Going For a Beer

by Robert Coover

  The girl in gold pants hastens out of the big house and down the dark path where earlier the snake slept and past the gutted guest cabin and on down the mottled path toward the boat. To either side of her, flies and bees mumble indolently under the summer sun. A small speckled frog who will not live out the day squats staring on a stone, burps, hops into a darkness. A white moth drifts silently into the web of a spider, flutters there awhile before his execution. Suddenly, there on the path mottled with sunlight, the girl stops short, her breath coming in short gasps, looking around her. Wasn’t this—? Yes, yes, it is the place! A smile begins to form. And in fact, there it is! She waits for Karen.

  Once upon a time there was a beautiful young Princess in tight gold pants, so very tight in fact that no one could remove them from her. Knights came from far and wide, and they huffed and they puffed, and they grunted and they groaned, but the pants would not come down. One rash Knight even went so far as to jam the blade of his sword down the front of the gold pants, striving to pry them from her, but he succeeded only in shattering his sword, much to his lifelong dismay and ignominy. The King at last delivered a Proclamation. “Whosoever shall succeed in pulling my daughter’s pants down,” he declared, “shall have her for his bride!” Since this was perhaps not the most tempting of trophies, the Princess having been married off three times already in previous competitions, the King added: “And moreover he shall have bestowed upon him the Magic Poker, whose powers and prodigies are well-known in the Kingdom!” “The Old Man’s got his bloody cart before his horse,” one Knight complained sourly to a companion upon hearing the Proclamation. “If I had the bloody Poker, you could damn well bet I’d have no trouble gettin’ the bloody pants off her!” Now, it chanced that this heedless remark was overheard by a peculiar little gnome-like creature, huddling naked and unshaven in the brush alongside the road, and no sooner had the words been uttered than this strange fellow determined to steal the Magic Poker and win the beauty for himself. Such an enterprise might well have seemed impossible for even the most dauntless of Knights, much less for so hapless a creature as this poor naked brute with the shaggy loins, but the truth, always stranger than fiction, was that his father had once been the King’s Official Caretaker, and the son had grown up among the mysteries and secret chambers of the Court. Imagine the entire Kingdom’s astonishment, therefore, when, the very next day, the Caretaker’s son appeared, squat, naked, and hirsute, before the King and with grunts and broad gestures made manifest his intention to quit the Princess of her pants and win the prizes for himself! “Indeed!” cried her father. The King’s laughter boomed throughout the Palace, and all the Knights and Ladies joined in, creating the jolliest of uproars. “Bring my daughter here at once!” the King thundered, delighted by the droll spectacle. The Princess, amused, but at the same time somewhat afrighted of the strange little man, stepped timidly forward, her golden haunches gleaming in the bright lights of the Palace. The Caretaker’s son promptly drew forth the Magic Poker, pointed it at the Princess, and—POOF!—the gold pants dropped—plop!—to the Palace floor. “Oh’s!” and “Ah’s!” of amazement and admiration rose up in excited chorus from the crowd of nobles attending this most extraordinary moment. Flushed, trembling, impatient, the Princess grasped the Magic Poker and kissed it—POOF!—a handsome Knight in shining armor of white and navy blue stood before her, smoking a pipe. He drew his sword and slew the Caretaker’s son. Then, smiling at the maiden standing in her puddle of gold pants, he sheathed his sword, knocked the ashes from his pipe bowl, and knelt before the King. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I have slain the monster and rescued your daughter!” “Not at all,” replied the King gloomily. “You have made her a widow. Kiss the fool, my dear!” “No, please!” the Knight begged. “Stop!”

  “Look, Karen, look! See what I found! Do you think we can take it? It doesn’t hurt, does it, I mean, what with everything else—? It’s just beautiful and I can scour off the rust and—?” Karen glances at the poker in the grass, shrugs, smiles in assent, turns to stride on down the rise toward the boat, a small white edge of which can be glimpsed through the trees, below, at the end of the path. “Karen—? Could you please—?” Karen turns around, gazes quizzically at her sister, head tilted to one side—then laughs, a low grunting sound, something like a half-gargle, walks back and picks up the poker, brushes off the insects with her hand. Her sister, delighted, reaches for it, but Karen grunts again, keeps it, carries it down to their boat. There, she washes it clean in the lake water, scrubbing it with sand. She dries it on her dress. “Don’t get your dress dirty, Karen! It’s rusty anyway. We’ll clean it when we get home.” Karen holds it between them a moment before tossing it into the boat, and they both smile to see it. Wet still, it glistens, sparkling with flecks of rainbow-colored light in the sunshine.

