“I guess you was always the loyal type,” June said.
“Son of a bitch made me scratch,” Terrible Tommy said. “Shoulda climbed his ass.”
“Wouldn’t have been nobody to get you down,” Big Woody said.
Nancy came back in wiping her eyes with a paper towel. She had managed to make some repairs and seemed relieved and rather cheerful.
“Lord, that man’s got a temper,” she said.
“I’m just glad we all survived,” Roscoe said. “Hate to get my ass shot off over somebody else’s pussy.”
“Shut up,” Nancy said with spirit. “Lee Harvey don’t need no cheap gun. He wouldn’t beat you up, anyway, you’re too scrawny to bother with.”
“It’s pretty over in that part of town where I was,” Peewee said. “You have to be smart as hell to go to Rice.”
“You have to be a goddamn Communist, the way I hear it,” Roscoe said.
As Peewee was finishing his beer a stranger came into the bar, a little man with neatly combed hair, baggy green pants, a white tee shirt, and tattoos on his arms.
“Anybody here know where Satsuma Street is?” he asked. “I been looking for that mother for a fucking hour.”
“Shit, yes,” Skeets said. “It’s right off Seventy-fifth. I could find it blindfolded.”
“Good for you,” the man said a little belligerently. “I’m from Spring Branch, myself. We still breathe air on that side of town. What’s this shit you breathe over here? Reason I can’t find Satsuma Street, I’m afraid to stick my head out the window, ’fraid I’ll asphyxiate while I’m looking at the street signs.”
“Oh, horse turds,” Roscoe said. “This air ain’t so bad. What it really smells like is Japanese pussy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that,” the man said, still surly. “You-all got any chili?”
“See if that chili’s turned to concrete yet,” Big Woody said, and Nancy went to the pot of chili and stirred it vigorously.
“It’s fine,” she said, and just at that moment the phone rang and it turned out to be for her. Lee Harvey had decided he wanted details. While she was talking Big Woody heaved himself up and went to serve the customer. He filled a bowl with chili, put some crackers on the plate, and carried it over to where the little man sat.
“Whatcha drinking?”
“Pepsi Cola,” the man said moodily.
“Ain’t got it. Got Cokes.”
“Okay.”
Roscoe swiveled around in his chair, a fresh match held between his teeth. “Lemme get a good look at you,” he said. “You must be a member of the goddamn Pepsi generation.”
“Aw, shut your mouth,” the stranger said. “If you don’t you’re gonna have to shit dominoes for the next couple of weeks.”
“Tough guy,” Roscoe said, and the old girls twittered.
“Don’t yell at me!” Nancy said. “I ain’t your wife or nothin’!”
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” the stranger said, looking at the chili with disgust. “You call this chili? Where’s the beans?”
Woody was on his way back to the Moon game, but he stopped and looked calmly at the man. “They’re in there,” he said. “Poke around a little. The light ain’t too good in here.”
The stranger poked. “Not a fucking bean,” he said.
“You ain’t looking good.” Woody waddled back, took the spoon, probed awhile, and came up with not one but two beans.
“There you are. Beans.”
“Two fucking beans,” the man said. “I ain’t gonna pay forty cents for two fucking beans.”
“You never ordered beans, you ordered chili.”
“When I order chili I expect beans,” the man said. “See if there’s some in the pot.”
“See yourself,” Big Woody said. “I’m the owner, not the waitress, and the waitress is on the phone. Satsuma Street will be there all night.”
“What kind of service is that? A man has to fish his own beans out of a goddamn chili pot.”
“Best kind. You get more for your money. Take all the beans you can find, we don’t care.”
“What do you want to do?” Roscoe asked. “Fart in your wife’s face or something?”
At that, to the horror of all, the little man leaped to his feet dragging a very shiny pistol out of his pants pocket. “Kill your ass!” he said, blasting at Roscoe as Big Woody struggled heavily for the cover of the bar. The bullet passed to the right of the Moon game and hit the top of the jukebox with a loud splat. “Hello, Vietnam” was playing and continued to play. Terrible Tommy huddled under a barstool, poor cover, and Peewee accidentally sucked his toothpick into his mouth and had a horrible gagging moment trying to bring it out.
