The Temple of Gold (3 page)

Naturally, I never got there. And even my visiting stopped, because one day, the old lady died. I suppose I have known more than my share of death, but hers was the smallest. Nobody cried. Nobody said, “What a tragedy.” She just was, and then one day, she wasn’t any more. Like a pebble thrown far out in a pond when you’re not looking. You hear the sound, but later, when you turn slowly to look, the ripples are gone and the top of the pond is smooth again. ...

As I remember my father for what he once did, I most remember my mother for what she once did not do. Again, this isn’t fair, since she was a fine woman, loving wife, good mother, etc. But memories are often like that.

She was a pretty girl whose parents were religious missionaries in India. They died of some plague, both at the same time, which, although it shook her up when it happened, isn’t half as bad as it might have been. Together is a good way to go. She attended Athens College and when she was a sophomore she had a class in Greek Literature taught by my father; when she was a junior they got married; the year she would have been a senior, I was born.

I have already said how my father was a famous scholar. Once I went to a speech he gave and heard him introduced as “America’s leading expert on Euripides,” a pretty silly way of introducing anyone, but still I believe it to have been the truth. And my mother, with the zeal probably inherited from her missionary parents, threw herself into the job of being the wife of America’s leading expert on you-know-who. She was a pillar of society, my mother, and I say that without malice or scorn, because if you don’t have pillars, then society would fall down on your head, and my mother just happened to be one.

And if it was my father who gave up on me, it was me, in turn, who gave up on my mother. There was never any clean break. We kept arguing about the usual things, such as would I or would I not wear long underwear in the wintertime or rubbers in the rain. We always spoke to each other, her trying to guide me as a mother should and me obeying, more often than not, as a son. But still, after what happened with Baxter, nothing was ever the same.

Giving credit where it’s due, I freely admit that had it not been for my mother, I never would have gotten him in the first place, as my father was against it from the start, mainly because he didn’t like dogs. You couldn’t help liking Baxter though, since he was far and away the greatest animal ever to walk on four feet, a thoroughbred cocker spaniel, small and golden brown. Once I got Baxter—which happens to be my father’s middle name, proving I was no moron even then—I was almost never home, but rather out in the ravine or running around the neighborhood or down at the beach.

All of which secretly suited my mother, I think, because she was at that time challenging for the lead in the faculty wives’ league and the local PTA. There were always meetings going on at my house, three and more per week. My father took to coming home later than usual, for he and I shared a very strong dislike for anything resembling a faculty wife.

The day it happened there was a big PTA meeting at our house, so I obviously planned to be absent. Which I was. I went down to the beach and skipped stones awhile. Then I threw sticks for Baxter to fetch, trying to fake him out by pointing one direction and throwing in the other. I didn’t fool him once, since he was smarter probably than I was, even though I was more than eight at the time. Finally, I got bored and he was panting some, so we headed for town, and right when we crossed the main street with me watching it all, Baxter was run over and killed by a big gray car.

At first I didn’t believe it but just stood there as the car ground to a stop and the driver got out. He came back and looked down at Baxter. Then he prodded him with his shoe. When I saw that I let out a yell and went tearing up, not caring about the people gathering around or the honks from the other cars stymied there on the main street of town. I was screaming blue murder and nothing anybody could do would make me stop, so finally they all stepped back. I bent over Baxter, picked him up, cradling him in my arms, the blood from his body slopping onto my clothes.

Then I started home. Because I was crying, the trees, the grass, the sky, everything melted together and I saw mostly the color green, a long tunnel of green with me in the middle, walking through it, going home. I kept expecting Baxter to come to, so I shook him every so often. We were both drenched with blood and my stomach ached from crying and that walk is the closest I ever expect to come to the march on Calvary.

Kicking the front door open, I went into the living-room. It was set up like an auditorium, with rows of wooden, stiff-backed chairs, an aisle down the middle, and a speaker at the front—who happened to be my mother. When she saw me, she stopped talking and stared. All the others did the same, turning, watching me as I stood there holding Baxter, the both of us covered with blood.

