Confessions of a Crap Artist

19

At nine in the morning, Nathan Anteil met his lawyer in the corridor outside department three of the San Rafael Courthouse. His witness was with him, a plump, scholarly man who had known both him and Gwen for a number of years.

The three of them left the courthouse and went across the street to a coffee shop. In a booth they sat discussing what the lawyer would want done and how. Neither Nat nor his witness had ever been inside a court of law before.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” the lawyer said. “You go up on the stand and then I ask you a lot of questions that you answer by saying yes; for instance, I ask you, isn’t it true that you were originally married October 10, 1958, and you answer yes; then I ask you, isn’t it true that you’ve been a resident of Marin County for a period in excess of three months, and so forth. I ask you isn’t it true that your wife treated you in a manner involving cruel and unaffectionate behavior that caused you acute humiliation in public and before friends, and that her treatment had the result that you suffered mental and physical privation, resulting in inability to perform your job and that the result of this was that you could not carry on your life and meet your obligations in a way satisfactory to you.” The lawyer droned on, gesturing with rapid, sharp flutters of his right hand. Nat noticed that the man’s hands were unusually white and small, that his wrist had no hair on it. The nails were perfectly manicured, and it occurred to him that this was almost like a woman’s hands. Evidently the lawyer did no physical work of any sort.

“What do I do?” the witness asked.

“Well, you get up on the stand after Mr. Anteil; they’ll ask you to swear the same oath, at the same time as he. Then I’ll ask you, isn’t it true that you’ve lived in the County of Alameda for three months and in the state of California for over a year; you say yes. Then I ask you, isn’t it true that in your presence you saw the defendant, Mrs. Anteil, behave toward Mr. Anteil in a manner that caused him acute humiliation, and that because of this you saw him become mentally distressed and suffer both physical and mental privation that resulted in him having to consult a physician, and that there was a noticeable change in him that caused you to remark that he didn’t seem—” The lawyer gestured. “That he no longer seemed to be in the same good health and that he was visibly suffering as a result of Mrs. Anteil’s behavior toward him.” To both of them, he said, “See, we have to establish the result of Mrs. Anteil’s behavior. It isn’t sufficient to declare that she treated you badly—for instance, that she slept around or boozed or something—but that you actually suffered a noticeable change as a result.”

“A change for the worst,” the witness said.

“Yes,” the lawyer said. “A change for the worst.” To Nat he said, “I’m going to ask you isn’t it true that to the best of your ability you tried to preserve this marriage, but that your wife showed in clear and tangible fashion that she had no interest in your health and happiness, that she stayed away from the home for prolonged periods of time, showed obvious reluctance to inform you of her whereabouts during these prolonged intervals, and in general did not behave in the manner that a dutiful spouse would be expected to.”

Sipping his coffee, Nat thought to himself that this was going to be a terrible ordeal; he did not know if he could do it, when the time came.

“Don’t worry,” the lawyer said, touching him on the shoulder. “This is just a ritual; you get up there and chant the proper formula and then you get the thing you want—a divorce decree. You won’t have to say anything but yes; you just answer yes to the questions! ask you, and we’ll be out of there in twenty minutes.” He looked at his watch. “We should be getting back there. I don’t know about this judge, but they usually like to get started right at nine-thirty.” He was from Alameda County, and Nat had gotten him because once he had represented him and Gwen in a property dispute with some neighbors. Both he and she liked him. He had arranged the property settlement for both of them.

They returned to the courthouse. As they went up the steps, the witness discussed some trivial matters with the lawyer, having to do with the economic factor behind the decisions of courts. Nat did not listen. He watched an elderly man who sat on a bench with his cane in his lap, and a group of shoppers walking along the street.

The day was warm and clear. The air smelled good. Around the courthouse building, painters had thrown up canvas and ladders; the building evidently was undergoing alterations. The three of them had to stoop under ropes as they entered.

