had not tried to translate. "No The leftover cigarette had an acrid le hace," she had apologized, and Maria laste. A fringe of bitterness played with had smiled. her smile as she remembered how dis- "Va a com? gusted Tommy had been when he'd "Momendto!" brought his wife for a week's visit. He Striding out of the parlor, Thelma had hardly seemed like her son—more recovered her handbag and began like a former son, she thought, trans- into too-early scraping through its contents. Three pe- posed a adulthood, as though he had skipped half a decade sos, four, five—Checking her bitterness with clenched teeth, she turned the bag and was suddenly closer to her in age. upside down on the table and sorted "Grandmother Foxhall," she muttered through the debris, sliding copper to herself, grinding the cigarette into change to one side. "De a cudnto va ar- shreds in the ashtray. Grandmothers roz?" she asked sharply. were supposed to have gray hair and perpetually sweet smiles and live in "Va a cuartro-veinte for kilo." neat little cottages on the outskirts of "Medio kilo de arroz. Two-ten," Thel- little towns. She was only forty-two. ma mumbled, and a peso for bread, And broke. three-ten. Maybe a few string beans and "Damn!" Maliciously she yanked the some sowbelly—enough to make soup cat's tail and watched the animal scurry with. Fifty-five centavos for cigarettes over the record player into the hall. Of . . . "Llevalo!" she barked, snapping all things, its being broken was worst. her fingers. "Todo. Take it all." Ma- Tommy she could do without, but the ria reiterated the little list of items silence was unbearable. she was to buy, scooped the money in- to her apron, and padded out. Thelma returned to the parlor. Xan- The phone rang just after Maria re- tippia, lean and dirty, her long Persian turned. "Si, estd la sefiora" Thelma fur tangled and shedding, sidled against heard the maid parrot in a rapid sing- Thelma's legs as she sagged limply song. "Pa'usted, senora!" But Thelma into the decrepit porfirio-diaz arm- was already out of the armchair. chair. Idly she scratched her finger "Please," she whispered, her hand over nails into the cat's fur, ignoring a si- the mouthpiece, "somebody please in- lent meow. Beside her in the ashtray vite me to dinner!" she found half of a cigarette and lit it. "Bueno." Being without money made her feel "Bueno," a man's voice, vaguely fam- empty, used up. She knew she could iliar, echoed. Then, with a slight laugh, borrow another fifty pesos at the In- "Seiiora Foxhall?" Despite the Mexican stitute, but that would only last a few intonations, she detected an American days. Rent, paying back what she had accent. already borrowed, and Maria's salary "This is Thelma Foxhall," she said would devour her next check, and the in English. merry-go-round would be whirling "Hi. This is Phil Reger." " ;

A God for Thelma 31

For a moment the name hung, mean- apostrophe his rare moments of senti- ingless, before her mind. Then, with a mentality. "Thelma," he sighed, "it's solid thrust of feehng, the past opened, good to talk to you again." and Phil's face and voice spun long un- used remembrances into focus. "Phil! She put on a cotton dress and combed My God! When did you get back?" her hair. For a while she tried to read, "Yesterday." but neither of the books she picked up "Are you here to stay?" engrossed her interest. Swishing rest- lessly about the parlor, she looked more He mumbled an incoherent syllable; closely at the cotton dress, remembering she could picture him shrugging. "Yes. it was one Tommy had teased her about I couldn't take it," he said, his tone wearing. "It makes you look like a dis- more serious. "I think God's gone to placed teenager," he had said. Besides, sleep again. His people up there are it didn't match the apartment. Afraid trying to blow the world to hell." the contrast would shock Phil, she put "I said you'd be back." on a brown skirt and matching wool "I'm back." He laughed hollowly. He sweater. Phil would remember me this hasn't changed, she thought, he prob- way. A spurt of anger intercepted the ably doesn't even look older. "I thought reverie. "You'd think he was a long lost maybe you could treat a starving gringo lover, the way I'm acting," she mum- to a meal," he said. bled. In quick desperation she looked at "Maude, senora?" Maria's inquisitive faded walls and antiquated furniture, at oval peeped around the corner of the Maria's blank face, visible above the bookcase. partition that separated the kitchen "Nada, nada, nada." Choking on the from the part of the hallway used as weary re-arousal of her anger, Thelma a dining room. "Of course," she said, strode back through the parlor. With- trying to keep her voice pleasant. out thinking, she lifted the lid of the "Come over, I'll give you a meal. Not record player and squinted at the title a treat, just a meal." beneath a thin film of dust on the turn- "Beans and rice?" table. Rachmaninoff: Symphony #2 in "Just rice. I can't afford beans." Ir- e minor. She tried to imagine its filling ritated by her own bluntness, she tried the small room, the heavy theme merg- to soften her manner. "Take the street ing into successively higher octaves car the one that goes Chapulte- — down then cresting into a topple of thin vio- pec Zaragosa fifty-seven right by the — lin soimd. Her eyes blurred until it market. It's easy to find." seemed the record was spinning, lifting "Zaragosa fifty-seven," Phil repeated, her as the theme grew more complex, enunciating his retreat carefully. "Fine. the strings blending with the weightier I'll be there—within an hour. As soon counterpoint of reed instruments. A as I can get a street car." pause, then the scurry of melody being The rice will be ready," she chir- introduced, blending again, lifting. . , ruped, her attempt— at cheerfulness fail- "Estd'l timbre!" shouted Maria, ing. "Don't forg scampering barefooted into the parlor. "Thelma?" he interrupted quickly. "'Quiere que la'bra yo?" "Yes?" "Abralo." Thelma sighed, waiting un-

