The Full Catastrophe Read online

  Robbie, still seated at the table, laughed out loud, but his eyes remained on his book. It wasn’t clear what he was laughing at.

  “It so happens that I like mashed potatoes,” said Dan. He untied his apron and tossed it on a chair. Beth brooded silently over the fish and set it on the table. As she walked back into the kitchen Dan caught Cook’s attention, then rocked his hand back and forth between them, his three middle fingers clenched, his little finger pointing at Cook and his thumb at himself, while he mouthed in rhythm with the rocking of his hand, “You and me, you and me.”

  Beth came back with a water pitcher and they all sat down.

  “Fish,” said Robbie, looking at the platter. “Yum. Yummy-yum-yum-yummy-yummy.” He turned away from it and took a big bite of the frozen pizza Beth had baked for him.

  “Wine, Jeremy?” Dan held the bottle over Cook’s glass, about to pour.

  “No, thanks,” Cook said quickly.

  Dan poured some for his wife as she began to serve the fish. “Beth makes a lovely salmon,” he said.

  “But you grilled it, honey.”

  “Yeah, but the seasoning’s what’s important. That’s what makes it special. Give him more, honey. Yeah. Take it, Jeremy. Good. There you are. Now, dig in. Right. Chew it up good. Unh-hunh. What do you think?”

  Dan talked the fish right into Cook’s gullet. It seemed so bathed in words, and Cook felt so robbed of independent speech, that when he said, “Very tasty,” he felt as if the fish were saying it, calling the message back up Cook’s throat. He was about to say more, but Beth beat him to it.

  “It is good,” she said, licking her fingers. She had popped a piece into her mouth. “Nice going, honey.”

  Cook looked at Dan, but his face was surprisingly blank as he poured himself some wine. It seemed to be a joyless moment for him.

  “So,” said Dan, “what happens, Jeremy? What’s on the agenda?”

  Cook went on alert. Since Robbie was in the dark, wouldn’t it be better to discuss this when he wasn’t around? Cook looked at Robbie. He was wolfing his pizza at an astonishing pace.

  “There will be a number of activities,” Cook said. He let them ponder that word—a distant echo from the daycare center at Wabash. “I’ll be letting you know about them as they come up.”

  “We’ve told Robbie about the survey you’re doing of the language of St. Louis,” Beth said to him. But she was looking at Dan.

  “Do you know where words come from?” Robbie asked. “My teacher’s always talking about where words come from.”

  “Sure,” said Cook. “That’s part of what I do.”

  “Like, do you know where ‘salmon’ comes from?”

  “No,” Cook said flatly. The truth was he hated etymology. People always expected him to know the origins of words and he never did.

  “How about ‘napkin’?” Robbie said.

  “Nope.” Once—just once—Cook had been able to give an etymology when called on. It was for the word “starboard”—from the Old English “steorbord,” literally “steering side,” because the rudder was on the right side of Anglo-Saxon vessels. He had delivered this information at a dinner party, and even though it was solicited, he felt uniquely responsible for disabling the conversation, which limped for the rest of the evening. That was the curse of etymology. It brought an initial rush of elation, but after that came emptiness and despair.

  Robbie said, “Do you know anything about parts of speech?”

  Cook brightened. “I’m real good at parts of speech.”

  “We’re learning them in school.”

  “Already?” said Cook. “That’s great.”

  “It’s repulsive,” Robbie said. This made Cook laugh, which seemed to surprise Robbie, then please him.

  “What about tonight?” Dan said to Cook. “What happens tonight?”

  Robbie evidently assumed his father’s question was meant for him, and said, “There’s a Garfield thing at eight-thirty. If I do my book report now, then my parts of speech”—he gave Cook a sneer, as if Cook had invented them—“I can just make it.”

  Dan said, “What about math? Don’t you have any math homework?”

  “Did it at school.”

  “Why do they call it homework if you can do it at school?”

  “I didn’t call it homework,” Robbie said coolly. “You did.”

  Dan looked at Cook and rolled his eyes, as if to say, “Some kid, hunh?” Beth smiled.

