“Well they sound almost the same,” said Margaret.
“That’s just the trouble. What are homiletics, for instance?”
“Why, I know what they are but I’d rather not say. Like Artie Minzer?”
“Well, there you are. You did know about homiletics. But not about John W. Orgy, the professor of pederasty. His subject. He believed in absolute freedom of the individual, and he conducted this experiment of allowing complete freedom for one week. It’s been going on for half a century.”
“Well, it didn’t do you any good,” said Margaret.
“It’s too soon to tell,” he said.
On his last night in the house where he was born, George Bingham Lockwood Junior dined alone on a meal that he had not ordered and would not have chosen. His mother was asleep when he went to her room, and he telephoned three girls in Gibbsville, but they all seemed to be at a bridge party and were not expected home much before eleven-thirty or twelve. He unpacked and repacked his kitbag, took a bath, and fell asleep while reading in bed. He did not hear his father come in; he did not hear his mother when she came to his room, opened the windows, and turned out his light.
He was awake at six o’clock. He shaved and dressed and had a last breakfast in the kitchen, with Margaret urging more food on him. After breakfast he went to his mother’s room, knocked, and entered. “You’re making the eight-forty-six?” she said.
“Yes. Thanks for opening my windows. You did it, didn’t you?”
“You were sleeping so soundly. You needed that sleep. Write to me on the train. You go by way of Chicago, I suppose, but I guess you wouldn’t want to look up any friends of ours.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You can make a list of things you’ll want us to do. I’ll have your fur coat put in storage. You won’t need that for a while. And when your trunk comes I’ll have Henry—”
“I’ve done that.”
“Send me a telegram when you get to California, and write me when you’re settled. I want to know everything. Do you need any money?”
“No thanks.”
“Well, if you ever do.”
“I know. I’m traveling very light, because when I get there all I’ll have to have will be work clothes. Blue jeans.”
“Blue jeans?”
“They’re like overalls, without the bib. They call them Levis out there. A store in San Francisco owned by a man named Levi. I got all this from Steve.”
“Is Steve’s mother living where you’re going? On the ranch?”
“I believe so, yes. But don’t write to her, Mother. Not until I’ve been there a while and there’s some occasion for it. I’ll give you the address now, but you understand why I don’t want you to write Mrs King.”
“Of course. I’ll say goodbye to Ernestine for you.”
“Do that, yes. Well, I think I hear Henry.”
“Yes. Well, I guess there’s nothing more.”
“No, and I’m not the one they hold the train for. Take good care of yourself and I’ll write to you and you write to me.”
She looked at him appraisingly. “This is all for the best. I know it is. You’re not leaving anything that you’ll really need. My love goes with you and stays with you. You know that, my boy.”
“Yes, Mother. I know that.” He leaned down and kissed her and just once she stroked the top of his head.
“Hurry, and God bless you.”
He barely caught the train, and he was on his way.
In his mother’s room his father was standing at the window. He was fully dressed. Presently she came out of her bathroom and got back into bed.
“Good morning, Agnes,” he said.
“Good morning,” she said.
“He’s gone.”
“Yes, he’s gone, and I’ll never see him again.”
“That isn’t necessarily true.”
“It’s as true as anything you ever knew,” she said. “As true as the fact that I’ll never forgive you for last night.”
“Agnes, listen to me, please. There are two sides to this, and be fair.”
“No, there aren’t two sides to it, and there’s no question of fairness, George. This was the one time in your life when you didn’t have to think-think-think. And what good has your thinking done? You made it impossible for my son to stay another night in this house. I might have been able to do something for him if you’d gone away for a week or a month. But whatever you said to him, you made it impossible. If you didn’t want to be nice to him, at least you could have gone away while I tried to make him feel less like a leper.”
“He said in so many words that he wished I would die.”
“What did you say to provoke him? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“I’m very strongly tempted to tell you.”
“Well, don’t.”
“You’re taking advantage of your illness.”
“What advantage? What advantage have I got to take? I know what’s going to happen to me. I know how long I’ve got, a year at the most. What if you shorten that by a few months? What can you possibly say that would be as bad as what you did last night? You mean that you could say something that would give me another attack? And you’re not saying it because you don’t want to take advantage of my illness? What a hypocrite you are, George Lockwood. Really and truly.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve learned something about you. Too late, but at least I’ll die knowing it. You pretend not to care what people think about you, but in fact you care more than anyone else in the world. You’re not a snob, you’re not an aristocrat. You’re nothing more than a cowardly person that doesn’t want anything known about him, good or bad. So afraid that if the good became known, the bad would too. That’s all it is.”
“Oh, there is some good about me?”
“Why yes. I even told your son that you were generous, considerate, gentle.”
“I’m sure that fell on hard ground.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for him. He has your blood, and the boy is going to wonder about himself, these next few months and years.”
“Well, he wants me dead.”
“And you know what that can be, wishing someone would die, but unable to hasten the event.”
“I consider that insulting and ungrateful. I’d hoped you and I could discuss some plan for George.”
“Nobody’s listening to you, George. The effect is lost.”
“Perhaps so, Agnes. But you always talk as though you were absolutely sure that God is taking down every word. In the long run maybe we’re both cowards. Both of us.”
“Please go,” she said.
Agnes Lockwood survived the winter, was sustained through the spring by the letters from her son and daughter, but could not endure the heat of August. She was not helped by the last few letters from her son, which came at irregular intervals and contained over-casual references to a girl called Rita and descriptions of the San Luis Obispo County weather. Rita had no last name; George seemed to have proceeded on the notion that he had fully identified her in an earlier letter. As to the California weather, the heat was continually of such intensity that only the nearness of the Pacific Ocean made it bearable. “Occasionally Rita and I seize the opportunity to go for a swim.” Agnes Lockwood would hint for more information about Rita, but it was not forthcoming. “She sounds Spanish,” said Ernestine Lockwood. “There are a lot of people of Spanish descent in California.”
“I wouldn’t want him to marry a Catholic,” said Agnes.
“Well, I’m only guessing. And he hasn’t said anything that makes me think he wants to marry her.”