"Thanks." Very faintly she heard the til the footsteps scuffled out of hearing self-denigrating little laugh he used to before closing the record player. Don't — —

32 Four Quarters

have changed, Phil she thought, pinch laughed, harshly. "That was fifteen ing her cheeks until they hurt. Please years ago," she said incredulously, don't have changed. meeting Phil's gaze. For a moment, animated by the memories, she had for- She held both hands out to receive gotten her surroundings, the penury of him. He took them, smiling, and nod- her middle-age. "We thought Tommy ded an approval that made her feel should go to school in the oF home at ease. Except that a thinness creased country. But we didn't like it. We came deeper maturity into his cheeks, he back." looked the same. His dark hair was "How is Tommy?" short and his brown eyes snapped at "Fine." The word sprang spontane- her with defensive alertness. "I was go- ously to her lips. For years that had ing to bring some beer," he said, releas- been the queue, and she had always ing her grasp, "but I didn't want to responded perfectly. How is Tommy?

pay the deposit for the bottles.I thought Fine! he. . . . and on into a mother's you'd have some empties." dutiful description of her son's activ- She caught herself staring at the five- ities. But all that had changed; now peso note he gave Maria. "So you're she didn't care. "I don't know. He's back," she said, waving him toward a changed, grown up. He's married now, chair by the room's long uncurtained you know." Phil said, "I didn't window. "Sit down, sit down. Tell me "No," know." He about the United States." frowned, concealing the flicker of rec- ognition that darted through his glance. He was pleased—she could tell he "Is that Xantippia?" he asked. was pleased to see her—and despite his cat out of the parlor bitterness could not restrain his smile. The had come and was brushing against Thelma's "I was lost up there—they're mad, chair. Gently she the whole country's mad." He laughed, reached down and pulled it to her lap. "Yes," she acknowl- making fun of his own incoherency. "I edged, pressing her face against the don't know. I tried and I couldn't take cat's piqued grimace. "That's Phil, it. Cars, money, television, that's all any- Xanzie. body talked about." For a moment he Do you remember Phil?" withdrew, as though to inspect the dark "What's happened to her?" edges of his mood. She let the pet drop and searched "No," he corrected, "that's too trite. endtables and windowsills for her cig- It was something else. My fingers arettes. "The same thing that's hap- couldn't touch anything, feel anything. pened to me," she told him, ripping her My parents, the people I used to know fingernail through the cellophane and —but my parents, mostly—seemed offering one to him. "We're broke. Phil. caught in a laundromat of superficiali- Hungry, dirty, and broke." ties. Nobody believed in anything, no- "You're still teaching, aren't you?" body said anything. At first I thought "Yeah." She watched the smoke dis-

I just wasn't used to it. Then I started integrate through a crack in the win- wanting Mexico. Finally, I had to come dow beside them. "I'm still teaching. back. No job, no GI Bill left, nothing. But the Institute doesn't pay any more But I had to come back." than it ever did. And since Tommy got Thelma nodded. "I remember," she married—well, I don't get alimony from said, "when Pete—Tommy's father Pete. One-fifty a month—dollars; that ." and I went back. . , Suddenly she makes a difference." —