  They ate silently for a while. Robbie scooted his chair out and said, “Let me know when the activities begin.”

  “Okay,” said Cook.

  They watched him carry his dishes into the kitchen. He put them in the sink with a crash and ran upstairs. His footsteps on the stairs made so much noise that for a moment Cook guessed he was angry about something. But a glance at Dan and Beth told him these were just everyday noises.

  Dan said, “Jeremy, you sure you don’t want any wine?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.” Cook hesitated. Then, to prevent endless future repetitions, he said, “I don’t drink.”

  “Oh? You got a problem?”

  “Honey,” Beth said disapprovingly.

  “It’s all right,” Cook said to her. To Dan he said, “I used to have a problem, but now I don’t. Which is to say I’ve got a problem if I drink, which is to say I’ve got a problem, but for me, not drinking is a smaller problem than drinking.”

  “Geez, Jeremy,” said Dan. “Sounds like you got more problems all by yourself than Beth and me put together.”

  “What’s with you?” Beth said to Dan. “You’re the one with a problem.”

  “I’m tense,” Dan said. The words exploded, and as soon as they were out he looked spent, defeated.

  “I guess we all are,” said Cook.

  “Not like me,” said Dan. He squirmed a bit in his chair. “The man always gets blamed when a marriage is in trouble. It’s always the man.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Beth.

  “It’s true,” said Dan. “People always blame the guy. They always say it was the guy that stunk it up.”

  Beth looked at Cook, apparently for a comment. He had none. She said to Dan, “Tense or not, you’ve got to be more careful about talking in front of Robbie. Why did you ask Jeremy what was going to happen right in front of him?” In anger—even mild anger—Beth was not pretty. Cook was disappointed in the change.

  Dan stopped chewing. His broad, alert face suddenly looked dumb. He resumed chewing, but more slowly. He took a drink of wine and said, “I figured he could tell us without tipping off why he’s really here.”

  “Couldn’t you wait just a few minutes until Robbie was gone?” Beth said.

  “I didn’t know he was going to dash off so quickly. For all I knew, he was going to hang around us all night.”

  “In that case we could have sent him upstairs.”

  Dan took a slow, deep breath. “It’s no big deal. Jeremy handled it fine. He’s no slouch.”

  “It is a big deal,” said Beth. “Robbie is a separate entity. This isn’t his concern.”

  Dan gave Cook a tired look. “My son—the entity.”

  “You know what I mean,” Beth said.

  “Okay okay okay. I get the point.”

  “Good.”

  Dan seemed not to like that “Good.” His body did a slow writhe in the chair. “What if I don’t like the alibi we’ve concocted for Jeremy—the old survey-of-St.-Louis alibi? What if I don’t like it?”

  “If you want to change our decision about what to tell him, we have to discuss it.”

  “He’s old enough to understand without being upset. I think we should tell him the truth.”

  “My point is you should have discussed it with me first. You can’t just—”

  “I’m discussing it now.”

  “You can’t just do it unilaterally.”

  “I knew you were going to say ‘unilaterally,’” Dan snapped. “I knew it.” He put his fork down hard.


  Beth stared at him.

  “All right,” Dan said. “Let’s discuss it. I say we tell him.”

  “I say we don’t,” Beth said. She turned to Cook. “What do you say?”

  “I don’t have the foggiest,” Cook said. “Can you pass the salad, please?”

  “You don’t?” Beth said sharply. She seemed annoyed and handed him the salad bowl rather brusquely. “What’s the normal procedure?”

  Cook saw that he had blundered. “What I meant,” he said, “was that it’s become a point of dispute between the two of you, and if I told you my view I would be taking sides.” Beth stared at him—skeptically, he thought. He decided a change of subject was in order. “Tell me what you folks do.”

  Beth gave him a blank look. “You mean our jobs?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said. “Don’t you know?”

  “Not exactly,” said Cook, wondering how he had blundered now.

  “We spent hours talking with this guy and filling out forms.”

  “Mr. Pillow?” Cook hoped so. They would think him wonderfully normal in comparison with Pillow.