As his lawyer and witness entered the courtroom, Nat said to the lawyer, “Do I have time to go to the men’s room?”

“If you hurry,” the lawyer said.

In the men’s room—a remarkably clean place—he took a pill that Fay had given him, a tranquilizer. Then he hurried back to the courtroom. He found his lawyer and witness on their way back out; his lawyer took hold of his arm and led him into the corridor, frowning.

“I was talking to the bailiff,” he said in a low voice. “This judge doesn’t permit the attorney to lead.”

“What does that mean?” Nat said.

“It means I can’t ask either of you questions,” the lawyer said. “When you get up there, you’ll be on your own.”

“You can’t prompt us?” the witness said.

“No, you’ll have to tell your own stories.” The lawyer led them back toward the courtroom. “We probably won’t be first. Listen to the other cases and try to judge from them what you should say.” He held the door open, and Nat entered ahead of his witness.

Presently he found himself seated on a bench, like the pew of a church, watching a middle-aged woman on the witness stand telling how a Mr. George Heathens or Feathers had spilled coffee on Mrs. Feathers at a barbecue party in San Anselmo and that instead of apologizing he had called her a fool and a bad mother in front of ten people.

The witness became silent, and then the judge, a gray-haired heavyset man in his late sixties, wearing a pin-stripe suit, made a grimace of distaste and said, “Well, how did that affect the plaintiff? Did it cause any change in her?”

The witness said, “Yes, it caused her to become unhappy. And she said that she could not stand to be around a man who treated her that way and made her miserable.”

The case went on to its end, and then a second one, very similar, took its place, with new women and a new attorney.

“This is a tough judge,” Nathan’s lawyer said to him out of the corner of his mouth. “Look, he’s going through the property settlement. He’s really giving trouble.”

Nat scarcely heard him. The tranquilizer had begun to take effect, and he gazed out of the window of the courtroom, at the lawn. He saw cars going by along the street, and the windows of the shops.

To him, his lawyer whispered, “Say you had to go to a doctor. Say she made you physically sick. Say she was away for a week or more on end.”

He nodded.

On the stand a young, violently-nervous dark-haired woman was saying in a faint voice that her husband had hit her.

Nathan thought, Well, Gwen never hit me. However she had that fool in the kitchen with her that night when I got home. I can say that she was in the habit of going out with other men, and that when I questioned her as to who they were and what they did, she abused me and insulted me.

To their witness, his lawyer whispered, “You listen to what Mr. Anteil says and take your cues from him.”

“Okay,” their witness said.

She caused me distress and humiliation, Nathan thought. I lost weight and started taking tranquilizers. I lay awake at night worrying about money. She borrowed money and didn’t tell me about it. When she didn’t come home at night I had to call around to everyone we knew, thus notifying everyone that I had no idea where my wife was at night, or whom she was with. She ran up huge gas bills on our credit cards. She hit me, scratched me, called me dirty names in front of all kinds of people. She made it clear that she preferred the company of other men to me, and that she had little or no respect for me.

In his mind he rehearsed and rehearsed.

Not so much later he found himself up on the stand, facing the rows of empty seats and the few people. Slightly to his left and below him his lawyer stood tensely, holding a sheaf of papers and speaking very rapidly to the judge. Their witness sat ill at ease in the first chair of the jury box.

“Your full name is Nathan Ruben Anteil?” his lawyer said.

“Yes,” he said.

“And you live in Point Reyes Station in Marin County?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And you have been a resident of California for a period greater than one year, and a resident of Marin County for a period greater than three months? And you are the plaintiff in this dispute asking a divorce between you and Mrs. Anteil in the Superior Court of Marin County? And that the marriage between you and Mrs. Anteil ceased for all practical purposes on or about March 10, 1959, and that at this time you and she are no longer living together?”

He said yes to each question.

“Would you tell the court,” his attorney said, “the reasons why you seek a divorce from Mrs. Anteil.”

