Going Down Fast: A Novel

by Marge Piercy

  “Don’t you like steak? I know you—you just open an old can. Go right ahead and work as if I wasn’t here, and I’ll call you when everything’s ready.”

  She began ostentatiously tiptoeing about setting down pans with many “Oh dears” and “Shhhs” to herself.

  “Look, don’t go shushing around. Live!” So she began singing “I gave my love a cherry.” The last two reviews he wrote were high in acid. She had a soft contralto and her parents had bought her singing lessons. But learning a song she learned the singer’s style till she was a whole sampler of other singers’ feelings. All a bit slicked up.

  He smelled the smoke before he heard the crackling because he had been trying not hear anything. He swung around just as she yanked the broiler open. At once the burning steak set fire to the potholder in her hand. She shrieked.

  “Drop it!” he shouted.

  She let it fall and he stamped the flames out. He shut off the broiler, pulled out the steak, cut off the charred fat, put the boiler back two notches lower and relit the oven. “Like this,” he said mildly. He was ready to sit down and laugh except that she looked crushed. He tousled her blond hair, wavy and lush reaching just to her shoulders. He had told her once she had 1940’s hair. Soft to touch, it tangled about his hand and followed after: Caroline all right.

  Peering into the cupboard she asked, “Where’re those salad tongs?”

  “Don’t know.” he relented then. “Think I saw them in the front closet.”

  “The front closet!” She went to look and came back with the tongs. “How’d they get there? I used them in the kitchen just last week.”

  “No idea.” He shrugged. “Maybe the cat dragged them in.”

  She seemed satisfied although she continued to talk to the tongs as she made the salad, wondering how they’d learned to walk. She had indeed turned them up out of a drawer on Wednesday. They were Anna’s and after Caroline went off to that coffee box where she “worked,” he’d decided to take them over and give them back. Why not? It had been a few weeks and all that shouting around ought to look pretty silly. Meanwhile his little bit of strange had turned into his daily wonderbread.

  He had gone over after ten. He didn’t know her new teaching schedule but her latest possible class would get her home by then. Her apartment had been dark, however, and his knocking roused no one. Funny. He’d checked the time in Woody’s bar across the street where he stopped for a beer, and it was ten thirty. He’d fallen into an argument about Cuba. When he left he glanced up at her windows, still dark. He had wondered, briefly. He wondered now, sealing the envelope on his reviews.

  All their friends must be fussing about her, telling her what a shit he’d been. One thing he was sure of: she wasn’t with a man. Not yet. Smiling he recalled their duel in the early days. She could turn from a woman to a blockhouse in nothing flat. No, she was out with the gang from the department. Then he saw that Caroline was returning his smile, her eyes shimmery. Caught off stride he went over and put his arms around her. In a way he had been relieved that Annie was out that night, in a way.

  They set out to see a new Italian flick, but since the line reached the corner, they went to Woody’s instead. Though the bar was crowded too deep, he saw nobody he felt like drinking with. They night was freakishly warm, one of the last good nights when you could walk at leisure without your nose breaking off. A loose nostalgic wanting filled him but he could not fix on an object. The first girls in his first car with fuzzy sweaters and sharp elbows, sticking their gum to the dash before necking? Then he would have gone for Caroline. She was wearing a sad, cheated look, but at the meeting of their eyes she perked up and took his hand beside the pitcher. Green made her face fresh and pinky. Sometimes she looked pretty enough to startle him, a radiance that belonged to paper, not to flesh.

  He was not often nostalgic, yet he felt it like a warm tide of dark beer pulling his mind under. For what? the oreboats? ought to get more exercise, get Harlan to take up handball … on the bum? student politics in the peace union? early days at the station when the electric company was threatening to shut off their power? He missed something he’d had. He had done what he wanted then as now. His mood puzzled him and he was frowning when he looked toward the door and saw old Leon plowing through the mob, talking all the time over his shoulder.