A God for Thelma 33

Phil nodded. The effort of trying to was afraid Annie's parents—" She force sympathy through his selfcon- smiled wearily and looked at the dirt- sciousness made his face seem more stained ceiling; there was nothing more mobile. Disappointed more than any- to say. "Ron's in Los Angeles now, thing else, she decided, disappointed to married, working. He sends me cards find hard times here, too. No longer for my birthday and Christmas." the parties, the well-stocked liquor Coughing uncomfortably, Phil exam- shelf, the expensive meals. Poverty ined his hands. "Everything's gone visiting poverty—two people too well- wrong, hasn't it?"

bred, too proud, to lower their stand- "Not wrong, Phil. I've just been left ards of living, their expectations. behind, that's all, and can't catch up. "I see you still have Maria." I have to hurry to live and can't hurry She laughed, horsily, and was imme- anymore." diately sorry. "Things aren't as black as He nodded, still uncomfortable. The I paint them," she blurted, trying to hallway door slammed, and he looked atone. "I could get by—if I reaUy up, surprised, then relaxed when he tried, if I really wanted to. I could get recognized Maria. "Good," he said, rid of the phone and do my own laun- "the beer," and got up to open a bottle dry—but I keep borrowing. Then I for each of them. pay back what I borrow and I've noth- "You make me feel so—so helpless," ing left." The cigarette smoke twisted he told Thelma. "I wish I could do through the sunlight; her shrug, self- something—for the whole world, really, deprecating and fitful, called attention but especially you." His snicker, self- to her aloneness. "Phil, I'm sorry. I conscious and apologetic, punctuated shouldn't take my troubles out on you." his hostility. "The whole world's a "I guess I came intending to take mess, a horrible accident, some kind of mine out on you," he answered softly, bad joke. There's— no room in it for the smile trying to gain warmth but for people like " He withheld the plu- restricted to an involuntary bitterness. ral pronoun, adjusting the reference to " For a few minutes they looked through fit —you." A short, brutal laugh strode the window at the panorama of dirty over his sentiment, obscuring it. "If I rooftops and drying clothes. She was were God, Thelma, I'd change every- prepared for his question when he fi- thing, just for you." nally asked it. "Thanks, Phil," she answered, getting "What happened to Ron?" up to prod Maria to set the table and Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, serve the caldo. Then, returning, "You trying to bring the intense, haunting have, just by being here. At least, you features into full clarity, the smooth understand." thick complexion and eyes like dark windows that exposed the fire burning He stayed until dusk. Thelma walked in his mind, his mother's Japanese blood downstairs with him. The street, in the lurking within the physical bulk of his twilight, no longer seemed so dreary. Danish-American father, setting him The corners were smoothed, and the dirt apart wherever he was, in whatever he and harsh colors blended into riper, did. more earthy grays. Even auto horns "I quit seeing him, Phil. Tommy seemed muted, and the people trudg- came back—it was the year before he ing up the incline from the market got married—and, well, objected. He were silent. 34 Four Quarters

