Last Things (5 page)
Phyllis drove Raymond to LAX from their home in Thousand Oaks. There was not much conversation because of the traffic and her faint resentment that he was going. Had she expected to be asked to accompany him? Unlikely. Someone had to meet their patients. The message from Andrew and then Jessica's call had filled him with dread, not because his father was on his deathbed but at the thought of returning to Chicago. Neither of them had been back since leaving, taking their own sweet time on a crosscountry jaunt in a rental car and living high on the Order's credit card. They owed him, that was his attitude. He and Phyllis had become licenced counselors and made a good living giving bad
advice. It was like hearing confessions without giving absolution. The trick was to convince the patient there was no sin. When Raymond decided to go to Chicago it occurred to him that it would give him relief from Phyllis's obsession with Julia.
advice. It was like hearing confessions without giving absolution. The trick was to convince the patient there was no sin. When Raymond decided to go to Chicago it occurred to him that it would give him relief from Phyllis's obsession with Julia.
“In a few hours you will be back there.”
“You can't go home again.”
“Do you still think of it as home?”
He touched her arm but she shrugged off his hand. They had become one another's patients. Physician, heal thyself.
“I'll cancel your appointments.”
“You might take some of them.”
“Julia?”
“If you'd like.”
If he had been driving she would have started in on it, but they were nearing the airport now and she had to keep alert for the signs. The prospect of time away from Phyllis filled him with the same carefree madness with which they had run away together years before. It had been on the spur of the moment but a moment when they had already gone too far. Driving west over plains and through the mountains and finally to the Golden State had been like shucking the skin of the past. What a romp they'd had. They had driven away from all restraint. In motels they watched soft porn movies and frolicked like teenagers.
“You can just drop me off.”
She made a face. “I'm sure you can buy a ticket for yourself.”
She found a space near the United entrance and he leaned toward her to kiss her cheek, but she turned to him and gave him a passionate kiss.
“Be good.”
“At a funeral?”
“Call when you get in.”
He hopped out. She had popped the trunk, and he removed
his bags, then ducked down to smile in at her. She stuck out her tongue, then smiled. He turned and hurried inside.
his bags, then ducked down to smile in at her. She stuck out her tongue, then smiled. He turned and hurried inside.
When his turn came and he told the girl he wanted a ticket to Chicago, she asked his name.
“I don't have a reservation.”
“And you want to fly today?”
“I have to.”
She clacked some keys and gave him a figure.
“Ouch.”
She looked sympathetic but then he was giving her the full benefit of his professional smile. “If you didn't have to travel today ⦔
“My father is dying.”
“Oh.” Lips rounding in sympathy. “But that's different.” There was what was called a compassionate exception. He huddled over the counter; they were coconspirators now. She gave a figure half of the previous one. “I'll try to get you into first class.”
“How much more is that?”
She smiled. She was doing it as a favor. Only there were no seats in first class. She was more disappointed than he was. Rhonda.
“You've been wonderful,” he said when he handed over his credit card.
“How long will you be gone?”
There was a definite note of invitation in her voice. “Do you live in L.A.?”
“I'm in the book.” She slid her card across the counter, and he put it in his hankie pocket and patted it. Another professional smile. He was both flattered and shocked. Were lovely girls like Rhonda so readily available? But it was Julia he thought of.
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Rhonda had put him in a window seat in the row with the emergency exit, lots of leg room. He was buckled in before he remembered that he hated to fly. It was as if he were daring God to take his life. Fulton Sheen had scoffed at those who feared to fly. Did they think God was only on the ground? But it was the fact that he seemed to have a freer hand in the air that disturbed. For a mad moment he wished he was going by car, reversing the flight he and Phyllis had made years ago. He sat back and closed his eyes and almost immediately fell asleep. Phyllis had given him a Dramamine before they left the house. When he awoke they were aloft, going counterclockwise to Chicago, into the past, to his father's deathbed. He hoped that he would not arrive in time, dreading to face the old man invested with all the authority of the dying. He had not so much as talked with his father on the phone since his desertion. Desertion. Away from Phyllis he could call a spade a spade. He closed his eyes, and their conversation about Julia played in his mental ear.
“What's going on, Ray?”