  “No, no. Some other guy from the agency. We spent hours on those forms.”

  “Nothing was given to me.”

  “Incredible!”

  Fortunately, Dan was less outraged than Beth. “If he didn’t get them he didn’t get them. They probably have their reasons.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” said Beth.

  “Beth’s a music teacher,” Dan said.

  “Hours we spent on them. Hours.”

  “Really?” Cook said, turning to her. “Do you teach at home or—”

  “She teaches at a private elementary school in the city, not far from here.”

  “What’s your instrument?” said Cook.

  “It’s a pisser,” Beth snapped.

  “Piano,” said Dan. “She’s good. I play too, but just for fun.”

  “But you’re good,” Beth said, finally switching to their channel. She turned to Cook. “He’s good. He just doesn’t practice.”

  “Yes I do,” said Dan.

  “That’s not practicing,” said Beth.

  “It’s not practicing like you practice, but it’s practicing to me. It’s not my job or anything.”

  “What is your job?” Cook asked him.

  Dan began his answer with a long sigh. “I’m a …” He looked at Beth. “What am I? I never know what to say. I used to be a geographer, but now I’m a printer.”

  “A printer?” said Cook.

  Beth said, “You’re co-manager of the business, honey. Come on.”

  “Right.” Dan took a swallow of wine. When he set his glass down he seemed a little surprised to see Cook still looking at him. Evidently for him the subject was closed.

  “Dan and my brother run the place,” said Beth. “It’s a midsize printing plant. My father founded it forty years ago.”

  “Ah,” said Cook.

  “Dan does beautiful maps. He’s a great cartographer. Decorative ones, funny ones—all kinds. There are some in the living room. I’ll show you after dinner. The plant does some map printing, and that’s how Dan first got interested in the business.” Beth looked at Dan appreciatively. She seemed to be waiting for him to follow up. When he didn’t, she turned to Cook and said, “Did you talk at all with the man from your agency who was here?” It wasn’t an angry question. She was over that and was looking pretty again.

  “No,” said Cook.

  “So you don’t know what he said about Dan and me.”

  Dan laughed. “Helluva thing.”

  Beth grinned. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell him.”

  “A helluva thing. Go ahead. Tell him.”

  “Yeah,” said Cook. “Tell ‘me this helluva thing.”

  Beth said, “He told us there was a horror in our marriage.”

  Cook’s whole body gulped, like a frog’s.

  “Actually,” said Dan, “he said, ‘There is a horror at the core of your marriage.’”

  “Right,” Beth said. “‘At the core.’”

  “What did you say?” Cook asked.

  “What can you say?” said Beth. “It was such a shock. Dan made jokes. He said, ‘Just one?’ And he said, ‘Aren’t there any on the periphery?’”

  Dan laughed. “Helluva thing.”

  “What is it?” Cook asked. “What’s the horror?”

  “He wouldn’t tell us,” said Beth.

  “Didn’t you ask him? I mean, didn’t you insist?”

  “Of course! But he wouldn’t say.”

  “But—”

  Robbie appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. “Have you guys seen my Leif Ericsson book?” He looked at his parents. There was a pause.

  “I took it back to the library on my way to work,” said Dan.

  Robbie’s face collapsed. “But I need it. My book report is due tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I’m dead without it.” Robbie looked at his mother. “I told you I wasn’t done with it.”

  “Don’t blame Mommy,” said Dan. “I’m the one who took it back. We can go get it now if it’s that important.” He stood up from the table and looked at Cook. “Want to take a ride, Jeremy?”

  “Are you done eating?” Beth said to Dan.

  “Yeah.” He hesitated. “Are you mad because I want to do this?”

  “Why would I be mad?”

  “Because it’s kind of an abrupt end to the meal.”

  Beth shrugged.

  “What if someone else got it?” Robbie said, a whine in his voice.

  “We’ll just have to see,” Dan said calmly. He turned to Beth. “Leave the dishes for when I get back.”

  “I’ll help,” said Cook.

  “Honey,” Beth said to Dan, “didn’t you ask me this morning if you could take all of the books back to the library?”

