Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

The knock on the door is Doctor Mark. He rushes in when Susan opens the door as if he’s really glad to be there. He is as she described him. Passing him on the street, Charles might have thought he was a musician. His hands, circling Susan’s back, are very large and graceful. In a bar, Charles might have mistaken him for a homosexual.

“How do you do?” Mark says, extending one of the big hands. Susan is still pressed against him with the other.

Charles shakes his hand. “Hello,” he says.

“Mighty cold and snowy,” Mark says. The big hand goes back around Susan.

“Can I get you some coffee?” Charles says.

“I take no artificial stimulants,” Mark says. “But. Thank you.”

“Milk?” Charles says. Is there any milk?

“I’m loaded with calcium for the day, thank you,” Mark says.

Charles revises his opinion of him. He would never work up to Disque Bleu’s. The most he can hope for is Gauloises.

“Sue, Sue, let me look at you,” he says.

Definitely homosexual.

“It’s very nice, you letting me barge in on you tonight,” Mark says.

Charles frowns. Susan hugs Mark’s neck, lets go of him to sit in a chair.

“May I stay the night? I’m afraid I’m. Much too late to start back now.”

“Sure,” Charles says.

“May I ask. How is your mother?”

“She’s going home tomorrow, Mark,” Susan says.

“That’s very lucky, ” Mark says, emphasizing the words to convey that it is not.

“Just before you came Pete called, though, and he’s drunk again.”

“That actually kills brain cells,” Mark says.

“I don’t think he cares. He’s so miserable living the way he does now,” Charles says.

“That’s it!” Mark says. “In the final analysis it’s up to the individual. No amount of coaxing can make a person care who does not want to care.” Mark’s voice goes up loudly on the last five words.

Charles looks at Mark’s feet. Soaking wet tennis shoes.

“Take your shoes off. I can get you some socks.…”

“No, no,” Mark says, as if Charles had asked to see his penis. “I’m fine. Feet are fine.”

“They’re wet,” Charles says.

Mark frowns. “Rose hips?” he says.

“What?” Charles says, leaning forward.

“Rose hips,” Mark replies.

“He doesn’t have any,” Susan says.

“Ah,” Mark says, as if delighted.

“How was your trip?” Susan asks.

“My trip. Well, I can tell you that it was long and cold, made less so by Brahms. A wonderful station that played much Brahms the last stretch.”

“Are you a musician?” Charles says.

“I play piano. Unprofessionally.”

Charles wants very much to ask if he’s gay.

“How was the car?” Susan asks.

“Well. I can tell you it started off with problems. And a stopover at a service station was necessary because of overheating. Clouds of smoke came out of the car. A small puncture. In. The hose.”

Charles breaks into a smile. That’s it … the guy talks like a J. P. Donleavy character.

“Do you read Donleavy?” Charles asks.

“Donelly?” Marks says. He turns his head to the side. Charles wishes he had a kidskin glove to slap his cheek with.

“No, no, Donleavy! Yes. The Ginger Man. ”

Mark looks at Charles, expecting the conversation to go on.

“Of course I don’t read the number of novels I would like to,” Mark says.

“What would you like to read?” Charles asks.

“You’re being obnoxious,” Susan says.

Charles is genuinely curious. He wishes Susan knew that. She misunderstands him, thinks he’s obnoxious every time he’s curious.

“Jane Austen,” Mark says with gravity.

Figures. And probably Thomas Pynchon, too.

“I’ve got a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow I’m done with. Would you like it?” Charles says.

The head turns to the side again. “By …?” Mark says.

“Pynchon.”

“Ah! Pynchon. V.”

Susan is filing a fingernail.

“Thank you, but I have little time to read novels.”

“I guess med school is really rough,” Charles says. “Susan says you plan to specialize in surgery.”

“Neurosurgery, yes,” Mark says.

“I read a thing in some newspaper about a doctor in some South American country who pulled a woman’s eyes out of the socket and cleaned them and picked off tumors and put the eyes back. TO cure her of migraines and double vision.”

“God!” Marks says. “That’s revolting. That’s not possible, I’m sure.”

“Oh God,” Susan groans.

“No wonder people are afraid of doctors when they read things like that,” Mark says.

“That’s sickening,” Susan says. “Did you make that up?”

“No. It’s in the same paper that has a denial from representatives of Frank Zappa that Frank Zappa had a bowel movement on stage.”

“Oh God,” Susan says.

“I follow those rags for kicks,” Charles says. “You know, they’re still full of JFK gossip. JFK jumping out of women’s windows when he was President, JFK a vegetable on Onassis’s island.…”

Susan puts down the fingernail file. “I’m going to have something to drink,” she says. “Is anyone else?”

“Oh. No.” Mark says.

“Maybe I’ll go to bed,” Charles says. “It’s been another long, though glorious, day.”

Mark stands. “Thank you very. Much for your kindness,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Charles says.

“Good night,” Susan says, going into the kitchen.

“Good night,” Charles says.

In his dream that night Charles is sitting behind a desk — in his office, presumably — and Mark is standing in front of him. “Take a letter. Any letter,” Charles says, and wakes up laughing. The house is silent. He hopes they didn’t hear him. He lies there with his eyes open for some time, listening to the silence.

What if JFK is a vegetable somewhere? He closes his eyes and pictures Kennedy, round-faced and thick-haired, then sees him as a dancing green pepper, his smiling round face a little knob on top. He opens his eyes. Blackness. Kennedy’s favorite fiction writer was Ian Fleming. Ian Fleming was turned into a neurotic by his crazy mother. He closes his eyes and pictures Sean Connery driving a broad-nosed sports car that metamorphoses into a corncob. He opens his eyes again. He is hungry. He imagines dancing apples. There is nothing good in the house to eat. Tomorrow he will go to the Grand Union and buy all his favorite foods. Grand. Holden Caulfield hated that word. He thought it was phony. That cover illustration of Catcher In The Rye: Holden in a big gray overcoat, hat turned around, pointing down his back. Saw a movie once starring William Holden that was scary. Can’t remember the title or the plot, just the name William Holden. The dancing apples. “Aw, c’mon now, Mama.…” “Geoooooooorge Stevens!” George Washington. Famous portrait of Washington left unfinished because artist took on more than he could handle. Very ambitious artist. Washington who chased his slaves or Jefferson? Laura. Chasing Laura. “I’m gonna get you, Laura.” Cornered in the library. “Are you crazy, Charles?” Government employees. If I were a carpenter, if Laura were a lady. First of 1975. Guy Lombardo waving his stick around, head moving more energetically than the stick, old Guy up there, shaking his stick. Guy Fawkes Day. Firecrackers. Fanne Foxe, The Argentine Firecracker. “Ya-hoo, I’m just a country girl from Argentina.” The girl from the north country. She once was a true love of mine. Laura. Laura against the bookshelf: “What are you doing? Are you crazy?” “Aw, now, Sapphire, I can explain …”