Out of the blue. “In what sense?”
“Julia.”
“She is a perfect pagan.”
“She wants you.”
“Oh, come on.”
“And it's mutual.”
“Phyl.”
Their quarreling consisted of falling into a routine where the lines they spoke were not their own but ones borrowed from patients and their own responses to them. Phyllis was obviously annoyed but could not show it.
“Get mad,” he advised her.
“There's no point to that.”
“So what do you propose?”
“Get it out of your system.”
It angered him that she thought she could issue such a pass to him, a furlough from fidelity. And he had been true to her, in his fashion. Over the years they had devised a common personality that was built around their practice, the present, the avoidance of the past.
“Just use her?”
“Do you really want to do anything more?”
Using shared professional tricks on one another, they seemed to have lost the capacity to communicate. What else was their practice but the issuance of passes? Therapy consisted of permitting people to do what they wanted without the pang of guilt. Usually it took several sessions to find out what the supposed problem was. His response to Julia, twenty years younger than himself, made him a type he had often dealt with. As Phyllis was dealing with him. The patient was finally asked if he disapproved of what he was doing or wanted to do. A negative answer seemed called for.
“Then why are you here?”
Therapy was aimed at discovering whose opinion the patient feared if not his own: that of a spouse, a child, a parent. His father. The flight attendant arrived with her trolley, and he asked for tomato juice, then changed it to a Bloody Mary. Phyllis was trying to manipulate him as they both manipulated patients. He would be indebted to her for allowing him to indulge himself with impunity.
On the phone Jessica had told him that Aunt Eleanor was at the hospital. She had given him a chalice when he was ordained, a beautiful full cup with scarcely any stem and a wide octagonal base. He had rented a safety deposit box in Chicago and put it there before going. Why of all the ties that bound him to the past he should refuse to sever that one he didn't know. Its value? What
is the market for used chalices? No, it was more than that, a sign of which was that he had never told Phyllis about it. He paid rental for the box annually, lying to her that it contained papers.
is the market for used chalices? No, it was more than that, a sign of which was that he had never told Phyllis about it. He paid rental for the box annually, lying to her that it contained papers.
“You should transfer them out here.”
“They're family stuff.”
He did feel that he was flying into the past, the great jet a time machine that negated the years since he and Phyllis had left. She had been in campus ministry. It began when they chaperoned a student dance, wearing civvies of course. She asked him to dance.
“But I don't know how.”
“I'll bet you're a quick learner.”
“I never went to a dance,” he told her.
“I did. I entered after my junior year in college.” The convent. The fact that they had both taken vows in obscure Orders was a bond between them, and as they discussed her reasons for wanting to leave they became his own. Somewhere in an abstract world he must have imagined what it would be like to step back from the life that was his, but it was with her that he had first put it into words. Everything he knew told him the danger of what he was doing; retreats and spiritual reading should have been enough to make him turn away, to stop seeing her. But from the outset she had put him in the role of her confidant, her spiritual advisor, because of course he asked whom she had spoken with about her doubts.
“No one else.”
“But you should; you can't just walk away.”
“Of course I can. So many others have. Haven't men left your Order?”
Quitters, that is how in his heart of hearts he had thought of those who left, who applied for laicization, who for one reason or another claimed they had made a huge mistake. But now the
Church herself made it possible to leave, to start over. He found himself beginning to sympathize with those who left as if they alone were serious enough to think the thought and say the word. And act. Within hours, holding her in his arms, her voice sweet as Eve's in his ear, he could feel the resolution of a lifetime begin to dissolve. Later, alone, in his single bed in his celibate room, he had stared at the play of lights upon the ceiling and trembled with fear. He resolved never to see her again. It was insane to think that a warm body against his own and her subversive chatter could undo what he had built up over so many years, the very self he was. When sleep came he had prayed for strength and was certain his prayer had been answered. In the morning, at the altar, saying Mass, all his actions seemed incredible, unfamiliar. He lifted the bread in his hands and bent to say the words of consecration, and they stuck in his throat.
Dear God, I believe,
he had prayed,
help thou my unbelief.
The efficacy of what he did was not dependent on his mood; he was a priest. He managed to say the words.
This is my body.
