by Packer, Vin
In his imagination, her words came to him in that husky, soft tone. He spoke them aloud as she might speak them. “Charles Wright, I’m glad I found you. My, yes. Oh, my, yes.”
An electric sensation of delight shot through him to the ends of his fingertips and he felt strangely warm and tense and — he thought of her word — tender.
“I’ll always be gentle with you,” he told his wrist. “Ah, Jill, don’t you know the way I feel?”
“Yes, Charles, I think I do.”
“There’ll never be a need for words,” he said. He leaned on one elbow staring at his wrist as though it were her face, and he said the way she would say, “Charles. Charles,” and gently he bent and kissed his wrist, bringing his hand up to his own face, caressing it, making it go tight on his cheek. He said with his lips in his own flesh, “Jill, I love you. I love you, Jill.”
Then he jumped up, startled, at the opening of his bedroom door. Silhouetted in the fork of light, his mother stood looking down at him.
She said, “Honey, I’m sorry.”
“S’ O.K.”
“I was upset,” she said. “Evie’s never done anything like this before. You’ve always been good kids, and I let it get me, I guess.”
“I don’t care,” Charlie said.
“Are you all right, honey?”
“What do you mean?” He couldn’t control the quick anger in his voice.
“I didn’t upset you, too?”
“Heck, no,” he said.
“Good boy…. Did you study hard at the library?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s my good boy. Good night, honey. Don’t you worry about Evie. Russ will take care of everything.”
Charlie thought, Damn Russ, damn him to hell. He said, “Good night, Mom.”
The door shut and Charlie fell back on the pillow. He grabbed it to him and held it. Why didn’t his mother just leave him alone? Why didn’t Russ just move in? Ah, God, Jill, God. You’d understand.
Her name is Jill.
“You would! You’d understand.”
Suddenly he was crying like a kid sissy, muffling the sounds with a big soft feather pillow squeezed against his chest.
Chapter Seven
I can’t believe it. He was like my own kid. Those two kids, Evie and Charlie Wright — I treated them like they were my own kids.
— From a statement made to the Burlington Express by Russel Lofton
AFTERWARD THEY SLEPT, Evie slumped over on the right-hand side of the front seat of the automobile, her head nodding against the windowpane, Jim with his legs stretched out cumbersomely, his shoulders leaning against hers. They were parked a mile from the Golden Eagle, on the flat part of South Hill Road, off to the side of the ditch.
Lofton found them almost immediately. He saw the car as he drove along and his stomach did a flip. He slammed on the brakes and maneuvered his car to the side, jerked the key off, and sat for a moment dumbly. He was in some embarrassing position, all right, and he had better act fast, but what the deuce was he going to do if … Well, heck, he was going to put a stop to it. Take the bull by the horns and put a stop to it! He thought of Evie and the way she had looked earlier and his nerves curled, recoiled, and shot up again rigid with anger. He clamped his hand down hard on the chromium handle and got out, slammed the door with purposeful heaviness, and began walking up the dirt ditch. They must have seen his headlights, heard the noise of his motor and the slamming door, he thought. They must know. But it was quiet. Crickets were singing and frogs chortling and the wind whispered in the tall grass down in the fields. Otherwise it was quiet. Lofton exaggerated the sound of his footsteps, kicking pebbles and brushing the ground with his shoes. There was nothing for him to be embarrassed about if …
Geehosopher, if he were home now he’d make a super de luxe cheese sandwich and listen to the ball game.
At the back of the car he saw no one inside, and for a moment he thought with some relief and certain wonder that they were not in the car. Then he saw Evie’s head near the window, saw she was asleep, and saw the lanky form of Jim Prince resting against her.
He thought, Well, thank the good Lord they’re decent, anyway.
Then he got mad. He yanked the door open and caught Evie as she fell toward his arms, and he yelled, “Wake up, Prince!”
