l5 . i ;orctrryA. l i rsor,

"Ilc'll be fine." she'd replied, not Lrndcrstanding, speaking instethe other lbar. "Don't wc have a traditiorl of bastardsl"

L{c was finc, :r classically ugly healthy litde boy with that shock white

HappyEndings. 17

lovin$ you and hating you for your lifb, for not asking about whatyou have no reason to imagine, soft-chinned innocence I love.

hair that marked so manv of us. But afterward. it was that bad with mysistcr down with pleurisl, then cystitis, and no work, nomrlvc back horne with mv cold-eyecl stepfbthcr. I would cl-rcr. tionr itlrc wornan I could not admit I'd been with.

having t<l

screams. That l i tt le bastard.

my slster, no onebcreaming red-faced,

"Shut upl Shut,upl" With each word her tist med the mattress fan-

ng it as gendy as I couldion. She had her ottrer

.rrnr clanrpcd acr,rsr her abdomen rnd c 't f ight mc at all. She justkept shricling.

" fhrt l i tt le bastard. just screamsI ' l l k i l f h i r r . " . t

Then rhc words seeped in and she lookcd at me while hcr son keptcry,in* ano kicking his feet. llla his head the mattress still showed the im-[)act ()l hcr t ist.

"()h r-ro," she moaned, "l wabn't going to be like that. I always prom-iscd rnysel;." She startcd to cry, htilding her belly and sobbing. "We an'tno di l icrcrr t . We rn ' t no r l i t fcrcnt ."

]esse rvrap; hcr arnr around my stomachi.presses her belly into my back. Irehx egair st hcr. "You sure you can't have childrcn?" she asks. 'I surewould like to see what your kids 'uvould turn out to be like."

I stifltn, say, "I can't have childre n. I've hever wanted children.""Still," she says, "y<lu're so good with children. so gende ."I thinr of all the timcs mv hands have curled into fists, when I have

just barcly held on. I opcn mv mouth, close it, can't spcak. What could Isav llow) /Jl thc times I have n<>t spoken bcfore , all the things I just couldnot tcll hci, the shamc, the sclf:hatred, the fbar; all <lf that hangs betweenus uow-.r wall I cannot tcar down.

I wouid likc to turn around and talk to her, tell her . "I've got adust rivc; n my hcad, a river of names endlessly repeating. That dirty wa-tcr risey'in nre, all th<-rsc children screaming out their lives in my memory,ancl I bec<,me solllc()ne else, sclmeone I have tried so hard not to be."

l},rt I don't say anlthing, and I know, as surely as I know I will neverhavc a cl-rilJ, that by not spcaking I am condemning us, tiat I cannot go on

MARGARET ATWOODMargaret Atwood, born in 1939 and raised in Ontario and Quebec, has pub-lished more than thirty acclaimed novels and collections of poems, essays, andstories.An rmportant critic, she has helped dellne contemporary Canadian lit-erature and has a distinguished reputation among feminist writers in NorthAmerica and abroad. Her novels include Surfoclng (1972);The Hondmoid'sTole( 1986), which received Canada's Governor General's Award; Cots Eye (1989):The Robber Bride (1993); A|ios Groce (1995), which won the Giller Prize inCanada; the Booker Prize-winning The Blind Assossjn (2000); and Oryx ondCroke (2003). Atwood s story collections include Doncing Cirls and Other Stories(1982), B/uebeord's Egg ond Other Stodes (1983), Wilderness Tips ond OtherStories (199 1), and Good Bones ond Simple Murders (1994).Atwood has saidabout her experimental story "Happy Endings," "l did not know what sort ofcreature it was. lt was not a poem, a short story, or a prose poem. lt was notquite a condensation, a commentary, a questionnaire, and it missed being aparable, a proverb, a paradox. lt was a mutation.Writing rt gave me a sense offurtive glee, like scribbling anonymously on a wall with no one looking....lt wasa little disappointing to learn that other people had a name for such aberra-tions fmeta{iction], and had already made up the rulesl

Happy Endings

|ohn and Mary meet.What happens next?If you want a happy ending, try A.

home to seetake my infi-

Jesse puts heg hands beest stories."

pulsing.

y neck, smiles and says, "You tell the funni-

( re88)"Yeah,"-{.rdll hei'.tBut I lie."

