by Stan Hayes
“He puts it in the goddam bank.”
“Hell. How do you know?”
“I saw his bank book one time. He keeps it in his shoe.”
“In his SHOE? Bullshit.”
“He does,” Freddy said, grinning like a fool. “He took his shoe off one time, and it fell out. That Ziggy’s smart; puts his money in the bank where it draws interest, borrows from everybody he can and don’t pay no interest.”
“Damn,” I said, as impressed as I was surprised. “And that fuckin’ coon’s been ridin’ my ass all this time. How much you reckon he’s got?”
“I got no idea, and he’ll never tell. Just don’t waste your time worryin’ about Zig. He’ll always take care of himself.”
“And you know what he’d say.”
“What?”
“Awright, den.”
Freddy laughed so hard he had a coughing fit. “No shit! He says that all the fuckin time!”
“Not just him. Lots of ‘em do.”
“Awright, den,” he said, laughing even harder.
“Awright, den,” I said, laughing at how funny it struck him.
“Awright, den,” he wheezed, struggling to get his breath.
Sometimes we can get a little silly about shit like that; good thing we have Ziggy to kid around with, though, because some of the movies are really boring. During the week we have love pictures, with the woman crying, slapping the man, and then crying some more. They almost always make up by the end, looking at each other like they weren’t ever mad in the first place. The actors, people like Greer Garson and George Brent, aren’t in any other kind of picture. Lee Webster talks about each feature in the Winston commercials on WBQE. He acts like he’s a character in the movie, saying stuff like “No one, not even I, a police inspector, could believe that Ivy had had anything to do with her husband’s death…” He really gets ’em going. Some women come to see every one; even Mom comes to see a lot of them. I wonder if she and Mose ever carry on like that; I sure hope not.
At the Wednesday matinee, we have a drawing; whoever has the winning ticket stub gets a set of dishes or silverware, or something else that Mose has made a deal for. He really can deal; last Valentine’s Day it was a wedding dress, and the week before Easter a ladies’ hat, both from Browne & Browne’s. Then, in June, he let the girl whose aunt won the wedding dress get married in it on Sunday morning on the Winston stage, and all the guests got free passes. It’s getting so the Winston seems like one of the official places in town, like a church, or a bank, or something.
But the best thing Mose has done’s gonna happen this Friday. Tex Ritter’s coming to town! First we’re gonna show his picture Marked for Murder, then he’s gonna come on stage and sing.
“That big ole Tex’us sump’m, wadn’t he?” said Jack through a mouthful of waffle. They sat by themselves on the terrace of Moses’ house, he having gone to the Winston after getting their breakfast ready.
“Sho was. I liike to’ve laughed my aiess off when he’us singin’ that Rye Whiskey. I thought he’us gonna fall offa that damn stool every time his head dropped down like he’us passin’ out,” laughed Ricky. “That ’us a whole lot better’n th’ movie, aan’ th’ movie wadn’t bad. Whipped up on th’ bad guys ’n made th’ ranchers ’n th’ sheepherders get along. Got th’ girl, too.”
“He ’us real niice about signin’ ’is pictures for everybody. Stayed around ’til he’d signed everything in siit. Seemed jus’ liike he is in th’ movies. You know sump’m else I liike about him? He talks liike he ’us from around here someplace. Roy Rogers don’t sound western or southern either one, to me, and Gene Autry just plain talks through ’is nose. Sings thataway, too.”
“How’dja liike ’at car?” said Ricky, reaching for the bacon. As’sa best-lookin’ Cadillac I ever saw. Th’ driver tole me it ’us a V12. Special-made on a ’38 chassis. With them big spare tires like Mose’s ole Buick. Look even bigger on a convertibile, don’t they?”
“Yeah, the way that back end draws down to a point. We’d fit jus’ perfect in th’ rumble seat. Howja liike it if we coulda gone with ’em?”
“Tell ya how I’d liike it,” said Ricky, grinning at the horizon. Us in ’at rumble seat wid Rita Hayworth in th’ middle, playin’ wid dem titties alla way back ta Hollywood.”
