Campus Tramp

Chapter Twelve

The phone rang three times before he answered it. Then she heard him lift it from the hook and say: “Hello.”

She took a deep breath.

“This is Linda,” she said. “Linda Shepard.”

He didn’t say anything and for a moment she was afraid he was going to hang up on her. She listened to the silence, her fingers trembling once again, her throat tight.

“I have to see you,” she said desperately.

“What for?”

“I don’t want to say over the phone.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “The line’s not tapped.”

“This one might be.”

He laughed at that. “C’mon over,” he said.

Then there was the sound as he replaced the receiver. She didn’t hang up right away, however. For a long moment she stood with the receiver next to her ear and listened to the silence, hardly able to believe what she had heard, hardly able to believe that Donald Gibbs had just gotten through telling her that it was all right for her to come over to his apartment. Then, hardly aware of what she was doing, she hung up the phone and drifted down the staircase and out the door.

He was waiting for her and the first thing she thought was that he looked the same as ever. His hair was still cropped close to his head and his beard was neat and well-trimmed. His eyes looked impossibly tired and there were deep lines in his forehead and around the corners of his mouth. She wondered how long it had been since he had had some sleep; the combination of the Record and final exams must have been keeping him awake constantly.

“Come on inside,” he said. He led the way and sat down on the edge of his bed; she took a seat in a chair across the room from him. He didn’t say anything and she didn’t know just where to begin.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s have it.”

She still didn’t know what to say. Her nerves were on edge both from what she had to talk to him about and from the experience of seeing him again, of being with him at his apartment. She had passed him in halls during the past few months and had run into him in the cafeteria from time to time but they hadn’t spoken before, not since they broke up.

“You’re so tense you’re shaking,” he told her. “You better let me have it.”

Abruptly she said: “I’m going to have a baby.”

Nothing registered in his face. He didn’t seem particularly surprised or shocked or upset.

He said. “Whose?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long have you known?”

“I just found out today.”

“When’s the happy day?”

“I’m about two months gone. Maybe a little more.”

He nodded. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one for himself, offering the pack to her more or less as an afterthought. She took one and lit it herself, dragging deeply on it.

“What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know.”

He stared at her thoughtfully. “You must want something,” he said. “We haven’t spoken to each other in months. What is it that you want?”

In a small voice she said: “Help.”

She couldn’t look at him now. She turned away and looked at the wall instead, then puffed nervously on the cigarette. She tried to blow smoke rings but the smoke refused to form circles and trailed to the ceiling in shapeless wisps.

“Linda—”

She turned to him.

“Do you want to find a guy and get him to marry you?”

She shook her head.

“Sure?”

“I don’t want to marry anybody.”

“Then what do you want?”

Help, she started to say again. Instead she said nothing and started to turn away from him once more. Maybe it was a mistake coming to see him, maybe he couldn’t help her at all. She didn’t know what to do or what to say.

“I’d heard you reformed,” he said lightly. “I heard you stopped trying to set local bedroom records.”

She nodded dully.

“How come?”

She shrugged.

“Are you coming back here next year?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“They threw me out.”

“Grades?”

“Partly.”

“What else?”

She tried to smile but it didn’t work. “Local bedroom records,” she said.

“Oh.”

“I’m going to pass my courses,” she offered. “I’ve been studying day and night and I’m going to pass everything. I told the dean that but he said it didn’t matter.”

“Dean Maples?”

She nodded.

“He’s a son of a bitch.”

She nodded again, thinking that she ought to say something but not having anything to say.

“What are you going to do next year?”

“I don’t know.”

“Going home to Cleveland?”

“No.”

“Transferring somewhere else?”

“I’d like to,” she said. “If there was some place where they would take me. I don’t think there is.”

“If you pass your courses—”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “That’s secondary. First I’d have to find a college that admits unwed mothers, and that knocks out a lot of them.”

“Oh.”

She put her cigarette out in an ashtray. She didn’t stub it out viciously but ground it out gently, methodically. She wasn’t as nervous as she had been now; somehow talking to him was very relaxing. Just the fact that someone else knew was a help, and Don wasn’t scolding her or condemning her or berating her for her condition. He was listening to her, questioning her and, indirectly, helping her.

She felt a little better already.

“Linda—”

She looked up.

“Are you positive that—”

She told him about the test and the examination.

“Who knows that you’re pregnant?”

“The doctor,” she said. “But he doesn’t even know who I am and he wouldn’t care if he did.”

“Nobody else?”

“You — that’s all.”

He closed his eyes for a minute or two, thinking. Then he opened them and stared fixedly at her for several seconds.

“Linda,” he said levelly, “you are not going to have that baby.”

He stood up, walked to the telephone and sat down in a chair next to it. He put the receiver to his ear and dialed the operator.

“New York,” he said.

When the New York operator was on the line he said: “Person-to-person to Mr. William Norment, ORegon 4-0527.”

He waited while the call was placed.

“Bill?” he said after a moment. “This is Don Gibbs... okay, thanks. Look, Bill — I don’t want to talk much. I want to ask you for a name and number.”

Silence.