“Baxter’s been murdered,” I said, and right away the room was full of buzz-buzz-buzz. But nobody moved. “Baxter is dead,” I said again, staring straight at my mother.

She just stood there. I was looking right into her eyes, the both of us like statues, and in her eyes I could see it, that she was ashamed. Of me.

I turned and made for the door when I heard Mrs. O’Brien saying: “You girls go on with the meeting. I’ll take care of Raymond,” and then she had an arm around me, not caring about the blood. She was a fine woman, Mrs. O’Brien; built kind of like a cube, but fine nonetheless.

She talked to me awhile, saying that probably we ought to bury Baxter, seeing as how he was dead. I nodded, and went to get the shovel from the garage. Then we both walked into the ravine. Putting Baxter down gently, I started to dig. When the hole was large enough, I set him inside and began covering him. While I was doing that my mother came down and told me how sorry she was. But she was too late. Even though the next day she bought me a new dog, she was too late. Because soon afterward Zock moved in next door and that changed everything. So it was that afternoon, during the big PTA meeting, when my mother and me said good-by.

Which takes care of my family.

If I have treated them unfairly, I didn’t mean to. They were a good family, as families go, and I have no complaints. What I am, I suppose, I am either because of or in spite of them, which amounts to the same thing. And if they were not the parents I would have picked, had I been given the choice, I know that I am not the son they would have chosen. So it all ended even. And in this world, you can’t ask for more.

I
FIRST HEARD OF
Zachary Crowe one night at supper. We were eating, and my mother was talking away to my father about Mrs. Janes, the wife of the English professor who, according to my mother, had practically ruined a meeting that afternoon by arriving “in her cups,” as she always put it. My father didn’t even look up from his lamb chop as he pursed his lips, wrinkled his forehead and said: “Indeed?”—which was by all odds his favorite word. And then my mother said: “Really, Henry, something ought to be done about it,” and he said: “Of course, my dear,” and went on sawing at his food.

“And I paid a visit to the new neighbors this afternoon,” my mother went on. “She seems like a lovely girl.”

“Neighbors?” my father asked, just to keep things alive.

“The new ones,” I told him, pointing with my fork. “Next door.”

“Raymond,” my mother said. “Please don’t do that. Yes,” she continued. “He is the owner of that new clothing shop.”

“Indeed,” my father said.

“And Raymond. They have a boy just about your age. He seems like an absolute angel.”

“Indeed,” I said, immediately not liking him.

“Such fine manners,” she went on. “Zachary. His name is Zachary.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “Nobody’s named Zachary.”

“I think it’s a fine name,” my mother said. “And it wouldn’t do you any harm to be nice to him. Would it, Henry?”

“Indeed,” we both said together.

So the next morning I sauntered over and began playing half in their back yard and half in mine. After a while he came out, started doing the same. When we got to within a few feet of each other, I stopped and gave him the once-over.

Zock was ugly. His eyes were terrible even then; he had black, kinky hair and obviously must have worn braces every day when he was younger. Lots of people are ugly at the start, but then, as they grow, they get more presentable looking. Not Zock. He got uglier all the time. When we went through the pimple stage he was always way out in first place. You’ve heard of a face only a mother etc. Well, his was it.

“I hear you’re an absolute angel,” I said to him that morning.

“I hear you’re not,” he came right back, which threw me, because I didn’t know how the news had spread so fast.

“Where’d you hear that?” I asked.

“Around and about,” he answered. “Around and about.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well.” And then I stopped, not being able to think of anything to put after it.

“Well what?”

“So your name’s Zachary,” I sneered. “That’s a good name for a dog.” Which got to him, I know, because he really liked his name. One of the things I’m sorry about is that once I got started, nobody called him Zachary again. But only Zock. Even in school, the teachers called him that, which, as I said, is my fault. Because one day I was thinking of nothing in particular when the words “Zichary Zachary Zock” came into my head. I began calling him that, and then just Zock alone. It caught on, and poor Zachary went right out the window.