The high-priced end of Augusta, Moses concluded, looked a lot like the high-priced end of Old Lyme, or any of those other Connecticut towns through which his dad would drive them, him and his Mom, on numberless, aimless “house-hunting” weekends back in the twenties. Large well-kept houses on well-manicured lawns. The driveway that they turned into led to one of the more modest structures, a kind of Cape Cod contemporary with a two-car garage, into which they drove the cars after Moses had slid the overhead door open. “The large key unlocks that door right there,” said Ríni, indicating the door that led from the garage to the house.
They entered the house between the kitchen and a large breakfast area set into a bay-windowed alcove. A faint odor of pine-scented disinfectant punctuated the house’s dust-free order. “Nice place,” said Moses.
“Sure is,” she said. The real estate people make sure it stays that way, not that they rent it out all that much. Let’s unpack and get comfortable.”
The master bedroom opened onto a sundeck that was fenced on both sides, overlooking a patch of freshly-cut, bright-green Bermuda grass. A boxwood hedge and stand of old poplars closed off the back of the lot, shielding the deck from casual view. “You could get a lot of sun out there,” he said, noting the two padded lounge chairs that sat on either side of a white-painted wrought iron table.
“That’s why we brought swim suits,” said Ríni. “It’s sunny out there pretty much all day. Not that we really need ‘em, the way they’ve got the deck fenced off. Now. How ’bout stirring us up some Bloody Marys, and let’s get this here party under way!”
Although they’d been lovers for over a year, this was the first time they’d been able to get out of Bisque for a weekend. Moses had just gotten comfortable enough with the thought of leaving Freddy George in charge of the Winston for a couple of days, and Jack was staying with Ricky. Not that they’d left together; they made the half-hour drive from Bisque nose-to-tail, the Roadmaster trailing her well-worn ’42 Hudson station wagon. Ríni had her regular ruse of visiting a high school chum, Martha Harris, whose telephone number she could leave, and Moses was on a “business trip” to Atlanta, telling Freddy he’d call to check in with him.
He went to the kitchen and emptied two grocery bags. Obsessed as ever with the loveliness of her body, he’d thought about very little but seeing her naked, at ease and in broad daylight, since they first talked about coming here. Vodka, salt, lime juice, Tabasco, Lea & Perrins into two squat tumblers, sweet tits on his mind, swinging loose and heavy underneath, taut across the tops as they tie back to her collarbones, nipples dark pink bullseyes in paler silky areoles. Undercurves replicated in the cheeks of her butt. He shook a can of V8, punched holes in the top and poured, leaving room for ice. Two sets of sweet wet lips, he thought, opening quickly to my touch. My cup runneth over. God, I need another pair of hands to touch all those parts at once. Matter of fact, there just needs to be two of me to do her the way I want to.
It was as though she’d read his mind. She stood naked at the bathroom door, luxuriating in her sunlight-dappled skin. She extended a hand to take one of the drinks, smiling at her surprise and its effect on him. She took a quick sip and set the glass down. “Very nice,” she said as she closed the distance between them and kissed him, Tabasco-heat fusing their mouths. “OK, Chili, let’s christen this joint, one room at a time.”
They lay prone on the loungers, which he’d moved together, letting the noonday sun do a few minutes’ work on their whiteness. “So how long have you known these folks?” he asked.
“Since Columbia,” she said. “Hap was a senior and Maggie a precocious freshman, out of the New York High School of Performing Arts. She was sixt
een, a day student living at home. We had a class together- life drawing- and her work was so good that she quickly became the talk of the department. I thought I knew what I was doing with anatomy, but she absolutely intimidated the rest of the class, including me. We were enough alike, though, that we became friends almost overnight. I was already going out with Larry, who stayed in the Physics labs ’til all hours, so we started doing stuff together- movies, listening to music in her room, galleries, going to bars- her driver’s license had the necessary date, of course- and one day Hap walked up and started talking to us. He was an Art History major, and he, like everyone else in the department, had heard about Maggie. Well, things progressed, they got together, and we became a foursome, as much as Larry’s workload permitted, that is. The rest of the time we were a threesome. Hap’d take us both around town to hit the high spots- and the low spots. New York in the thirties- you remember- wasn’t a bad place to pub-crawl. Hap always had money- his dad owned the Rutherford Galleries, where he’d be going to work after graduation.”
“And where your work’s being shown now.”
“Right.”