Phil promised to come again and teroom, where incense and blue-veiled gave her the phone number of the apart- electric lanterns softened the atmo- ment in which he was staying with sphere. a friend. Despite a glow of pleasure, Four other mendicants were sitting she felt depressed—Phil wasn't going on a blue petate, legs crossed and hands anywhere either; he was more deter- folded over their chests. Three of them minedly bitter and less fun to talk to. wore the white togas of novices and And, despite his samenesses, he was sat apart, occasionally twitching as older. And broke. their attempts at concentration wavered. She shrugged, unable to support the The fourth, Rissis, a short bespectacled weight of continued concern, and re- American, was one of Nit Su's highest turned to the apartment. At the land- practitioners. He wore a robe of deep ing she paused to look at her watch. blue and sat in total absorption, scarce- Just enough time to bathe before go- ly breathing. ing to Nit Su. In order not to disturb the novices, Thelma took off her shoes before climb- She backed the sputtering LaSalle in- ing the uncarpeted stairs. The prepara- tion room was painted a deep blue and to a parking place across from the dim illuminated by small-watt bulbs plugged ly lit temple and, for a moment, sat in the comfortable darkness finishing her into the wall outlets. Closing the door, cigarette. The temple's beige stucco Thelma fell to her knees and pressed walls blended in size and coloration her fingertips against her forehead to with the residential dwellings on either destroy disrupting thoughts, against her lips, medulla, her plexis, side; a faint, cloudy-blue light steamed her solar and through the thickly draped and grated her groin to destroy the other obstruc- windows. tions to perfect priesthood (words, ex- Throwing the cigarette away, she citements, breaths, desires). Rising, she closed her eyes and began the breathing disrobed and went to the wall closet, exercises, preparing herself for the where her white-fringed robe of a full long, slow entrance into spirituality, the initiate was hanging. Quickly, strug- shedding of the extraneous nonlife that gling to remain without thought, she clogged her bloodstream and nervous slipped into it and fell to her knees system. Finally, calm and pleasantly ex- to hum a prayer for strength to con- pectant, she got out of the car and tinue. crossed the street. At the altar, converted from a fire- The outside gate was unlocked. She place and surrounded by blue-and-white went through into a little patio and, on puebla tile, she made obeisance, kissing the steel-framed door that was the main her fingertips and placing them against entrance to the temple, knocked three the edge of the low prayer table set in times, paused, knocked once, paused, the opening, then prostrated herself and knocked three times again. Tt and laid her forehead against it. Again swung open, and Mountshi, the Gate- she hummed a mantram, the final prep- keeper, a slender young American with aration before entering the Pure-No- limpid eyes and a pale complexion, Thing worship below. bowed and touched his right hand Rissis and the novices were still to his heart, his navel, and his loins in there. Dutifully bowing toward him, she formal greeting. She responded with sank into samadhi position a short dis- the same gesture and went into the an- tance away, legs crossed, hands folded —

A God for Thelma 35 beneath her breasts, and resumed her pelled the frustration by releasing a control of the five obstructions, tryini^ high toneless moan. Weaving back and to drive from her outerworld being the forth, caught by remembrance of the fragments of frustration and desire difficult melody, she opened her mind still lingering there. and heart to participation with the Gradually she began to emerge, the shafts of beauty rising from her im- petals of superficial consciousness and agination and blending with the soft physical aw^areness peeling away and strident guitar. Someone in the dark wilting in the depths. The strange spe- room, infected with her spirit, raised a cial fluid she associated with realiza- voice in chant, rousing her to an in- tion eased out of her stomach, spread- teraction of free-floating lives meeting ing its calm exciting warmth through beyond the confines of walls and dark- her chest and arms and face. Destroy- ness. ing her breathing entirely, she waited Time lost its dimensions; the limit- in giddy expectancy for the last bond less purity of the unknown swept her of sensuality to break and release her away, dissolving animosities, filling her to contemplation. with the wonder and glow of total, un- Free! Filled with deep, pure delight, fettered joy. Desireless, she burst she lunged into full breathing, the en- through the veils of personality into a tire potentiality of her lungs thrusting vastness so complete and inspiring it her beyond time and space into sweep- obliterated even her ability to feel. ing slashes of unrooted color. Free! Only gradually did perceptivity re- Completely, ecstatically, beyond all turn, individual strands of pale blue re- commonplace, occupying a physical weaving into the patterns of her life. She body only for convenience, only because was perspiring and her throat was dry. the soul needed earthly roots, she soared Her skin tingled, as though impurities into experience that transcended need. had physically burst through it, purging Free! Free! Free! Brilliant colors her of decay. Sinking to the floor, she whipped past her mind as her inner thricefold repeated obeisance, thankful spirit elevated her into space, beyond to her spirit for having given her re- color, beyond sound alization, thankful to Nit Su for hav- Quickly she got up, bowed to Rissis ing cleased her soul. and the novices, and hurried to the In order not to inadvertently contam- Chamber-of-All-Life. inate herself from others, she hurried A small blue floodlight etched a cii- out of the Chamber-of-All-Life and, cular radiance against the ceiling; the stripping off her robe, slid feet first in- rest of the room was dark. A guitarist to the pool of frigid water in the inner was strumming flamenco in a far cor- patio. The shock of it took her breath ner and, at intervals, a tall Mexican but restored her immediately to maya- girl glided an impromptu ballet through sat—the world of physical form. the tube of light. Thelma stood quietly, waiting for her Her elation disappeared quickly. freed spirit to direct her, to flame into The seat cushions of the car were dirty, being and fill the serene No-Thing-ness and the tear along one seam was as of samadhi vdth vital energy. Attracted noticeable as it had been before. She by the music, she began to hum, remem- lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of bering the broken record player in smoke against the windshield. Purged, her apartment, and immediately ex- cleansed, a new being; but immediately —