Evie opened her eyes and gaped at Russel Lofton. At first there was no reality to his being there, to her being there, to the weight of Jim Prince at her back. At first it was as though she were dreaming it and she could only stare back at Lofton with puzzlement. Presently she could think, and, thinking, remember. It seemed like a long time ago that it had happened. Again she saw herself as another person would see her, standing off from herself, surveying herself objectively. But this time she was sick from the picture. She even wanted to laugh at herself asking Jim Prince to take her to a smoky bar, she wanted to laugh at her own dramatic naïveté, but it was not funny the way it might have been if it had not happened to her, had this consequence. Now it was something terrible and shameful, and she could not tell from the expression on Lofton’s face how he felt. It was important how he felt. It was the most important part of the whole wretched predicament.
She said, “Mr. Lofton,” and she sat back in the seat, pushing Jim’s shoulder away from her, and again she said, “Mr. Lofton.”
Jim sat up, rubbing his eyes, shaking his head vigorously, and blinking nervously at Lofton. He said, “What’s the trouble?” and Evie looked away from Jim Prince. She did not want to see his face. It was not that she was afraid to see it now; she was repelled by his image. She thought that suddenly he looked pasty-faced and sallow, even with the sunburn. From what she could see in the darkness, his face looked like the soft white face of a young boy wakened from sleep. Somehow it made their whole experience sordid. They had done nothing great and glorious, they had not even been in love. And why had it happened? Because, Evie formed the words in her mind, they were a pair of stupid kids.
“You can lose your license!” Lofton blurted out. “Don’t you know you can lose your license?”
“For what?” Jim Prince said softly, meekly.
“For drinking. For drinking until you’re so intoxicated Mr. Bates at the Golden Eagle has to warn you not to drive. That’s for what, you young smart alec!”
Evie said nothing. She lowered her eyes and stared at the dashboard of the car, thinking that if Lofton said anything directly to her, she would cry. She knew she would.
Jim said, “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”
“And don’t you care how it looks? A young girl like Evie here!”
No one said anything and Lofton repeated, “Don’t you care how it looks?”
Jim Prince was thinking with relief that Lofton did not suspect anything. He wished he could hold Evie’s hand tight, to make it better for her.
“Sure I care.”
“You ought to think about that before you start off on something like this.”
“It’s not going to happen again.”
“You bet it isn’t,” Lofton said firmly. “You bet your britches it isn’t.”
In the darkness Jim reached for Evie’s fingers, felt the soft touch of her skin, and then felt her hand spring away from his. He thought if he could only talk to her now. Lofton stood framed in the door of the car, his thick fingers tapping on the roof in the momentary silence. He repeated, “You bet your britches it isn’t. You ready to drive back with me, E-venus?”
“Wait a minute,” Jim said. “I can — ”
“I’ll go back with Mr. Lofton,” Evie said.
“Wait a minute, Evie, listen — ”
“I’ll go back with Mr. Lofton!”
Jim started to say more, but when Lofton took her arm to help her from the car, she burst into tears, and walked away like that, crying, with Lofton holding his arm around her and saying, “Now, ?-venus. Now. Now.”
After they were gone, Jim Prince picked up the soft piece of white lingerie pushed
back in the seat and stuck it in his glove compartment. He thought, Why did I have to be drunk? Why? He thought, Why did I have to be drunk? I love the girl.
She cried quietly as they drove along, and Lofton was silent. He didn’t know what to say. Eventually he bolstered his courage and said, “Drinking is only half of it.”
“I know.”
“?-venus, it just doesn’t look right. When a boy takes you off in a side road late at night, it means he’s got something on his mind.”
“I know that.” Evie sobbed her words out.
“And when he gets you drunk first, why then — ”
“But it wasn’t his fault,” she said. “I wanted to get drunk.” She sat up and blew her nose in the handkerchief Russel Lofton had given her.
“Why?”
“I think it was because of — because of talking with you earlier.”
“What!” Lofton was horrified. Geehosopher, you’re trying to help one minute, next minute you’re responsible for what happened. Jumping geehosopher. He hadn’t said anything when they had talked earlier. He hadn’t thought anything, either.