“Cheat a man out of his beans,” the stranger roared, turning the gun on Woody. Woody whonked into the Coke box, almost rupturing himself, and the bullet intended for him hit the jar of pickled pigs’ feet just to the right of Peewee. Vinegar and pigs’ feet splattered into his face and onto his immaculate hat. Nancy had departed for the ladies’ room again, and just in time, for the final bullet hit the telephone dead center, puzzling Lee Harvey no end. He assumed the niggers were rioting and had caused a panic in the bar, with everyone rushing wildly for their guns. Peewee didn’t dare move for fear of straying into the line of fire, but fortunately the man abruptly stopped shooting and ran out the door, gun in hand. The bar quickly gathered itself for retaliation. Roscoe pulled out his gun and Big Woody grabbed the .38 that was underneath the cash register. They both hurried toward the door, firing a fusillade as they ran. The old dames had both knocked over their beers and were crouched in the booth sobbing and trying to keep the beer from dripping onto their skirts.
Roscoe and Big Woody stopped at the door of the lounge and tried to take aim at their attacker, who got into his old station wagon and sat calmly trying to get the engine to turn over.
“I’ll shoot the son of a bitch’s tires,” Roscoe said and promptly sent three bullets into the Gulf-Air’s neon sign, which went out. The station wagon started away and Big Woody snapped a shot at it which ricocheted off the driveway. The stranger was holding a city map in front of his face as he drove away.
“Turdhound,” Roscoe said, panting.
Big Woody felt on the verge of collapse; he barely made it back to his chair.
“At least the dumb motherfucker went off the wrong way,” he said. “He’ll never find Satsuma Street now.”
The two old ladies were standing up swabbing at their soaked skirts with napkins.
“God damn you, Roscoe, why’d you shoot that sign?” Big Woody said. “You think there was a sniper up there or something?”
“The motherfucker could have had a rifle,” Roscoe said. “The less light the worse targets we make.”
“Want me to call the cops?” Nancy asked. She had emerged from the ladies’ room and was matter-of-factly cleaning up.
“No,” Big Woody said. “I got to cool down and calculate the damage. If I call them son of a bitches they’ll just beat us all up.” The old dames were hurrying off, anxious to get home before the killer returned.
“Wisht he hadn’t splattered my hat,” Peewee said, and as soon as he had choked down the last of his beer he hurried to the Alamo Courts to try and clean it.
12
“WELL, DID MELISSA confess anything significant?” Bill Duffin asked. His plane had been two hours late and he should have been tired from three days of boozing in Chicago, but instead he was feeling buoyant and was sitting in bed wearing the psychedelic pajamas his oldest daughter had given him for Christmas. He was drinking a stinger for a nightcap and was idly reading through a couple of book catalogues that had come in while he was gone. Lee was in bed too, reading Flannery O’Connor’s last book of stories.
“Nothing we hadn’t suspected,” she said. “She had some marijuana with her. The other girls and I all smoked some the night you left.”
“What a scene,” he said, chuckling. “Why did you wait till I left?”
“I guess she was afraid you’d take it away from her.”
“Maybe I would have. Then we could have smoked it sometime when we needed a thrill. Or I could have taken it to the MLA—it might have helped. I got trapped with the Southern crowd one evening. Tenth-hand Faulkner stories for the tenth time don’t do much for me. I did hear some good gossip about our friends in Virginia.”
“The girls and I missed you,” Lee said.
“Not a few of your old acquaintances missed you,” Bill said. “I don’t seem to be as popular up there when you stay home. All your usual beaus sent their love and sorrows.”
“I’m glad I didn’t go,” Lee said. “I can’t think of one person from our past that I ever want to see again. That’s goddamn sad, because I can’t think of one person from our present that I feel any different about.”
“It’s your New Year’s melancholy,” Bill said. “Have some of my drink. You’ve got friends galore from our past.”
“Sure. I don’t want them to know me like I am now, though.”
“That’s stupid. How was the pot?”
