To Sail Beyond the Sunset (38 page)

On Saturday I had been
triste
not only because my last chick was getting married and leaving home but also (and primarily) because Susan’s wedding day was Father’s century day; he was born August second, 1852.

Apparently no one associated the date with Father, and I mentioned it to no one because a wedding day belongs to the couple getting married and no one should bring up any subject, say or do anything, that might subtract from the joyfulness of the occasion. So I had kept quiet.

But I was constantly aware of the date. It had been twelve years and two months since Father had gone to war…and I had missed him every one of those four thousand, four hundred, and forty-one days—and most especially during the years after Brian turned me in on a newer model.

Please understand me; I am not condemning Brian. I had stopped being fertile around the beginning of World War II, whereas Marian was still decidedly fertile—and children are the purpose of a Howard-sponsored marriage. Marian was willing and able to bear him more children but she wanted that marriage license. That’s understandable.

Neither of them tried to get rid of me. Brian assumed that I would stay, until I made it clear that I would not. Marian begged me to stay, and cried when I left.

But Dallas is not Boondock, and the unnatural practice of monogamy is as rooted in the American culture of the twentieth century as group marriage is rooted in the quasi-anarchistic, unstructured culture of Tertius in the third millennium of the Diaspora. At the time I decided not to stay with Brian and Marian, I had no Boondock experience to guide me; I simply knew in my gut that, if I stayed, Marian and I would be locked, willy-nilly, in a struggle for dominance, a struggle that neither of us wanted and that Brian would be buffeted by our troubles and made unhappy thereby.

But that does not mean that I was happy about leaving. A divorce, any divorce no matter how necessary, is an amputation. For a long time I felt like an animal that has gnawed off its own leg in order to escape from a trap.

By my own time line all this happened more than eighty years ago. Am I still resentful?

Yes, I am. Not at Brian—at Marian. Brian was a man with no malice in him; I am sure in my heart that he did not intend to mistreat me. At worst, one may say that it was not too bright of him to impregnate his son’s widow. But how many men are truly wise in their handling of women? In all history you can count them on the fingers of one thumb.

Marian—She is another matter. She rewarded my hospitality by demanding that my husband divorce me. My father had taught me never to expect that imaginary emotion, gratitude. But am I not entitled to expect decent treatment from a guest under my roof?

“Gratitude”: An imaginary emotion that rewards an imaginary behavior, “altruism.” Both imaginaries are false faces for selfishness, which is a real and honest emotion. Long ago Mr. Clemens demonstrated in his essay “What Is Man?” that every one of us acts at all times in his own interest. Once you understand this, it offers a way to negotiate with an antagonist in order to find means to cooperate with him for mutual benefit. But if you are convinced of your own “altruism” and you try to shame him out of his horrid selfishness, you will get nowhere.

So, in dealing with Marian, where did I go wrong?

Did I lapse into the error of “altruism”?

I think I did. I should have said, “Listen, bitchie! Behave yourself and you can live here as long as you like. But forget this idea of trying to crowd me out of my own home, or you and your nameless babe will land out there in the snow. If I don’t tear out your partition instead.” And to Brian: “Don’t try it, buster! Or I’ll find a shyster who will make you wish that you had never laid eyes on that chippie. We’ll take you for every dime.”

But those are just middle-of-the-night thoughts. Marriage is a psychological condition, not a civil contract and a license. Once a marriage is dead, it is dead, and it begins to stink even faster than dead fish. What matters is not who killed it but the fact of its death. Then it becomes time to divvy up, split up, and run, with no time wasted on recriminations.

So why am I wasting time eighty years later brooding over the corpse of a long-dead marriage?—when I am having enough trouble from these murderous spooks? I feel sure that Pixel does not fret over the ghosts of long-dead tabby cats. He lives in the eternal now…and I should, too.

In 1946, as soon as I was back in Kansas City, the first thing I wanted to do was to register as a college student. Both the University of Kansas City and Rockhurst College were a mile north of us at Fifty-third Street, each a block off Rockhill Boulevard, Rockhurst to the east and KCU to the west—five minutes by car, ten by bus, or a pleasant twenty-minute walk in good weather. The Medical School of the University of Kansas was just west of Thirty-ninth and State Line, ten minutes by car. The Kansas City School of Law was downtown, a twenty-minute drive.