  He felt a wave of relief. That was what he wanted, someone he’d known through years and changes. Leon’s gaze met his then, and a fierce blank hostility lit his pale eyes. Leon looked from him to Caroline with his face tight as leather. Turning he hissed something. A girl behind stepped sideways to peer around him. Then Rowley understood: Anna. “Or did you expect me to amuse myself with Leon?”

  He read at once Leon’s stare, the two of them turning up in Woody’s on Saturday night so wrapped up in each other they almost walked over him. He understood, yet he did not believe it. Like a nincompoop he sat staring while they turned around hurriedly and went straight out.

  “That was Anna What’s-her-name with Leon, wasn’t it? They acted too embarrassed, really,” Caroline said.

  Leon, for Christsake. He’d never fathomed Leon’s success with women. He’d seen Joye with a black eye and another time Leon had knocked her down. He’d always had girls on the side, easy lays like Caroline maybe, but still a married man had to go out of his way for things a single man tripped over. Leon had fathered a kid the court wouldn’t let him near. This was the guy Anna couldn’t wait to start mixing it up with. Always losing jobs or quitting in disgust, he never worked at anything, never found anything he thought worthy. Even the films he made were kind of daydreams.

  “Come on, let’s split.” He stalked out and she came hurrying behind. Driving home he asked, “What’s so attractive about Leon? Not what you’d call a goodlooking guy.”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” Caroline said. “Are you jealous about her, still?”

  He was irritated enough to say, “I’m not supposed to know you were Leon’s girl?”

  “I was terribly young. You know.”

  They’d just got in bed when the phone rang. He reached across her to answer it. “Rowley.”

  “Sam.” She laughed. “Trying to get you all day. Going from one payphone to another clinking my quarters. Hey, give me my big brother, I’d say, and the phone would answer, nobody like that here.”

  “I was out trying to find an old blues singer nobody’s seen since ’forty-five.”

  “But you’re going to find him and make him rich and famous.”

  “Maybe I can get him a recording date anyhow.” Good to hear her voice, low and chesty and bubbling. “How’s school going, Sam? How come no letters?”

  “My anthropology is great, but lit class is a bore. Rowley, I need money.”

  “What for? Didn’t you get your allowance?”

  “I need thirty dollars.”

  “You need clothes or what?”

  “I’m coming to Chicago in two weeks for the weekend. I’ll explain all then.”

  “Okay, come ahead and explain and I’ll round up the money then.”

  “Slob, I need the money to get there.”

  “By chartered plane?”

  “Someone’s coming with me.”

  “Who can’t pay their own busfare?”

  “Let me talk to Anna. Is she there?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not! I have to talk to Anna. I need her advice.”

  “What is this? No, you can’t talk to her, she isn’t here.”

  “Then give me her number and I’ll call you back. Can I call collect?”

  “I will not. Look, Annie and I aren’t going together.”

  She caught her breath loudly. “What happened?”

  That’s what came of introducing a girl to his sister. “Nothing for you to fuss about.”

  “You needn’t be so glib. What was it, you wouldn’t marry her? Don’t you ever dare use me as an excuse.”

  “Button your lip, Sam. You’
re young to be giving advice. I appreciate that you liked Annie, but life is more complicated than that and things don’t always work out the way you might imagine.”

  Sam snorted. “If you could hear yourself! If you want to know, I’ve met a wonderful person, and I love him, brother.”

  “How serious is this? It’s early on in the term and you have enough to run you ragged—”

  “You sound like the dean of women—her standard lecture to freshmen. Next thing you’ll say is be sure you make him respect you, young ladies, by always being just that.”

  His stomach sank. “Maybe you better come next weekend.”

  “No! I have a big paper due.”

  “Just tell me why you expect me to pay his busfare. What kind of jerk is this?”

  “Stop prejudging. I’m shocked at you, coming on parental. It’s you and the folks want to look him over—he’s not going to enjoy that one bit. Besides, he’s broke. I told him we could trust you.”

  “Finagling doesn’t become you, Sam.”

  “Then stop making me finagle.”