,/

ning thc brby's eirr."Don t!" I grelbed her, pull ing her back,

so I woultln't brcirk the stitchcs fiorn her qd

l8 . l"largarer Atwood

A]ohn and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhileanci remunerativc jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. Theybuy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when theycan aflbrd live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted.'fhe children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and chal-lcnging sex lifb and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations to-gethcr. 'fhey retire . They both have hobbies which they find stimulatingand challenging. Evcntually thcy die . This is the end of the story.

B.Vlan' falls in love with )ohn but fohn doesn't fall in love with Mary. Her.ncrcly uses her body fbr selfish pleasure and cgo gratification of a tepidkind He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner,you'il noticc that hc docsn't even consider her worth the price of a dinnerout, and aftcr hc's eaten the dinner he fucks her and after that he fallsaslcep, whilc she does the dishes so he won't think she's untidy, having allthost: dirry dishes lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she'll lookgoocl r.l'hen he wakes up, but when he wakes up he doesn't even notice,he p-rts <xr his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tieand lris sh<les. the reverse order from the one in which he took them off.FIc coesn't take off Mary's clothes, she takes them off herself, she acts asif'sh,:'s dying fbr it cvery time, not because she likes sex exacdy, shedoesil't, but she wants fohn to think she does because if they do it oftenenor,gh surcly he'll get uscd to her, he 'll comc to depcnd on her and theyvvill Iet marricd, ['rut ]ohn gocs out the door with hardly so much as agoocl-night and thrce days later he turns up at six o'clock and they do ther,r.hoie thing over again.

.Vlary gcts run-down. Crying is bad for your f-ace, everyone knows thatand ;o does Mary but she can't stop. People at work notice. Her friendstell lLcr iohn is a rat, a pig, a dog, he isn't good enough for her, but shecan'r bclievc it. lnside fohn, she thinks, is another fohn, who is muchnicer. 'l'his other John will cmerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a )ackfion a box, a pit from a prune, if thc first fohn is only squeezed enough.

r-)ne evening |ohn complains about the food. He has never com-plaired about the fbod before. Mary is hurt.

ller friends tell her they've seen him in a restaurant with anotherw()nian, whosc name is Madge. It's not even Madge that finally gets to

HappyEndings. l9

Mary; it's tlre restaurant. fohn has never taken Mary to a restaurant. Marycollects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them anda half a botde of sherry. You can see what kind of a woman she is by thefact that it's not even whiskey. She leaves a note for lohn. She hopes he'lldiscover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then theycan get married, but this fails to happen and she dies.

lohn marries Madge and everything conrinues as in A.

cJohn, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is onlytwenty-two, feels sorry for him because he's worried about his hair fallingout. She sleeps with him even though she's nor in love with him. She methim at work. She's in love with someone called |ames, who is rwenty-twoalso and not yet ready to setde down.

John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is botheringhim. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field,but Mary isn't impressed by him, she's impressed by fames, who has amotorcycle and a fabulous record collection. But lames is often away onhis motorcycle, being free. Freedom isn't the same for girls, so in themeantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with Iohn. Thursdays are theonly days lohn can get away.

Iohn is married to a woman called Madge and they have two chil-dren, a charming house which they bought just before the real estare val-ues went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging,when they have the time . John tells Mary how important she is to him,but of course, he can't leave his wife because a commitment is a commit-ment. FIe goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds itboring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has afairly good time.

