Dennis Haritou: JR has recently reviewed two Cheever stories on Three Guys. I decided to take a turn and review two Tobias Wolff stories from Our Story Begins. Later on, JR and I had the notion that we would each review one Updike story. That’s still sort of up in the air since I haven’t settled the details with JR but I hope it happens.Cheever, Updike, Wolff: a triad of American short story masters, have been haunting our dreams. Cheever is the subject of a massive new biography from Knopf. Tobias Wolff has won the Story Prize and Updike is now our history. A posthumous Updike collection will be coming later this year from Random House.
How to pick my two Wolff stories? JR suggested I do one old story and one new one. The new story, Awaiting Orders, comes first. But I didn’t pick it. Your cat picks you.
Army sergeant Morse takes a night duty call from Julianne, the sister of Billy Hart, a specialist who has just shipped out. Only his sister didn’t know Billy had shipped out. That kick-starts the story. But in the best literature, isn’t it character that leads the story?
So let’s take a closer look at Morse. Julianne brings up Billy…puts him to mind in Morse’s head. But Billy was already lingering in Morse’s head. That’s the way Morse feels about Billy. We are in the surreal land of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.
Julianne is pissed that Billy took a powder, leaving a son behind that a cash-strapped family has to support. Morse offers to help. He liked Billy, he tells Julianne. He sure did. I am being snide to help indicate that there’s a false relation in Morse’s personality: like/”like”. Can you enter Morse’s character and separate them? No.
At the heart of Awaiting Orders is a tryst in a pancake house. Sounds dreary, doesn’t it? But the working class is dreary…believe me, I know. Wolff hits a home run in the second phone call between Julianne and Morse that sets up this pancake house meeting.
In that call, Julianne refers to her family members and their situation as if Morse should know who they all are. Morse, of course, doesn’t know what or who Julianne is talking about. Her whole conception of the world extends no farther than about five miles around her house. She’s a small-time, small town gal.
At the pancake house, Morse opens up a bit as a human being…something that’s hard for a gay guy to do who has trained himself to live in a strict closet for his whole army career. He just says something like: “You must be tired.” to Julianne. And because this harried woman of limited resources suddenly finds herself treated sympathetical…treated as a human being…she becomes a human being…and so does Morse…as if being human is a touching temporary condition that can’t be maintained. Life’s just too rough for permanent human status.
That covers the first two thirds of this story. I won’t say anything about the last third. It’s pretty hard for anyone to help anybody. We are so locked up in our own characters that, sometimes, that’s all we can see. But I hope I’ve been able to indicate something of the fallible richness of Morse and Julianne in Awaiting Orders.
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