“It made Helen a little sick. Janie and I got pretty giggly. It didn’t seem to faze Melissa at all. I’m sure she’s a hardened pothead. It was fun, really. We all felt wicked and companionable.”
“Hum,” Bill said. “Our first born a pothead. If she stays out West it’s probably just as well she’s hardened to it. In fact it’s probably better. She’ll be that much less likely to get knocked up by some unsuitable young mystic. No LSD?”
“I didn’t probe and she didn’t say. I have a horror of being a prying mother.
“I don’t worry about Melissa,” she added. “She’s got your ability to take care of herself. Helen and Janie are something else. They’re more like me.”
Bill put down a catalogue and picked up his drink. “Speaking of probing,” he said, “I guess you’ll be glad to know that my days as a conventioneering cocksman seem to be over. I never even got laid. This profession could sure use some attractive females. I never saw so many drab bags, old and young. It made me think better of my beloved wife. At least she knows how to walk.”
Lee smiled. “Is that my New Year’s compliment?” she asked. “Maybe I’ll go next year after all.”
“This is a great story,” she said later. “The one about the girl trying to strangle the fat woman in the doctor’s office.” She stared solemnly at the ceiling.
The stinger had one swallow to go. Bill set it on the bedside table and turned to Lee, an open book catalogue in one hand. “I wonder if I should collect Robert Coates?” As he read the catalogue he put his other hand under the covers and under Lee’s gown and began to stroke her. She had been lying with her ankles crossed. She looked at him to see what was what. His eyes were going down the page of the catalogue but his hand continued to move lightly over her abdomen. She was not sure what to do. Sometimes she thought he was a sadist, but it was just as possible that he was only a normal absentminded man who even after twenty-one years didn’t really realize what her feelings were. She had grown afraid to respond to tentative, ambiguous caresses for fear that just as she became really aroused he would turn out to have merely been idling. Often that happened and he would stop touching her and yawn or read or go to the john. If she became insistent at such a time he was apt to be spiteful, and so insulting that she would not recover from the hurt for days. She opened her legs but lifted the book from her chest and pretended to read. Bill went on reading the catalogue. He was down to F. “I didn’t know Forster was published in America as early as 1913,” he said, quietly surprised. “Live and learn.”
“We’ve only got forty dollars in the bank, if that’s a consideration,” Lee said. His caressing had become very direct and she shut her eyes and ceased pretending to read.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I’m lecturing at La Jolla in February. If I like it we may just go there next year.”
Lee gripped the covers of her book. Her husband glanced at her with amusement, shifted onto his elbow a bit more comfortably, and went deeper with his caress. He still held the book catalogue. Lee half opened her eyes and saw that he was as cool as if he were reading Tennyson; she put an arm across her face. For a second she wanted to rip the catalogue out of his hand and scream at him, but she was already past the point of doing that. The scream would come days later, probably in the kitchen, when he pushed the wrong button verbally. She kept her arm over her eyes. Bill was down to James Purdy when she came. He had never liked Purdy, but he sometimes liked to own the scarcest book by a given author, and if he had had a hand free, and a pencil, he would have put a check by “63 Dream Palace, wrappers, mint, $17.50.” Lee sighed very heavily, her arm still over her face. Then she turned a little and hid her face against his shoulder. “Don’t quit now,” he said. “I was ever an indefatigable fingerfucker.”
She made no comment. After a while she drew herself away from his hand and went to the bathroom. When she came back Bill had finished the stinger and the catalogue and was lying on his back.
“Turn out the light,” he said. “These pajamas are so bright they distract me.”
“They’re really breakfast pajamas,” she said. She marked her place in Flannery O’Connor and turned off the bed light.
“See anyone while I was gone?”
“Virtually no one. I ran into Patsy Carpenter today and brought her home for tea. It didn’t work out too well.”
“Why not?”
“We got emotional.”
“By god. What about?”
“I told her to be wary of your attentions.”
“You bitch,” he said. “Do I do things like that to you?”
“Chase the one from California if you have to chase someone,” Lee said. She felt very tired and low.