36 Four Quarters the boredom and loneliness descended blade of necktie, glanced at her, then again, before she could drive away. looked away, as though not aware of She didn't want to go back to the having seen her. "Damn you" she apartment. Although she knew without cursed beneath her breath, shoving looking how low the gas tank was, she aside the temptation to introduce her- flicked the dashlights and examined self, join them. "They would only laugh the gauge. Just enough to get to San at me," she told herself, trying to sup- Angel and back into town again Mon- press animosity as she started back to- day. ward the car. Angrily she pounded the flat of her Detouring through the dark, narrow hand against the steering wheel. Some- streets, she tried to enjoy picturesque times, after Nit Su, she sat at a side- little sequences her glances into lighted walk table in front of Las Americas, patios and curtained windows exposed. drinking coffee or beer and watching But her mind would not surrender it- the crowd disperse after the last movie. self to aesthetic appreciation. Memo- I wish Phil were with me. But Phil had ries of Tommy jogged out of her un- other friends, bachelors his own age. conscious. Tommy and his friends, El Casino was the only alternative. sitting around the big living room of Sometimes a few of the teachers who the plush apartment she and he had had Saturday night classes at the Insti- rented in Colonia Napoles, listening to tute stopped there on their way home. music, talking, filling her life with

Twelve blocks. I've walked it before. pleasant tumult. Tommy. And behind But she never remembered having felt the image of his youthful exuberance, as empty. Purged and cleansed, but the shadowy infiltration of Ron's face after the descent to ordinary existence and gestures. For the sake of her son disillusioned and empty. She imagined she had surrendered a strong man's that prisoners felt the same way after love. Now both child and lover were awakening from dreams to face the gone. dreariness of their cell walls again. In front of her car she glanced at the She strolled casually through the temple. A soft spiritual iridescence modern brittle atmosphere of the cafe, shone through the draped window. playing the scene well. She smiled and Through Nit Su she had purged her- said, "Buenos noches" to the cashier self of the unclean, of the nonlife, and and lifted her eyebrows as she scanned it had left her vacant, without any- the booths, hoping to see someone she thing. The return to the superficial knew. was the hardest part of all. // only I "Quiere una mesa?" could stay up there, all the time. If

'No. Yo busco a unos amigos. Pero no only I didn't have to come back. . . ! estdn ellos." The waiter nodded and hurried away. She drove out Insurgentes. A block Slowly she turned to leave. At a table beyond the Aleman overpass she passed near the entrance, four Americans 3 young Mexican standing alone under students, she guessed—were laughing a street light; his neat dark suit fit him and drinking coffee. In front of them with youthful dignity, and his face, the remnants of expensive meals glis flicking up as she passed, was tiny and tened on their plates. God, am I hun- handsome. For a moment her thoughts gry! One of the men, uninquisitive turned inward, contemplating the in- young face perched atop a thin, bright sufficiency and loneliness of his pos- — ?

A God for Thelma 37 ture. Impulsively she swung off the But without music she couldn't concen- wide thoroughfare, into the parallel es- trate and quickly became annoyed. Phil planade, and circled the block. might know someone who could fix the "Hola!" she shouted, leaning across record player. She found the slip of the front seat to crank the window paper on which he had scribbled his open. "Quiere que le lleve yo?" number and went to the phone. For a He started to open the door, then moment she hesitated, unsure of her muttering an indistinct syllable of sur- motives, but her attempt to evaluate prise—backed away in confusion. them blurred into the emotionless ob- "Perdone, perdone senorita," he mum- jectivity of wanting the record player bled, abetting his apology with quick, fixed, denigrating gestures, "creia yo que." "Hello," an unfamiliar nasal voice The full force of her embarrassment drawled. struck at once. She stomped the gas "'Is— ?" she began, again hesitating. pedal and swerved drunkenly back in- A bar of subdued music, atonal and to traffic, almost colliding with a pick- monotonous, came through the receiver. up despite its bleating horn. A queer! "Is Phil Reger there, please?" I try to pick up a man and he turns "Just a minute," the nasal voice out to be a queer! grumbled, "I'll wake him." She tried to call the voice back, to