Now his lawyer stepped slightly back. The courtroom was a little noisy, because, in the rear, a lawyer was consulting in low tones with his client and two people in the front were talking and rustling. Nat began to answer.

“Well,” he said, “the reasons are that for the most part—” He paused, feeling the fatigue and languor brought on him by the pill. The sense of weight. “Are that she was never at home,” he said. “She was always out somewhere and when she came back even though I asked her where she had been, all she did was vilify me and tell me it was none of my business. She made it abundantly clear that she preferred the company of other men to mine.”

He tried to think what else to say. How to continue. All he seemed able to do was gaze out at the lawn beyond the windows, the warm, green, dry lawn. He felt terribly sleepy, and his eyes started to shut. His voice had trailed off, and only with great effort could he resume any sort of speech.

“It seemed to me,” he went on, “that there was nothing but contempt for me in her all the time. I could never depend on her to back me up in anything. She went her own way. She never acted like a married woman. It was as if we weren’t married in the first place. The result of this was that I couldn’t earn my living. I got sick and had to consult a physician.” He paused, and then he thought of the name of a physician. “Doctor Robert Andrews,” he said. “In San Francisco.”

The judge said, “What was the nature of this illness?”

Nathan said, “What would be called a psychoneurotic complaint.” He waited, but the judge had no comment. So he resumed. “I found myself unable to concentrate or work, and my friends all noticed this. This went on for a long period. At one time she stood on the front porch and shouted abuse at me that even the town’s minister heard. He happened to be getting ready to visit us.”

That had been the day that Gwen had moved her things out. Some neighbor had evidently realized what was happening, that their marriage was breaking up, and had called old Doctor Sebastian. The old man had come by in his 1949 Hudson just at the height of the argument between them; Gwen, on the front porch with an armload of towels, had screamed at him that he was a no-good bastard and that as far as she was concerned he could go to hell. The old man had gotten back into his Hudson and driven off. Apparently he had given up any idea of trying to help them, either because he realized that it was too late and he could do no good, or because what Gwen had said was too much for him. He simply was too frail to stand the stress.

Anyhow, Nathan thought, as he gazed out at the warm lawn and the sunlight, the shops and people, she finished packing her things and then I drove her and them to her family’s house in Sacramento. I even gave her back the snapshots of her that I carried in my wallet.

The courtroom was silent, waiting for him to go on. Waiting to see if he had anything more to say about the break-up of his marriage.

He said, “It was intolerable to me to be treated that way, as if I was second in importance to other men. I found strange cars sometimes parked in front of my own house, and when I got home I found men sitting there that I had never in my life seen before. And when I asked her who they were she became so enraged and vilified me so completely that even the other man became embarrassed. He asked to leave, but she told him to stay.”

How strange it feels, he thought. To be up here, telling these things.

“Anyhow,” he said, “she had rages in which she deliberately destroyed objects that were of importance to me.”

While she had been packing her things she had come across a plaster cat which they had won at Playland. She had been holding it, wondering how to pack it, when he had told her that he considered it his. At that point, she had turned and thrown it at him. The cat had broken against the wall behind him.

“She had these violent rages,” he said, “where she couldn’t control herself.”

His lawyer nodded to him—impatiently, it seemed to him—and he realized suddenly that he had finished. Getting to his feet he stepped down. His lawyer called their witness, and Nathan found himself seated in the first chair of the jury box, listening to their witness tell how he had come by the Anteil house and found only Mr. Anteil at home, and how, on frequent occasions, when he had found them both together, he had been forced to listen to what he considered unfair and humiliating tirades on the part of Mrs. Anteil, directed at her husband.

The judge signed the paper; he and the lawyer exchanged a few words; and then Nathan and their witness and the lawyer walked up the aisle and out of the courtroom.

“Did he grant it?” he asked the lawyer.

“Oh sure,” the lawyer said. “Now we go down to the clerk and get a copy of the interlocutory decree for you.”

