Strange Are the Ways of Love

by Lawrence Block

  “I’m not miserable.”

  “You will be if you don’t learn to live with yourself. Do you know what it’s like to live a lie? You worry every minute over somebody finding out that you’re gay. You’re sensitive to everything.

  “Jan, you can go out of your mind that way. One day you’ll pick up a newspaper and see a headline that says Flood Waters Rise; Dikes Threatened and you’ll get defensive. You’ll—”

  Jan laughed.

  “I mean it,” Laura went on. “It isn’t enough to accept yourself. You’ve got to accept the fact that the world is going to know what you are.”

  “Can you accept it?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “Does your mother know?”

  “Do you think she’d be so anxious to support me if she didn’t? This way she knows I’ll stay away from her and her precious husband.”

  Jan tried to picture herself telling her father, with him unable to understand it at all. She thought of what it would be like to tell the people she knew—Ruthie, Mike, her few friends from Indiana. The picture was unreal and impossible.

  “I couldn’t,” she said, half to Laura and half to herself.

  “You will, honey. You’ll have to.”

  “But I couldn’t!”

  Laura smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Relax. You’ll tell them in time, or else they’ll find out and confront you with it. But forget it for now. It’s only been two days, Jan. Not even that. I think you’re still a little bit afraid of it all.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “No?”

  “Nope,” she said.

  “You’re tough, I suppose.”

  “Tough as nails.”

  “You chew nails.”

  “And spit bullets.”

  “Come here, toughie. Kiss me.”

  “That okay?”

  “Mmmmm. Do it again.”

  “God, how I love you!”

  “Tell me again.”

  “I love you, Jan.”

  Teasingly, “Again.”

  “I . . . oh, Jan!”

  “I like the way you’re dressed, Jan.”

  “I’m not dressed, really. I’m all mussed up.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So don’t play semantic games. But I do like your clothes. You should always wear gold, honey.”

  “You like it?”

  “I like it on you very much. And the top is perfect. You should always wear that sort of neckline.”

  “Why?”

  Laura laughed. “Nope. I won’t be forced into a compliment.”

  “Laura?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Do you like me?”

  “Idiot.”

  “Then just sort of hold me, because it’s so quiet and peaceful when you do.”

  “Poor baby. You’re sleepy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why don’t you take a little nap?”

  “You mean like this?”

  “Sure. Just close your eyes and sleep for awhile.”

  She obeyed. It was unbelievably restful in Laura’s arms. Laura leaned back a little and her head dropped to Laura’s bosom. It was soft and warm beneath her cheek.

  Sleepily, “Laura?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t let go of me.”

  “I won’t, silly.”

  “Mmmmm. Don’t let go, Laura. Because if you do I’ll fall. I’m all right when you hold me.”

  12

  HER NAME WAS Peggy Cordovan and she was drunk.

  Very drunk, she decided. Almost too drunk to know where she was and definitely too drunk to know where she was going.

  She was on Thompson Street. She knew that, because she had left The Shadows when it had closed, and since it was Wednesday night it must be around four A.M. Which meant that it was Thursday morning, when you came right down to it.

  But what was the point of coming right down to it? That was the most excellent thing about getting drunk—you didn’t have to come down to it until you woke up the next morning or afternoon with a head that was two sizes too big. Then you came down, hard, but until then you could fly around like a sparrow on marijuana, flying around and even chirping.

  She came to a corner and peered intently at the street sign, trying to put the letters together to form words. Thompson and Houston, the sign said. She had managed to wander south and east, and this wasn’t particularly good because the neighborhood wasn’t particularly nice, not nice at all, and if she weren’t drunk she would be a little scared by it all, but why be afraid now, why be scared because she was drunk and God protected drunks and fools and she qualified on both counts.

  There was no place to go.

  That was the hell of it. There ought to be a place to sleep somewhere, even alone, because she didn’t want to sleep with anyone else yet except Laura, who didn’t want to sleep with her. But there ought to be an empty bed for her to crawl into. She had found one Sunday night and Monday night and Tuesday night, although she couldn’t remember whether she had taken a hotel room or slept at a friend’s place or exactly what she had done.

  This was nice. Just letting her mind ramble on and not giving a good goddamn about anything, just walking south on Thompson Street into a perfectly wretched neighborhood and not caring, this was what she needed. She had to practice not caring about things and pretty soon she wouldn’t care about anything at all and she would never be hurt again. She would be strong and bitter and tough and never care any more and that would be better and infinitely safer.

  There were footsteps behind her.

  She was aware of this suddenly, and with the awareness came the realization that there had been footsteps behind her all the way from The Shadows, footsteps that she hadn’t quite noticed until just now. She listened closely and discovered that more than one person was following her. Two at least. Maybe more.

  She decided that she ought to be frightened. Here she was in a lousy neighborhood with someone right behind her and she ought to run like hell. But, strangely, she wasn’t frightened at all.