“Sounds like big times for a small-town girl,” said Moses.
“Yeah, we had some really fine times, and when Maggie turned eighteen she and I got a place together, a loft on Third Avenue big enough for the guys to sleep over on weekends. Well, things went really well for quite awhile, and then, looking back on it, the inevitable happened and I found myself looking both graduation and motherhood in the face.”
“But you all stayed in touch as things, as you say, progressed.”
“Oh yeah, they stood up with us at the wedding- just the four of us, at a place called The Little Church Around the Corner-”
“Oh yeah,” said Moses, “I’ve heard of it.”
“… and Maggie went on living with me until Jack was born. God knows she was a lot of help, standing by me through the before-and-after of telling my dad. They were at Jack’s christening, and baby-sat him later on- they finally got married in ’38- but there’s a gulf, and a big one, between couples with children and those without. So our friendship survived, but on a different basis. We had to grow up and they didn’t.”
“That’s always the deal, I suppose. But you guys had Jack.”
“Yes we did. And do. I didn’t say that I’d rather’ve been doing what Maggie and Hap were doing instead of having Jack. It was just different, my role in particular; I was a mother now, first, last and always. Not that Larry wasn’t a good father, as far as he understood what being a good father was all about; it just took second place to his work. After all was said and done, he was an Associate Professor of Physics at Columbia, pushing for promotion and tenure. I felt, sometimes, that he dealt with marriage and fatherhood as he did with other things that were outside his work; necessary distractions from the main point of his life.”
“I know. Same with my dad. Those guys do most of their living inside their heads.” Moses sat up. “I think I’m done on this side, and it looks like you are, too. Ready to roll over?”
“Yeah. And enough of the Life of Ríni for awhile.” She rolled over and lay back down, using the back of her hand to brush beads of sweat from her brow. “Come sit over here, why don’t you?” she asked. “No, honey, not like that; straddle it.” She brought her knees up to her chin. “Come closer, young man, to learn the secrets of the Orient. Put some more of that oil on me; you, too.”
A long, soapy shower later they lay naked on the bed, the covers turned down, waiting for the wispy breeze that wafted through the house to cool the heat that lingered from near-sunburn. “Where exactly were you?” she asked.
“When?”
“Then, in New York. While I was bellying up to motherhood.”
He laughed. “Nice way to put it. Well, I was over on the East Side, projecting films for the loyal patrons of the Apollyon Cinema on East 58th, despondin’ over my almost-career as a light-heavyweight.”
Light-heavyweight? But didn’t you stop fighting in the twenties?”
“Well, my last fight, if you wanta be charitable, was in April of ’32. A prelim for the Atlantic Fleet championships. Which, being out of shape and paranoid about getting caught with my boss’s wife, I lost. Damn near by a knockout.”
“And by ’37, you were still ‘desponding’? Oh Jesus. Somewhere in there you broke your leg.” She reached down to stroke the streaky pale blue scars on his right shin.
He winced, even though there was no pain. “Well, actually, a cab broke my leg. But the despondin’ would’ve gone on just the same, because by then I was dealing with the fact that, even with two good legs, I didn’t have it in me to get to the top as a fighter. And I was sitting in there in an East Side projection booth, pushing thirty.”
“I’ll bet you had some help with the desponding, though,” she said.
“You mean women?”
“I don’t mean sheep dogs, Bub. Somebody- or bodies- must’ve helped you ditch the blues.”
“Well, I had a couple of pals over that time who blunted the edges a tad. Nothing like you, though.”
“Tell me.”
“What?”
“About your pals. What they did for you. Specifically.”
“Why?”
“I might pick up a pointer or two about what you like, for one. For two, it’ll excite the hell out of me,” she said.
“OK. If you’ll reciprocate.”
“You want to hear my fuck list?”
“If you think it’ll excite the hell out of me.”
“OK. And I’ll go first. Hap and Maggie.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘Hap and Maggie’?”
“Just that. Hap and Maggie made love to me. On this bed.”
A sudden chill flashed through his guts. “How’d that happen?”