Still balanced on a teetertotter be- tell it not to bother, but the clunk of the tween hilarity and tears, she fled up the phone against wood and the muffled stairs into the heavy solitude of her sound of a door slamming had already ancient apartment. Maria had gone; interrupted their communication. Half Xantippia was asleep on the window- turning, she leaned against the wall and sill. Thelma thumbed through a stack let her gaze wander over the hallway's of paperbacks, then wandered into the gray shoddiness. Phil would enjoy hear- kitchen, hoping to find a bolillo left ing about the queer. He liked that sort over from lunch. Nothing—apparently of thing—the wry, ironic twists that

life. . . the maid had taken them to munch on. wrenched meaning from . Disgruntled, Thelma started to light a "Hello, Thelma?" delicado but, noticing how few re- "Yes. How did you know it was me?" mained in the pack, pushed it back and "No one else knows I'm staying here." ransacked ashtrays for a smokable stub. "Oh." "A queer," she muttered, pushing the His self-conscious laughter filled the ashtray of butts with her thumb. "May- gap in conversation. "What did you— ?" be I'm lucky he was." She tried to I mean, why—— laugh, remembering his shocked ex- "Phil, I " Across the room, near the pression, but the deserted apartment ridge of cement that substituted for seemed waiting to haunt her with baseboard along the wall beneath the echoes and she drew back from the long table, she saw a pile of crumbled sound. For a long time she stood at plaster. Slowly she gazed upward; a the window, gazing at the gray reflec- chalky white octagon dangled beside tion of her face on the dark glass. / a hole in the ceiling, and little festoons ivonder what Ron ivould say. of dust trailed down from it. The rush In the parlor she picked up one of of tears and sobs lasted only a few sec- the books she had been reading that onds; choking and sniveling, she afternoon and huddled in the dim light brought her mood under control, too —I —

38 Four Quarters ashamed of her outbreak to continue echoed wearily. "I don't know, Phil trying to pretend. "I'm sorry, Phil. I what is there to talk about?" Her laugh, I don't know. I was going —to call— short and cryptic, mimicked the timid mean, I wanted to find out " But it throatiness of his. "Let's talk about was impossible and absurd; finding God," she suggested, rancorously. For some one to fix the phonograph had a moment the slender vision of a beam been an excuse, and Phil would see of light slitting the darkness of the through the artifice. "I've had an aw- Chamber-of-All-Life occurred to her; ful night. I wanted someone to talk to, its contrast with chipping plaster and that's all." dust made her shiver. "God's okay," "Sure," he said uncomfortably, "let's she said gruffly, no longer concerned talk." about his response. "God's okay, Phil, The festoons of dust twisted and the it's not His fault. It's just—just this large octagon of plaster swayed, trying long damned lonesome wait." to break the few threads that still held Phil's heavy breathing was interrupt- it aloft. Let's talk. But there was noth- ed by incoherent little grunts of re- ing to say. She couldn't tell him about jected conversation. Thelma sighed, re- Nit Su—he wouldn't have believed the alizing the futility of talking to him, beauty of the freedom she'd achieved, "I'm sorry I called," she mumbled, even if she were able to describe it. lifting the phone away from her ear. And she couldn't tell him about the From her hand, his slender, anxious queer, without having to explain the voice piped through its embarrassment, temporary blindness of her desperation "Is there—anything I can do?" not to be alone. "No," she replied, "nothing you can "What shall we talk about?" he do." Naked in the aftermath of anger asked, his voice fitting the impatience and want, she closed her eyes and let of the music droning through the back- them blur into a mist of dry hateful- ground. ness, as she dropped the receiver back "What shall we talk about?" she into place.

Vietnam

Paul Ramsey

The hopscotch is blindfold. Nonetheless we play. Tell the corners, build the crossings, go and come away. Rest not. Want not. Seed the tide of sun!

One is a doing. Do it, and undone. Leapfrogs near you. Will you trot? Have a mercy. Have a fire-raid. Have another knot. Vesper Dome

Slowly up the sandy height we climbed And waited, silent in our visionary Dome, pillared under three-and-ninety Winds unblown, mortal to the dawn. Then Two Whining down the darkness came a measured Wind, and tall, dark-speared pines made Slantings far behind our waiting-hall. Poems There we bore witness to what men will Dream upon the sea, as wind-prints, like Ancient writings, traced upon the sand. Marking where those old visions came • Judy Dunn Real, a palimpsest from Clotho's hand. The sea was wild with emerald lights, broken And glass-spattered; flannel gulls in slanted Flight tilted up, then tipping lower down, Plunged into popping foam, whirred Away in sound. The wind came again. As if some phantasmal wind-harps of Forgotten lands spun their lone, abandoned Tunes over spiral swellings, and we saw A slow procession of ashen nuns moving In ancient requiem, sullen rhythm Along the pale and profiled shore. Prismal Sand, shot through with every color. Stained mosaics in the neutral land. Far more we saw, huddled in our Palace of the night; but not for telling. What dreams have run down upon your Grayer towns I have wondered, sliding Down through razored grass. Your domes For singing, laughing, even prayer. Have lasted through fall till summer. But They are all of time, none of wonder.