“The name is that of one of your benefactors,” he said. “As I understand it, he’s a fairly big operator.”

He smiled then and began writing something on a pad next to the phone. “Swell,” he said when he had finished. “Give my love to everybody, fellow.”

He hung up the phone.

“You’re not going to have that baby,” he told Linda. “Bill’s an old buddy of mine. When a girl he knew got into some difficulty due to the spontaneous failure of a piece of rubber goods, Bill had to do something about it. Rather, he had to find somebody who would do something about it. I just got the name and number of the somebody.”

She didn’t understand.

“This guy,” he said, indicating the name on the pad, “is possibly the only really reliable rabbit-snatcher in the western world. Outside of Sweden, that is. In Sweden this sort of thing is all open and aboveboard, but here in this middle-age country of ours—”

“Rabbit-snatcher?”

“One of the more picturesque American colloquialisms,” he explained. “It means abortionist.”

“Abortionist?”

“Linda,” he said, “you’re going to have an abortion.”

She looked blank.

“You’re not going to have that baby, and next to a kick in the stomach the most logical way not to have a baby is to have an abortion. Isn’t that what you wanted when you came here?”

She thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I didn’t think of it that way. Somehow an abortion never even occurred to me. I just thought you’d be able to do something to help me.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Don, isn’t it dangerous?”

He shook his head.

“You hear lots of stories—”

“Sure,” he said. “You can go to one of these old women who cut you open with a filthy butcher knife. But this guy is reliable.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. He’s a human contradiction in terms — a dedicated abortionist. He does the job because he believes certain people have a right not to have babies and certain babies are better off unborn. Take a case like yours — what chance would a kid have with nineteen-year-old unmarried mother? He’s got two strikes against him the minute he’s born, not to mention the way it ruins your life.”

She nodded, agreeing with him.

“This guy’s a regular doctor,” he went on. “A Pittsburgh surgeon with a large legitimate practice. Abortions are a sideline and he does them for very little money right in his own operating room. He doesn’t try to make a profit on it — he’s not that kind of guy. I don’t think he even makes expenses on the abortion part of his business.”

“But isn’t it illegal?”

“Of course.”

“Then—”

“Hell, he doesn’t advertise. If the cops know about him they also have the good sense to leave him alone. And the medical association takes care of its own — they’re not going to give him a hard time. It’s not as if he was taking risks. If a patient’s healthy and in the early months of pregnancy an abortion’s less risky than an appendectomy — a good deal less risky.”

“I see.”

“I’ve got his phone number right here,” he went on. “I’ll give him a ring in a few days and you can fly down and have everything taken care of. A few days bed rest afterwards and you’ll be as good as new.”

She nodded.

Then she said: “Don, I don’t know how I’ll be able to afford it. Even if he’s inexpensive and all there’s the plane trip and the time in bed and—”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She started to say something but he interrupted her. “I’ve got the money,” he told her. “I’m okay financially right now and I won’t miss the dough.”

She didn’t know exactly what to say. All she could think of was how he knew exactly what to do. One conversation with her, one phone call, and everything was going to be all right again. She couldn’t believe it, and she wanted to be able to say something, something to sum up the way she felt about it all.

She said: “Why?”

He looked at her, puzzled.

“Why are you doing this, Don? Why are you doing all of this for me?”

He smiled. “I’m just philanthropic — that’s all.”

“I mean it.”

He looked away. “I suppose I feel partly responsible,” he said.

“That’s silly — it’s not your baby.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“I know. But you shouldn’t feel responsible anyway. What happened was my fault. I was too young and too mixed up to know where I was and by the time I got straightened out it was almost too late.”

“And now?”

“Now I think I’m all right. I’ve been living clean lately, Don. It’s like I’m not the same person I was a few weeks ago.”

“You’re not. You’ve changed a lot, Linda Shepard from Cleveland.”

She smiled.

“I’m not even too sorry about what happened,” she said. “I learned from it. I grew a lot older — sometimes I feel almost... well, ancient.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I wish—”

He waited.

“I wish I had known what I know now when I came here. I suppose that sounds like a line from something, but it’s true in this case.”

He nodded.

It was hard for her but she said: “I wish I had known all this when I... met you. I think things would have turned out a lot differently. I would have known how to... to love you.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I messed things up,” she said.

“It wasn’t all your fault.”

“If I hadn’t tried to smother you—”

“We were too different,” he said. “You clutched at me because you were afraid I was going to run away. I ran away because you clutched at me. And because I was afraid—”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid I wasn’t going to get away. Afraid I was going to care too much about you.”

She was puzzled. “What do you mean? You weren’t in love with me, were you?”

“Of course I was.”

She didn’t know what to say.

He saved her by changing the subject. “Any idea where you want to go to college next year?”

“I’m not sure. Where are you going?”

“I’m going to grad school. I figure I’ll go to New York and get a job of some sort.”

“On a newspaper?”

He shook his head. “I’ve had a bellyful of newspaper work with the Record. I think I’ll try to get my foot in the door either in advertising or public relations. They’re supposed to be looking for bright young men.”

“Like you?”

“Not like me — but maybe I can fake them out.”

“How about your girl?”