And then he took the chalice Aunt Eleanor had given him and whispered the words of consecration over the wine. But when he raised the chalice he had the dreadful thought that it was still only wine.
Church herself made it possible to leave, to start over. He found himself beginning to sympathize with those who left as if they alone were serious enough to think the thought and say the word. And act. Within hours, holding her in his arms, her voice sweet as Eve's in his ear, he could feel the resolution of a lifetime begin to dissolve. Later, alone, in his single bed in his celibate room, he had stared at the play of lights upon the ceiling and trembled with fear. He resolved never to see her again. It was insane to think that a warm body against his own and her subversive chatter could undo what he had built up over so many years, the very self he was. When sleep came he had prayed for strength and was certain his prayer had been answered. In the morning, at the altar, saying Mass, all his actions seemed incredible, unfamiliar. He lifted the bread in his hands and bent to say the words of consecration, and they stuck in his throat.
Dear God, I believe,
he had prayed,
help thou my unbelief.
The efficacy of what he did was not dependent on his mood; he was a priest. He managed to say the words.
This is my body.
And then he took the chalice Aunt Eleanor had given him and whispered the words of consecration over the wine. But when he raised the chalice he had the dreadful thought that it was still only wine.
Incredibly, within a week his faith was wholly gone. He saw Phyllis at every opportunity; they exchanged tales of those who had left, nuns, priests. How easy it seemed. They were both young; there was still time for another life. They began to fantasize about California.
“Let's go,” she said.
In answer he showed her the keys to the car and the Order's credit card. It was as if the decision had already been made by his blood.
At thirty-eight thousand feet he relived it all, and it was as if for the first time he dared think about it, review the steps, see
himself as if from some great height. He had two opposed sets of criteria with which to judge himself: those he had acquired during the years of study for the priesthoodâthe prayers, the conferences, the advice of directorsâon the one hand, and on the other those he had adopted with Phyllis. He was condemned by the one set and exonerated, even liberated, by the second. Flying across the country he was returning to the setting where the condemning criteria seemed to have their habitat, where his father awaited him, dead or alive, and the family that must regard him as a traitor.
himself as if from some great height. He had two opposed sets of criteria with which to judge himself: those he had acquired during the years of study for the priesthoodâthe prayers, the conferences, the advice of directorsâon the one hand, and on the other those he had adopted with Phyllis. He was condemned by the one set and exonerated, even liberated, by the second. Flying across the country he was returning to the setting where the condemning criteria seemed to have their habitat, where his father awaited him, dead or alive, and the family that must regard him as a traitor.
The pilot began to draw their attention to the scenery over which they were passing, a tour bus guide. Those on the right of the aircraft could see below them the Grand Canyon; later those on the left could see where the mountains gave way to plains. A jolly mindless voice dedicated to making their trip more enjoyable. Raymond would have given anything to be back in Thousand Oaks sparring with Phyllis about Julia. The final hour was the worst as they slowly descended toward O'Hare and the city came into view and rose slowly to meet them. He had the feeling that he had left a Technicolor world and was reentering a world of black and white.
In any profession there are bottom feeders, lowly creatures who live off the leavings of those in the water above them. Doubtless there is often resentment down there at the bottom of the tank, but among the lowly are some who are happy to be in the tank at all. Such was Tuttle's position, and attitude, in the legal profession of Fox River, Illinois. His path through law school had not been easy, though he had attended the Calhoun & Webster School of Law, not the most eminent institution of legal instruction in the Midwest. On the other hand, admission was largely a matter of paying the fees. Tuttle's father brought him to class the first evening, riding the bus with him from the South Side and hugging him proudly before he passed through the portals of the school, in fact a revolving door that resisted the shoulder and made entrance a hard-won success every time. There were tears in Tuttle senior's eyes. He himself had dreamt of being a lawyer, but it was not to be. He had shuffled through his mail route in those years before carriers were equipped with vehicles, mace, and seasonal uniforms. But the pension was a godsend, enabling Tuttle senior to send his son through Calhoun & Webster. Although it was a night school, Tuttle studied all day long, living at home, the saving realized more than offsetting the daily carfare to class. The law had not come easily to Tuttle. But when he flunked a course, he simply took it over again and either that time or the next passed.
