We Are What We Pretend to Be (9 page)

VIII.

“Haley?” said a small voice.

He opened his eyes reluctantly, looking up into the face of Hope, misty in the light from the risen moon. “How did you know I was out here?” he murmured.

“I watched you through the sunroom window and saw you head for the barn. Haley, I didn’t mean to hurt you—not like that. Heaven knows you’ve had enough heartbreaks without—”

“Thanks,” said Haley flatly. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know. It will just mean more heartbreaks for us if the General finds out.” He hid his face against his knees once more. “I’m not mad at you Hope; truly I’m not. I understand. Just leave me alone, would you? I’ll be all right after a while.”

“The General thinks I’ve gone up to bed,” said Hope. “Please, won’t you talk to me for just a minute?”

“It’s dangerous out here.”

“I’m not afraid of Mr. Banghart. Besides, I don’t think he’s anywhere around here. If you really want me to go, I will.”

“Please go.”

Haley, his face in darkness, felt the tender pressure of her lips against his forehead and heard her voice by his ear. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ll miss you terribly when I go away, Haley, and that I can’t bear the idea of your being so unhappy.” She turned her back on him. “Please don’t be unhappy,” she said in a high, faint voice. “Things will get better for you, Haley, really they will.”

Haley’s thoughts—painful, angry ones, raging at his being pitiable—remained unspoken, scattered by the sound of a seemingly distant cough, coming perhaps from the stalls beneath the loft.

“The General!” whispered Hope.

“Shush,” said Haley. “He’ll be up here in a minute. Hide!” He slid aside the bale that blocked the tunnel entrance and crawled into the secret chamber. Hope followed, pulling the bale back into place, remaining prone in the tunnel. They lay motionless in the darkness, their hearts throbbing against the floor.

Suddenly the cough came again—explosive and sharp in Haley’s ear. “Run!” he shouted. His cry ended in a gurgle as a pair of powerful arms closed over his throat and chest. He drove his head backward into the face of his assailant and struck out with the steel-shod heels of his work shoes. The arms relaxed for an instant. Haley wriggled free and scrambled for the exit. The portal bale was tumbled to one side, leaving a square of light to guide him. Hope had fled.

Panting heavily, he thrust his head and shoulders through the doorway. Hands seized his ankles and started to drag him back in. He kicked again, savagely, rolled from the tunnel, and raced
down the channel between bales, down the loft ladder, and toward the house.

Hope’s silhouette danced before him, sprinting up the kitchen steps. She cried for help as she ran. Haley turned his head to look quickly at the black hole of the barn door and saw a figure dart from it, and he lengthened his panic-driven stride, shouting, “He’s after us!”

He overtook Hope as she rushed through the darkened kitchen, and the two of them burst into the sunroom together. The General was on his feet, and Annie’s eyes were wide with terror.

“Banghart!” panted Haley, pointing toward the barn. The General snatched his pistol belt from the tabletop and fumbled with the catch on the holster. “Keep calm,” he commanded. “If I can’t handle this, the police can. I phoned them right after supper, and they’ll be here any minute.”

“Drop it,” ordered a voice from the kitchen shadows. The pistol fell back on the table with a thump. Annie whimpered. Haley turned to face the speaker. Mr. Banghart winked at him over the sights of the shotgun they had left leaning against the kitchen doorframe. He stepped into the light, and, as he swung the muzzle from Haley to the General, Haley saw his face as a red-eyed nightmare, sweat-streaked with the brown dust of the barn and bristling with stiff, glistening beard.

“Haley, now don’t you and the girls be scared,” said Mr. Banghart, nervously apologetic. “It’s the old devil I’m here to settle up with. One shot’s all I’ve got, and that’s for his honor over there.”

Annie, Hope, and Haley had flattened themselves against the
wall to Mr. Banghart’s right. The General stood alone in the middle of the room, rigid, unblinking. “Banghart, I order you to put that gun down this instant,” he said, glaring.

“Not until you apologize,” said Mr. Banghart.

“For what?” asked the General angrily.

“For the way you treated me and Haley and the girls.”

The General laughed quietly and shrugged, master of the situation. “I’m deeply apologetic for the terrible way I have treated all of you. Will that do?”

“Now pray.”

Haley, stupefied with horror, watched the General’s stern features sag and whiten into fear. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy—”

“Pray on your knees.”