“What girl?”

“Aren’t you going with anybody?”

“No.”

Before she could say anything he added: “I haven’t gone with anybody since you.”

Again she didn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t want any other girl,” he went on. “I thought I did. I thought all I wanted was to get rid of you.”

He lit another cigarette, offering the pack to her. She didn’t want one.

“I messed things up with you,” he said. “We had something pretty good going and we were both too dumb to realize what was happening. All we did was louse each other up.”

She knew suddenly that she was going to cry. There was a lump in her throat and her eyes were starting to cloud over. She thought how silly it was to cry over a love that was dead and buried, and then she began to realize that it was not dead and not buried, that she loved Don more than ever, that she had never stopped loving him, that she probably never would stop loving him. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying but she knew that the tears were going to come.

He spoke with difficulty. “I kept trying to hurt you,” he said. “I’m beginning to realize why. You were the first girl I ever really loved, Linda. The only one. You had me scared silly. The only way to get out from under was to hurt you, and—”

Then she was crying. She got up from her chair and half-stumbled, half-fell across the room and into his arms. His arms went around her and he held her as she cried, her eyes overflowing with tears and her whole body shaking with the sobbing. He held her and stroked her and for a long time neither of them could say a word.

Finally she was able to get up. She sat beside him on the bed and he took her hand in his. They didn’t look at each other.

“It would be very hard,” he said.

That was all he said but she knew what he meant.

“Terribly hard,” he continued. “It’s not easy to pick up the pieces and put them back together again. It’s harder than starting from scratch.”

“I know.”

He turned and looked at her. “I think it’s worth a try,” he said.

“So do I.”

“I can’t let you go now, Linda. I’m only beginning to realize how much I love you. I’m not going to let anything spoil it, not now.”

She couldn’t speak.

“Do you love me, Linda?”

“You know I do.”

“And I love you. I never told you that before, did I? I was afraid to say it. Maybe I didn’t even know it at the time — maybe that was part of it. But now I’ll say it. I love you, Linda.”

He put one hand under her chin and brought her face close to his. His lips touched hers and he kissed her.

“I love you,” he said.

“Oh Don—”

He kissed her again.

“I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, Linda. But there are a few things that I do know. We’re both going to finish up here. You’re going to pass those exams of yours and I’m going to graduate and get that silly diploma they hand out to you after you’ve finished wasting the prescribed four years here.

“Then we’re going to pile into the car and drive to Pittsburgh. If the car gets that far — I don’t know if it will or not. Then you’re going to have your abortion and we’re going to stay in Pittsburgh until you’re well enough to travel.

“From Pittsburgh we’re heading to New York. I’m going to find a place to live and then get a job. You’re going to find a place to live—”

“The same place you find?”

He shook his head. “Not right away,” he said. “That’s got to wait until we’re both ready for it. There are too many things we’ve got to learn first, Linda. And we’re going to have loads of time — time to find out more about each other. Time to love each other.”

He was right.

“Then we’ll find you a college,” he went on. “You ought to be able to get into NYU without a hell of a lot of trouble. A year there and you’ll be a New York resident and you can go tuition free to CCNY. It’s a free school and it’s a hundred times better than this hole.”

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “God only knows what’s going to happen after that. Maybe we’ll find out that we hate each other. Maybe we’ll quietly drift apart and never see each other again. Maybe what we’ve got will just disappear.

“There’s another possibility. Maybe we’ll find out that what we’ve got is worth keeping — worth keeping forever. It’s too early to even think about that yet, Linda. But it might happen.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“We won’t make the same mistakes again.”

“No,” she said, “we won’t.”

She looked at him, loving him, needing him. But she loved him and needed him in a different way now. She wasn’t afraid of him or afraid of losing him, not now. She felt safe and sure of herself and sure of him. For a moment she felt terrible about all the other boys she had been with since that first time with him, but then she told herself that they didn’t matter, that they never really existed. They were a child’s substitute for the real thing. Now she had the real thing, and at the same time she was no longer a child, no longer the girl who had first come to Clifton.

He reached for her and drew her close to him. His finger touched her cheek and ran down her face to her chin. He kissed her lightly on the lips, then kissed her closed eyes and the tip of her nose.

He took a deep breath and held it. “I want you,” he said. “Christ, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But we’re going to wait for a while, anyhow.”

“Okay.”

He smiled. “Besides,” he added, “with a woman in your condition—”

He laughed when she started to blush. “You better go now,” he said. “You’ve got to lick that exam tomorrow and I’ve got one of my own to worry about. We’ll have plenty of time later.”

She stood up. “Plenty of time,” she said.

He kissed her once more. Then she left.

The walk back to her dorm was easy. She started studying immediately, sure of herself, sure that the exam would be no problem at all for her. There would be problems coming up, plenty of problems, but now she knew that she could handle anything that came her way.

She was a big girl now.

She wondered idly what it would all be like. NYU, CCNY, New York City, the whole thing.

She wondered what it would be like to be Mrs. Donald Gibbs.

Well, she would find out. She would learn all the answers and find out all that had to be found out.

There was plenty of time now, she thought.

Time for everything.