He flunked many courses. In a sense, he might have been called the most thoroughly educated lawyer in the region. His father's support had never wavered. When Tuttle himself grew despondent, his father was there to cheer him on. Eventually, he graduated and gladdened his father's heart that his son was now indeed a Bachelor of Law. That gladdened heart soon gave out as if the goal being reached he now could lay his burden down.
He flunked many courses. In a sense, he might have been called the most thoroughly educated lawyer in the region. His father's support had never wavered. When Tuttle himself grew despondent, his father was there to cheer him on. Eventually, he graduated and gladdened his father's heart that his son was now indeed a Bachelor of Law. That gladdened heart soon gave out as if the goal being reached he now could lay his burden down.
Tuttle opened law offices in Fox River, hoping to find less competition in the little town to the west of Chicago but part of the greater metropolitan area. He had lettered on his door Tuttle & Tuttle in commemoration of his father. Few Chinese could rival Tuttle's ancestor worship. The memory of his father could bring a tear to his eye, and a day did not go by that, prompted by the name of the firm, he did not breathe an Ave for his father. Fox River proved to be rife with lawyers, as what town is not, and Tuttle carved a place for himself slowly. He would not touch divorce cases, this scruple inherited from his father and honored unquestioningly. Besides, divorces were notoriously messy. Hanging around the courthouse, drinking the vile but free coffee in the pressroom, making acquaintances if not friends with the resentful members of the media, he also formed a real friendship with Peanuts Pianone, a police officer who owed his appointment to the influence of his family, in several senses of the term, and who spent the day napping in various places about the courthouse. Peanuts would never have made the force on the basis of an examination; there was one school of thought that claimed he could not readâfalseâand Captain Keegan, when asked, said that Peanuts was on a roving assignment. He and Tuttle roved together, and from time to time a client came Tuttle's way, some poor devil helpless in the municipal court and ripe for representation. Occasionally bigger things came to Tuttle, but he was ever on the qui vive for his main chance.
When Professor Cassirer called Tuttle's office he and Peanuts were enjoying fried rice and chicken wings. It was their pleasure to have such snacks brought to the offices of Tuttle & Tuttle, a pleasure less frequent now that Hazel had established herself as his secretary, but today she was indisposed and home with the flu. The office was a fourth-floor walk-up in a non-air-conditioned building that had somehow survived urban renewal. The rent was risible, and the manager not a stickler for timely payment. Tuttle was masticating noisily when he answered the phone.
“My name is Cassirer. I am a professor at St. Edmund's, and I am seeking legal representation.”
Tuttle suppressed a chuckle, assuming that Tetzel in the pressroom was playing a practical joke.
“Who recommended you?”
“The yellow pages. I chose your name by the
Sortes Virgilianae
. I would like an appointment.”
Sortes Virgilianae
. I would like an appointment.”
Something told Tuttle this was not a prank. He looked around his office. No need to ask how it would seem to Cassirer.
“As it happens I have business near St. Edmund's. Are you free this afternoon?”
“I am. Do you know the student center?”
“I will find it. Two o'clock?”
“Wonderful. How will I know you?”
“I will be wearing a tweed hat. Irish tweed.”
He hung up, tilted that tweed hat to a more rakish angle, and looked at Peanuts. “A client.”
“Too bad.”
Peanuts assumed that he avoided business the way Peanuts avoided police work. But Peanuts was on salary.
“Do you have a car?”
“I can get one.”
“On second thought, I'll take mine.” Arrival in a squad car
might send the wrong signal to Cassirer. “Give me a few bucks for gas.”
might send the wrong signal to Cassirer. “Give me a few bucks for gas.”
“I paid for the Chinese.”
Tuttle flourished a piece of paper. “I am keeping exact records. My ship may be about to come in.”
“What ship?”
“A manner of speaking.”
No time to expand Peanut's command of the King's English. Tuttle was a stranger to professional optimism, fish regularly slipped his net, but the call from Cassirer was different. His thoughts lifted to his sainted father, whom he had consulted about continuing the ad in the yellow pages. The saving that cancellation promised had its attractions in this time of drought, but the paternal voice had suggested keeping the ad. He could take it out of the rent money.