  The tall man stands poised before her, smoking his pipe, one hand in the pocket of his navy-blue jacket. Besides the jacket, he wears only a white turtleneck shirt. The girl in gold pants is kissing him. From the tip of his crown to the least of his toes. Nothing happens. Only a bitter wild goose taste in the mouth. Something is wrong. “Karen!” Karen laughs, a low grunting sound, then takes hold of the man and lifts her skirts. “No, Karen! Please!” he cries, laughing. “Stop!” POOF! From her skirts, Karen withdraws a wrought-iron poker, long and slender with an intricately worked handle. “It’s beautiful, Karen!” her sister exclaims and reaches for it. Karen grunts again, holds it up between them a moment, and they both smile to see it. It glistens in the sunshine, a handsome souvenir of a beautiful day.

  Soon the bay is still again, the silver fish and the dragonflies are returned, and only the slightest murmur near the shore by the old waterlogged lumber betrays the recent disquiet. The boat is already far out on the lake, its stern confronting us in retreat. The family who prepared this island does not know the girls have been here, nor would it astonish them to hear of it. As a matter of fact, with that touch of the divinity common to the rich, they have probably forgotten why they built all the things on this island in the first place, or whatever possessed them seriously to concern themselves, to squander good hours, over the selection of this or that object to decorate the newly made spaces or to do the things that had usually to be done, over the selection of this or that iron poker, for example. The boat is almost out of sight, so distant in fact, it’s no longer possible to see its occupants or even to know how many there are—all just a blurred speck on the bright sheen laid on the lake by the lowering sun. The lake is calm. Here, a few shadows lengthen, a frog dies, a strange creature lies slain, a tanager sings.

  THE BABYSITTER

  (1969)

  She arrives at 7:40, ten minutes late, but the children, Jimmy and Bitsy, are still eating supper, and their parents are not ready to go yet. From other rooms come the sounds of a baby screaming, water running, a television musical (no words: probably a dance number—patterns of gliding figures come to mind). Mrs. Tucker sweeps into the kitchen, fussing with her hair, and snatches a baby bottle full of milk out of a pan of warm water, rushes out again. “Harry!” she calls. “The babysitter’s here already!”

  That’s My Desire? I’ll Be Around? He smiles toothily, beckons faintly with his head, rubs his fast balding pate. Bewitched, maybe? Or, What’s the Reason? He pulls on his shorts, gives his hips a slap. The baby goes silent in mid-scream. Isn’t this the one who used their tub last time? Who’s Sorry Now, that’s it.

  Jack is wandering around town, not knowing what to do. His girlfriend is babysitting at the Tuckers’, and later, when she’s got the kids in bed, maybe he’ll drop over there. Sometimes he watches TV with her when she’s babysitting, it’s about the only chance he gets to make out a little since he doesn’t own wheels, but they have to be careful because most people don’t like their sitters to have boyfriends over. Just kissing her makes her nervous. She won’t close her eyes because she has to be watching the door all the time. Married people really have it good, he thinks.


  “Hi,” the babysitter says to the children, and puts her books on top of the refrigerator. “What’s for supper?” The little girl, Bitsy, only stares at her obliquely. She joins them at the end of the kitchen table. “I don’t have to go to bed until nine,” the boy announces flatly, and stuffs his mouth full of potato chips. The babysitter catches a glimpse of Mr. Tucker hurrying out of the bathroom in his underwear.

  Her tummy. Under her arms. And her feet. Those are the best places. She’ll spank him, she says sometimes. Let her.

