by Packer, Vin
Lofton put on clean white shorts and went through the bathroom into the bedroom closet. He selected his lightweight blue linen suit, a white shirt with short sleeves, and a matching blue tie. Jill Latham was a beautiful woman, he thought to himself, and it was queer that he had never been much interested in meeting her more than casually. She was not too much younger than he was himself, mid-thirties, he supposed. Yet he had lost interest in women about three years before his own wife died. Could a man simply lose interest? Golly darn, it wasn’t normal or anything like that, but it was true.
Sure, since he had met Evie, he had started thinking about women and things like that, but not in relation to Evie. Geehosopher, no! Why, that would be asinine. It was just that Evie had these problems and they had started him remembering again. Remembering his own youth. Lordy, no one would call him a Don Juan or anything. No one ever had. But he had his memories. For heaven’s sake, everyone did. Even Em. Didn’t she? Sure, even Em.
The library clock struck seven and Lofton stuck a white handkerchief in the pocket of his suit. He inspected himself once more before the mirror over his bureau in the bedroom, and then he turned to go. Golly, all he had to do was explain Evie to Jill Latham. She’d understand. Lordy, she probably went through that same stage herself years ago.
• • •
Charlie heard the clock too.
He was sitting out on the back-porch steps after dinner. He had a book in his hands, a book of mythology, and he didn’t give one single damn about that clock or the library. In a word, he was through. Through with kid stuff. Her. That silly kid stuff. He was going to read about mythology. Mom had cooked stuffed cabbage for dinner and he could still smell it, taste it. Gee, he was full from it. The hell with her. Jill Latham. The hell with her!
Well, so what if he was reading about Eros? The god of love! A guy had to know this crap to get in college! He turned the pages rather more rapidly than he usually did. Tonight he did not feel like deliberating over the words. But wait now, wait. What the devil did that line say? The line describing Eros. Charlie turned back a few pages, his finger running down the rows of sentences until he found the passage he was looking for. A description of Eros, all right. Gee!
Evil his heart but honey-sweet his tongue.
No truth in him, the rogue. He is cruel in his play.
Small are his hands, yet his arrows fly as far as death.
Charlie began to memorize the words. Evil his heart. Honey-sweet his tongue. Evil his heart. Evil his heart. Oh, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas and Easter, what was the matter with him? What was happening to him? Was there no way? None! Oh, God, he was so filled with it, right up to his head, drowning in it — this obsession.
Look, one minute he made his mind up that he didn’t give a damn. The next minute he started in all over. It was something like a roller coaster. You get on and you take a few loops and you say well, hell, they were bad but the worst is over and nothing will faze me now. Then another loop and your stomach’s flipping all over again and there’s no way to get off.
The other night wasn’t your fault, fellow. That Jill dame is a dizzy dame. She got you drunk.
I can hold my liquor.
You’re just a kid. You’re too young to drink.
I’m no kid! Get that straight! I’ve been a kid all my life but I’m no kid any more. Besides, she needs me. She needs my help.
You couldn’t help a flea.
I know it.
You’re a sap!
I know it. I know it.
Charlie closed the book and made his forehead wrinkle the way he would if he were going to cry, but he couldn’t cry. If he could only cry or drop dead in the grass or go to China or something fantastic like that. He was no damn good this way.
“Jill, when you kissed me, the reason I cried was because it was so beautiful.”
“I thought it was beautiful, too. Charles Wright.”
“Jill, don’t drink any more. Please. I love you.”
“I never will drink again. I don’t need to now. Do you understand that? Since I met you I simply don’t need to.”
Nuts! She wouldn’t say that in a million years. She’s a tank!
The back door slammed and Charlie turned around to see his sister standing behind him. For once Old Daddy Lofton had sponged a meal off someone else.
He said, “What do you want?”
“I have to want something?”
“I don’t know.” Evie was kind of goofy lately. Dreamy and goofy. She stood there in her yellow cotton dress, barefoot, her hands in the pockets of her dress.
Remember Jill’s bare feet?
