The Open Curtain Read Free Page A

paper over.
    “You have a brother? Really?”
    “A half-brother.”
    “Your mother’s never said anything about it.”
    Rudd shrugged. “It’s a little complicated,” he said.
    Later, when the teacher wasn’t looking, he folded the paper once, then again, and slipped it into his pocket.
    That evening, at supper, his mother brought it up. He denied everything.
    “Brother Meyers told me all about it,” she said. “He said you even wrote the word
bastard.
What kind of hellion writes the word
bastard
in church? Don’t lie to me.”
    He just looked at her, then looked at his fork.
    “You don’t have a half-brother,” she said. “I’ve never been with any man but your father.”
    “I’m not saying—”
    “To be vulgar, I’ve never had intercourse with anyone but your father.”
    “But—”
    “Are you accusing me of being a whore?”
    He shut up. He looked at his hand, saw he was holding the fork tightly,fingers whitening around it. He let go, watched it clatter onto the plate.
    “Mind the china,” she said.
    “It’s Dad I’m—”
    “There are certain rules in this house—”
    “Goddam!” he shouted. “I read the letters. I know.”
    “What letters?” she said. “I don’t see any letters.” She snorted. “You and your ‘goddam,’” she said. “The only bastard around here is you, and you weren’t born that way. You had to grow into it.”
    “I know—”
    “There are rules in this house,” she said. “One of them is to treat the china with care. You know that. You know what the other rules are as well. I don’t have to state them. If you don’t care for them, there’s the door.”
    He was shaking but he stayed seated. Later that night, his mother in bed with a headache, he took the telephone book out. He looked through the Provo listings, went on to Mapleton, Orem, Spanish Fork. In Springville he found an A. Korth.
    He dialed the number, listened to it ring.
    It clicked on, a woman’s voice at the other end.
    “Mrs. Korth? Anne Korth?”
    There was a long static moment.
    “Hello?” he said. “Please,” he said. “Can you help me?”
    “You must have the wrong number,” the voice said, and hung up.

3
    H e asked around at school, trying to figure out which school bus would get him to South Provo and closest to Springville. He stumbled up onto it after the last bell. The driver looked at him suspiciously.
    “I don’t recognize you,” he said.
    “I don’t recognize you, either,” said Rudd, and blushed.
    “You’re sure it’s my bus you want?”
    Rudd nodded and passed into the back. There was a group of boys in the last seats playing five card stud for nickels across the aisle, one of them keeping a running tally on the inside cover of a geometry textbook. Howard somebody, Rudd heard announced, was “kicking our asses.” He squeezed into a seat between two students he half-knew. “Dickwipe,” said one, punching him in the shoulder. He tried to hold his face neutral, looking straight ahead at the neck of the girl in front of him.
    He stayed on the bus as it went south, then east, students filing off. The bench in front of him opened and he struggled out from between his half-acquaintances to take it. “Motherfucker,” the boy on the outer edge suggested as he struggled to force his legs past.
    The bus turned north. He stood up and moved toward the front, swaying against the rhythm. When it stopped, he got off, looked around for a city bus marker. The kid who had called him
motherfucker
was out and near him and prancing about, asking Rudd if he wanted to fight.
    “I don’t want to fight,” Rudd told him without looking at him, which the boy took as his cue to shove him in the back. Rudd tumbled down, scraping his palms, dropping his books.
    Rudd stood up, straightened his glasses, licked his palms, rubbed them against his jeans. He slowly gathered his books.
    “Do you want to fight now?” the boy asked.
    Rudd shook his head.
    “What’s wrong with you?”