Craig Smith - Cold Rain

I asked Walt on the way over if he was still off the booze. I could smell the answer coming out of his pores, but I thought things would go better between us if we got the confession out of the way early.

Walt gave a weary sigh, admitting his failure in a neat aphorism: ‘I’m not cut out for sobriety, David.’

Over a wilted salad and stale coffee, I said to him,

‘Have you talked to Barbara?’

‘She called me this morning.’ His eyes twinkled at the memory but faded at once, as close to shame as the practising alcoholic gets. ‘I was hung over like a son of a bitch, and she knew it.’

I laughed politely. Wives had certain powers denied other mortals, I told him. Then, ‘I take it you’ve got a place to stay?’

He shrugged, not exactly happy. ‘Got a one bedroom at the Greenbrier.’ I nodded, familiar with the place.

It was expensive, so there would be no students around.

That was good. Walt could screw-up all he wanted around young professional women. And he would, I knew that. Living too close to the co-eds, though, was bound to bring on early retirement.

‘Have you seen Buddy?’

This was not an especially pleasant topic for Walt, and his eyes avoided mine. His shoulders slumped a bit. ‘Not too much. I don’t think he was real happy about what happened with his girlfriend.’

‘The stripper?’ Walt nodded sorrowfully. ‘You were messing around with her?’ Walt nodded a bit less sorrowfully at this. In fact, I thought I detected a faint, proud smile, a story he meant to take to the old folks’ home. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘have you seen her?’

A watery smile, ‘Onstage a few times.’

‘What happened anyway?’

Walt shook his head. ‘It was just one of those afternoons. Oh! Before I forget. Barbara wanted me to ask you a favour.’

Barbara and I had never been close. That came with the territory, I suppose. You turn up in enough conversations involving lost afternoons that somehow drift into the early morning hours, and wives have a tendency to make rather comprehensive judgements. ‘A favour from me?’

‘Roger has written a book. Well, a novel. She wants you to read it, and see if it’s any good. And maybe talk to him about it.’ As he said this, Walt kept his eyes focused on the table. He knew what he was asking.

Roger was twenty-five, their only son. When I first met him Roger was a senior in high school with applications out to all the best schools in the country. He ended up turning everyone down, claiming he didn’t need to be ‘institutionalized.’ According to Walt and Barbara there was no reason for Roger’s strange and unexpected decision, but it did not take me long to realize Roger Beery had been slowing down and pulling back since the beginning of adolescence. The wonder of the science fair, who was taking Latin and Greek at the university as well as a couple of computer programming courses before his voice changed, had found drugs. Very serious drugs, actually, though nobody had noticed, at least nobody had told Walt and Barbara, because Roger comatose was still among the school’s best and brightest.

Since his dropout there had been reports of hopeful developments. Roger had decided to join the military.

Roger got a decent job at a local factory. Roger had been hired by a local company to update their computer systems. The follow up to whatever the good news never came. Something always got between Roger and success. I had lost track of Roger a couple of years ago because Walt just stopped talking about him. Then one day I saw him working at a downtown parking lot. He pretended not to know me, and that was the end of it. Until now.

‘What does Roger want?’ I asked.

Walt took a sip of coffee and looked away. ‘I don’t know, David. We don’t talk.’

I thought about complaining. I had kids come to me all the time who wanted me to read something. Some of them were in my classes, just not my creative writing classes. Some of the kids, the ones I didn’t know, would circle me in the halls like wolves edging closer to the campfire until they worked up their courage. The poetry, I could always shuffle off to one of our resident poets.

Fiction was not so easy, but I usually steered the younger writers to my introductory course in creative writing.

On those few occasions when I had been persuaded for one reason or another to read something outside of the classroom I always regretted it. The issue of quality aside, no one wants to hear criticism. People who have not submitted themselves to the rigors of peer criticism, the kind that occurs in a writing workshop, are especially sensitive to it. I did not want to read Roger Beery’s novel because I knew he wouldn’t be any different. He wanted me to love his story, and nothing else would do, but refusing Walt at this point in his life was difficult. The kid was a genius. How bad could it be?

‘Anytime,’ I said. ‘Just drop it off. I’ll take a look at it and give Roger an honest opinion.’

Walt looked relieved. ‘I hate to do this to you, David.’

But he was doing it, and that said it all.

A bit uneasy at having passed his family problems into my court, Walt reverted to form. He started talking about Randy Winston, whom he had seen ‘slinking’ around the TA offices checking out ‘the new talent.’

This of course meant that Walt had been slinking there as well, but I let that point pass. ‘New talent?’ I asked.

Walt cupped his hands in front of his chest. ‘ Talent!’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know you.’

Walt laughed. ‘You can’t say tits anymore, David, so we call it talent!’

‘I suppose bodacious ta-tas is still frowned upon by the powers that be?’ Walt had picked up this unfortunate expression a few years ago. For a season it was all he talked about. It was my understanding he had been investigated for using the word in the classroom, but I could be wrong about that. The investigation I’m recalling might have been the joke about the perfect girl. Between rumours and the actual investigations launched against him no one could keep track of Walt Beery’s troubles, and I had long ago quit asking for the particulars.

I recall, as I look back on that afternoon, that after I spoke I happened to look around. It was something I usually did before I started talking to Walt, but I was out of practice. One table away, Norma Olson, Jane Trimble, and Marlene Moss were sitting in rigid silence.

The mention of bodacious ta-tas will do that, I’m told.

Walt answered me without noticing them or caring that they were there: ‘That’s real talent, David. You want real talent you have to see Johnna Masterson.

Johnna’s got more talent than I’ve got hands!’ Walt held up both hands for me to consider the propor-tions.

‘She’s in my creative writing class,’ I answered sullenly, hoping he would see that he was being monitored.

‘Winston dated her last year. Well, I guess it’s more like he cornered her at a party. All natural is the report.’

I glanced at the women again. They maintained a petrified silence.

‘Winston made a pass at Molly at the party,’ I said, hoping to divert Walt from any further discussion of talent by the handful.

‘Randy’s a son of a bitch.’

‘Of course, so did you and Buddy Elder, and probably half a dozen other men I don’t even know about.’

Walt’s grin flickered. ‘We’re all sons of bitches, David.’

As we headed back to our respective offices, Walt started laughing. I looked around to make sure no one was within earshot and asked what was so funny.

‘Randy Winston was telling me you and Molly bought the farm with Chrysler stock your old man got in the late seventies.’