Ask Not

ASK NOT

ASK NOT

Copyright © 2024 Mary Schmidt.

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ASK NOT

MARY M. SCHMIDT

Also by Mary M. Schmidt

Persephone’s Song

Cat Lady

Our Frail Disordered Lives

Dedication

In Memory of Charles Butler

One Awesome Editor

1963

Katie Casey had her share of symptoms.

Ringing in her ears gave her headaches and insomnia.Her blood pressure was way too high. The pills Dr. Robinson had prescribed were not helping her, so she had stopped taking them. They kept her awake.

Tonight, however, she was having a beautiful dream. Perhaps that little nip of cooking sherry before bed had helped.

Katie saw herself in a posh hotel in New York. President Kennedy was there, ostensibly for a high-level meeting. The Secret Service had their encounter planned to perfection. On the lower level of this hotel there was the Grande Promenade: a corridor that seemed to extend forever, lined with phone booths. For a moment, Katie stirred, then went back to her dream.

There was a young girl, pouring coins into one of those phones, apparently weeping. Katie quickened her steps. She would not get involved in whatever oddity this was.

As she had been instructed by a Secret Service agent, Katie took the elevator to the top floor and followed the signs to the pool.

Again, the Secret Service, bless them, had left no stone unturned. They had taken care of her husband Ralph. Ralph was in the hotel garage, seated in the back of the presidential limousine, with its top down. An agent pretended to drive him down a packed boulevard. Four agents ran in place at the sides of the huge vehicle. Thousands of imaginary souls waved flags and cheered. A tape recorder played Hail to the Chief.

Woo! Woo! Ralph kept saying. This would keep him amused for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, Katie was spirited up to the safe zone which had already been swept for any sort of listening device. There were none. No one need ever know.

The coast was clear. There was no Ralph. Neither was there the president’s wife, Jackie. Those two would never find out.

Ah, Mrs. Casey! the president greeted her. He was dressed in his bathrobe and smoked a cigar.

Mr. President!

Please, Darling. Jack.

Flustered, she stammered, Hello, Jack! I’m Katie!

Katie, he moaned, savoring her name. They kissed deeply. He dropped his robe, under which he wore nothing at all, and assisted Katie out of her dress, and delicate underthings. Together they dived into the deep end of the pool and swam in laps like a pair of graceful koi in an aquarium.

They made slow and sweet love. Katie woke up with a gasp and a start. Jack? she called out, but not loudly enough to interrupt Ralph’s snores.

Now she was fully awake. She sat up and got out of the bed. She was rather shocked that John F. Kennedy would ever consider doing such a thing. In reality, he was a head of state, married and the father of Caroline and John John plus one on the way. But in Katie’s fantasy…

She got up from the bed where Ralph lay snoring and went downstairs. As was her custom she slept in the nude, and never even bothered to put on her robe when she left their bedroom. Ralph took a dim view of this.

Suppose our son wants to raid the fridge at midnight and finds his mother on the sofa, stark raving naked?

Dickie never gets up at night.

Suppose he does? He’s seventeen. At that age, they get ideas.

Dickie would sleep through a nuclear war.

Not a good idea. Might be a Peeping Tom hanging around. He could look right in that front window and see you.

On this street? If he looked at me, I doubt he’d be interested.

Don’t be too sure, Ralph muttered. All kinds of perverts, out there. They got one last week in Silver Hill. It’s getting awful.

Katie was way overweight. With her body unrestrained by bra or girdle, gobs of fat hung off her midsection like sacks of potatoes. Her nakedness was a challenge to those of lesser size. If you don’t like it, tough. I could not care less.

In her living room, there were pictures of herself and Ralph at their wedding, and of their son Dickie as a little boy in a cowboy outfit. And, of course, an inaugural portrait of John F. Kennedy. Oh, she loved him. She wished she could be his mother, Rose. Or his glamourous wife, Jackie. One, the other, or a bizarre and Oedipal combination of both.

Here, on this sagging sofa, she had spent her happiest day a few years ago. Ralph had thought of taking his family to Washington for Kennedy’s Inauguration. Then he backed out. It might snow, was his reason. Never mind that he thought it would be too expensive.

It did snow, in large amounts.

You can see more on the TV without freezing your big rear end off, Ralph reminded her.

Ralph, please, Katie had said, not in front of the children.

On a day so cold and clear the air sparkled, Kennedy took his oath as President of the United States. Katie was so blissful, she felt as if she had levitated from this sofa.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you!

Happy now? Ralph asked.

This is the happiest day of my life!

Aw, come on! said Ralph. He pointed to their elaborate wedding portrait. I thought that was! Katie could only weep for joy. How strange it was, to remember now how happy she had been then. It seemed so long ago.

The only other sign of life on the block was a light in Dan Doyle’s study across the street. He was the only one here who did not work a nine-to-five schedule or have to commute. That’s because he was the Dan Doyle, the bestselling novelist. What was he working on now? Perhaps it was what he called the ultimate sequel: Moby Dick II: Raise the Pequod!

Doyle’s novel in progress had something to do with Moby Dick’s look-alike grandson knocking over a luxury liner full of rich people. It was sure to be a blockbuster film.

For some obscure reason, Ralph did not approve of Dan Doyle. Ralph used to glare at Dan and ask Katie what his problem was.

I don’t believe he has one, Dear, she would say.

What’s with the beard? Is he trying to be some sort of beatnik?

