John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

“Terrible,” Art Jr said. He frowned, reaching a judgment. “It’s a mistake.”

5

Walter Benson, sometimes Boyle, was not sure even now what his opinion was. It was a comfort to have Mr. Nuper dead, and it was surprising to find how little anxiety he felt about ever being caught for his part in it. Nevertheless, even though it was done now, which theoretically ought to have ended it, it was still not exactly settled in Benson’s (or Boyle’s) mind whether or not he’d done right. It was a foolish question to be worrying about, but he felt cheated. A man deserves to have some feeling about what he has done or hasn’t done. As he’d stood that night in the squishy, clayey mud of the creekbed, ruining his good shoes, panting and puffing as he struggled to get the dead-weight, incredibly uncooperative body (in death as in life) down into the mouth of the sluice, he had thought, “What kind of man are you, Benson, or Boyle, to have no feeling at a time like this?” But it was useless, he felt nothing. It was a fact. He felt — (he squinted in the darkness, analyzing) — a certain panic, for though the road was isolated, some lovers might come along, or some fool who’d taken the wrong turn, looking for Niagara Falls. But he did not feel much panic, actually. No more, certainly, than he felt when he slipped through the door of what might or might not be an empty house. The main thing he felt was a kind of generalized annoyance — at the squishyness of the mud, which made him fall twice onto one knee, smearing his trousers and the hem of his coat; at the way Marguerite would keep wondering, now, whatever had happened to that nice young man; at the general irresolution of life. He found himself thinking, almost angrily,

But the gingham dog and the calico cat

Wallowed this way and tumbled that,

Employing every tooth and claw

In the awfullest way you ever saw,

And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!

Nevertheless, he finally got the whole body in; the next few rains would dispose of it. He worked his way back up to the road, got into his car and sat there a moment panting, waiting for his emotions to return; but there was nothing, or nothing but the jingle banging in his head.

And some folks think unto this day

That burglars stole that pair away!

But the truth about the cat and pup

Is this: they ate each other up!

Now what do you really think of that?

And all the way home the jingle went on jingling, no matter what he tried to think of.

I never got around to that book, he thought now. A book on Cuba that Nuper said it would do him good to read. He, Benson-boyle, had known well enough it would do him no good, but he’d more or less meant to read it just the same, heaven knew why. He’d meant to look over the bills, too. How many days had he been home now? But they could wait, like everything else.

Poor Benson! Or Boyle. He sits humpbacked at his diningroom table, squinting at his newspaper as though he’s been sitting here for centuries. He can hear his wife puffing, moving around in the livingroom, straightening up. He doesn’t move a muscle. Someone in Texas has been murdering people from a tower, shooting women and children and college professors. In Chicago someone has been killing nurses. There will be more, he thinks. Someone does something like that, and pretty soon all the other lunatics start on it too. Young punks. Crazy people. Sometimes it seems as if everybody in the world has gone insane. It frightens him, to tell the truth. He thinks of the policeman with eyes like two bullets, beating the Indian boy with the butt of a gun, then of the men in the black armbands, protectors of their noble vision, swinging even with Ben-sonboyle’s car on the narrow road, then pulling past Nuper, forcing him to the shoulder.

“Walter?” she says. She pokes her puffy white head through the door.

But he concentrates. There was something important that he meant to do, or meant to decide on. The light coming off the imitation cut-glass salt shaker distracts him a little, and he concentrates harder, until he hardly notices the light. Absurd syllables come into his head:

I dimly guess from blessings known

Of greater out of sight,

And, with the chastened Psalmist, own

His judgments too are right.

It is not what he was groping for, and he thinks, angrily, that he too seems to have gone insane; but he hasn’t, of course. He was never more sane in his life, God knows. Nevertheless, there was something he had to get done that he hasn’t done.

When she calls again he has a momentary sense of disorientation, cannot think what room he’s sitting in, and so understands that he must have dropped off there, for a minute.

“Are you coming to bed?” she asks. And then: “Walter!”

“Ah!” he says, not turning.

It has all come back to him, all at once. He was standing in a place where the sky was dark green — an eclipse, perhaps — and there are black towers, and men moving about, workmen. One touched him on the shoulder — an old, old man with sparse white stubble and tiny, close-set eyes — and called him by his name.

Benson shudders. Whatever the message was, delivered to him in that queer, sudden dream, he has lost it now. No matter.

The doorway behind him is empty now. Marguerite has gone upstairs. He can hear the radio directly over his head. Sooner or later he must get her out of the house, he knows, and in her absence get rid of Nuper’s things (must figure out how to dispose of them too, of course, sooner or later) and then tell her he came back for them. Let it slide and sooner or later she’ll begin to worry and call the police. When is it that she goes shopping? he wonders. What day is today?

The trouble is, he feels mysteriously weary all the time now, more tired when he wakes up than when he goes to sleep. Dreams, perhaps. But if he dreams he cannot remember afterward, usually. The truth is, he is half-dreaming even now, sliding off into the sunless, underwalter world where the workmen are moving about, taking down scaffolding of some kind, muttering to themselves, never looking at him. Tomorrow, he thinks suddenly. Tomorrow. He is back in the familiar, gloomy room.

And now Marguerite is calling again. “Water, come listen to this!”

She has the news on. He hears the rumble of the voice, but not the words.

When she calls again he stirs himself, pushes back the chair and lifts his vast (as it seems to him) weight and makes his way to the stairs.

“It’s over,” she says when he comes in. “You should’ve been quicker.”

“Over?” he says.

“They caught that Indian boy,” she says. “He’s back in jail. The one that broke out, you know, down in Batavia. They found him in a barn, down near Warsaw, and he gave himself up. They haven’t caught up with the other one yet.”

He nodded.

“Five miles from where they found him, there was an accident. A truck driver killed. The police believe there may be some connection.”

He nodded, standing carefully balanced, touching the doorframe.

“The truck driver was — something. His guardian or something.”

He nodded again, and after a moment it came to him that he’d seen him, he’d come to the jail.

“It’s funny,” she said, “the way that other one keeps getting away. It’s not natural.”

He nodded again. “Well, they’ll find him,” he said. “They’ll trace him drown … They always do.” His voice came out weak, and she seemed to notice it.

“They don’t even know who he waves,” she said.

“They’ll find out all right. Someone—” This time the voice was too loud. He shrugged and closed himself up as he would in jail. He looked hard at the radio beside the bed as if to watch the music coming out.