  She didn’t run. She was drunk and nothing was worth worrying about, so instead of running she simply turned around and walked back again to find out what sort of sons-of-bitches were following her and just what they wanted from her young life.

  She kept walking until she was within ten yards of them. Then she stopped and they stopped and she looked at them carefully.

  There were four of them. They were young, around eighteen, and they were big and they looked strong. They were dressed alike in tight dungarees and black leather jackets with zippers on the pockets.

  Christ, she thought, it’s just like the movies. Sideburned teenage toughs in black leather jackets. I ought to be scared out of my wits.

  But she wasn’t.

  What could they want? If they were after money they had the wrong pigeon. Her purse was someplace, but she hadn’t the slightest idea where.

  What did they want?

  I’ll ask them, she decided. That ought to be the best way to find out. “What do you want, fellows?”

  One of them snickered and they all put their hands on their hips, all at the same time, and it was funny the way they all did the same thing at the same time like a bunch of robots. She started to smile.

  “What do you think we want?” one of them demanded.

  “That’s a silly question. Would I ask if I knew?”

  The one who had asked the question seemed to be the leader. He was a little taller than the rest and a little more ferocious in appearance. “We want you,” he announced. “What else?”

  She was puzzled.

  “We been following you a long ways. Nobody awake at this hour. No cops around. See?”

  She didn’t see.

  “All the way from that dike joint we followed you. Hell, what’s a good looker like you doing being a lady-lover? It don’t make sense.”

&
nbsp; Doesn’t, she thought.

  The tall one snickered again, and she thought that it was a most unpleasant sound, not a nice snicker at all. Come to think of it, how did people snicker pleasantly? That was something to think about.

  “It’s such a waste,” he went on. “We figure it’s because you never had a chance to learn better, and maybe if you had a chance it’d do you some good. Get the picture?”

  She was beginning to get the picture. She was beginning to see it, although the lines were still slightly fuzzy. She realized what was going to happen to her and that it was the most terrible thing that could happen to anyone and especially the most terrible thing that could every happen to her, and she was beginning to get frightened and a little sober.

  “Hey,” she said. “Wait a minute.”

  “Why wait? Pretty soon it’ll be getting light out. We been waiting all night.”

  Then he took a step toward her and she wanted to scream but she couldn’t scream, not quite, not yet, and by the time she was ready to scream it was too late. His hand was pressed tightly over her mouth and the fingers of his other hand were digging into her shoulder, hurting her.

  He took his hand away and another of the boys slipped a piece of tape over her mouth so that she still couldn’t scream. They had her surrounded now. Behind her was a store entrance and there were boys all around her.

  They knew that she was helpless. Now that they had caught her, now that it had all been so easy for them, they didn’t seem to be paying any special attention to her.

  She was merely a girl to be raped. She might just as well be a car to be stolen or a boy to be beaten up, it didn’t matter. The smallest of the boys was looking at her with something approaching hunger in his eyes, but the others gave no real indication that they were about to rape her. She knew what was going to happen. But she couldn’t believe it was actually going to happen to her.

  “I’ll go first,” the tall one said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. It was my idea, wasn’t it?”

  The other shrugged, as though it didn’t really matter very much, and the tall boy took a step forward and drove his fist into her stomach. The pain shot through her and she doubled up, trying to shout through the piece of tape and suddenly very much afraid, knowing that it was definitely going to happen, and not wanting it to happen, not wanting it at all.

  He hit her again, slapping her sharply across the face and shoving her down onto the pavement. Then he was tearing at her clothing, hungry for her, impatient. She heard him breathing heavily and she started to struggle, pushing and clawing at him with her little hands. Then his knee shot into her stomach and it hurt, hurt so badly that she closed her eyes and stopped struggling, unable to move or feel or even think about anything but the pain that was shooting through her body.

  He tore at her blouse and ripped off her bra, his hands digging into her flesh so that she ached to scream her lungs out. She had to make him stop but there was nothing she could do.

  “She’s nice,” one of them said.

  And then it happened. When she couldn’t struggle any more he took her, forcing her, hurting her, and a stab of pain screamed through her. Nothing existed for her but the pain. She wished that it would stop, hoped that she would die so that the pain would be over, but she didn’t die and it didn’t stop and her whole body was twisting and crying and dying inside until finally, finally it was over.

  There was hardly a break. Before she could think, before she could fully realize that he was through with her, the second one was taking her and hurting her all over again. This time she couldn’t struggle at all.

  She lay on the cold sidewalk inert while the two remaining boys took their turns with her. She thought that it was going to go on this way forever, that the rest of her life would be one continuous rape, a never-ending succession of pain with hard bodies pressing down upon her.

  After the fourth boy had finished she lay alone on the pavement waiting for a fifth, until the realization came that it was over, that she had indeed lived through it.

  “Let’s go,” one of them said.