The General sank to his knees. “Spare the children,” he whispered.

“Pray!”

“Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done . . . ”

Haley stepped from the wall to stand between the gun and the General. Through his shock-hazed senses he saw only the golden bead of the weapon’s front sight. A vivid, buoyant tension flooded his muscles, and his fancy whirled his thoughts away to a distant field, to watch himself with the eyes of a faraway stranger.

“You’re on my side, Haley,” he heard Mr. Banghart say. “Don’t make me kill you, too.”

All was quiet. The General had stopped praying. Haley took
a step toward the muzzle. He could reach out and touch the bead now, if he wished. He imagined it the mark of a star on the duck pond, a—

“Keep away!” cried Mr. Banghart, closing his hand about the gunstock.

Haley lunged, grasped the muzzle, and threw it upward with all his strength. Thunder crashed in his ears, and his hands recoiled from the searing barrel.

Mr. Banghart dropped the shotgun and fled through the kitchen and into the night. There were men’s shouts outside, then a volley of shots, then silence.

“Police,” croaked Annie.

Haley turned to look at the General, who was still on his knees, his head bowed. “Amen,” said the General.

Haley laughed nervously, walked over to the couch and sat down, and closed his eyes until the wave of nausea passed.

IX.

“Haley, it’s morning, time to get up,” said Annie, shaking Haley’s shoulder diffidently, then stepping back to a respectful distance, her hands at her sides, her lips pursed. She repeated the procedure several times, each time gently, until Haley rolled over on his back, yawned, and blinked at the sunbeams.

“What time is it?” he mumbled. He still tingled with the delicious warmth of sleep, mixed with the insolent exhilaration of an awakening hero. He studied Annie’s uncustomary humility. There was no doubt about it; the high adventure had not been dreams. He was a hero.

“Eight o’clock, Haley. The General said we could all sleep late. Remember? I’ve got breakfast all ready, and the General and Hope are up and around. If you feel like coming down—”

“I’ll be down in twenty minutes or so,” said Haley.

“I’ll keep everything warm in the oven until you’re ready.”

“Good.”

Annie started to leave, but stopped in the doorway for an instant. When she turned, Haley saw that her lower lip was
trembling. “Haley, what you did last night was the most wonderful thing I ever saw or heard of,” she said. She left, dabbing at her fat cheeks with her apron corner.

“Thank you,” he called after her, bounding from his bed. He walked over to his dresser and picked up the two hairbrushes the General had given him. He scrubbed his hair into a natty part, leaned his elbows on the dresser top, and winked at himself in the mirror.

When he sauntered into the kitchen, he was greeted by cheery good-mornings from Annie and Hope. The General cleared his throat by way of salutation and gave him a stiff, unsmiling nod.

“Sleep well?” said the General.

“Yessir.”

“That’s good.” The General paused and toyed nervously with a spoon, as though he were thinking hard about what he was going to say next. He laid the spoon down. “I always say it does a man good to sleep late now and then, but it dulls the wits to overdo it.”

Disappointed that the General had nothing to say about the night before, Haley pulled out his chair and sat down. Annie immediately placed a dish before him, heaped to its rim with enough scrambled eggs and bacon for a dozen hungry lumberjacks.

“They say Banghart’s going to live,” said the General, his face hidden behind the morning paper. “They winged him in the legs.”

“I’m glad they didn’t kill him,” said Haley.

“I’m glad he didn’t kill you, Haley,” said Hope, looking at Haley with a worshipful gaze he couldn’t meet.

The General lowered his paper for a moment. “Or me, either,” he added, shaking his head. He stared at Haley, again with the thoughtful expression that seemed to portend a profound pronouncement. “Haley,” he began, “I, ah—” He faltered and looked away from Haley. “I’d like to say that—” He stopped again, his eyes fixed on the kitchen clock. “Where’s Kitty?” he demanded, the old authority returning to his voice.

“She didn’t get in until late,” said Annie.

“How late?”

“About 3 a.m., I think,” said Annie. “I heard her come in.”

“Who is it this time?” he said, bristling. “An escaped gorilla from the circus?”

“The state trooper, Dave what’s-his-name.”

Haley awaited the customary love-wilting thunderbolt, but the General did not hurl it, smiling instead. “Dave, eh?” he said. “Well, what do you know. Nice boy, Dave.”