As they descended the stairs, the witness said, “You know, Gwen’s about the most mild-mannered woman I’ve ever known. I felt funny up there talking about her ‘tirades.’ I never heard her raise her voice in my life.”

The lawyer giggled at that. Nathan said nothing. But he felt a sense of release, a lifting of the burden of the court action. They entered the clerk’s office, an immense, brightly-lit place in which rows of people worked at desks and file cabinets. At a counter which ran the width of the room, persons conducted their business with the many deputy clerks.

“Well, it’s over,” the witness said, while the lawyer got the papers.

Was there any truth to what I said? Nathan wondered. Some truth. Part true, part made up. Strange to lose sight, blend it together. No longer know what had happened, merely talk, tell what seems appropriate. Aloud, he said, “Like the Moscow Trials. Confessing to whatever they want.”

Again his lawyer giggled. The witness winked at him.

But he did feel better. Dread of the ordeal … that was over, like the school play. Public speaking in assembly.

“Good to get it over,” he said to his lawyer.

“Boy, that old man is a tough one,” his lawyer said, as they left the clerk’s office. “Not letting me lead—he probably didn’t have a good bowel movement and felt like getting back at the world.”

Outdoors, in the sunlight, they parted company. Each of them said good-bye and went off to his own car.

The time was ten-forty. Only an hour and ten minutes had gone by since the court had been called into session.

Divorced, Nathan thought. Over and done. Somebody else up there, now.

Reaching his car he got into it and sat.

Strange story to tell, he thought. When was she ever away from the house? Only when we broke up.

I should feel guilty, he thought. Getting up there and letting all those lies come out of me, that mishmash. That uninspired recitation. But his sense of release overcame any guilt. God damn, he thought. I’m so god damn glad it’s over.

All at once he felt doubt. How can it be over? You mean I’m no longer married? What happened to Gwen? I don’t understand it. Where did it go? How could a thing like this happen?

It isn’t possible, he thought. What do you mean, I’m no longer married?

He stared out the car window. It doesn’t make sense, he thought. Dismay, as if he were about to break down and cry, started everywhere inside him, appeared on all sides, throughout. I’ll be god damned, he thought. It just can’t be. It isn’t possible.

This is the most awful thing that ever happened to me, he thought. It’s weird.-It’s the end of me, of my life. Now what am I going to do?

How did I ever get into this situation?

He sat watching the people go by, wondering how a thing of this sort could have come about. I must have let myself get mixed up in something horrible, he thought. It’s as if the whole sky is a web that dropped over me and snared me. Probably she’s the one who did it; Fay arranged all this, and I had nothing to do with it. I have no control of myself or anything that’s happened. So now I’m waking up. I’m awake, he thought. Discovering that everything has been taken away from me. I’ve been destroyed, and now that I’m awake all I can do is realize it; I can’t do anything. It’s too late to do anything. It’s already happened. The shock of getting up there and telling that account made me see. Mixture of lies and bits of truth. Woven together. Unable to see where each starts.

At last, putting the key in the ignition, he started up the car. Soon he was driving from San Rafael, back to Point Reyes Station.

At his house he saw her, in the front yard. She had found a bucket of gladiola and tulip bulbs that Gwen had brought up from the city to plant; wearing jeans and sandals and a cotton shirt she was busy with a trowel, digging a shallow trench for the bulbs along the front walk. The two girls were not in sight.

As he opened the gate she heard him and turned, lifting her head. As soon as she saw the expression on his face she said,

“You didn’t get it.”

“I got it,” he said.

Laying down her trowel she stood up. “What an ordeal it must have been,” she said. “My god, you look really pale.”

He said, “I don’t know what to do.” It was not what he had intended to say, but he could think of nothing else.

“What do you mean?” she said, coming up to him and putting her thin, strong arms around him.

Feeling her arms, the authority and conviction of her, he said, “Hug me.”