Katie just shook her head. Ralph was a great believer in conformity. Dan was the only one on this block with no resident family. To Ralph, this neighborhood was only for white married couples professing Christianity and raising children. They were only permitted to drive what his boy Dickie called boring sedans or even more boring station wagons. Doyle drove a Porsche. Once, on the highway, Doyle passed them going va-room! Ralph was clearly displeased.

Ralph is jealous. That was what Katie thought at first. Dan was too different for Ralph’s limited tastes. She thought of a song about what Ralph preferred. Little boxes, on a hillside, all made of ticky-tacky.

Someone used to sing that. Katie jumped up with a start when she remembered who did: Michelle. Michelle, who used to strum her guitar and sing that song, so long ago.

No! No, don’t let her into your mind!

Katie, a bit short of breath, sat back down on the sofa. Too disturbing! And yet, the portrait of John F. Kennedy took the place of Michelle’s portrait when she could no longer stand the sight of it. That picture was up in the attic with the rest of Michelle’s things. Up and forgotten, where Katie no longer had to deal with them.

Oh, but she did love John F. Kennedy! So much that anyone who did him harm would have to answer to her and would pay with his life. Simply watching him on TV brought her such joy.

Having him in the White House made her feel safe. She had not always been safe. As a child, she had been forced to learn that there are terrible things going on. John F. Kennedy was the knight who slew the dragon, of whom she was so afraid. As long as he remained in the White House, no more harm would come to her.

Next to his Inaugural portrait was her bottle of cooking sherry. So that’s where she had left it!

Katie took another swig, whispered I love you to the president, and imagined him replying I love you too, Katie.

Katie was none too fond of Jackie. She sometimes said inane things, imitating Jackie’s breathless voice.

You sound ridiculous, Ralph told her. Don’t think about cutting a comedy album. Nobody will buy it.

She did love Caroline and John John. And now, they would soon have a baby brother or sister joining them in the White House. Which reminded Katie, she wanted to buy a gift for the new baby. Tomorrow she would have to check out some baby things. But for now, she went back to bed, hoping that Michelle would not be back in her dreams. Michelle had been banished. No one must speak of her, ever again. Not after what she did.

Let her be anathema! Bell, Book, and Candle. Out!

Thinking of Michelle at all was simply too much. No wonder Katie was always sick!

CHAPTER 2

Dan Doyle went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and noticed that the light was on in the Casey living room. He could not help but wonder why.

Perhaps it was Ralph. Oh, he could not stand Ralph Waldo Casey. What a literary name for such an ignoramus!

Ralph Casey was hardly one of his fans; he doubted that Ralph even read the label on a catsup bottle. Ralph was a bully, a braggart, and a loudmouth. To hear Ralph going on, you’d think the sun could not rise in the morning without consulting him first.

Or perhaps it was Dickie Casey, up to no good. Dickie was also the nickname Dan had given his cetacean anti-hero, Moby Dick II. He’d had that little monster in mind.

Dickie had been in some trouble last year. Dan had been working late at night and heard Brunhilde, the Wagner dachshund, barking. Her barking had a frantic quality. Dan peeked out and sure enough, there were teenage boys placing cherry bombs in mailboxes. The moon was full, and the ringleader stood underneath a street light. No question, it was Dickie, laughing his empty head off.

Dan had called the police. They arrived before Dickie could blow up his mailbox. Ralph was furious, not at his little Dickie but at those who would dare accuse him. Didn’t they realize that Dickie was headed for college, then law school, then a political career? Wasn’t there a seat in the Senate, waiting for Dickie?

God forbid, Dan thought.

Ralph had insisted the deed had been done by what he called those colored boys from the slums. Whatever. Dickie, being as white as his namesake, and from an affluent background, got off with a slap on the wrist. And a warning from the judge: If I see you in my court again, Young Man, it won’t go so well for you. Do I make myself clear?

Yes, Your Honor, Dickie squeaked in his not-dropped-yet voice.

Ralph never did believe in Dickie’s guilt. Since then, he’d looked askance at Dan, suspecting he was the one who called the cops, as who else was up at that hour? But Ralph had already established himself in Dan’s mind as a major pain in the rear.

Dan took his coffee back to his typewriter. It might have been Katie, up for some reason. One rarely saw Katie, even before what Dan called The Michelle Incident.

He thought back many years ago, when he had first moved into this house. He saw Katie walking down Muratori Boulevard with her two small children, Dickie and Michelle. He was reminded to two tugboats trying to guide a great ocean liner into the Port of New York.

The light in the Casey house went out. Just as well. Dan cranked another piece of paper into the typewriter and thought of Michelle. He remembered her singing in the Wagners’ back yard.

Dan had been at a cookout at Hans and Frieda Wagner’s place. They were refugees from the East side of the Berlin Wall. Terrific people, and Frieda had made her famous strudel.

Ralph was there with both his kids. Of course, there was no Katie. Even then she kept to herself. It was said, when the Casey family had first arrived, they were always being invited to cocktail parties and cookouts. Katie developed a pattern of sending an RSVP of yes. Or saying maybe. Then she would not show up at all. No one appreciates that.

Anyhow, Michelle was there with her guitar, singing that ticky-tacky song and everybody liked it, except for Ralph, who looked annoyed. Then he went back to yakking about how important he was. Michelle had come up to Dan.

Mr. Doyle, can I ask you something?

Sure! As long as it’s not about where I get my ideas!

Oh, no!

See, that’s kind of like a leprechaun’s pot o’ gold. Dan had been a bit drunk; that he recalled.

No, it’s, well, I was wondering if I should take up writing. Like you do.