  “How old is this kid?”

  “Twenty-one. So quit calling him a kid.”

  “Anybody whose busfare I have to pay is a kid.”

  “Forget it. I’ll get the money somewhere else.”

  “Damn you, Sam, you goad me like an ox.”

  She laughed again, high spirited. “My blue ox. So we’ll be hearing from you?”

  “What’s this guy’s name?”

  “Gino Warwick, brother. So, see you!”

  Caroline was hunched up on her side of the bed, pouting. “If you want to talk to that girl so bad, why don’t you go see her and take me home? Calling her Sam, pretending it was a man.”

  “That was my sister and Sam is short for Sandra.” He swung out of bed. “Get dressed and I’ll take you home.”

  “Sister?” Her voice trailed up. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  He reached for his trousers. “One. Tonight that’s too many.”

  “You’re mad because I thought it was a girl?”

  “Not mad at all.” He put his hand on her bare shapely shoulder. “There’s nothing in this scene for you. I noticed your ring came off last week.”

  “I thought … you know …”

  “I won’t string you along. You’re not getting much out of this and no wonder, because I’m not putting much in. Let’s call it off before you get angry at me for real.”

  “You sit there and won’t discuss anything. You don’t really listen. I might as well not be here half the time.”

  “Right. You’re entitled to more than that. But not from me.”

  “I don’t understand you,” she began bitterly.

  “Not worth your time to try.”

  He was afraid she would cry. Her brown eyes grew moist and wavery, but then she shook her head and got up. “You change so radically from one day to the next, I don’t understand.”

  For the next twenty minutes until he had dropped her in the lobby of her apartmenthouse, among the turquoise chairs and doorman in rig and plastic bonsai trees in pots—he tried to concentrate on her and leave her feeling good. He worked to keep his mind off Sam and the phonecall. He felt a little guilty toward Caroline, as if he had been lacking common courtesy. Yet when he left her in the garish lobby, he felt only relief. He would still have time to work on that song before he went to bed.

  Tuesday–Wednesday, October 28–29

  The shadows crept across him as he walked north out of the Loop across the Chicago River that flowed backward with the city sewage, up Michigan Avenue broad and washed in the recent rain, past Tribune Tower (he spat ritualistically) which his, old hero Louis Sullivan said had a spider perched on top: Gothic skyscraper with itchy bricabrac as if the gray stone had dripped crazy in the rain. Tuba of newspapers willful windy hollow and fat with hatred.

  Walking past the pretty shops of North Michigan, the French restaurants and shoe salons and branches of New York stores, he was walking a razorback ridge of money which dropped steeper than a toboggan slide down into slums. Good rock group, kids from there he’d tried to push but the lead guitar got busted. He was walking to Oldtown planning to eat in a little German place, then to take the subway back in plenty of time for the meeting at Harlan’s.

  As he walked north between the lake and goldcoast apartments, the tall buildings created twilight but the sky was a mustard yellow barred with low surly clouds. A brisk damp wind came off the lake. The waves folded into humps of whitecaps. Far out the world had no waist. Lake blended into sky. Against the teeth of the wind he pulled up the collar of his hunting jacket.

  Ahead a woman whose gorgeous freeswinging high ass he had been admiring stopped to let her woolly Afghan shit enormously on the sidewalk. “Caesar, you pig,” she drawled complacently. Her voice made him hasten his step. No, couldn’t be. Three years? She stared through him as he caught up, then suddenly saw him. “Rowley! What do you mean sneaking up on us? How are you!”

  Nina: as gorgeous, more gorgeous. She was five feet ten with a helmet of yellow hair and high hardlooking breasts. He used to run into her all the time when her husband worked for UNA, the neighborhood organization, and always he was conscious of her in a room and knew that she opened up when he spoke to her. She was quiet, and he thought her shy. Once at a fund raising party she had danced with him. That was all. Only he would watch her following Tom Lovis out, towheaded baby on her arm, and almost, almost envy Tom.