“I am hugging you,” she said. “You asshole.”

“Look where I am,” he said, gazing past her at the remaining bulbs. She had planted most of them already. At one time the bucket had been full. “You’ve got me in a terrible spot. There’s nothing I can do. You really have me.”

“Why?” she said.

“I have no marriage.”

“Poor baby,” she said. “You’re scared.” Her arms pressed harder against him. “But you did get it? He granted it?”

“They have to grant it,” he said. “If it’s properly presented. That’s what the lawyer’s for.”

“So you’re divorced!” Fay said.

“I have an interlocutory decree,” he said. “In a year I’ll be divorced.”

“Did he give you any trouble?”

“He wouldn’t let the lawyer lead,” he said. “I was on my own.” He started to tell her about it, how the session had gone, but her eyes got that rapt, faraway expression; she was not listening.

“I meant to tell you,” she said, when he halted. “The girls baked a cake for you. A celebration. One candle. Your first divorce. They’re indoors now, quarreling about the icing. I said they better wait until you got home and ask you what kind of icing you wanted on it, if any.”

He said, “I don’t want anything. I’m completely exhausted.”

“I’d never go into court in a million years,” she said. “I’d rather die; you couldn’t drag me into court.” Letting go of him she started toward the house. “They’ve been so worried,” she said. “Afraid something might go wrong.”

“Stop talking,” he said, “and listen to me.”

She slowed to a stop; both her speech and her motion toward the house ceased. Inquiringly, she waited. She did not seem tense. Now that he was back, having gotten the decree, she was relieved; she did not seem to have paid any real attention to what he had said.

“God damn you,” he said. “You never listen. Don’t you care what I have to say? I’ll tell you what I have to say; I’m pulling out of all this, the whole darn business.”

“What?” she said, in a faltering voice.

He said, “I’ve gone as far as I can. I can’t stand any more. When I got out of the courtroom I realized it. It finally came to me.”

“Well,” she said. “My goodness.”

They stood facing each other, neither of them saying anything. With the toe of her sandal she kicked at a lump of dirt. Never before had he seen her so downcast.

“How did the Sparine work?” she said finally.

“Fine,” he said.

“You were able to take it before you went in? I’m glad you had it. They’re very good, especially for something like this that overtaxes you.” Then, rallying, she said, “I don’t see how you can leave me. What would happen to you? This is the worst possible time. You’ve undergone a dreadful traumatic situation these last couple of weeks. We both have. And this divorce business, this having to go into court, was the ultimate.” Now she was attentive; her voice became quiet, and her expression changed to a tough acuteness. Taking hold of his arm she steered him toward the house. “You haven’t had anything to eat, have you?”

“No,” he said. He held back, refusing to let her budge him.

“You’re really furious at me, aren’t you?” she said finally. “This is the most hostile you’ve been toward me.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“I suppose the hostility must have been there all the time, buried in your subconscious. Doctor Andrews says it’s better to say things like this if you feel them than not to.” She did not sound angry; she sounded resigned. “I don’t blame you,” she said, eying him, standing very close to him and gazing up into his face with her head cocked on one side, her hands behind her back. Perspiration, from the heat of the day, shone on her throat; he saw it as it appeared and evaporated and reappeared. It pulsed there. “Can’t we talk about it further?” she said. Instead of becoming childish she had become deeply rational. “A decision this serious should be discussed. Come inside and sit down and have lunch. Anyhow, where are you going to go? If someone has to go, good god, this is your house—you can’t let us stay here if you feel about me the way you do. We’ll go to a motel. I mean, that’s no problem.”

To that, he said nothing.

Fay said, “If you leave me you won’t have a god damn thing. Maybe there are character traits in me that should be changed—that’s why I go to Doctor Andrews, isn’t it? And if there’re things wrong with me, can’t you tell me the right way to act? Can’t you put me in my place? I want you to tell me what to do. Do you think I respect a man who I can push around?”

