Andre Alexis - Pastoral

Then, four days after the 15th, Jane invited him over and coolly gave him an ultimatum: he was to walk naked into Atkinson’s Hair Salon or she would leave town.

Once he accepted that Jane might really leave, Robbie panicked. The ultimatum was absurd. It made no sense, except as some torment or prank. Why should anyone — let alone Jane — want him to expose himself to a clutch of older women? It was like asking a man afraid of rats to snuggle into a tub full of them. His fear of public nudity was irrational and unmanageable.

Then again, so were his feelings for Jane. He loved her as much as he said he did. He could have easily done almost anything for her, easily done anything but this.

— I need to know what you’re going to do, Jane said.

— Can’t I think about it?

— No. I want to know right now.

Robbie was not used to thinking and he was not good at it. Under pressure, what came was confusion: feelings, not thoughts; pictures, not words. He felt humiliation, longing, fear. He saw Jane’s face, the red birth stain on his chest, his mother’s face, the entrance to Atkinson’s Beauty Parlour. No single feeling or picture was distinct. But then, because he was the man he was, one strong thing came out of the confusion: love. ‘Love’ had caused him trouble in the recent past, but he went with it anyway, stubbornly holding to the idea that ‘love’ — whenever and wherever it touched down — was always right.

— Okay, he said. I’ll do it if I have to.

It was an acquiescence that surprised them both.

— Oh, said Jane, her tone very like one of disappointment.

That’s … great.

She kissed him, but she was not happy. She had, she realized, been expecting him to say no. She had unconsciously put her faith in Elizabeth’s knowledge of him. Not that her kiss or the emotion behind it registered with Robbie. The man was shocked by his own decision.

— When do I have to do this? he asked.

— Do it tomorrow, said Jane. It’s Friday. It’ll be busy.

But it wasn’t the number of people that mattered to Robbie. He would have been as terrified at the thought of one witness as he was at the thought of thousands.

— I’m doing this because I love you, he said.

— You can change your mind, answered Jane.

He did not, though it felt as if he had agreed to his own execution. For a moment Jane wondered if she weren’t being cruel. But then, the cruelty was Elizabeth’s, wasn’t it? She herself would not have dreamed such a humiliation. It would not have bothered her in the least to walk around town naked, so part of her was unsympathetic to Robbie’s plight. Still, at the thought of Elizabeth’s wager, Jane began to wonder if Liz weren’t more bitter and vindictive than she let on.

For Robbie, the following morning came after a night of fitful sleep. He’d suffered through countless visions of himself walking naked along the streets of Barrow. Oddly, the one place he did not dream of was Atkinson’s. He dreamed he was naked in church, naked in school, naked in the Blackhawk Tavern. He tried to convince himself that his fear was irrational and, so, ridiculous. He told himself that human beings were born naked, that nudity was not traumatic for him in most situations. Nothing helped. He did not want to walk into Atkinson’s naked. He could not understand why this was important to Jane. He thought about whether or not he loved her enough to do this, but, sadly, the answer was yes. It was always yes, like rolling the dice over and over and coming up snake eyes forever. He also considered avoiding this one thing, making it up to Jane in other ways if he could. But Jane was not a person whose resolve needed testing. She had assured him she would leave if he did not go into Atkinson’s and he knew, knew for certain, that she would keep her word. He was a condemned man.

Once he’d finished his chores, he ate breakfast as if it were to be his last: porridge and maple syrup followed by a glass of his mother’s dandelion wine.

Catching him with the wine, his mother was alarmed.

— What’s the matter with you? she asked. You know I need that for knitting circle.

Robbie apologized and put the cork back in the bottle. Rather than replace the bottle on its rack in the winter closet, though, he carried it into the barn and finished it off, disturbing a couple of mice in the straw. Dutch courage, people called it, though no one could tell him why the Dutch should be known for such a sensible way of dealing with distress. He thought it sensible, anyway. What else could you do but drink or pray?

— Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me …

Drink or pray, however, there was no getting around his anxiety. He resolved to go into Atkinson’s early in the day. The place opened at ten. Waiting for noon or for the end of the day would have driven him squirrelly. So, at ten o’clock in the morning, having downed a bottle of his mother’s sickly sweet wine, Robbie went with a neighbour into Barrow, getting out at Barrow Park.

There were, naturally, things that Robbie hadn’t considered. Where to undress, for instance? Where to put his clothes once he’d undressed? Too inebriated to drive to town alone, he could not put them in his truck. Could he leave his shoes on or did ‘naked’ mean entirely naked? He supposed he could leave his shoes on until just before he entered the parlour and that is what he did. With no word to anyone around him and as if it were a thing people always did, Robbie stood up when the clock at city hall struck half past ten, took off his shoes, removed his clothes, then put his shoes on again. Being slightly drunk, he undressed deliberately, with exaggerated precision. He then walked, his clothes under one arm, from the park to the beauty parlour, some two minutes away. The walk, the experience of it, was what others might have called otherworldly. It was as if his anxiety had taken on a form of its own and was walking with him, a sensation so odd Robbie felt almost relaxed. And perhaps because Robbie appeared to be at ease, few of the half dozen or so people who were about noticed him.

One woman, just coming home from a shift at Dow Chemical, did notice Robbie was naked, but there was a delay in her perception. She saw Robbie and walked by him. Then, as if out of nowhere, a thought occurred to her:

— You know, I’ve seen very few penises besides Michael’s.

It was only then that she realized — to her dismay — that she had just seen Robbie Myers naked. By which time Robbie had entered Atkinson’s.

Inside the beauty parlour, there were three older women: Emma Cavendish, Leda Preston and Margaret Burke. The three women, all in their late sixties or early seventies, all spry, had their hair done once a month. They inevitably went together, and had been doing so for years. This was their day. They had left their homes early, eaten poached eggs and toast at Boucher’s Diner and presented themselves to Agnes Atkinson at twenty after ten.

Clouds had been gathering since early morning and Leda said

— I think it’s going to rain.

The women instinctively turned to the glass door to look outside.

— Is there someone trying to get in? Emma asked.

— I think there is, said Margaret.

As she spoke, the door opened and Robbie Myers walked in.

— Goodness, said Margaret. Is it raining already?

All turned to Robbie. Agnes, who knew him best, though they all knew him, said

— Robert, put your clothes on. What would your mother think?

— His clothes! said Leda. I thought there was something missing.

— The library’s just down the street, said Emma.

A curiously apposite non sequitur. Emma’s friends mumbled in agreement. At which point Robbie, thrown from his trance, was suddenly aware of his situation. He wanted nothing so much as to flee. It took almost superhuman resolve to put his clothes on carefully and to dress without throwing up. Once he began to dress, the women seemed to lose interest in him. Agnes did ask if everything was all right, but she turned away to devote herself to washing Emma’s hair. The older women, as bewildered by Emma’s comment as Robbie’s behaviour, began a conversation about libraries and modern morals.