“What are you reading?”
“Junk.”
“Well, what?”
“Stuff for school.”
“Mythology, huh?”
“Yeah.”
It was late in life to start conversations with his sister, for the love of Pete. “Do you like it?”
“Whatsa difference?”
“Do you have to be so fresh?”
“Who cares?”
“We could start acting like brother and sister,” Evie said, “instead of archenemies.”
Now, that was a hell of a thing to say. What did Evie want to say blubber like that for?
“I suppose he told you to say something like that.”
“Who?”
“You know who. Mr. Lofton.”
Evie turned her back and opened the screen. “You’ll never change,” she said bitterly. “You’re an ornery little pipsqueak, and you’ll never change.”
Charlie shouted after her, “I’m bigger than you are!”
She made him sick. His mother was right. She was mooning around all the time lately. Now she was trying to play the loving-sister role. Aw, God, human beings were a dumb bunch. Everybody had an act, and nobody knew which play the rest of them were in, or even if it was the same play. Hit and miss. Hit and miss. Hit and run.
Yeah, that’s the only way to last.
Charlie sat for a while and looked out at the mountains. He couldn’t even look at mountains any more without thinking of something filthy dirty. Ah, Lord, he ought to get up and go in the house and talk to his mother. Couldn’t he even talk to his mother once in a while?
Charlie stood up. He was wearing a white polo shirt and khaki pants, sneakers on his feet, and no socks. There was no sense wearing socks in the summer. They stank. He sighed and pressed his lips together in a gesture of self-disgust and pulled at the handle of the screen door.
His mother was in the kitchen. She was rinsing the dishes and her forehead was beaded with perspiration, her nose was shiny, and there were beads of perspiration above her lip. Like a mustache. If he had been lucky enough to have a father he wouldn’t be in a mess. Boys needed fathers. Everybody knew that.
Charlie said, “Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, honey. Working awfully hard?”
“Not too.”
“Well, don’t. It’s too hot. You’re smart enough.”
Charlie leaned against the sink and watched her. What did other boys think to say when they talked to their mothers? He had never had any trouble before this all happened to him.
Had he?
It was funny. He couldn’t remember what he had been like before it all happened.
Something else was funny too. He didn’t think much about the kiss. Oh, my gosh, yes, he thought about it enough, but not all the time. So Jill kissed him. So what? Christmas, it had made him feel strange. He had thought, Now she’s kissing me and I can feel her lips and it’s all terribly different than I ever imagined it. There are no flares going up, no cannons going off, no harps, no stars, no blood in my neck. He had thought, Now she’s kissing me and it’s an interesting thing, a hazy, green sort of thing that I would just as soon have happen, but is it supposed to be this way? Is it supposed to be better than this? He had thought, Perhaps I would rather kiss my own wrist than the lips of the lady I love.
Charlie’s mother left the dishes s
tacked on the drain-board and struggled with the strings of her apron. Charlie could have helped her. He thought of helping her but he didn’t. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to touch her.
His mother said, “Whew, some weather!” and Charlie said yeah, he was going to take a walk. Take a walk and cool off.
• • •
Russel Lofton sat uneasily on the edge of the cushioned rocker in Jill Latham’s living room. He wished he had never come in the first place. Geehosopher, she was on her third drink. His finger traced the sweat on the side of his glass as he listened to her talk.
She said, “Oh, my, I can appreciate all that you are trying to do for the young lady. Of course I can. I certainly can. Oh, it isn’t that I don’t like her. Evie Wright.”
“Well, it’s up to you,” Lofton answered. “I really didn’t come here to push the idea.”
“I rather imagine everyone likes the young lady, as she is so very attractive and — young. Mr. James Prince and everyone. Indubitably! There’s every reason…. I, however, had something else in mind. Really, I find it hard to explain it. It is very possible I will do the inventory myself.” She tittered in a high shrill way and pressed her hand to her mouth as though she too were startled by the sound. “Why not?” she said. “I may very possibly do it un-assis-ted.” She leaned forward for the glass decanter that looked as though it contained water. Lofton knew she was drinking straight gin.