“Then let me go,” he said.

“I think you’re nuts to go,” Fay said.

“Maybe so,” he said. Turning around, he walked away.

From behind him, Fay said in a firm voice, “I promised the girls that we’d take them down to Fairyland this afternoon.”

He could scarcely believe his ears. “What?” he said. “What the hell is ‘fairyland’?”

“Down in Oakland,” she said, facing him with composure. “They heard all about it on Popeye. They want to see King Fuddle’s castle. I told them when you got back we’d go.”

“I never said that,” he said. “You never told me.”

“Well,” she said, “I know how you don’t like to be bothered.”

“God damn you,” he said. “Committing me.”

“It’ll only take a couple of hours. An hour ride from here.”

“More like two,” he said.

“You should never break a promise to a child,” she said. “Anyhow, if you’re going to walk out on us and leave us, you should want to do something so they’ll remember you. Do you want them to have a last impression of you not giving a damn about their interests?”

He said, “It doesn’t matter what last impression they have of me, because you’ll manage to tell them something about me that’ll make me look so weak and awful—”

“They’re listening,” she said.

On the porch, the two girls had appeared. They had their cake on a big plate. “Look!” Bonnie called down. Both girls beamed at him.

“Nice,” he said.

“Well,” Fay said. “Is this too much to ask of you? Then you can walk out on us.”

The girls, obviously paying no attention to what either adult was saying, called down, “What kind of icing do you want? Mommy said to wait and ask you.”

He said to them, “You want to go to Fairyland?”

At that, they both came racing down the steps; the cake was put aside on the railing, abandoned.

“Okay,” he said, above the clamor. “We’ll go. But let’s get started.”

Fay stood watching, her arms folded. “I’ll go get a coat,” she said. To the girls, she said, “You both get your coats.”

The girls scampered back into the house.

To Fay he said nothing. He got into the car, behind the wheel. She did not join him; she waited for the girls. As she waited she got her cigarettes from the spot at which she had left them, lit up, and did a little more digging.

The howling of the children made him weary. Everywhere kids raced and screamed, in and out of the bright, newly-painted storybook buildings that made up the Oakland Park Department’s idea of Fairyland. He had parked quite far from it, not being sure exactly where it was, and the walk alone had worn him out.

Bonnie and Elsie appeared at the bottom of a slide, waved at him and Fay, and scurried to join the other children at the stairs leading back up.

“It’s nice here,” Fay said.

In the center of Fairyland, Little Bo Peep’s lambs were being fed from a bottle. A middle-aged woman’s voice, amplified by loudspeakers, told the children all to come running to see.

“Isn’t that funny,” Fay said. “We come all the way down here to see lambs being fed. I wonder why they feed them from bottles. I guess they think it’s cuter.”

After the girls had finished with the slide they wandered on. Now they had found the wishing well and were fooling with it; he only vaguely noticed them.

Fay said, “I wonder which is Fuddle’s castle.”

He didn’t answer.

“This is tiring,” she said. “I guess you already had enough for one day.”

Presently they arrived at the refreshment stand. The children had orange drink and hot dogs. Just beyond that they saw the ticket window and station house of the little train. Its narrow track ran into and out of Fairyland, passing among the trees beyond. On their way to Fairyland from the car they had noticed the track; in fact they had followed it to the main gate of Fairyland, which of course was on the opposite side from them. They had had to walk all around it.

As they had tramped along, looking in vain for the gate, Fay had said to him, “You know, you’re a schlimozl.”

“What’s that?” both girls had demanded.

Fay said, “A schlimozl is a person who always gets up to the ticket window at the ballpark just as the last bleacher seat is sold. And he doesn’t have enough money with him to buy a reserved seat.”

“That’s me,” he said.