  “I don’t know. Did I?” Dan was leaning away, obviously eager to go.

  “And I said, ‘All of our books.”

  Dan gave her a blank look. “Yeah? So?”

  “‘Our books.’ Yours and mine.”

  Dan laughed. “So I’m supposed to know from that that I shouldn’t take Robbie’s? Geez.”

  “Yes,” said Beth. “That’s exactly what I meant. ‘All of our books.’”

  Dan’s face darkened with thought, or anger, or both.

  “‘Our,’” he said. “‘Our.’ It means ‘belonging to us,’ right? Us—you, me, and Robbie.”

  “But I didn’t mean Robbie,” said Beth. “I meant you and me. ‘All of our books.’”

  “You keep saying it like I’m suddenly going to be overwhelmed with understanding,” Dan said, his voice suddenly higher. “How was I supposed to know you didn’t mean Robbie?”

  “It’s obvious.”

  Dan groaned.

  “‘Our,’” said Beth. “The way I said it, it makes no sense any other way. Why would I say it like that? Who else is involved? The neighbors? I meant ‘our’—”

  “In a contrastive sense,” said Cook.

  This cut the discussion off as effectively as if Cook had produced a battle-ax and sliced the table in half.

  “Sorry,” Cook said.

  “Don’t apologize,” Beth said to Cook. “You’re right.”

  “Oh,” said Dan. “The linguist has spoken? I don’t accept that. I just don’t accept that.”

  “Doesn’t the library close pretty soon?” said Robbie.

  “Yes,” said Dan. “Our library closes in our town at an early hour.” This involuntary pun confused him for a moment, but he hurried on. “I’m taking our son, a kid that, incredible as it may sound, I often refer to when I speak.” He turned to Cook. “Jeremy? Coming?”

  “Sure,” said Cook. He was feeling rather exhilarated from the direction the conversation had taken. He stood up and said, “Great dinner, Beth.” As he joined Dan he said, “You know, this misunderstanding couldn’t have arisen in
seventh-century England.”

  “Why?” said Dan. “No local libraries?”

  “No, no. Because of the dual pronoun number. I’ll explain it. Most languages have a singular and a plural—right? Early Old English had a dual number in addition to those. It had one pronoun meaning ‘belonging to me,’ another—the dual one—that meant ‘belonging to the two of us,’ and a third that meant ‘belonging to the three-or-more of us.’ Isn’t that something?”

  Dan frowned deeply.

  “In fact, if you let me think a minute, I can give you the different versions of the whole sentence in question. Listen up, Robbie.” Cook put his arm around the boy as the three of them headed out of the room. “I’m going to speak some Old English. Nobody’s talked like this for a thousand years.”

  Six

  On the way to the library, Cook was nagged by a fear that he had offended Beth at the end of dinner. He was sure he hadn’t said anything offensive. All he had done was help translate the devilish pronoun under dispute. He was okay as far as that went. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had done something—or left something undone.

  Could it have been that Dan, Robbie, and he had exited as an exclusive group? A male group? Even so, why did Cook feel guilty? Dan had invited him to come along. Was it Cook’s responsibility to leap up and say, “Hold on, now. What about Beth?” Of course not.

  He had complimented her on the dinner, so he was covered there. How had she taken his compliment? He couldn’t remember, because he hadn’t actually looked at her. The truth was he had more or less forgotten her. Should he feel guilty for that? People forgot about people all the time. You talk to Joe, you turn to Frank, you wink at Ellen—you leave people behind when you move on to others. Think of the people he had spoken with in his life and forgotten about. Thousands of them. Was it a huge resentful throng?

  One good thing had happened, at least: the linguist had done something linguistic. Who would have guessed that the Old English pronoun system could shed light on a twentieth-century marital misunderstanding? You never knew what might come in handy. The next time they quarreled, all of Cook’s Kickapoo might come back to him in a flash and save the day. Who was it who said, “In observation, chance favors those who are most prepared”? Somebody, by God. Maybe Pillow’s faith in him was justified. He did have abundant knowledge about language, at least. “At least”? Why “at least”? What else was there but language?