He found the student center, and Cassirer found him, confronting him as if about to demand his I.D.
“Tuttle?”
“Cassirer?”
They shook hands. “You're young to be a professor, aren't you?” The beard was clearly an effort to add gravitas, but it gave him a mad-bomber look.
“I have always been precocious.”
Cassirer led the way to a cafeteria and pushed a tray along as he impressed on Tuttle the utter confidentiality of what he wished to discuss. Once mugs of coffee were on the tray and Tuttle had made a half-hearted attempt to pay, Cassirer led him to a table for two in a far corner.
“How much do you know about academic tenure?”
That quickly, the moment of truth. “Tell me about it.”
A stroke of genius that, as Cassirer was primed on all occasions
to lecture. It was a trait that would enable Tuttle to seal their relationship. Cassirer assumed that Tuttle knew what Cassirer knew, and since the young man did all the talking this fiction was sustained. Cassirer laid a copy of the faculty manual on the table.
to lecture. It was a trait that would enable Tuttle to seal their relationship. Cassirer assumed that Tuttle knew what Cassirer knew, and since the young man did all the talking this fiction was sustained. Cassirer laid a copy of the faculty manual on the table.
“You will want to study that. The usual way is for people to wait until they have been turned down for tenure and then sue. I plan a preemptive strike. Of course my job is good for another year whether or not I am granted tenure, so the risk of suing after the fact is less, but I cannot be passive in this matter. You probably have heard of Foucault.”
He heard of him then. Gradually Tuttle discerned that Cassirer was not speaking of a Chinese friend. Tuttle nodded through the unintelligible narration, which led finally to the heart of the matter. Cassirer had put himself forward for tenure before the stated time, and he was now sure he would be turned down.
“This will be a monumental injustice. I have means of learning what goes on in the committee. I have identified my principal enemy.” He leaned forward and mouthed a name. They he said it audibly. “Andrew Bernardo.”
“So what's the plan?”
“I want to sue Bernardo, the dean, and the provost. Their names are in the manual. The sooner we file the better.”
“You want to sue on the basis of what you have learned about the committee's proceedings?”
“It sounds weak when you put it like that. I don't have to tell you this, but the lawsuit is a means of putting pressure on them. Of course they will want to avoid court and wish to settle. Usually that means money. I am not interested in their money.”
“Payment of money is a powerful admission of guilt.
“Oh, I'd take it. But what I want is tenure now.”
“You must really like this place.”
“I hate it. It is a monument to mediocrity.” He pushed a copy of a newspaper across the table. “There is a piece of mine in the student paper you will want to read. The orchestration of response to my article is a public matter. Of course Bernardo was behind it.”
“What's his motive?”
“Jealousy. I tell you frankly that I am both the youngest and the most distinguished member of my department. For me to be denied tenure would be a crime against the intellect.”
So phrased, there was no local, state, or federal statute that covered the crime. But Tuttle knew that he was on to something. Rumors, newspaper stories, bits of information gathered from God knew where had acquainted Tuttle with the litigious atmosphere on college and university campuses.
“It would help if I could meet Andrew Bernardo.”
“Good! Stop by his office. Shake him up. I want them to know I mean business.”
And so Tuttle had visited Andrew Bernardo in his office, where a whirring machine made everyone speak in a high voice. Foster, his officemate, was a genial sort, reminiscent of Peanuts, and Tuttle liked Andrew as he had not warmed to his client. Cassirer was someone who would put mother love to a trial. Tuttle had met his share of egoists, but most of them were in the pressroom and their self-estimate was at variance with general opinion. Cassirer, he was sure, was as good as he said he was, but the fact that he kept saying it was off-putting. Andrew on the other hand was affable, diffident, more like Tuttle's notion of a professor. And the son of Fulvio Bernardo.
The imminent death of the young man's father appealed to all Tuttle's devotion to his own, and he felt a genuine sympathy for him. And there came to him the conviction that this campus was
a fertile field for his talents. He would study the faculty manual, he would become an expert in academic procedures, and he would make his name known so that the disgruntled would find their way to his door.
a fertile field for his talents. He would study the faculty manual, he would become an expert in academic procedures, and he would make his name known so that the disgruntled would find their way to his door.
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