To the girls, Fay explained, “You see, he parked on the opposite side from the entrance, and we had to walk all around. Now, if I had been driving I would have parked and we would have gotten out, and there we would have been. Right at the entrance. But a schlimozl always has bad luck. It’s an instinct with him.”

Yes, he thought. It’s true about me. There is a bad luck that gets me into things that I don’t want to be in, and then it keeps me there. It holds me there. And nothing that I do can get me out.

“It’s just my luck,” Fay said, “to marry a schlimozl. Maybe our luck will balance out, though.”

Now, he stood with her and the children, lined up to buy tickets for the little train. His legs ached and he wondered if he could live through it, the waiting in line for tickets and then, after getting tickets, the waiting for the train to return and take on passengers. At this moment the train was off somewhere in the park, out of sight. A whole raft of children, who had already gotten tickets, waited eagerly on the platform beyond the ticket window.

“It’ll take at least half an hour,” he said to Fay. “Is it worth it?”

Fay said, “This is the main event. Isn’t this what we saw them all doing? They have to ride on it.”

So he waited.

Alter a long time he was able to reach the ticket window and buy tickets for the four of them. Then he and Fay and the girls pushed on to the platform. By now the train had returned; children and their parents were spilling out of it, and the conductor was pointing the way out. A new load ran to the cars and began to board. The cars were small and irregularly-shaped. The occupants’ heads were forced almost to bump, as if by entering the car they became ancients nodding and dozing.

“In a way this Fairyland is a disappointment,” Fay said. “1 don’t think they give the children enough to do; they can’t actually go into those little houses—all they can do is look at them. Like a museum.”

His weariness and lethargy kept him from commenting. He no longer felt related to the noises and movement around him, the swirl of children.

A conductor came along the platform, collecting tickets. He counted aloud. When he reached Nathan he stopped, saying, “Thirtythree.” Then he took Elsie’s ticket and said to Nathan, “Are you all together?”

“Yes,” Fay said.

“Well, I hope I can squeeze you all in,” he said, taking her ticket and Bonnie’s and Nathan’s.

“How many can you get in?” Fay said.

“It depends on the number of adults,” the conductor said. “If it’s mostly kids we can keep squeezing them in. But an adult is another matter.” He departed with the tickets.

“I guess we get in,” Fay said. “He took our tickets.”

Theirs had been the last tickets collected. Behind them, a family of five fretted and worried.

They won’t get on this time, Nathan thought. They’ll have to wait. He gazed off past the refreshment stand at the sturdy house that the third little pig had built.

When the train returned, he and Fay and the children moved with the others through the gate and onto the outer platform, along the track. As the cars became empty the new passengers clambered on. The conductor began shutting the wire doors of the cars. At the gate, the family with tickets were stopped. “No,” the attendant said. “You can’t get on if you have tickets.”

How weird, Nathan thought, seeing a small boy whose ticket had not been collected standing hopefully at the train, holding his ticket up. Here, if you have a ticket, you’re barred. If you don’t, then you can get on. The girls and Fay hurried toward the rear car, along with the others. His feet dragged; weighed down, he fell behind them. Children squeezed past him and hopped up into the cars.

When he arrived at the last car he found that Fay and Elsie had already found places. The conductor started to close the wire door, and then seeing Bonnie, said to her.

“Room for one more.”

Lifting her up, he handed her to Fay, inside the car.

Around Nathan, the other children without tickets disappeared into the cars. Only a few remained, and then only he remained on the platform. Everyone had been seated but him. The wire door on Fay’s car had been locked, and the conductor was starting away. Suddenly seeing him, the conductor said,

“I forgot about you.”

Nathan found himself smiling. Behind him, beyond the gate, the waiting people waved and shouted with sympathy. Or was it sympathy? He did not know. He found himself walking along with the conductor, back up the length of the train, toward the engine. The conductor prattled away, telling him how he had happened to overlook him. At the first car the conductor peered in and then said,

“Here. You can get in here.”

