Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“If you think there’s milk, there isn’t,” Charles says.

The hippie raising the milk carton, smiling …

“I don’t drink milk in my coffee.”

“Oh yeah? That’s good.”

“You’ve been watching me drink black coffee for years.”

“Yeah, but I’ve only seen you drinking coffee when you’re sobering up. I thought you drank it black to sober up.”

“No. I drink it black anyway.”

Charles drums on the table with his fork. He puts his fork on the plate with what’s left of the roast.

“Thanks for offering, though,” Sam says. “I appreciate it.”

“I think you’re nuts not to take me up on it. It’s a big house. I would have asked you years ago, but all those women trailing in and out would have depressed me.”

“You’ve given up on me too, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“On me finding a woman.”

“I don’t care if you find a woman or not. I just don’t want a lot of them trailing in here.”

“Women don’t like me anyway.” Charles shrugs. “Women are getting strange.”

“I read The Dialectic of Sex . You ever read that?”

“What are you reading all this junk for?” Charles says. “That one’s not junk. She’s exactly right. Men are incapable of loving.”

“You’re out of your mind. Why did you start reading all that crap?”

“I don’t know. I read a lot of stuff over Christmas.”

“You ought to be in law school. Then you wouldn’t have time to poison your mind with that crap.”

“No. If you read this one you wouldn’t think it was crap.”

“I thought I was spared when Pamela Smith was here. She leaves with no feminist lecture at all, and you start in.”

“I didn’t start in. I mentioned that I read a good book.”

“I’m getting the coffee.”

“But anyway, it was nice of you to ask me over here.”

Charles goes into the kitchen, lifts the boiling water from the burner, and pours it into two cups. He forgot the coffee. He gets a spoon and puts coffee in the boiling water, stirs, and walks back to the dining room.

“I was thinking about my dog,” Sam says.

“Don’t think about your dog. You’ll get depressed.”

“I already am depressed. I was thinking about my dog the whole time you were gone. You know what I was thinking? That I should have let the vet do an autopsy. She might have been poisoned. Somebody might have poisoned her.”

“Nobody poisoned your dog.”

“I’m not paranoid. I don’t think it was deliberate. I just think that there might have been poison somewhere and she might have eaten it.”

“Her heart gave out.”

“Yeah. Unless she was poisoned.”

“Stop depressing yourself.”

“Shit. She was a great dog. I wouldn’t want to think that anybody poisoned her.”

“So. You don’t have an autopsy, you don’t have to think that.”

“I guess so,” Sam says. “But I feel like I ought to know for sure.”

“If she was poisoned you’d go around mad all the time. She’s dead, whatever she died of.”

“Okay. I don’t want to talk about my dog any more.” The dog, head thrown back, silly toy in her mouth … “I should have bought something for dessert,” Charles says. “Couldn’t hold it,” Sam says. “Ice cream,” Charles says. Sam looks into his coffee cup.

“What’s the matter? Now you’re feeling rotten because you think somebody poisoned your dog.”

“Not just that. I don’t have a job, and I’m in debt, and women don’t like me any more. I’ve been reading those books to try to find out how women think.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“It’s not pathetic. You ought to read some of that stuff. You’d never believe what’s going through their heads.”

Sam, slapping his mother’s hand …

“I don’t want to know. I’ve got enough crap knocking around my own head.”

“But you’re right. Women have changed. You’ve got to try to understand them now.”

“What for?”

“So you can get one.”

“I don’t want one. I mean, the only one I want is taken.”

“You still thinking about her?”

“She was so great. How can I not think about her?”

“I don’t know. I was just asking.”

“Yeah. I’m still thinking about her. I used to dream about her, but now I’ve stopped. I wish I could still dream about her.”

“Old Everly Brothers philosophy, huh?”

“Yeah. The Everly Brothers.”

The dancing instructor, hands clapping together: get closer, get closer.…

“What are you grinning about? We’re old fuckers. We remember the Everly Brothers.”

“I wonder what happened to them?”

“They’re still around, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know. You never hear about the Everly Brothers.”

“I could check in with that girl at work and see if they’re still alive. Except that I won’t be going to work any more.”

“Don’t think about that. You’ll depress yourself.”

“Okay. Say something funny.”

“One time somebody sent Cary Grant a telegram: ‘How old Cary Grant?’ Cary Grant wired back, ‘Old Cary Grant fine, how you?’ ”

Charles’s father had told him that one. He had had to explain it twice before Charles got it. The second time his father wrote it out, showed him what the telegrams actually looked like. “Think about it,” his father had said, his face earnest. “See how Cary Grant kids around in the telegram he sends back? He pretends not to understand.” His father has been dead for sixteen years.

Sam snickers.

“It doesn’t take much to amuse you,” Charles says. “Not when I’m this loaded it doesn’t.” Charles realizes, for the first time, that he is also a little drunk.

“How’d we get loaded on a bottle of wine?”

“I never drink any more. I never do anything any more.”

“You do too.”

“What do I do?”

“How should I know? You do stuff.”

“I don’t do anything,” Sam says sadly.

“Let’s go out to a bar,” Charles says. “I don’t want to just sit around here all night.”

“Let’s catch the news. See what we can find out about Rod Stewart.”

“It’s not time for the news.”

“Okay. Let’s go to a bar.”

“Your car or mine?” Charles asks.

“Mine is okay.”

They put their coats on and leave the house, dishes still on the table. Charles ducks back in to check the burners. They are off. He goes back out the front door. It is very cold, and almost every light on the block is off. Riding along, Charles stares at the dark houses with wonder. How can they go to bed so early? It must be habit, years of training. Got to get up for work, got to go to bed. And they do it. He once asked Laura what time she went to bed, so he could think of her. She wouldn’t tell him. “It would end up depressing you,” she said. She was right; it would depress him to know. But at least he would know — he wouldn’t think of her asleep at ten, eleven, twelve, one.… He gives the finger to the house he thinks the cripple lives in.

They end up at the same bar he went to with Pete. The college kids are back, though, and it’s crowded and noisy. The bar smells of sweat. There is a clock over the jukebox that shows a beer mug perpetually bubbling. Charles decides to drink a beer. He has more than twenty dollars. He can get good and drunk. In a few minutes a couple gets up to leave, and they sit at a table. The same waiter who took Pete’s order comes to the table. Tonight he is wearing dark green slacks. They look like velvet. There is a big grease stain across the thigh. Janis Joplin says, loudly, “This is a song called ‘Get It While You Can.’ Cause it ain’t gonna be there when you get up.” Do the kids in the bar even know who Janis Joplin is, or do they accept anything that comes to them by way of the ceiling speakers? What a depressing song. Janis Joplin is dead. Maybe Rod Stewart.