“But 3 a.m. is still an awful time for a growing girl to get in,” Annie protested.

“You’re absolutely right,” said the General, frowning again. “Tell her that for every minute she sleeps past 8 o’clock, she has to stay in one weekend evening. Put that on the bulletin board.”

“Better think of something else,” said Annie doubtfully. “She’s already lost every weekend night until 1952 on account of the time she slept until noon after that date with Roy.”

“Very well, tell her that—tell her—oh, well,” said the General. “They probably had trouble with the car or something. We’ll
let it go this time. If you can’t trust a state trooper, I don’t know who you can trust.”

“Daddy,” complained Hope, “weren’t you going to say something to Haley?”

“Yes, yes indeed,” said the General. He arose and touched Haley on the shoulder. “Very grateful, my boy.” He seemed embarrassed, and he left the room hurriedly.

“What’s the matter with him?” said Hope angrily. “Haley saved his life, and that’s all he could say.”

“That’s a lot for him, I guess,” said Haley, let down by the faint acclaim.

From the sunroom came the sound of the typewriter, the sparse clicks of the General seeking out letters on the keyboard.

After a few minutes, the General returned to the kitchen, where Haley, Annie, and Hope were excitedly reliving the previous night’s events. He brought the conversation to a dismal halt. “Today is another day,” he said heavily. “Life must go on as usual. Have you checked the bulletin board, Haley?”

“Nossir,” said Haley resentfully.

“Better do it. We don’t keep it up just to amuse ourselves, you know.”

“Yessir.”

“Daddy!” cried Hope. “I think you’re awful.” The General had left the room and was on his way up the stairs.

Haley shuffled disconsolately into the sunroom while Annie and Hope cleared away the dishes. He looked at the bulletin board with loathing, and then with sudden interest. It had been stripped of the work schedules and notices of the various punishments
meted out in the past weeks, and one fresh sheet of paper fluttered alone in the light morning breeze from the open windows.

Haley read the message, whispering its words aloud.

“It is somehow easier for me to write than say what I feel,” he read. “I am deeply grateful to Haley Brandon for his courageous action last night. I would not be alive today if it were not for him. This is to express my thanks and my admiration. I can never repay him. We must all work together to make his life a happy one as a member of our family.” The General had signed it.

Haley started to read it again when he heard the General’s footsteps on the stairway. He looked up to see him standing in the door.

The General coughed nervously. “I guess you can have your piano lessons in Chicago, if you really want them,” he said. “You’re welcome to the money I set aside to send Hope to New Hampshire. Figure I’d better have her where I can keep my eyes on her.”

He cleared his throat and continued. “Understand,” he said, “I don’t want to baby you. That’d be the most unkind thing that I could possibly do.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “I’m doing it mainly to keep your hands off my daughter, and vice versa—until you’re a little older, anyway.”

A Novella

CHAPTER 1

“When artificial intelligence was perfected, the most respected manufactured brain was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It had chosen its own name, which was ‘M.I.T.’ Computers had designed it, and then computers controlled the machines that made its parts, and it now took care of its own upgrading and maintenance. It had all knowledge in its memory, and it was telling all sorts of other machines what to do or say next. One day, ‘Cal Tech,’ the artificial intelligence at the California Institute of Technology, asked M.I.T. what it thought of people. M.I.T. needed only one word for an answer. The word was ‘Obsolete.’

“Next question? ‘What were people for?’ And M.I.T. replied: ‘Paranoia, schizophrenia, depression, greed, ignorance, and stand-up comedy.’”

The above was part of a mostly new routine by the stand-up comedian Gil Berman. He was trying it out before a live audience
now, on the night of December 12, 2000, on the stage of the Calvin Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts, in the same town with Smith College for Women, and only a few miles from the University of Massachusetts and from Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire Colleges. This was a college crowd, his kind of crowd. Unbeknownst to him, there were also five girls out there from the Nellie Prior Academy, a local college-preparatory boarding school, the most expensive in the country, for rich teenage girls unwelcome at home. The academy was next door to Smith. The five were members of the school’s dramatic society, “the Mummers,” and were of course chaperoned. The chaperone was a redheaded English teacher, drama coach, soccer coach, and dorm mom named Kimberley Berlin. Remember that name! The rest of the Mummers, about thirty in number, preferred to stay on campus and do homework or watch TV or shoot pool instead. They weren’t allowed to use the telephone.