John Irving - The World According to Garp

“There's going to be a lot of speeches,” Roberta said. “You don't want to go.”

“And they're going to read from her book,” John Wolf said. “We've donated some copies.”

“But you don't want to go, Garp,” Roberta said, nervously. “Please don't go.”

“I want to go,” Garp said. “I promise you I won't hiss or boo—no matter what the assholes say about her. I have something of hers I might read myself, if anyone's interested,” he said. “Did you ever see that thing she wrote about being called a feminist?” Roberta and John Wolf looked at each other; they looked stricken and gray. “She said, “I hate being called one, because it's a label I didn't choose to describe my feelings about men or the way I write."”

“I don't want to argue with you, Garp,” Roberta said. “Not now. You know perfectly well she said other things, too. She was a feminist, whether she liked the label or not. She was simply one for pointing out all the injustices to women; she was simply for allowing women to live their own lives and make their own choices.”

“Oh?” said Garp. “And did she believe that everything that happened to women happened to them because they were women?”

“You have to be stupid to believe that, Garp,” Roberta said. “You make us all sound like Ellen Jamesians.”

“Please stop it, both of you,” John Wolf said.

Jenny Garp squawked briefly and slapped Garp's knee; he looked at her, surprised—as if he'd forgotten she was a live thing there in his lap.

“What is it?” he asked her. But the baby was quiet again, watching some pattern in the landscape of John Wolf's office that was invisible to the rest of them.

“What time is this wingding?” Garp asked Roberta.

“Five o'clock in the afternoon,” Roberta said.

“I believe it was chosen,” John Wolf said, “so that half the secretaries in New York could walk off their jobs an hour early.”

“Not all the working women in New York are secretaries,” Roberta said.

“The secretaries,” said John Wolf, “are the only ones who'll be missed between four and five.”

“Oh boy,” Garp said.

Helen came in and announced that she could not reach her father on the phone.

“He's at wrestling practice,” Garp said.

“The wrestling season hasn't begun yet,” Helen said. Garp looked at the calendar on his watch, which was several hours out of sync with the United States; he had last set it in Vienna. But Garp knew that wrestling at Steering did not officially begin until after Thanksgiving. Helen was right.

“When I called his office at the gym, they said he was at home,” Helen told Garp. “And when I called home, there was no answer.”

“We'll rent a car at the airport,” Garp said. “And anyway, we can't leave until tonight. I have to go to this damn funeral.”

“No, you don't have to,” Roberta insisted.

“In fact,” Helen said, “you can't .”

Roberta and John Wolf again looked stricken and gray; Garp simply looked uninformed.

“What do you mean, I can't?” he asked.

“It's a feminist funeral,” Helen said. “Did you read the paper, or did you stop at the headlines?”

Garp looked accusingly at Roberta Muldoon, but she looked at Duncan looking out the window. Duncan had his telescope out, spying on Manhattan.

“You can't go, Garp,” Roberta admitted. “It's true. I didn't tell you because I thought it would really piss you off. I didn't think you'd want to go, anyway.”

“I'm not allowed ?” Garp said.

“It's a funeral for women ,” Roberta said. “ Women loved her, women will mourn her. That's how we wanted it.”

Garp glared at Roberta Muldoon. “I loved her,” he said. “I'm her only child. Do you mean I can't go to this wingding because I'm a man?”

“I wish you wouldn't call it a wingding,” Roberta said.

“What's a wingding?” Duncan asked.

Jenny Garp squawked again, but Garp didn't listen to her. Helen took her from him.

“Do you mean no men are allowed at my mother's funeral?” Garp asked Roberta.

“It's not exactly a funeral, as I told you,” Roberta said. “It's more like a rally—it's a kind of reverent demonstration.”

“I'm going, Roberta,” Garp said. “I don't care what you call it.”

“Oh boy,” Helen said. She walked out of the office with baby Jenny. “I'm going to try to get my father again,” she said.

“I see a man with one arm,” Duncan said.

“Please don't go, Garp,” Roberta said softly.

“She's right,” John Wolf said. “I wanted to go, too. I was her editor, after all. But let them have it their way, Garp. I think Jenny would have liked the idea.”

“I don't care what she would have liked,” Garp said.

“That's probably true,” Roberta said. “That's another reason you shouldn't be there.”

“You don't know, Garp, how some of the women's movement people have reacted to your book ,” John Wolf advised him.

Roberta Muldoon rolled her eyes. The accusation that Garp was cashing in on his mother's reputation, and the women's movement, had been made before. Roberta had seen the advertisement for The World According to Bensenhaver , which John Wolf had instantly authorized upon Jenny's assassination. Garp's book appeared to cash in on that tragedy, too—the ad conveyed a sick sense of a poor author who's lost a son “and now a mother, too.”

It is fortunate Garp never saw that ad; even John Wolf regretted it.

The World According to Bensenhaver sold and sold and sold. For years it would be controversial; it would be taught in colleges. Fortunately, Garp's other books would be taught in colleges, sporadically, too. One course taught Jenny's autobiography together with Garp's three novels and Stewart Percy's A History of Everett Steering's Academy . The purpose of that course, apparently, was to figure out everything about Garp's life by hunting through the books for those things that appeared to be true .

It is fortunate Garp never knew anything about that course, either.

“I see a man with one leg,” announced Duncan Garp, searching the streets and windows of Manhattan for all the crippled and misarranged—a task that could take years.

“Please stop it, Duncan,” Garp said to him.

“If you really want to go, Garp,” Roberta Muldoon whispered to him, “you'll have to go in drag.”

“If it's all that tough for a man to get in,” Garp snapped at Roberta, “you better hope they don't have a chromosome check at the door.” He felt instantly sorry he'd said that; he saw Roberta wince as if he'd slapped her and he took both her big hands in his and held them until he felt her squeeze him back. “Sorry,” he whispered. “If I've got to go in drag, it's a good thing you're here to help me dress up. I mean, you're an old hand at that, right?”

“Right,” Roberta said.

“This is ridiculous,” John Wolf said.

“If some of those women recognize you,” Roberta told Garp, “they'll tear you limb from limb. At the very least, they won't let you in the door.”

Helen came back in the office, with Jenny Garp squawking on her hip.

“I've called Dean Bodger,” she told Garp. “I asked him to try to reach Daddy. It's just not like him, to be nowhere.”

Garp shook his head.

“We should just go to the airport now,” Helen told him. “Rent a car in Boston, drive to Steering. Let the children rest,” she said. “Then if you want to run back to New York on some crusade, you can do it.”

“ You go,” Garp said. “I'll take a plane and rent my own car later.”