  “Have you finally moved around here?” she asked.

  “Still in the same place. I’m on my way to eat.”

  “Here? You mean with someone.”

  “No, I’m walking to Oldtown.”

  “Hiking you mean. You are crazy.” She took his arm. “Have a drink with us if you’re really not meeting a friend. It’s been ages.” The building she steered him into had a Japanese rockgarden in the lobby for contemplation. As they rose in the elevator she leaned against one wall contemplating him. “You’ve gained weight, darling, like a married man. Careful!”

  Anna’s contribution, and Nina had not used to call him by false endearments. “How’s Tom?”

  “Still with Penman and Bates. They think a lot of him.”

  “The PR boys doing the University whitewash?”

  “Don’t be pseudo-wise. The University has its own PR staff. Tom is simply serving as parttime consultant to the planning arm. Anyhow, they don’t listen. At least finally his connections there are doing him some good.”

  The livingroom was white, red and black, and Tom was nowhere to be seen. As the dog gamboled in shaking itself, he wanted to laugh. A nice big turd on the Danish longhair area rug, please. She mixed martinis and made them double.

  “Don’t keep dripping disapproval all over the poor room. We have a decorator in, and why not? You never forget you came from Gary, do you? Union boy from a company town.” She made her eyes large. “I don’t mean to scold. Don’t stand there disassociating, you make me nervous. Come sit.” She patted the white leather expanse of sofa.

  Obediently, reluctantly he sat. Through an open door he could see the unmade kingsize bed. He didn’t particularly want a martini, he didn’t particularly want her: not this way, now. She took his arm conversationally in a grip of steel. “Why not move up here? Chicago is drab otherwise. Why hide down there in a dirty dangerous neighborhood that’s getting worse all the time.”

  “The sight of the lake gives me rheumatism … You used to like it well enough.”

  “Where you can’t leave a package in your car without someone breaking in. Where a woman isn’t safe on the streets.”

  Looking at Nina he thought she was strong enough to hold her own.

  “It’s such a bore—I don’t know why you stay there.” Her hand slid up to his biceps.

  “The best thing you can say is that in pockets anyhow it swings.” His muscle tensed under her hand.

  “We have a Negro doctor and his wife in the building.”


  The clock was long, low, black and chromium with a vaguely trapezoidal dial. He had to count blobs around the circumference to figure the time. “What’s the University doing, Nina? They don’t think they can kick people out for their convenience?”

  “Don’t be sentimental. Have any idea how many families are displaced by every expressway? The University needs an urban environment that can attract middle-class students—and hold middle-class faculty.” Her hand moved up to his shoulder.

  He had forty minutes maximum. The graceful thing would be to gather her up and haul ass into the bedroom, but he was afraid he could not lift her except in a fireman’s carry. “When is Tom arriving? Soon?”

  “Don’t worry.” Her golden throat tilted back. “Not till after eight. And Rhoda’s at her grandmother’s.”

  So he kissed her muscular tanned throat, and her arms sprang around him. Six minutes later he was fucking her on the vast slab of bed with candy striped sheets. The bedroom clock was easier to read. Her body tensed under him, tan except for the imprint of a bikini. As she arched backward with her nails digging in his back, every muscle stood out discretely. This was a wrestling exhibition. Her belly was hard and bouncy as the mattress. Harlan would never forgive him if he missed the meeting. He could remember lusting after Nina’s ass. Then Nina had lived for civic good works and mild causes. She wore homemade dresses and carried her baby in a sling and sat behind a card table red-cheeked with wind and cold raising money for CARE or collecting books for somewhere. That Nina had been a silly woman of easy indignations and patched-up opinions. This one had won a statuette in a woman’s golfing tournament, which swung Fore at him from her dressing table.

  He was propped on set arms pounding at her teak body. Her eyes kept opening to keep watch, then shutting as she concentrated on the building of her tension. He was trying his strength on the carnival strength machine. If he hammered at her cunt long enough the bell would ring and he could climb off. Maybe he would win a cigar.