Each had advantages and shortcomings. Rockhurst was very small but it was a Jesuit school and therefore probably high in scholarship. It was a school for men but not totally so. I had been told that its coeds were all nuns, school teachers improving their credentials, so I was not sure that I would be welcome. Father McCaw, president of Rockhurst, set me straight:

“Mrs. Johnson, our policies are not set in stone. While most of our students are men, we do not exclude women who seriously desire what we offer. We are a Catholic school but we welcome non-Catholics. Here at Rockhurst we do not actively proselytize but perhaps I should warn you that Episcopalians, such as yourself, exposed to sound Catholic doctrine, often wind up converted to the true Church. If, while you are among us, you find yourself in need of instruction in faith and dogma. we will be happy to supply it. But we will not pressure you. Now—Are you degree-seeking? Or not?”

I explained to him that I had registered as a special student and potential candidate for a bachelor’s degree at KCU. “But I am more interested in an education than I am in a degree. That is why I have come here. I am aware of the reputation of the Jesuits for scholarship. I hope to learn things here that I would not learn on the other campus.”

“One may always hope.” He scribbled something on a pad, tore it off and gave it to me. “You are a special student now, entitled to audit any lecture course. There are additional fees for some courses, such as laboratory courses. Take this to the bursar’s office; they’ll accept your tuition fee and straighten you out on other charges. Stop in and see me in a week or two.”

The next six years, 1946-52, I spent in school, including summer sessions. My household had no babies in it and no small children. There is not much work in such a household and what there was, I delegated—to Doris, sixteen and just starting to check her Howard list under my protective chaperonage, and to Susan, who was only twelve and still virgin (I felt fairly sure) but an outstanding cook for her age. So I started in or her sex education, I being aware of the strong correlation between good cooking and high libido…only to find that Aunt Betty Lou had done well by my girls in bringing them up as innocent sophisticates, well informed about their bodies and their female heritage long before they would have to face that heritage emotionally.

I had just one son at home, Pat, fourteen in ’46. I decided, somewhat reluctantly, that I was going to have to check on his knowledge of sex—before he contracted some silly disease, or impregnated a twelve-year-old moron with big breasts and a small brain, or got caught in a public scandal. I had never had to cope with this before; either Brian, or Father, or both, had taught my sons.

Patrick was patient with me.

Finally he said, “Mama, is there something special you want to ask me? I’ll try. Auntie B’Lou gave me the same examination she gave Alice and Doris…and I missed only one question.”

(Shut my mouth.) “What was the question you missed?”

“I couldn’t define ‘ectopic pregnancy.’ But I can now. Shall I?”

“Never mind. Did Aunt Betty Lou or Uncle Nelson discuss the Ira Howard Foundation with you?”

“Some. When Alice started courting, Uncle Nel got me aside and told me to mind my own business and keep my mouth shut…then to see him again when I wanted to start courting myself. If I did. I didn’t think I would. But I did. So I did…and he told me about baby subsidies. For Howard babies. For Howard babies only.”

“Yes. Well, dear, Aunt Betty Lou and Uncle Nelson seem to have told you everything I could tell you. Uh—Did Uncle Nelson ever show you the Forberg etchings?”

“No.”

(Damn it, Briney; why aren’t you here? This is your job.) “Then I must show them to you. If I can find them.”

“Auntie B’Lou showed them to me. They’re in my room.” He smiled shyly. “I like to look at them. Shall I get them for you?”

“No. Well, at your convenience. Patrick, you seem to know all about sex a boy your age needs to know. Is there anything I can tell you? Or do for you?”

“Uh… I guess not. Well—Auntie B’Lou used to keep me supplied with fishskins. I promised her that I would always use them…but Walgren’s won’t sell them to anyone my age.”

(What else has Betty Lou done for him? Is intercourse with an aunt incest? Correction: Is an aunt-in-law incest? They are certainly no blood relation. Maureen, mind your own business.)

“All right, I’ll keep you supplied. Uh, Patrick, where have you been using them? Not ‘who,’ but where?”

“Right now I only know one girl that well…and her mother is very fussy. Her mother has told her to do it only at home, in their basement playroom. Or else.”