“Yes sir,” I went on. “Zachary is a good name for a pig.”

“Glad to meet you, Zachary,” he said, which I decided then and there was enough of an insult. So I shoved him, knocking him down, and when he got up, I did it again.

“Let me take off my glasses,” he said, which seemed logical, except that without them he was blind as a bat. Zock was never very strong. He was a year and some older than I was on account of having been sick a long time when he was younger, but even so, he wasn’t very strong. I let him take off his glasses and then, while he was trying to locate me, I tackled him and jumped on top. I hit him for a while and when I got tired of doing that, I sat on his face. “Give up?” I asked.

“Of course,” he answered, so I got off and began dusting myself. He was crying a little, which was understandable, for I had given him a couple good ones, and while I was brushing away, he took a big stick and clobbered me all he had in the middle of my back. So we went to it again, both of us crying now. Then, later, we quit, going our separate ways home.

The first thing that happened to me when I got inside was I ran right into my mother, who just stared. “I tripped,” I told her, trying to sneak by.

“You’ve been fighting with that new boy,” she said.

“What new boy?” I asked, smiling.

Which didn’t sit too well, as she started drumming her fingers on the wall, a bad sign. “He,” I began. “It was his fault. I was only...”

“You go upstairs,” she ordered. “You go right upstairs this minute and take a bath and then we’re going over to apologize.”

Which we did, chatting with Mrs. Crowe for a while first, because Zock was up taking his bath. As I sat there I got to thinking about what I should say to him, seeing as it really was all my fault. I just wanted him to like me. I think that’s natural enough, but I still couldn’t feature myself saying, “Zock, the only reason I did it was I was afraid you wouldn’t like me.”

He walked in. “Have we something to tell Zachary?” my mother asked, very sweet.

“I’m sorry for sitting on your face,” I said.

“Accepted,” he said.

“You two run along now,” Mrs. Crowe told us. “I want you to get to be pals,” an awful thing to say in anybody’s book. But I later got to know that she was always talking like that. Antiquated Expressions, Zock called them. As if it was the gay nineties and everybody still drank coffee out of mustache cups.

We ran along, and when we were out of sight Zock said: “I meant to hit you in the head with that stick, but I don’t see very well without my glasses.”

“I’m glad you missed,” I told him.

“The only reason I did it,” he said, “was I was afraid you wouldn’t like me.”

And such was our beginning. ...

It’s a funny thing, but did you ever stop to realize that most of the time, your friends really shouldn’t be? For example, if you took a test on what you liked and your friends did the same, the answers wouldn’t come very close. Everyone will tell you that your friends are those with the same interests as you, but that’s bunk. Zock said a friend was somebody you could tell to go to hell and he wouldn’t mind. And that may be true, though to me I think it’s more of a feeling, an understanding, that no matter what you do or say or where you go, I’ll be there. When you need me, just turn around and I’ll be there.

Which is the way it was with Zock and me right from the start. He was a whiz at school, while I was at best barely average. I was outdoorsy and he hated it. He liked poetry and I didn’t. So what happened was that we’d go tramping in the woods, and after a while, we’d sit down and he’d read to me out of some book of poetry he’d taken along. All of which is a compromise, I know, but I have yet to be shown what’s wrong with them. Because pretty soon Zock got to like tramping around and I got to like poetry, though we never admitted same to each other.

The summer following our graduation from the seventh grade was the hottest in twenty years, according to the radio. Which was not good, since we couldn’t go to the beach as Zock had never learned to swim and refused to get near the water. Actually, I think it wasn’t the water that bothered him so much as just walking around in a bathing suit. For his build was never too pleasing and already he had terrible red pimples all over his back. So time began to hang heavy on the two of us until one night when, not being able to sleep, I got my idea. Naturally, I told him about it first thing next morning.

“I was thinking of running away,” I said.

He nodded. “Any place special?”

“Chicago,” I answered, that being the biggest city in the area not to mention the entire state of Illinois, and lying only about fifty miles to the south.