"Oates, Joyce Carol - We Were the Mulvaneys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oates Joyce Carol)

Sometimes Mom would stalk Out of the house, and go into a barn for the solace, as she put it, of dumb animals; sometimes Dad would sta]k out, to smoke a cigarette in the open air; or Little Boots would get so excited he'd have to be placated by both Mom and Dad; or, suddenly, Feathers would begin to shriek, and everyone would turn to his cage in astonishment that so tiny a creature, smaller than the smallest of our hands, could cause such a ruckus.

Of the Mulvaney boys, Mike Jr. was the patriot (though he confessed he "sure as hell" hoped he wasn't drafted into the army, come graduation) and Patrick was the dissident-of course. Though only fourteen at this time, a weedy-lanky boy with a cracking voice, Patrick was an admirer of the war-protesting Berrigan priest-brothers and warned he'd run away to Canada as a conscientious objector if necessary. Dad said ominously we'd see about that if the time ever came, God forbid! Mom wrung her hands saying you see, you see!-the war is tearing American families apart! Patrick, incensed, had a habit of pushing his glasses against the bridge of his nose as if he hoped they'd break, declaring he was a pacifist, he'd been reading Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," he could not shed blood, not even animal blood let alone human blood, and no mere earthly political power could change that.

It was strange, though: Mike and Patrick never quarreled with each other on this issue. Patrick shrank from confronting his big brother (in fact, bigger than Patrick by about twenty-five pounds) and Mike seemed mainly amused by Patrick, regardless of what impassioned words issued from his mouth. Mike just wasn't one for debating abstract issues. ("BS-ing" he called it.) Just laughed and shrugged his muscular shoulders, a mannerism of Dad's that meant Hell, live and let live. In this case, Fight and let fight. His philosophy was the trustworthy team player's: you do what your buddies are doing, and you don't let them down.

Marianne, flush-faced like Mom, but by instinct the peacemaker in the family, said she hated war, any war, and prayed the Vietnam War would end soon, and all wars would end, forever. And then no one would be mad at anyone else, ever again.

Judd who was eight years old kept his thoughts to himself He hoped to join the Air Force as soon as he was old enough, and be a bomber pilot.

Private First Class Dwight David Duncan's picture from the Mt. Ephrairn Patriot-Ledger was carefully clipped out and tacked to the kitchen bulletin board, where it prevailed for months, a smiling and not accusing presence, until, eventually, it was covered over by newer clippings, Polaroid snapshots, Morn's FAMILY CALENDAR, pages of brilliant color from Burpee's seed catalogue.

Mike "Mule" Mulvaney, a fullback on the championship Mt. Ephramm football team for the `71-'72 season, had been with some of his teammates that night, but not the guys who did it.

Whatever it was, exactly, they did. With Della Rae Duncan. Or to her.

If you could believe half the wild tales making the rounds! You know how guys exaggerate.

Guys who weren't even there, for Christ's sake.

That night following the game, and the big celebration party, Mike didn't have a car. He was with his buddies Frankie Kreigner, Brock Johnson, some others. Jammed into Frankie's dad's Cadillac and it was true some of the guys were drinking, passing cans of beer to one another, and also a flask of vodka, and somebody's dad's Wild Turkey. So maybe the boys were violating the law, drinking in a moving motor vehicle, but only technically. Nobody was actually drunk, anyway not Mule Mulvaney, not much. Nor Frankie, who was driving.

Mule could be a rough guy sometimes, a tough customer on the football field (you don't get baptized "Mule" by coach, for nothing) but his rep was that of a helluva nice guy. Not mean. Sure he'd hit you square in the solar plexus with his shoulder and lift you off your feet like a cartoon character too astonished to register surprise before you landed, hard, on your ass, but it wasn't to hurt, like some guys, it was more to-well, impress. So you'd know that he meant business. So you'd respect him. And stay out of his way next time, if you could.

And he was the kind to help you up off the ground afterward, clanip a hand on your shoulder saying Good play! nice try!

The most popular guy on the team, practically. One of the bestlooking.