Spider's Fool

She slowly hangs warm thread Between web-spokes of light-specked silk Glistening in angles of sticky gilt. Cautious, she lays down sagging lines And creeps along her bridges until Her death-net has no beginning. No end, then descends soundless down Her silken line and waits her fool. 39 The Broken Iconoclast * Brendan Galvin

After the maze of mirrors, when a laugh Was sharp enough to slice my breath in half, I charged outside and tried to take the town, Cursing each brick by name to bring it down On my own head, my flag-red fear unfurled. smiler, till your soft siege cracked my frown, 1 was the Hamlet of the Underworld.

To My Mother

• R. F. Kaczorowski

I put her love on this morning with my clothes. It slipped on easy as a T-shirt, secure and caressing, warm as the sweaters that her tired hands would knit for me. Other mornings, I'd grab it from my drawer, and throw it in my briefcase just for luck. Or, in the manner of a raincoat, I'd drape it on my elbow to throw about my shoulders in a storm.

Automat

• Paul Kelly in the morning paper: a man was shot stealing beer, running away; in black and white, half hid in darkness, he lay bleeding in the street and they developed the shots in a nearby darkroom, glosses by the latest techniques, cut and dried them in a matter of minutes, wirefaxed immediately throughout the service; in time for tomorrow morning's early edition, then to be snipped and filed and forgotten. If you look closely enough, you lose the image ; thousands of tiny dots individually transmitted over copper wires. Over luncheon coffee I still watch him dying. 40 —

Woman with Aquarium

• Sister Maura, S.S.N.D.

In the fluid world she hobby-created, there was no stagnancy, no inching pond scum, no whorl and scream of garbage-inflated gulls. She forbade dark, deplored the thrum of frail ripples. She instructed her maid to purify the water, daily syphoning it from the tank at regular hours. She overpaid for the inhabitants: rare, bluevined angelfish, a white albino catfish; curious, jade streaked mollies, and—under willowish reeds — a prize loach male (brassy blue and red) to whom she carried on a delicate dish a tweezerpinch of fresh lobster on which he fed.

Litany

• Nancy J. Wiegel

Praise my father waiting for death, waiting as a lost child waits for someone to find him, as a willow waits for its leaves. Praise my father courting his death, like a troubadour singing

to it, like an amorous prince lifting the countless green veils of his bride.

Praise my father greeting his death,

making it welcome, folding the linen and silk of his skin back that death might sleep in him warmly; giving his guest the keys to his gardens and gold.

Praise my father, his going and goal. April will imitate him with tulips; heroes will carve his bright name on their swords. 41 At the Frontiers of Knowledge

• Minna F. Weinstein

Today I saw a man who told me about rats. He puts silver electrodes with ebony tentacles Into their skulls. It's minor surgery. Waves of pleasures and pains advance on their brains Like armies of liberation cannonading continents With pieces of slogans. And one or two shells. Ugly little, hairy little paws claw at chromium pedals To punctuate and paragraph the clinical debate Between an academic baron And a scholarly marquis. Three quantified doses of torment bring one of unqualified bliss In a frenzied waltz, a spasmed search For the canyons of truth And the hollows of life. Robots and sunspots and the functions of glands. Little letters and numbers and white sterile men. The rapture of knowing. The smashing of toys.

Overpass 6AM

• Sister Mauta, S.S.N.D.

Two laconic newsboys stand on the overpass staring down trucks lunging flour out of Minneapolis. Accurately they spit an asterisk of ego on a cab.

Soon the university will move as surely as a vowel following a glide. Now this moment, unique as a thumbprint asserts itself.

Modes of darkness are buffeted into the underground garage; death is stoppered in a tube at Mayo's.

