by Packer, Vin
Men were sneaky. Jill Latham held the bottle to her lips again. Some of the gin ran down her mouth to her neck. She had only tried to be nice to Russel Lofton, to be cordial. Oh, she knew very well what he thought she had tried to do. Him and his Evie Wright and her Jim Prince. It was all sneaky and cheap and disgusting!
When Charles Wright came, she would tell him she was sick and could not see him.
Jill Latham lay on the bed, finished the gin, and shut her eyes. It was a hot muggy day. Yesterday’s rain had brought no relief. She felt the heat envelop her bare body and she imagined that soon tiny drops of rain would fall ever so gently and make her cool and refreshed….
When the doorbell rang it awakened her. She thought she would not answer it, but it kept ringing.
Charlie Wright had worn his brown shoes with the thick soles and the taps on the heels. As he paced up and down the porch he listened to the click of the taps, to the heavy noise of his own feet. When he wore those shoes he felt like a giant.
He had on his new cord suit, and already he was sweating under the arms. He looked to see if it made a big stain and he decided to keep his arms tight against his body.
It was one o’clock. He wished he were home cutting the lawn or something. No, he was glad he was there. Actually he didn’t give a damn, but he could be glad he was someplace without giving a damn, couldn’t he?
What the hell was taking her so long to answer the door? Jill! “How like a Winter hath my absence been from thee.” Shakespeare said it. Hell, he said everything. Wise guy.
He ought to walk the hell off the porch and down the street and let her yell at him to come back.
He made up a game. He counted to ten very slowly. If she came to the door between two and five, she was crazy about him. If she came to the door between five and seven, she was just lukewarm. After seven, she was sorry she had ever asked him to come and she was inside thinking of reasons to get rid of him.
Still she did not answer.
Lean on the bell, boy. She thinks she’s the Duchess of Kent.
He pressed the bell lightly again and his arm shot back and he blushed. He saw her before him. She was wearing the same royal-blue silk wrapper with the white lace at the neck. Her hair was tangled, her eyes were shining, she was smiling, and Charlie’s stomach went weak.
“Well, my, my. Well. Now. Come right in.”
She held the door open for him and he kept his arms close to his sides the way he had planned. He said, “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Am I early?”
“Oh, my, no. My, I should say not. Come in.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said, walking into the living room with her following him. The lilac smell penetrated the room; it smelled sickly, suddenly. Charlie sneezed because of it.
“Gesundheit!” she giggled.
“Thank you.”
“God bless you.”
“Thanks.”
Charlie sat down and she stood in the center of the floor.
“Well, now. What will we have for refreshment? Let us make our de-cision. Now. Now. What will it be?” “Whatever you have.”
“Hmmmmm. Well. Now let me see how we will handle this.” She leaned against the wall and folded her arms, looking across at Charlie. “Now,” she said, holding her finger up, her eyes yellow and big and round, “confession! Confession! Are you pre-pared to hear a confession?”
“Sure.” Charlie grinned. Gee, she made a game of everything.
She is a silly dumb stupid female!
Where the hell is your milk of human kindness?
Look at her!
She’s charming, that’s all. Charming.
O.K. You’re at the oar.
Goddamn right.
“I did not,” Jill Latham winked at him, “order in any Coca-Cola. There! Confession over.”
“Aw, I don’t care,” Charlie said. “I don’t need anything.”
“That would be rude. For me to have a refreshment in front of you who have none.”
“Really, I don’t care. Cold drinks make you warmer, anyway,” Charlie answered.
“Ha! Chemistry! Very, very, very good.”
Charlie said, “You go ahead.”
She drank a lot, he decided. Sure, because she was sophisticated and sensitive. Edgar Allan Poe drank himself to death and took dope besides.
Jill Latham left the room and came back directly with a glass and a decanter. While she had been gone, Charlie had looked at the floor and thought, “On this very floor, on this very goddamn floor with Russel Lofton.
They began to talk. She sat beside him on the red sofa and they talked for a long time. Occasionally she said, “Sip?” and he took the glass from her and drank only a tiny taste of the gin. It was hot and his tongue stung. He did not know how he came to mention it. It happened without his knowing how.
“Oh, my, yes,” she said. “Did he tell you he was here?”
“I was going by,” Charlie told her. “I saw his car.”
She poured herself another glass. She held the glass to her lips, a quizzical smile there, and she hummed a little and then laughed aloud. “Russel Lofton,” she said. She reached over and pinched Charlie’s cheek. “Sip?”
Charlie thought of Lofton’s eyes with pins sticking out of the pupils. He deserved to have his eyes poked with pins. Charlie took a sip and coughed. His gut burned as though he had swallowed fire.
“I said a sip. There now. There. You see what happens to little boys who do not follow directions?” She giggled and looked at him.
“You’re kidding,” Charlie sneered. It didn’t make him mad. He was rather pleased with himself because it didn’t bother him at all. Lofton couldn’t do better, that was sure.
Charlie said, “I suppose you think he’s better than I am.”
“Who?”
“Lofton.”
Jill Latham shrugged her shoulders coyly, her lips pursed in an expression of coquettishness. It made Charlie writhe inside. He could target-practice on Lofton’s legs. “Dance, boy, dance, you dirty chiseler. Steal another guy’s gal, dance” — the way the cowboys made the rustlers dance in the Westerns Charlie saw sometimes.
A clock bonged two and she said something he did not hear.
He said, “Speak up.”
“I said, do you remember the other evening?”