He said, “Well. It’s been nice talking to — ”
“Oh, my, no,” she interrupted. “You won’t run off so soon. Really, now. Now. Now, this is a social call. A social visit whereby a gentleman has called to pay his respects to a lady, and we are serving refreshments. Now. Now. I have some pota-to chips in the kitchen. I have. Most certainly. You will stay?”
Lordy, Lofton thought, she’s bugs. Alcoholic. Lordy. He said. “Well, only for a minute or two. I have an appointment later.”
It was a good thing he found out about Jill Latham before he encouraged Evie to try for the job again, or before he convinced Jill Latham to hire Evie. Talk about bad environment. Lordy.
Miss Latham rose and walked across the room slowly, with a somewhat stumbling regal air that was comic and sad, and at the entranceway to the kitchen she turned and wagged a finger at Lofton.
“Do not attempt to flee, now. No fair. Remember. No fair.”
“I’ll be right here,” he said. He wondered how long she had been this way, and if the people of Azrael were aware of it. Usually he heard all the gossip at Rotary luncheons on Tuesdays, but no one ever mentioned Jill Latham. He pictured himself telling Davy Cork and Roy Elliot about this evening. He had to chuckle. Even though he wished he were not there, it would make a darn good story. This wacky dame starts talking about my being a gentleman caller, see, and she says she’s got pota-to chips and I shouldn’t flee. Lofton was grinning when Jill Latham came back carrying a green dish full of potato chips.
“You smile,” she said. “My!”
She sat back down on the red divan and placed the chips on the table. Then she patted the cushion beside her and said, “Come over. Now. Just come over and you may sit right here beside me and enjoy these refreshments.”
Lofton had a queasy feeling as he walked toward her and sat down at the far end of the couch. He watched her pour more gin from the decanter. She said, “It is a shame you do not want something else, Mr. Lofton, as I do not imagine soft drinks are very good for one’s system. Sugary. Very sugary, you know. I once read a survey — ” She stopped and her fingers drummed on her lips as she looked at him. “But of course it would be silly,” she said, “to talk about that silly survey.”
“Tell me about yourself,” Lofton said. He was genuinely curious now.
“You mean why I am not married?”
“Gosh, I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did…. Didn’t you?”
“No. Land, no. I imagine there are plenty of women your age who are unmarried.”
“That,” Miss Jill Latham seemed to arch her back the way a cat might defend herself, “was extremely unkind.”
“Look, I didn’t mean it that way. I — ”
“Because I could have been married. Oh, my, yes, many times I was asked to be the wife of a lovely man, and it was not easy for me to refuse to pur-sue my studies. But it was a choice I had to make, and when one prefers the finer things — ”
Lofton bit into a potato chip and crunched it in his mouth. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” he said.
“I want to. I want to settle this once and for all, so that it does not emerge as a recurrent theme in the topics of our conversation.”
Lordy, Lordy, listen to the way she goes on.
She leaned forward again and poured more gin into her glass, gulping it hungrily. “Paris,” she said. “Paris…. He was young. Love and marriage are for youth. Oh, now, no, I don’t mean that. You ought to marry again, Mr. Lofton. You ought to find yourself a mature woman and ask her to be your partner along the road. Along the rest of the road.”
Lofton had never heard anything like it. Jimminy, Cork and Elliot wouldn’t believe him. He said, “I’m too old.”
“Age. Yes. Age.”
“Look, you’re young.”
“In Paris I was. Oh, my, yes. I was in love with a young scholar in Paris, a terribly intellectual young scholar, Mr. Lofton. It was too bad. It was really too bad.”
“What was?”
She seemed not to hear Lofton and she continued talking, sipping the gin spasmodically, her eyes a gray color now, gray and dull in a fixed stare that looked ahead of her.