On the overpass, wooden planks are bright as morning grass with dew. Feet begin the sensuous adventure up the rise; body aligns itself to stride; spirit to ancient imperishable hope. 42 Lux Perpetua

• Richard Loomis

Who says it's right to mourn the dead? They stand about us full of knowing, Their whole life gathered to a pearl of light Cupped in their burning hands.

Found and Lost

• T. Alan Broughton

She found the turtle after the mowers passed rattling their blades that cut him out of the matted grass, and brought him in to us cupped in her hands as carefully as water. "Heal it," is what her motions said as she kneeled beside it on the rug. Her mother and I restrained ourselves and tried to show some sympathy for the way it moved its head out turning from side to side, eyes blinking as though coming fresh from centuries of dark, and circling lame because one side had limbs, the other bled a sluggish mucus. We put him in a bowl with grass which helped to make him seem more natural, hiding his wound. "He's getting well," she said before she went to bed that night, having begged special permission to come down after her story to say goodnight, to gravely peer at the armored head, the eyes looking like nightmares that I tried to diminish by smiling. 43 I was the one to see him last, descending to turn out some forgotten light after the others had fallen to sleep. I looked through the glass to all those years and the darkened grass to where he lay at rest. The room we kept together was black bone, and only one slight lamp by the window let us see each other eye to eye. He stared me down, I turned upstairs to climb away from him to wait for light, leaving him all the lower house to lie in brooding even in sleep, our maimed and ancient guest.

The Old Man

• Nathan Cetvo

You will find him on the bench. His smile all rags, and his great eyes unwashed. H you sit by him and hum. The tangles of his feet will move. And should you say you remember a time When a young man Stood in the door On Ascension Thursday, While the mantled plaster saint went by. His spittle will tremble down on his vest. Or should you speak of Eternal Rest And its beauties. His heart will come out of his pocket, And he'll try to gobble it down Before you see. Finally, you'll observe if you turn back And catch him (After you've had your sharp fun with him), His waving fingers become fluttering Leaves that glide Like pale wings At his shoulders. You'll laugh out loud at that old goose! 44 Contributors

~W W^ HOPKINS writes: "I am head of the Fiction Department of ^^ • '- • the Free Library of Philadelphia. The short story writer I have admired most is the late Frank O'Connor. A quite different writer I much admire is Georges Simenon." Hopkins has had several stories published in this magazine. THOMAS A. WEST, JR. is headmaster of a small school in Connecticut; he has had stories and poems accepted by several magazines, among them Poet Lore, Trace, and Cimarron Review. RICHARD LOOMIS is dean of King's College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsyl- vania. GERALD W. SADENWATER writes from Saginaw, Michigan: ** After high school I worked for some fifteen years in the shipping room of a local factory. One day about ten years ago I walked out. Since then, I have been writing full time, trying to make a living at it, which is kind of crazy, I guess." JAMES ATWELL, F.S.C. is a college teacher in Mary- land. ROBERT JOE STOUT, of Austin, Texas, has been a frequent contributor to four quarters. PAUL RAMSEY has had poems and stories in this magazine for several years. JUDY DUNN had poems in two previous issues. BRENDAN GALVIN sent his poem from Amherst, Massachusetts. R. F. KACZOROWSKI and PAUL KELLY are students at La Salle College. SISTER MAURA, S.S.N.D. teaches at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. MINNA F. WEINSTEIN is a member of the history department. La Salle College. NANCY WIEGEL lives in Marquette, Michigan. T. ALAN BROUGHTON makes his home in Winooski, Vermont. NATHAN CERVO lives in Oneonta, New York. CLAUDE KOCH, professor of English, La Salle College, has published four novels and has been a Dodd-Mead Fellow, a Sewanee Review Fellow, and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow; he is presently working on a novel.

Writers who appear in four qnarters are eligible for awards up to ^1000 and republication in the Annual Literary An- thology scheduled to appear in 1968, through the National Endowment for the Arts.

Editor, EDWARD P. SHEEKEY, F.S.C. Associate Editors, JOHN J. KEENAN, F. PATRICK ELLIS, F.S.C. Business Manager, CHARLES V. KELLY Circulation Manager, RICHARD P. BOUDREAU Typographic Cover Design by JOSEPH MINTZER

Manuscripts and other correspondence should be addressed to the Editor, lour qnar* ters. La Salle College, Philadelphia, Penna. 19141. Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced and should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Annual Subscription: Two Dollars.