“I called them to tell them that Jack and I were back in Bisque, and why, and they invited me over here for a weekend. We had dinner, and were sitting out in the living room with brandy and coffee. One minute they were consoling me, and the next they were kissing me. Maggie slipped her hand inside my blouse, and looked at me for permission. I just looked back at her; then Hap kissed me, and I kissed him back. When we finished, he pulled back to look at me. He said, ‘Ríni, we’ve always loved you, and we thought you might enjoy making love with us. If it doesn’t appeal to you, we’ll stop right now.’ ”
“But it did appeal to you,” said Moses.
“Yes, it did. I was lonely, had been for a long time, and I wanted them to fuck me. And they did.”
Moses’ thumb and forefinger had encircled his dick. “How was it?”
“Really good. We went into the bedroom; they were gentle, and they were thorough. And I reciprocated. We did each other in every way we could think of, until we were exhausted. Then we fell asleep. I waked up the next morning to feel Hap’s fingers in my pussy. He got them slick with my juice and slid one into my butt.”
“Roll over and let me,” said Moses. She did, moving onto her hands and knees. As before, he used his thumb, putting some suntan oil on it, spreading more over her cheeks. Its fruity-metal fumes filled his head as he thrust into her.
“Ooh. Gently. Just like that. I’d never felt anything like it. By now Maggie had waked up too, and moved over to kiss on me. He didn’t move it much at first, just in a sort of circling motion. Then he added a finger, and started moving them in and out. He must’ve done it for ten minutes, until I was really relaxed. Then he spread the pre-come that was drooling out of his dick over the head and slipped it in. God, it felt good, and Maggie kept on kissing me while he fucked my butt ’til I came. Then I got up and made coffee, while Hap did Maggie.” Moses had slipped two fingers into her pussy, and flicked her clit with his ring finger.
“That thing of yours feels like the nozzle on a firehose.”
“I know. Oooh, baby, that feels good. Don’t stop; let me come like this, and then you can fuck me all you want to.”
They napped until midafternoon. “
Hey,” he said, rolling over on an elbow.
“Hey yourself. We passed out.”
“Yeah. And I still owe you the story of my escape from the slough of despond.”
She looked up at him. “Still love me?”
“Sure,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“After hearing what a slut I am?”
“Bullshit. You are a sex-bomb, but who can complain about that?”
“You didn’t have all that much fun in New York, did you?” she asked.
“Nope. Why do you think I bailed out to Baltimore?”
She was out of bed when he woke up. “Hey,” he called into her absence, “are you here?”
“Hey yourself, Chili. Just uncorking a nice cool rosé, and getting your surprise ready.”
“Oh. Another surprise already?”
“The best yet, I hope. You know what I do, right?”
“I know many things that you do. Which one did you have in mind?”
“The part that involves my art. I’m going to make a cast of that magnificent dick of yours, after I suck it a little. I want to feel every one of those veins in my throat, so I’ll remember what it felt like when I’m working on the sculpture.”
“A cast? My dick’s not going in a cast, now or ever.”
“I’m not putting a cast on it; just a nice little red rubber coat, and you can lick my pussy while I do it. It’s painless, and then I can put that boomerang in one of my sculptures-to-be.” She appeared in the doorway, her hands full, still naked. “I need that dick as hard as it’s ever been; that’s what the rubber band’s for. Now I’m just gonna ease down on you; you lick and I’ll suck. I wanta feel every one of those veins slidin’ across my throat. Then when you’re nice and stony I’ll oil you up so this liquid latex won’t stick. Wait’ll you see it when it dries.”
“Damn. What I don’t do for art. Lemme have that wine,” he said, taking the bottle from her.
Shaking out the raw rice that she’d poured into the mold of Moses’ penis to hold its shape into a large bowl of the same grain, Serena wrapped her fingers around the thin tube of red rubber, its ragged, hair-embedded flange snug against her thumb and forefinger, and poured plaster of paris from a quart-size measuring cup into the cylinder until it was full. Glad he was circumsized, she thought. Where is it, somewhere in France, that they claim they have the True Foreskin? Christ’s little cracker. Too bad they didn’t have liquid rubber back then. She carefully moved her hand over the rice bowl and made an indentation into its surface, easing the mold into the rice and continuing to deepen the hole with her other hand. Soon she had the mold surrounded with rice, which would support it until it dried. She moved the bowl carefully to a nearby shelf and stepped back to look at her handiwork.
