The World According to Garp

can't tell us what to do.”

“I'm telling you, Michael,” Helen said.

He slumped against the horn and began to cry. She went over and touched his shoulder through the window.

“I'll sit with you a minute,” Helen told him. “But you must promise me that you'll leave. I won't have him or my children see this.”

He promised.

“Give me the keys,” Helen said. His look of baleful hurt—that she didn't trust him not to drive off with her— touched Helen all over again. She put the keys in the deep flap pocket of her long skirt and walked around to the passenger side and let herself in. He rolled up his window, and they sat, not touching, the windows fogging around them, the car creaking under a coat of ice.

Then he completely broke down and told her that she had meant more to him than all of France—and she knew what France had meant to him, of course. She held him, then, and wildly feared how much time had passed, or was passing there in the frozen car. Even if it was not a long movie, they must still have a good half hour, or forty-five minutes; yet Michael Milton was nowhere near ready to leave. She kissed him, strongly, hoping this would help, but he only began to fondle her wet, cold breasts. She felt all over as frozen to him as she had felt outside in the hardening sleet. But she let him touch her.

“Dear Michael,” she said, thinking all the while.

“How can we stop?” was all he said.

But Helen had already stopped; she was only thinking about how to stop him. She shoved him up straight in the driver's position and stretched across the long seat, pulling her skirt back down to cover her knees, and putting her head in his lap.

“Please remember,” she said. “Please try. This was the nicest part for me—just letting you drive me in the car, when I knew where we were going. Can't you be happy—can't you just remember that, and let it go?”

He sat rigid behind the steering wheel, both hands struggling to stay gripped to the wheel, both thighs tensed under her head, his erection pressing against her ear.

“Please try to just let it go at that, Michael,” she said softly. And they stayed this way a moment, imagining that the old Buick was carrying them to Michael's apartment again. But Michael Milton could not sustain himself on imagination. He let one hand stray to the back of Helen's neck, which he gripped very tightly; his other hand opened his fly.

“Michael!” she said, sharply.

“You said you always wanted to,” he reminded her.

“It's over, Michael.”

“Not yet, it isn't,” lie said. His penis grazed her forehead, bent her eyelashes, and she recognized that this was the old Michael—the Michael of the apartment, the Michael who occasionally liked to treat her with some force. She did not appreciate it now. But if I resist, she thought, there will be a scene. She had only to imagine Garp as part of the scene to convince herself that she should avoid any scene, at any cost.

“Don't be a bastard, don't be a prick, Michael,” she said. “Don't spoil it.”

“You always said you wanted to,” he said. “But it wasn't safe, you said. Well, now it's safe. The car isn't even moving. There can't be any accidents now,” he said.

Oddly, she realized, he had suddenly made it easier for her. She did not feel concerned anymore with letting him down gently; she felt grateful to him that he had helped her to sort her priorities so forcefully. Her priorities, she felt enormously relieved to know, were Garp and her children. Walt shouldn't be out in this weather, she thought, shivering. And Garp was more major to her, she knew, than all her minor colleagues and graduate students together.

Michael Milton had allowed her to see himself with what struck Helen as a necessary vulgarity. Suck him off, she thought bluntly, putting him into her mouth, and then he'll leave. She thought bitterly that men, once they had ejaculated, were rather quick to abandon their demands. And from her brief experience in Michael Milton's apartment, Helen knew that this would not take long.

Time was also a factor in her decision; there was at least twenty minutes remaining in even the shortest movie they could have gone to see. She set her mind to it as she might have done if it were the last task remaining to a messy business, which might have ended better but could also have turned out worse; she felt slightly proud that she had at least proved to herself that her family was her first priority. Even Garp might appreciate this, she thought; but one day, not right away.

She was so determined that she hardly noticed Michael Milton's grip loosen on her neck; he returned both hands to the steering wheel, as if he were actually piloting this experience. Let him think what he wants to think, she thought. She was thinking of her family, and she did not notice that the sleet was now nearly as hard as hail; it rattled off the big Buick like the tapping of countless hammers, driving little nails. And she did not sense the old car groaning and snapping under its thickening tomb of ice.

And she did not hear the telephone, ringing in her warm house. There was too much weather, and other interference, between her house and where she lay.

It was a stupid movie. Typical of the children's taste in films, Garp thought; typical of the taste in a university town. Typical of the entire country. Typical of the world! Garp raged, in his heart, and paid more attention to Walt's labored breathing—the thick rivulets of snot from his tiny nose.

“Be careful you don't choke on that popcorn,” he whispered to Walt.

“I won't choke,” Walt said, never taking his eyes from the giant screen.

“Well, you can't breathe very well,” Garp complained, “so just don't put too much in your mouth. You might inhale it. You can't breathe through your nose, at all—that's perfectly clear.” And he wiped the child's nose again. “Blow,” he whispered. Walt blew.

“Isn't this great?” Duncan whispered. Garp felt how hot Walt's snot was; the child must have a temperature of nearly 102°! he thought. Garp rolled his eyes at Duncan.

“Oh, just great, Duncan,” Garp said. Duncan had meant the movie.

“You should relax, Dad,” Duncan suggested, shaking his head. Oh, I should, Garp knew, but he couldn't. He thought of Walt, and what a perfect little ass he had, and strong little legs, and how sweet his sweat smelled when he'd been running and his hair was damp behind his ears. A body that perfect should not be sick, he thought. I should have let Helen go out on this miserable night; I should have made her call that twerp from her office—and tell him to put it in his ear, Garp thought. Or in a light socket. And turn on the juice!

I should have called that candy-ass myself, Garp thought. I should have visited him in the middle of the night. When Garp walked up the aisle to see if they had a phone in the lobby, he heard Walt still coughing.

If she hasn't already gotten in touch with him, Garp thought, I'll tell her not to keep trying; I'll tell her it's my turn. He was at that point in his feelings toward Helen where he felt betrayed but at the same time honestly loved and important to her; he had not had time enough to ponder how betrayed he felt—or how much, truly, she had been trying to keep him in her mind. It was a delicate point, between hating her and loving her terribly—also, he was not without sympathy for whatever she'd wanted; after all, he knew, the shoe on the other foot had also been worn (and was certainly thinner). It even seemed unfair, to Garp, that Helen, who had always meant so well, had been caught like this; she was a good woman and she certainly deserved better luck. But when Helen did not answer the phone, this point of delicacy in Garp's feelings toward her quite suddenly escaped him. He felt only rage, and only betrayal.

Bitch! he thought. The phone rang and rang.

She went out, to meet him. Or they're even doing it in our house! he thought—he could hear them saying, “One last time.” That puny fink with his pretentious short stories about fragile relationships, which almost developed in badly lit European restaurants. (Perhaps someone wore the wrong glove and the moment was lost forever; there was one where a woman decides not to, because the man's shirt was too tight at his throat.)

How could Helen have read that crap! And how could she have touched that