A decent guy, and even, if you knew him better, a Christian- sort of. His mother Corinne Mulvaney was a devout churchgoer, at this time a member of the South Lebanon United Methodist congregation. Mule went less and less frequently with her and the others to church services now he was older, but still it rubs off on you. You have to know deep in your heart Do unto others as you would they would do unto you is just plain common sense. So he was beginning to get a little scared. Not seriously scared, but a little. Mixing wann Molson with vodka and whiskey didn't help. After the big party at the Maclntyres' (this really cool ranch-style house on the golf course) they'd piled into cars and driven six miles out to the funky County Line Tavern, where there was the possibility, unwarranted as it turned out, of some after-hours drinking, and some "girls." Then word got Out that T-T Maclntyre had picked up Della Rae Duncan, the poor bitch was dumb enough and drunk enough to imagine he "liked" her and wanted to be her "steady." They were in Jarnie Khnger's van, this gang of guys. Cruising Route 119 as far south as the river, then turning back to Mt. Ephraim. Cruising Main Street, where (it's after 2 A.M.) everything is dead-the Majestic, the Checkerboard Diner. Then into the cemetery off Iroquois. Which was where Frankie Kreigner trailed them. Though not turning into the cemetery but circling the block. Mule Mulvaney was saying, "Maybe we should check them out?-they might be hurting her, or something." Another time he said, like pleading, "Shit, Della Rae, that poor mutt, that's like shooting fish in a barrel." The other guys were divided. Maybe yes, maybe no. There was something exciting about this. Knowing Della Rae was putting out for their buddies, or anyway guessing so. Though they didn't want to investigate, exactly. Della Rae was a pig and she was smashed out of her skull and you didn't want to think about it, Mule felt blood rush into his cock like a faucet turned on: hot.

So what they did was, actually they did nothing.

That's for the cemetery!-the guys would snigger behind their hands.

Hoo! One for the cem-e-tery!----the girls would overhear, perplexed and vaguely embarrassed.

Keep it for the cemetery! Right on!-giving one another the peacenik sign, laughing like hell. Sometimes under their teachers' very noses and if it was a woman teacher, all the more hilarious.

Girls knew nothing about it. At any rate not the good girls. So if one could be enticed into saying, " `Cemetery'?-why?" this was quite a coup.

In the junior high, where Della Rae Duncan was a student, the girls knew even less. The smartest girls, the leaders, the most popular girls-Marianne Mulvaney, Suzi Quigley, Trisha LaPorte, Bonnie Sherman and their clique. These were cheerleaders, class officers (Marianne Mulvaney was secretary), members of the Drama Club, the French Club, the Quill and Scroll Literary Society, the school chorus. They were Honors Students. They were active in the Christian Youth Conference. Because they were good-girl girls they believed they were not snobbish and they competed with one another in being friendly, being nice, to the most obscure students; the most pathetic losers; like Della Rae Duncan, and other "trailer-village" kids. Their smiles were golden coins scattered carelessly in the school corridors, their Hi's! and H'lo's! and How are you's! were melodic as the cries of spring birds.

It wasn't until after the Christmas holiday, when school resumed again in January, that Marianne Mulvaney turned a corner in the girls' locker room and saw, to her discomfort-Della Rae Duncan. Just sitting there, slump-shouldered, on a bench in front of her opened locker. Staring at the floor. Della Rae's face was puffy and embittered like a grown woman's. Her lips appeared to be moving. Her oily hair lifted from her head in stiff coils. Gym class had begun ten minutes before, and at roll call Della Rae had been marked absent, but she was in no hurry now, just slouched there in a kind of torpor. Marianne, so fastidious in her personal grooming, saw in dismay that Della Rae was partly undressed, in baggy gym shorts that ballooned about her hips and a frayed, grimy-gray bra (what heavy breasts!) held together by safety pins. Her flesh that looked stained, with its oily glisten, and a smell of talcumy sweat, seemed on the verge of spilling froni her clothes.

For all her social poise at the age of fourteen, Marianne was a shy girl; physically shy; never comfortable in the locker room undressing with the other girls, still less in the communal showers. At church, Reverend Appleby spoke in his flushed, impassioned, somewhat tongue-tied way of sins of the flesh as temptations to us all but Marianne could see little temptation. At home, she would have been mortified with embarrassment had even her mother glimpsed her in just underwear.

Too late to retreat, Della Rae had seen her. Marianne's pretty face lit up in its customary dazzling smile. "Hi, Della Rae!"-the very voice, a lilting soprano, of Caucasian privilege. The girls' eyes locked. Sharp as a blade was Della Rae's black stare: Marianne felt her face burn at once, and her heart kicked as if she'd been shot, like a bird in flight, yet like a wounded bird carried forward by sheer momentum, scarcely faltering in her stride. Marianne had returned to the locker room to get a packet of Kleenex from her locker but she couldn't remain in the other girl's presence, not a moment longer! She retreated, still smiling, her face aching with the effort, as Della Rae Duncan stared at her with undisguised hatred.

But why me? IT/hat have I ever done to you? f'f/hatever has been done to you-how is it my fault?