And you know how you are, Fay, I said to myself. You know how your witless tongue gets you into trouble; you always say anything that comes into your mind, without any thought for the conseqences.

“When you get to know me better,” I told her, “you’ll learn not to pay any attention to me. I’m a crude, vulgar person. I remember one day in the public library I said the word ‘fuck’ in front of a librarian. I could have died. I could have sunk through the floor. I never went back; I never could look at her again.”

Gwen laughed slightly, I thought a little uneasily.

“I pick up language like that from Charley,” I explained, and then I described his factory to her, how many men he employed, what he netted in a year. She seemed to be interested, to some extent at least.

7

The ride up to their house in Marin County made me carsick, due to the sharp turns through Samuel P. Taylor Park. On each turn I thought Charley was going to leave the road. Both he and Fay knew the road so well that they knew exactly how far up they could push the gas pedal on each turn. One mile an hour more and the car would have gone off into the creek. At one time he hit sixty miles an hour. Most drivers would have had to take it at twenty-five, especially those weekend drivers who putter along. And Charley used the whole road, not just his lane; he went all the way over to the shoulder on the far side. He seemed to know whether a can was coming on not, even though I could see nothing but trees. Fay did not show any signs of nervousness, beside him in the front seat; in fact she seemed to be half-asleep.

But around me all my goods slid and rocked. What an odd sensation it was, to have them with me in motion, not back at the room. For all intents and purposes I had given up my room; now I was going to live with my sister and her husband, at their house—I had no actual place of my own. It was like going back to childhood, and I felt depressed and uncomfortable. However, the scenery cheered me up. And I knew, from their description, what sort of a house it was; I knew that it was very swanky, with all the latest gadgets.

To keep my spirits up I thought of the animals. At one time during high school I had worked for a veterinarian, sweeping out, cleaning the cages, helping people bring their pets in from their cars, feeding the animals boarded there, getting rid of dead animals. I had enjoyed being around the animals. And long ago, when I was about eleven, I had spent a lot of time catching insects and making analyses of them. I had taken apart those giant yellow slugs. I used to catch flies and hang them from loops of thread… however the weight of the fly’s body was usually too slight to close the noose, so I had usually had to pull down on the fly. At that point the fly’s eyes would pop from his head and his head would come off.

When we arrived at the house Charley helped me carry my boxes of possessions indoors and to a room in the rear that they had decided to present me for my use. Evidently they had used it for storage; we had to carry out one armload after another of garden tools, children’s discarded games and toys, even a bed that the collie dog had spent time in.

Shutting myself in the room I began putting my clothes in the closet and setting out my things, trying to give this new room an air of familiarity. With scotch tape I put up various important facts on the walls. I inserted items from my rock collection into the corners. Last of all, for a time I put my head in the bag containing my collection of milk bottle tops and breathed in the rich, sour odor of the bottle tops, a smell that had been with me since the fourth grade. That raised my spirits and I looked out of the window for the first time.

Dinner that night made me conscious of the luxury in which my sister was now living. Outdoors on the patio she had Charley broiling t-bone steak in a charcoal pit, while inside she fixed hors d’oeuvres of minced clams and cream cheese baked on English muffins, martinis, avocado salad, baked potatoes, Italian beans from their freezer that they had originally grown themselves… and, for dessert, huckleberries that they had picked the summer before somewhere out near the Point. They had coffee; the two children and I had milk. And the children and I had whipped cream on our huckleberries.

After dinner I carried the children around on my back, while Fay and Charley sat in the living room having a second martini and listening to longhair music on the hi-fl. In the fireplace they had a fire of oak logs from the cord stacked up near the side of the house. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed such comfort, and I threw myself into playing with the girls, getting a great kick out of swinging them around, tossing them high up and recatching them, hiding from them and letting them find me. Their yells seemed to annoy Fay and all at once she got up to go put the dishes in the automatic dishwasher.

Later I helped put the children to bed. I read a story to them from the Oz book. It made me feel strange to be reading one of the stories that I knew so well… .books so much a part of my life, and these children had not even been born until the ‘fifties. They hadn’t even been alive during World War Two.

I realized that this was the first time I had ever had anything to do with children.

“You sure have nice kids,” I said to Fay, after we had left the children’s rooms.

Fay said, “Everybody says that, so it must be true. Personally I find them a lot of work. You enjoy playing with them, but after they’ve pestered you day in day out for years—wait’ll you’ve got up every morning at seven and fixed breakfast for them.”

Fixing breakfast was one thing my sister hated; she liked to lie in bed late, until nine or ten, and with the girls in school she had no choice but to get up early. Charley of course had to be off to his factory, so he could not take the responsibility of dressing the girls, brushing their hair, preparing their lunches, seeing that they had their books and so forth. After a week or so I found that I did not mind getting up early and setting the table, putting on water for the Cream of Wheat, making the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fifing the thermos jugs with tomato soup, opening the drapes, frying bacon, cutting open the grapefruit, buttoning the girls’ dresses, and then, after I had served breakfast to them, clearing the table, washing the dishes, taking out the garbage and trash, and finally sweeping the floor around the breakfast table. Meanwhile Charley got shaved, dressed, ate his soft boiled egg, toast and coffee, and set off for Petaluma. At nine or so Fay got up, took a shower, dressed, carried a cup of coffee and a dish of applesauce out onto the patio, ate, read the Chronicle–if somebody had thought to go out and get it for her—and then sat by herself smoking a cigarette.

Not only did I enjoy fixing breakfast, but I also enjoyed babysitting in the evenings, and that was a godsend for Fay. It meant that once again she could begin getting out and visiting people; she could get down to the Bay Area to movies and plays and classes, she could even go three times a week to her analyst in San Francisco instead of only once, and because they did not have to worry about keeping me up late, as they had had to with teen-age baby-sitters, they could stay as late in the city as they wanted, going to parties or bans. And on Friday morning I went with my sister to Petaluma and carried the groceries for her, putting everything away when we got home and even burning the leftover bags and cantons in the incinerator.

In exchange for all this I got truly wonderful meals, and I got to ride the horse and play games with the kids. A metal pole had been erected outdoors for tether ball, and the children and I played tether ball almost every afternoon. I got really skilled at it.