“No, I’d rather play tennis,” Bill said. “Keep my legs in shape. If I decide to sin I’d rather have a Puritan like Patsy. Give me guilt and fear and remorse and darkness and shame. Takes it out of the category of exercise.”
“I guess that’s what’s wrong with us,” Lee said. “No darkness and no shame.”
“Of course not,” Bill said. “We’re mature adults, capable of rational mature acts like fingerfucking. I’ll save Californians for when we get to California.”
“I’m warning you,” Lee said. “Not Patsy.”
“Well, it’s in the hands of fortune,” Bill said. “Ordinarily I’d pursue her but I must be getting less compulsive as I grow older.”
“No. You’re working. When you finish the Pound book your compulsion will rear its head again.”
Bill chuckled. “I always wanted to live with a cynical woman.” He reached over, patted her on the shoulder, and attempted to stroke her cheek. Lee turned her head away.
“Go wash your hands,” she said.
13
FOR THE FIRST TWO WEEKS of the New Year Patsy kept a guilty secret hidden in her closet. After the walk with Hank, she did not see him for several days. Either he avoided the drugstore or they simply missed each other. It preyed on Patsy’s mind. One moment she felt he must think her disgustingly brazen, the next she felt he must think her disgustingly shy, or frivolous, or shallow, or immoral, or whatever bad thing she herself felt herself to be at the time. Then she had a dream in which she decorated his drab apartment with posters and prints and curtains, and she awoke from the dream feeling extraordinarily cheerful. It occurred to her that there was really no reason why she couldn’t brighten up his apartment a bit, as she had in her dream, so she drove Jim to school, took the Ford, and went out to a quaintsy-posh shopping center called Westbury Square. Usually when she went to Westbury she took Emma, but for once she felt like going alone. Driving out, she envisioned everything she would buy, and once she got there was rather disappointed not to find everything she had envisioned. She ended up buying two posters, one a London Transport poster and one a bright poster of a droll blue cow. She also bought a lovely red bottle—it was just what she sa
w the apartment as needing. As she was about to pay for it she suddenly felt very guilty about Jim and bought him a beautiful leather-covered journal with a little steel clasp and a key. He loved the idea of notebooks and journals and would be delighted. It was a very well made journal and cost twelve-fifty, much more than the posters and the bottle. She felt it squared matters, and she rushed right home, meaning to take Hank’s posters and his bottle right over to him.
It was not one of his class days, and she assumed she would catch him home. She freshened herself a bit, put on bright headband and a short jacket, put the posters and the bottle in a bag, and started out for Hank’s as briskly as her stomach would allow.
It was a bright lovely day, and she felt happy with herself. He would undoubtedly like what she had bought. It was not until she passed the drugstore that she began to feel a little nervous. It was really a rather odd thing for a pregnant woman to do, and as she approached Albans Road her nervousness increased and she walked more slowly. Then, just as she was about to turn the corner she saw Kenny Cambridge coming up the street. She was suddenly breathless with shock and turned quickly to the right rather than the left. If she had met him he would undoubtedly have known where she was going. Kenny was a little conceited, but not conceited enough to think she was going to his apartment with a shopping bag full of presents. It was annoying, and also scary. Kenny turned toward the drugstore rather than toward school, which meant that he might return to his apartment any time and catch her leaving Hank’s. It was a dreadful let-down.
She walked moodily to the park and sat on a bench, depressed. The whole social fabric, for a time invisible, had suddenly sprung into view, set up as if by demonic will and design to prevent her from doing the one small innocent thing she wanted to do, which was to give Hank Malory some posters and make his apartment nicer. She bit her nail and looked with vexation at a dirty-faced child in the sandbox. His birdy mother stood nearby, clearly hoping for conversation, but Patsy was in no mood to make any. She was irritated with the world and also with herself. If she had any gumption at all she would march right over to Albans Road and knock on the door and go in and tack the posters where she thought they ought to go, and accept a word of gratitude and walk out. If she met Kenny or Lee Duffin or Emma or Flap or Jim she should have the courage of her innocence and say, “All right, so there, so what?” He needed some posters and a bottle.
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