  That sweet odor that girls have. The softness of her blouse. He catches a glimpse of the gentle shadows amid her thighs, as she curls her legs up under her. He stares hard at her. He has a lot of meaning packed into that stare, but she’s not even looking. She’s popping her gum and watching television. She’s sitting right there, inches away, soft, fragrant, and ready: but what’s his next move? He notices his buddy Mark in the drugstore, playing the pinball machine, and joins him. “Hey, this mama’s cold, Jack baby! She needs your touch!”

  Mrs. Tucker appears at the kitchen doorway, holding a rolled-up diaper. “Now, don’t just eat potato chips, Jimmy! See that he eats his hamburger, dear.” She hurries away to the bathroom. The boy glares sullenly at the babysitter, silently daring her to carry out the order. “How about a little of that good hamburger now, Jimmy?” she says perfunctorily. He lets half of it drop to the floor. The baby is silent and a man is singing a love song on the TV. The children crunch chips.

  He loves her. She loves him. They whirl airily, stirring a light breeze, through a magical landscape of rose and emerald and deep blue. Her light brown hair coils and wisps softly in the breeze, and the soft folds of her white gown tug at her body and then float away. He smiles in a pulsing crescendo of sincerity and song.

  “You mean she’s alone?” Mark asks. “Well, there’s two or three kids,” Jack says. He slides the coin in. There’s a rumble of steel balls tumbling, lining up. He pushes a plunger with his thumb, and one ball pops up in place, hard and glittering with promise. His stare? to say he loves her. That he cares for her and would protect her, would shield her, if need be, with his own body. Grinning, he bends over the ball to take careful aim: he and Mark have studied this machine and have it figured out, but still it’s not that easy to beat.

  On the drive to the party, his mind is partly on the girl, partly on his own high-school days, long past. Sitting at the end of the kitchen table there with his children, she had seemed to be self-consciously arching her back, jutting her pert breasts, twitching her thighs: and for whom if not for him? So she’d seen him coming out of there, after all. He smiles. Yet what could he ever do about it? Those good times are gone, old man. He glances over at his wife, who, readjusting a garter, asks: “What do you think of our babysitter?”

  He loves her. She loves him. And then the babies come. And dirty diapers and one goddamn meal after another. Dishes. Noise. Clutter. And fat. Not just tight, her girdle actually hurts. Somewhere recently she’s read about women getting heart attacks or cancer or something from too-tight girdles. Dolly pulls the car door shut with a grunt, strangely irritated, not knowing why. Party mood. Why is her husband humming, “Who’s Sorry Now?” Pulling out of the drive, she glances back at the lighted kitchen window. “What do you think of our babysitter?” she asks. While her husband stumbles all over himself trying to answer, she pulls a stocking tight, biting deeper with the garters.

  “Stop it!” she laughs. Bitsy is pulling on her skirt and he is tickling her in the ribs. “Jimmy! Don’t!” But she is laughing too much to stop him. He leaps on her, wrapping his legs around her waist, and they all fall to the carpet in front of the TV, where just now a man in a tuxedo and a little girl in a flouncy white dress are doing a tapdance together. The babysitter’s blouse is pulling out of her skirt, showing a patch of bare tummy: the target. “I’ll spank!”

  Jack pushes the plunger, thrusting up a steel ball, and bends studiously over the machine. “You getting any off her?” Mark asks, and clears his throat, flicks ash from his cigarette. “Well, not exactly, not yet,” Jack says, grinning awkwardly, but trying to suggest more than he admits to, and fires. He heaves his weight gently against the machine as the ball bounds off a rubber bumper. He can feel her warming up under his hands, the flippers suddenly coming alive, delicate rapid-fire patterns emerging in the flashing of the lights. 1000 WHEN LIT: now! “Got my hand on it, that’s about all.” Mark glances up from the machine, cigarette dangling from his lip. “Maybe you need some help,” he suggests with a wry one-sided grin. “Like maybe together, man, we could do it.”

  She likes the big tub. She uses the Tuckers’ bath salts, and loves to sink into the hot fragrant suds. She can stretch out, submerged, up to her chin. It gives her a good sleepy tingly feeling.