He clambered up, pushed through the little entrance, and found himself facing four Cub Scouts in blue uniforms. They stared at him as he tried to seat himself on the bench. At last he said to the first Cub Scout, “Why don’t you move over?”

The scout at once moved, and he was able to seat himself. His head brushed the roof of the car, and the angle was such that he had to hunch forward. He sat no taller than the scouts; only larger, more awkward, filling up more space—as the conductor had said. The wire door was locked and then the conductor signalled to the motorman.

After a series of noises the train jerked and began to move.

Under Nathan’s feet the floor drummed; the train vibrated steadily, without variation. They moved away from the platform and the waving, shouting people. Almost at once they found themselves out of Fairyland, among oak trees and grass.

Seated so far up in the train, he could look out at the tail of the engine and, beyond that, the area toward which they were moving. He saw the track ahead of them, the slopes of grass, a road to the right. Beyond the road were more oak trees and then the lake. Now and then he made out the sight of picnickers. They glanced up at the train, and once, the Cub Scout next to him started to wave and then nervously changed his mind. No one in the car spoke. The noise of the wheels was so constant that no one expected it to stop; they all sat patiently riding, gazing out, contemplating.

On and on the train went, always at the same rate of speed.

The unvarying noise and vibration and pace of the train took the fatigue out of his legs. Cramped as he was he began to feel more at peace. The oak trees lulled him. The inevitability of the train’s progress… always ahead of them he saw the track, the two rails, and there was nothing else the train could do but follow it. And nothing else that any of them could do but remain where they were, cooped up in the little irregular cars, locked in by their wire doors, hunched and huddled in whatever postures they had first assumed. Their knees touched; their heads almost touched; they could not even look at one another unless luck happened to have put them facing that way. And yet none of them objected. No one complained or tried to stir.

How odd I must look, he thought to himself. In here with these Cub Scouts in their blue uniforms. One bulging, misshapen adult crowded in where he shouldn’t be. Where several children should be, on a child’s train, in a child’s amusement park. Did the City of Oakland anticipate me? Certainly they had not. This is the luck of the schlimozl, he thought. Put up forward here, away from Fay and the ghls. Riding alone here while they ride together in back.

But it stirred no real emotions in him. He experienced a relaxation of physical tension; nothing more.

Is that all that is wrong? he asked himself. Merely the accumulation of tensions, worries, fears? Nothing of lasting importance? Can the constant vibrations of a children’s train soothe me and take away whatever it is that confronts me? This sense of dismay and doom. – .

He no longer felt the dread, the intuition that he had been moved against his will into a situation built for another person’s use.

He thought, There is certainly no hope left of getting away. And it isn’t even terrible; it’s possibly funny, if even that. It’s embarrassing. That’s all. A little embarrassing to realize that I no longer control my life, that the major decisions have already been made, long before I was conscious that any change was occurring.

When I met her, or rather, when she looked out of her car window and saw me and Gwen… that was when the decision was made, assuming that it ever was. She made it, as soon as she saw us, and the rest was inevitable.

Probably she will make a good wife, he thought. She will be loyal to me, and try to help me do what I want to do. Her passion toward controlling me will ultimately subside; all of this energy in her will fade. I will make substantial changes in her, too. We will alter each other. And someday it will be impossible to tell who has led whom. And why.

The only fact, he realized, will be that we are married and living together, that I will be earning a living, that we will have two girls from a previous marriage and possibly children of our own. A valid question will be: Are we happy? But only time will tell that. And not even Fay can underwrite the answer to that; she is as dependent as I am, in that final area.

He thought, She could bring about everything that she wants and still be wretched. Out of this I could emerge as the prosperous one, the peaceful one. And neither of us can possibly know.

When the train had finished its trip and was returning to the platform he saw the people lined up for their ride. The Cub Scout next to him plucked up his courage at last and waved; some of the people waved back, and that encouraged other scouts to wave.

Nathan waved, too.