“I said — because of talking with you.”
Evie believed it was true. She had been restless since school was out, but it was during and after her talk with Russel Lofton that her restlessness had swelled up in her and reached its peak, and she had felt different then, full of a desire for something she did not know, something she was not sure about. She had thought about him all evening. Right up until she stopped thinking. After the beers.
“Now, E-venus, don’t be silly.”
“No, I mean it. I mean it.”
“That’s a fine thing to say.” Lofton tried to insert a note of frivolity in his voice, a chiding tone, because he was afraid she was going to start talking seriously now, the way she had earlier. He thought that was a silly thing to be afraid of, but he was afraid just the same.
“I guess you don’t understand.”
She wished she could make him understand, but she did not understand either. Not everything. One of the things she did not understand was why she felt numb and aloof from it all, from what actually had happened. Now she felt far away and divorced from that girl in the car drunk with Jim Prince. It was because, she believed, Russel Lofton trusted her. Right off. Automatically.
“Oh, I understand. Oh, I see,” Lofton chuckled, “said the blind man.” He wondered why he wanted to say, “Evie, I’m an old man. I’m an old man.” Even he didn’t believe that. Why did it occur to him to say it?
“There you go being funny. You’re strange. You were real mad at first. Now when I start to explain, you make fun of my explanation.”
“I wasn’t making fun.”
“Yes, you were. Deliberately.”
“No, Evie. I don’t want you to believe that.”
“You said it!”
“Said what?”
“My name. You said Evie.”
The city-limits sign reflected in Lofton’s eyes and he swung off South Hill Road onto Dedham and toward Broad. The streets were all but empty. Azrael went to bed early, and there was little traffic, only a few bulky trucks rumbling off toward Burlington and Manchester. Lofton looked at his watch and saw that it was past twelve. He thought he ought to call Em, but his thought was arrested when Evie said, “I think I’d do anything for you.”
“That’s awfully nice of you to say.” Lofton tried to keep his voice steady. He would drive her straight home, he knew that. He would not take the time to call Em…. What was the matter with him tonight?
“I mean as a friend,” Evie said.
Lofton snapped, “Of course!”
“Someone I could really talk to.” For a quick second, Evie played with the idea of telling him. Telling him what had happened. Yet it seemed there was so little to tell. She had thought all her life it would be one way or the other, a very wonderful thing or a very terrible thing, but it was neither. She felt ashamed again. It was neither.
“It’s nice to have friends to talk to,” Lofton answered.
“Do you think we could be like that?” Evie asked. “I mean — there’s an age difference and all. You’d probably try and father me or something. You know. Father complex?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Lofton said vaguely. He had a tic in the left side of his face, twitching back and forth. By golly, this was a night to remember! He thought, Oh, blast, it is not a night to remember. There wasn’t anything he even wanted to remember about this night.
“But do you think we could be?” Evie said earnestly.
Lofton found himself saying, “I know we could be,” in a voice that was not his any more, a voice that might have been his years back.
Silence followed, a big silence. Lofton tried desperately to fill it with words before Evie filled it with meaning, but he could not. He drove down Broad fast, turned onto Sock Hill with his wheels squealing. Evie was watching his face. He could feel her eyes on him.
She said, “I wish I knew what you were thinking right now.”
“Why?”
“Because of the expression on your face.”
“What’s the matter with my expression?”
“I just wish I knew what you were thinking, that’s all.”
Lofton was thinking he would be glad when the night was done, when he was driving back to his home alone, and when Evie was delivered to Em safely at last. Because before very long — before very long a man could go crazy.
The lights in the houses along Conrad Street were off except for the Wright bungalow at the end. Lofton slowed the car to a steady stop and said, “Well, here we are.”
“What do you want to believe?” Evie said.
Oh, geehosopher. “About what?”
“About Jim Prince and me.”
“E-venus, it never occurred to me that — Well, what am I supposed to say to a question like that? That young fellow had a nerve taking you out there!”
“Then I won’t see him again.”