One day lames breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-gradeCalifornia hybrid and fames and Mary get higher than you'd believe pos-sible and they climb into bed. Everything becomes very underwater, butalong comes |ohn, who has a key to Mary's apartment. He finds themstoned and entwined. He 's hardly in any position to be jealous, consider-ing Madge, but nevertheless he's overcome with despair. Finally he's mid-dle-aged, in two years he'll be bald as an egg and he can't stand it. Hepurchases a handgun, saying he needs it for target practice-this is thethin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later-and shoots the two ofthem and himself.

TheLesson.2lf 0 l'a t, garet Atwood

lvla.lgic, after a suitablc period of mourning, marries an understanding

'ra' cailJ,l Frcd and .u".yihing continues as in A, but under different

namcs.

DFred an.I Madge have no problems. They get along exceptionalla well and

.rre gooJ ,t..riking our any little difhculties that may arise. But their charm-

i,rglouse is by the scashori and one day a grant tidal wave approaches' Real

estatc vrlucs go rJown. The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal

wavc arrd how they escape fiom it. They do, though thousands drown' but

F'rcd and Maclge arc virLous and lucky' Finally on high ground they clasp

cach otire r, wci and clripping and gratefi'rl, and continue as in A'

EYcs, bu : Fred has a bad heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and

un.jerstanding they both are until Fred dies' Then Madge devotes herself

to charity w,rik until the end of A. If you like, it can be *Madge"'"can-

ccr," "11uilry and confused," and "bird watching'"

Flf vou think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a

coul.Itei'espionage agent and sie how far that gets you' Remember' this is(lanacli. You'll still cnd up with A, though in between you may get a lustful

brawling saga Of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of.

you,ll lrave to flce it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't

be dch,ded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake'

with n,alicious intent to deceivc, or just motivated by excessive optimism

if not 1,y downright sendmentality.Tl,c only authentic ending is the one provided here:

frt,tn nnd Mary d'ie. lohn nnd' Mnry d'ie' John nnd' Mary d'ie'

So mu,h filr cndings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs'howev:r, are known t<, fivor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest

to do r,nything with.Tl ,ai's abiut all thar can be said for plots, which anyway are just one

CadeNewwhich hascollection

The Block Womon:

I,al

i,

t

t

f) ack in the days whe n evervone was o

-fDirn and me and Sugar were rhe only

walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so youhide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask. MissThe only woman on the block with no first name.

was her name.was black asd she was al-

TONI CADE BAMBARAfor her civil rights activism as well as herfiction and essay writing,Toni

(1939-1995) grew up in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant inln 1977 she published the short story collection Gorillo, My Love,

widespread critical attention. Her other work include theBrrds Are Still Alive (1977) and the novels The Solt Eotersthe American Book Award, and /f 8/essing Comes (1987).

She was also an of and contributor to several essay collections, includingAnthology ( | 970) and Toles ond Stories for Black Folks

( 197l). In addit ion to adivism and writing, Bambara taught in colleges andrndependent hools in numerous cities. ln an interview in B/ockWomenWriters otWok explained the value of her variety of experiences:"lt's a tremendous and honor-to be a write[ anart ist, a cuhural worker. . , you call this vocation. One's got to seewhat the factory worker sees, the prisoner sees, what the welfare chil-

to see what the ruling-class mythmakersdren see, what the scholar sees,see as well, rn order to tell the truth not get trappedl'

stupid or young and fool-just right, this lady moved

on our block with nappy hair and proper and no makeup. Andwe did at the junk manquite naturally we laughed at her, laughed the

who went about his business like he was some bi -time president and hissorry-ass horse his secretary. And we kinda hatedwe did the winos who cluttered up our parks and

r too. hated the wavon our handballn't halfway play

hell, cept fbr her feet, which were fish-white and spooky.ways planning these boring-ass things for us to do, us bemosdy who lived on the block cause we all moved North

my cousln,same time

thing rLfter another, a what and a what and a what'N'rw try How and WhY.

and to the same apartment then spread out gradual to( Ie83) parents would yank our heads into some kinda shape and

. And our