(I did not ask about “Or else.”) “Her mother seems very sensible. Well, dear, you can do it safely here at home, too. But nowhere else, I hope. Not in Swope Park, for example. Too risky.” (Maureen, who are you to talk?)

All three were good children and I had no trouble with them. Aside from some mild supervision the household ran itself and I had plenty of time for school. By the time Susan married in August 1952 I had not one but four degrees: bachelor of arts, bachelor of laws, master of science, and doctor of philosophy. Preposterous!

But here is how the rabbit got into the hat:

I could not claim a high school education because a high school diploma dated 1898 would have been horribly inconsistent with my claimed Howard age forty-four in 1946). Oh, whenever possible I listed my age as “over twenty-one” but, if pinned down, I claimed my Howard age and avoided situations that could possibly tie me into anything that happened before about 1910. Mostly I did this by keeping my lips zipped—no “Did you know so-and-so?” and no “Remember whens.”

So, when I registered at KCU it was not as a freshman, but as a special student, then I asked for advanced standing and degree-seeking status, through examinations, and did not boggle at the high fees quoted to me for special examinations to discover just where I stood in English and American literature, American history, world history, mathematics, Latin, Greek, French, German, Spanish, anatomy, physiology, chemistry, physics, and general science. All during the remainder of that semester I took examinations steadily, cramming for the next one at night and sometimes auditing lectures across the boulevard for dessert.

Toward the beginning of the summer session I was called to the office of the dean of academics, Dr. Bannister. “Please sit down, Mrs. Johnson.”

I sat down and waited. In appearance he reminded me of Mr. Clemens, even though he did not wear white suits and did not smoke (thank goodness!) those horrible cigars. But he had that untidy halo of white hair and that look of a jovial Satan. I liked him on sight.

He went on: “You have completed your special examinations. May I ask what standing you expected to receive here?”

“I had no expectations, Doctor. I asked to be examined in order to find out where I belong.”

“Hmmm. Your application shows no schools.”

“I was privately tutored, sir.”

“Yes, so I see. You’ve never attended school?”

“I have attended a number of schools, sir. But briefly, never long enough for academic credit. My father traveled a great deal.”

“What did your father do?”

“He was a doctor of medicine, sir.”

“You used the past tense.”

“He was killed in the Battle of Britain, Doctor.”

“Oh. Sorry. Mrs. Johnson, your correct advanced standing is that of bachelor of arts—no, no, attend me. We do not award that degree or any degree simply on the basis of examinations with no time in residence. Do you expect to be on campus for the next two semesters? The academic year of 1946-47?”

“Certainly. And this present summer session as well. And then some, as I purpose asking to be accepted as a candidate for a doctor’s degree if and when I achieve a baccalaureate.”

“Indeed. In what field?”

“Philosophy. Metaphysics, in particular.”

“Well. Mrs. Johnson, you amaze me. In your application you describe yourself as ‘housewife.’”

“The description is correct, Doctor. I still have three children at home. However, two of them are adolescent girls; both are good cooks. With cooking and housekeeping divided among us we all have time to go to school. And, I assure you, there is nothing basically incompatible between dishwater and curiosity about noumena. I am a grandmother who never had time to go to college. But I cannot believe that I am too old to learn. This granny refuses to sit by the fire and knit.” I added, “Dr. Will Durant lectured here in 1921. That was my initial exposure to metaphysics.”

“Yes, I heard him myself. An evening series at the Grand Avenue Temple. A charming speaker. Goodness, you hardly seem old enough. That was twenty-five years ago.”

“My father took me. I promised myself that I would resume the study of philosophy when I had time. Now I do.”

“I see. Mrs. Johnson, do you know what I taught before I went into administration?”

“No, sir.” (Of course I know! Father would be ashamed of me if I failed to scout the territory.)

“I taught Latin and Greek…and the Hellenic philosophers. Then the years moved along, and Latin was no longer required and Greek no longer offered, and Greek philosophers were ignored in favor of ‘modern’ ideas, such as Freud and Marx and Dewey and Skinner. So I was faced with a need to find something else to do on campus…or go look for a job somewhere in the busy marts of trade.” He smiled ruefully. “Difficult. A professor from the physical sciences can find work with Dow Chemical or with D. D. Harriman. But a teacher of Greek? Never mind. You say you plan to take this summer session.”