  “Jesus, that was nice.”

  “C’mon.”

  She listened to the footsteps as they left, still hearing the voices and not bothering to figure out which way they were headed. Finally as the footsteps faded away she opened her eyes.

  The drunkenness was long gone. Everything was gone, everything but the pain. Laura was gone and the boys were gone and now even her virginity was gone. The thin membrane that was the last sign of innocence had been torn from her.

  She had nothing left.

  Slowly, painfully, she hauled herself to her feet. She pulled the shreds of her clothing around her to cover herself as well as she could. She seemed to be bruised all over, and she wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, some place where she could be all alone with no one to see her and no one to talk to her and no one to hurt her any more. She walked south on Thompson Street, not going any place in particular because there was no place for her to go, because it no longer mattered in the least where she went.

  She had lost more than her virginity. She had lost her innocence, and perhaps that was a good thing. Perhaps the pain and the horror of it all was something good, something to be thankful for, something important to her.

  Because she knew that she could never be hurt again. She had endured everything there was to endure and she was still alive, still able to breathe and walk and think. She had passed through Hell. It burned and it would leave scars, but she would never be burned again.

  She would never love either. She’d get tough as shoe leather and kick the hell out of anyone who got in her way. Nobody would hurt her. Nobody would make her cry again.

  Never.

  She wouldn’t be sweet little Peggy, not any more. She’d be one hell of a tough little bitch, a real bitch on wheels. She wasn’t too sure where she was going, but no one would keep her from getting there.

  The city started to wake up around her. Windows opened and alarm clocks rang in rooms. Cars passed her on Thompson Street. The city woke up but she didn’t notice it. She didn’t let herself respond to anything.

  When the sun came up over the East River and cast her shadow on the pavement she didn’t pay any attention to it.

  13

  Shadows

  Scattered by the sun

  Melt.

  Black against grey,

  Dodging the wind,

  Fearing the heat.

  We

  Looking for love—

  We too are shadows . . .

  IT WAS TERRIBLE, she decided. She had something to say, something which was fairly important no matter how many times it may have been said in the past. But she didn’t know how to get it across. By the time the message was on paper it had turned into a pretty bad poem.

  But there was a poem in it. There was a poem and a painting and a symphony, but she couldn’t turn the idea into words or music or anything. She could think and feel but something was continually lost in translation. She couldn’t communicate the thought or the feeling, and without communication there was no point in writing or painting or composing, no point in anything more involved than the thinking and feeling itself.

  Alone in her own apartment with her poem, she couldn’t even translate it herself.

  To hell with it. She folded the slip of paper and placed it between the pages of a book, banishing the poem from her mind. It could wait. Later she could return to it and either straighten it out or tear it up. But there were other things to think of now.

  Like Laura, for instance.

  It was Thursday night and she hadn’t seen Laura for hours, not since early in the morning. She had slipped out of bed while Laura was still asleep, planting a kiss on her shoulder and leaving a note saying that she would be back by nine in the evening.

  Now it was a quarter to nine. In a few minutes she would walk to Laura’s apartment and there would be so many things for them to talk about, so man
y things to tell Laura.

  After breakfast she had walked all over the city, through Little Italy and Chinatown and across to the Lower East Side. She had wandered aimlessly without looking for anything in particular, not going anywhere special, her eyes taking in everything she saw. She walked and bought things and stared at store windows and glanced down dark alleyways and talked occasionally to people that she met. She ate a bite here and a bite there, trying to taste everything, trying to gulp down New York and get it digested and absorbed into her bloodstream in as little time as possible.

  And then back to her apartment to put herself into a poem. It was her poem, and she wondered how Laura would react to it.

  Should she get going? No, she decided, not yet. A few more minutes, a few minutes by herself before it was time to go. It wouldn’t even hurt to be a minute late, and it was pleasant to sit by the window and look at Barrow Street.

  When she saw Mike approaching the door she wasn’t overly surprised. By this time Laura had convinced her that he would come again and that he would continue to come to her until she managed to kill whatever hope remained in him. So she was not surprised, and she was ready at the answering buzzer before her buzzer sounded and at the door before he knocked, not dreading this visit as she had dreaded the others in the past.

  She opened the door, noticing as she did that he looked much different than he had the last time she saw him. His clothes were still the same and the guitar was slung over his shoulder as usual, but there was a look in his eyes that was strange.

  Before she could say hello he said, “Know what tonight is?”

  “Thursday,” she said, puzzled. He hadn’t shaved, and the stubble of beard on his face made him look older and thinner than he was.

  “Yeah. I have an audition tonight.”

  “What time?”

  He reached out for her wrist and studied her watch. He seemed to be in a daze, as if he was ready to pass out any minute.

  “It’s in fifteen minutes,” he announced. “At nine-fifteen they’ll be expecting me.”

  She felt lost. “Aren’t you going?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “Why bother?”