“He had a proclivity toward wildness. I knew this. I knew it in little ways he showed it. Oh, my, he was a scholar, let us leave no doubts as to that. He was a scholar. But there was this tendency, as I have mentioned, this tendency to be wild. Wild….” She began to hum. A faint smile moved her lips as she hummed and Lofton felt as though he were watching something he had no right to watch. He wished he could go.
“That song,” she said, stopping the humming sound. “That song was his song. Jazz. Ha. Ha, it is funny when I reflect. Jazz was popular in Paris among the young students. The scholars. He would play that song. He could play the saxophone rather well. It was not his main interest in life, but he could play it. The tenor saxophone. He would play it, and do you know how it would sound?” She turned her head toward Lofton. “Do you know how it would sound?” she said.
Russel Lofton barely whispered. “No.”
“Hot!” she shouted. “Hot! It would sound hot and vulgar and disgusting! Hot!”
Again she tipped the bottle of gin to her glass, fumbled for a cigarette. Lofton struck a match and watched her suck in the smoke. She was weaving, her shoulders were weaving, and she arrested the silence with more words, slowly said, thick-toned. “Those types never make good husbands. Oh, I knew that. I knew that. But I did not know — ” She stopped and held her hand to her head. She started to hum once more, humming and laughing.
Lofton got up quickly. “I ought to go,” he said.
“Don’t go.”
“I ought to.”
“I want you to hear my song. Ha. You see. I call it mine now. I have it on my Vic-trola. Now wait. Wait.” She too stood up, lurched forward and grabbed the wall. “I know what you are thinking. Oh, yes, I know.”
“Take it easy,” Lofton said. He started to help her back to the couch, but, holding the walls, she moved forward toward the kitchen. She said, “My atomizer. It takes the smell away. It’s lilac.” She stopped then and turned back, staring at Lofton. Her voice had a singsong quality, like a child’s voice reciting to herself alone somewhere, a silly little recitation. She said, “Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time.”
Instantly she fell to her knees. Lofton rushed forward. His arms held her and she smiled a little at him, her eyes drooping dazedly. She whispered, “From — ’The Barrel-Organ,’ by Alfred Noyes.” She slumped forward into his arms. “Lilac-t
ime,” she repeated, and then she passed out.
Russel Lofton lifted her. She was heavy. He hurried, and in his rush, her limp arm knocked against the bowl lamp next to the couch. It fell to the floor without breaking. He laid her on the couch, propped her feet up, and picked up the lamp, setting it back on the table. His Panama hat was on the rocker across the room, and frantically he grabbed it and left the house without looking back at Jill Latham. Jumping geehosopher!
• • •
Charlie Wright sat on his haunches in the bushes near the Bartell’s house on Deel Street. He did not know why exactly he was back there, back where he had vomited the other night. He knew only that he had come there automatically, like a punch-drunk prize fighter finding his way back to his corner, and now that he was there he felt safe. He felt as though he belonged there.
Charlie thought about what he had seen. When he first reached Deel Street and walked down toward her house, he had seen the car. He would know Russel Lofton’s car anywhere. When he saw it parked in front of Jill Latham’s, he was shocked. Not angry. Shocked. He stopped dead in his tracks and he thought, Oh, for God’s sake, go to a movie. He spat on the grass and jammed his hands in his pockets and said to himself, I can walk on any street in the city of Azrael. I am the knower of this town. He grinned and said aloud, “So what? So he has his big fat car parked in front of her house and he’s in there doing dirty things, so what?” Then he bit the flesh inside his cheek so hard that it was still sore and he began to walk along, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. There was an old game about stepping on a crack and breaking your mother’s back.
He picked a green leaf off a bush and chewed it, swallowed it. He was coming closer and closer. He sang “Old Black Joe” to himself and thought, I can’t make it, I can’t make it, I can’t keep on walking. I’m afraid.
His chest and his stomach and his bowels seemed to go weak on him. He knew he did not have to walk to her house and look in the window, but he did have to, too, because he was doing it and he couldn’t stop. He wasn’t even in love with her. What did he care? The other night she kissed him and he didn’t give a hang. She kissed him. He didn’t ask for it, for the love of Pete. It was all her idea.