“Huh?”
“I won’t,” she said. “You’ll see. You won’t be sorry you trusted me.”
Lofton leaned over and opened the car door on her side. “Your mother is worried. Better hurry in.”
“You’re not coming in too?”
“No, I’ll run along.”
“Maybe it’s better that way,” Evie answered. She got out and shut the door. Before she went she turned and looked at him. She said, “I’m going to change. You’ll see.”
Lofton shook his head. He watched her until she walked in the house. It was the second time in an evening that he had watched her walk from his car, the second time that he had felt her absence in a way that made him sorry she was gone from him, elated that she had been with him. It was as though she were a new person whom he had never known before, as though she had grown into a young and interesting woman in the space of a day. A young and interesting woman. Very, very interesting, he thought as he drove off, and he would like to help her. Somehow. Help her. There was no more to it than that!
Chapter Eight
I’m gonna die with these blues, And the way these blues die is long. I’m gonna cruise with these blues Till I reach the end of my song.
— Fatal Blues
IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK. The office of the Azrael Gazette was quiet, and Emily Wright paused a moment in the doorway as she was about to leave. She saw Charlie seated before the typewriter, in the area called the bull pen of the office, and she thought of calling to him. The large wire fan above the desk where he sat blew up the papers that were held in the middle by the iron weight, and he seemed oblivious of everything but the sheet of paper rolled in the typewriter in front of him. She thought, He’s a good boy, and that thought led her to think fleetingly of Evie and of the way she had been acting for the last ten days. Since the night Russ had to chase after Evie and Jim Prince, Evie had grown quiet and pensive and annoyingly polite. It did not worry Emily Wright as much as it made her uneasy with Evie, uncertain as to how to receiv
e her daughter’s new mood. Russ had said she was simply growing up and learning to show more consideration for people, and Emily had to admit he was right. Every night that Russ had come to dinner, Evie had waited on him and catered to him, sat afterward in the parlor and talked with him, and ignored Inez Colton’s invitations to the movies and Jim’s for a Coke. Emily Wright decided that one reason it made her nervous was because she was afraid Evie was too much attached to Russ Lofton. She was afraid Evie had developed a schoolgirl’s crush on Lofton, and it was embarrassing.
She would almost rather have her be herself again, go out with Jim Prince, who had called and apologized both to Evie and to Emily Wright, and act in the flip, casual way she had always acted. Yet perhaps Russ was right. Jim Prince had bad ideas — ”designs,” Russ called it. Russ said Jim Prince had designs on Evie.
Mrs. Wright sighed and pushed her hair back from her damp forehead. She would leave Charlie to work there in the office, where it was cool. A wave of affection rose in her as she watched the intent expression on his face, and she was glad suddenly for Charlie, glad he was the boy he was. She opened the door and felt the heavy weight of late-afternoon heat as she walked from the. Gazette offices down Broad.
• • •
After she left, Charlie was glad. He got up and crossed to the door, twisted the lock, and walked back to the desk. At last he was alone. He had been thinking about writing it all afternoon. Hurriedly he switched the fan off and sat in the silence staring at the typewriter keys.
He had not seen her since that night.
God, what had he done wrong? What? He had done something wrong. She did not come to the library all week. It was like being suspended in mid-air; he could not feel his feet. It was sitting in the chair in his bedroom staring at the walls and asking them why and staying there. Sometimes for hours. Until his bottom and his spine and his whole body were tired with sitting, but there was nothing to get up for. It was trying to read and taking the open book and slamming it down on his own head and saying, I don’t want to read. I want to know why. It was eating. Eating everything he could get his hands on from the icebox at home, stuffing the food in him like a glutton, not even tasting it. Filling himself until he was so full he was tired. It was sleeping. Coming home from the Gazette afternoons and lying on his bed sleeping as though he were drugged, dreaming and waking up and falling back to sleep again. It was bolting dinner down and running on rubber legs to the library and sensing the thick thud in his stomach when he saw she wasn’t there, when he realized she wasn’t coming.