  “What do you think of our babysitter?” Dolly asks, adjusting a garter. “Oh, I hardly noticed,” he says. “Cute girl. She seems to get along fine with the kids. Why?” “I don’t know.” His wife tugs her skirt down, glances at a lighted window they are passing, adding: “I’m not sure I trust her completely, that’s all. With the baby, I mean. She seems a little careless. And the other time, I’m almost sure she had a boyfriend over.” He grins, claps one hand on his wife’s broad gartered thigh. “What’s wrong with that?” he asks. Still in anklets, too. Bare thighs, no girdles, nothing up there but a flimsy pair of panties and soft adolescent flesh. He’s flooded with vague remembrances of football rallies and movie balconies.

  How tiny and rubbery it is! she thinks, soaping between the boy’s legs, giving him his bath. Just a funny jiggly little thing that looks like it shouldn’t even be there at all. Is that what all the songs are about?

  Jack watches Mark lunge and twist against the machine. Got her running now, racking them up. He’s not too excited about the idea of Mark fooling around with his girlfriend, but Mark’s a cooler operator than he is, and maybe, doing it together this once, he’d get over his own timidity. And if she didn’t like it, there were other girls around. If Mark went too far, he could cut him off, too. He feels his shoulders tense: enough’s enough, man . . . but sees the flesh, too. “Maybe I’ll call her later,” he says.

  “Hey, Harry! Dolly! Glad you could make it!” “I hope we’re not late.” “No, no, you’re one of the first, come on in! By golly, Dolly, you’re looking younger every day! How do you do it? Give my wife your secret, will you?” He pats her on her girdled bottom behind Mr. Tucker’s back, leads them in for drinks.

  8:00. The babysitter runs water in the tub, combs her hair in front of the bathroom mirror. There’s a western on television, so she lets Jimmy watch it while she gives Bitsy her bath. But Bitsy doesn’t want a bath. She’s angry and crying because she has to be first. The babysitter tells her if she’ll take her bath quickly, she’ll let her watch television while Jimmy takes his bath, but it does no good. The little girl fights to get out of the bathroom, and the babysitter has to squat with her back against the door and forcibly undress the child. There are better places to babysit. Both children mind badly, and then, sooner or later, the baby is sure to wake up for a diaper change and more bottle. The Tuckers do have a good color TV, though, and she hopes things will be settled down enough to catch the 8:30 program. She thrusts the child into the tub, but she’s still screaming and thrashing around. “Stop it now, Bitsy, or you’ll wake the baby!” “I have to go potty!” the child wails, switching tactics. The babysitter sighs, lifts the girl out of the tub and onto the toilet, getting her skirt and blouse all wet in the process. She glances at herself in the mirror. Before she knows it, the girl is off the seat and out of the bathroom. “Bitsy! Come back here!”

  “Okay, that’s enough!” Her skirt is ripped and she’s flushed and crying. “Who says?” “I do, man!” The bastard goes for her, but he tackles him. They roll and tumble. Tables tip, lights topple, the TV crashes to the floor. He slams a hard right to the guy’s gut, clips his chin with a rolling left.

  “We hope it’s
a girl.” That’s hardly surprising, since they already have four boys. Dolly congratulates the woman like everybody else, but she doesn’t envy her, not a bit. That’s all she needs about now. She stares across the room at Harry, who is slapping backs and getting loud, as usual. He’s spreading out through the middle, so why the hell does he have to complain about her all the time? “Dolly, you’re looking younger every day!” was the nice greeting she got tonight. “What’s your secret?” And Harry: “It’s all those calories. She’s getting back her baby fat.” “Haw haw! Harry, have a heart!”

  “Get her feet!” he hollers at Bitsy, his fingers in her ribs, running over her naked tummy, tangling in the underbrush of straps and strange clothing. “Get her shoes off!” He holds her pinned by pressing his head against her soft chest. “No! No, Jimmy! Bitsy, stop!” But though she kicks and twists and rolls around, she doesn’t get up, she can’t get up, she’s laughing too hard, and the shoes come off, and he grabs a stockinged foot and scratches the sole ruthlessly, and she raises up her legs, trying to pitch him off, she’s wild, boy, but he hangs on, and she’s laughing, and on the screen there’s a rattle of hooves, and he and Bitsy are rolling around and around on the floor in a crazy rodeo of long bucking legs.