“Sure.” A flame scorched his insides.
“Dancing?”
“I guess.” Play it cool, Charlie boy. Cool.
Let her chase him. Where the hell was that gin? He reached for the glass. She smiled at him and he did not take a big swallow. He switched back to a sip. What the hell. What was he trying to prove?
“What do you mean, you guess?”
“I mean I guess.”
“Charles Wright,” she said. He felt weight on his shoulder and he was not surprised when he looked down and saw her head leaning on his shoulder, her body curled on the couch. Very cautiously he raised his hand. He wanted to stroke her hair but he could not bring his fingers near her hair. He could not touch her. That was so sappy, he thought. Why couldn’t he? (Lofton could!) He placed his palm flatly on her head. He let it stay there.
“You said you — loved me,” she said.
“I do.” That was a dirty lie! No, it wasn’t. It was the God’s truth.
“Say it more.”
“What?”
“You know what, my young scholar. You love me?”
“I love you,” Charlie said bluntly. Gee, it sounded funny. It sounded as though he were saying, “I like the color red.”
“You’re scared, too, aren’t you?”
“Scared!”
“Yes.”
“Naw.”
She said, “Your hand is heavy,” and she pulled herself up and put her fingers near his lips. His hand slid to her shoulder. She traced his lips with her fingers without kissing him. She whispered, “These are your lips.”
The electricity bolted through Charlie. He could feel her in t
he pit of his stomach, in the vein in his neck, on the inside of his wrists, down his arms to the tips of his fingers. He did not hold her but he felt her. He had never felt it with anyone. He was stunned, paralyzed, and shocked with it charging through him.
His thoughts were running in spirals in his mind. He was thinking that he was liked better than Lofton, that he was desired by her, that it did not matter about Lofton, that it did not even matter about her. Yes, it did. He thought, So this is what it’s like, so this is what I missed the last time. Did Lofton feel it this way too? When her fingers ran down his chest to his legs he grabbed her harshly and sank back into the couch with her. He kissed her then.
He kept kissing her and her eyes were shut. She made no sound. He thought she was overcome, completely overcome. She lay with her eyes shut and his kisses covered her face, all over her face.
Still she made no move, no sound, she did not touch him. He said he loved her and his voice sounded husky and full, and he said it again. He wanted her to move. She was not overcome or anything. She couldn’t even feel him, she didn’t even care that he was there kissing her. She was thinking of Lofton. He’d take open bets on the corner that was it. Well, you will know it’s me, you will know. He took her by the shoulders and shook her. He shouted, “I love you! I love you!” He wanted to sock her in the eyes!
She opened her eyes and stared at him. She said, “I was silly.”
She tried to struggle up, but he held her down. He said, “Listen, I love you!” He wanted her to believe it. He didn’t believe it himself. Something was happening to him but he did not understand it. It was like standing on a rug and having someone pull it out from under him. He didn’t want it to be that way. He wanted to go back to the way it was a few minutes ago. When he was desired. That way! That way!
“No,” she said quietly, adamantly.
He was shouting. “Why?” He no longer knew what they were talking about, what she said no about. What was it all? Where?
Her mouth made a smirk. “No,” she said with a tone of hopeless resignation. “Of course not.”
He let go of her and put his hands through his hair. It was all like a fist rammed at his stomach and it took his wind. He didn’t believe the feeling was gone, the crazy feeling that had surged up in him and made his bones sing. It would come back.
Ah, Mom. Mom! Ah, what a thing to think of now! He never talked to his mother. Ah, God, he was just a kid with a pair of man’s shoes on.
She sat up beside him. Her voice lost all of its former wistfulness, its playfulness. It was dull and flat. “I should have known,” she said. She picked up the glass and the decanter and walked into the kitchen.
Charlie was alone. He looked around the room and he wondered how come he had ever been there, why, what for? Who was the woman?
Her name, sonny, is Jill!
He knew he would not leave. It had to mean something. Everything did. Wasn’t he the knower? Why did his body feel funny? He stood up. At first he was afraid to walk, afraid she would hear him walk, and then he decided he could walk if he pleased. He almost marched. His feet sounded big and powerful as he crossed the room. He went straight into the kitchen and she was standing there, standing with her back to him, staring out the window.
He was surprised to hear himself say, “Why don’t you call up Russel Lofton?”
“I’ve hurt you, haven’t I?” she said.
“The hell!”
“Please, you do not have to be vulgar.”
“I don’t feel anything,” Charlie said. It was true. He didn’t feel anything. It was funny what he was thinking of. He remembered that movie where Ray Bolger danced and sang “Once in Love with Amy.” Ray Bolger looked like some kind of puppet with his arms and legs all over the place. He remembered the way Ray Bolger held onto a post and sang, “Ev-ver and ev-er — fascinated by her …”
“Nevertheless, you are hurt.”
“That’s a joke.”
“You are invulnerable, I suppose.”
“I suppose I am,” Charlie answered.
Honest to God, I just don’t feel anything toward this dame.
“In fact,” Charlie said, “I don’t even feel the gin.”
“You think you are a grown man,” she said, still not looking at him.
“I think I’m Russel Lofton.” Charlie laughed hard at his joke. It seemed very funny. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
For a moment she was silent. Then she giggled. She broke the silence with a giggle and a rush of words, and the voice changed back to the way it had always been. She said, “Oh, my, yes. My, yes. He is an extremely handsome gentleman.”
“Big deal,” Charlie said.
“It is very likely,” Miss Jill Latham said, “that I may marry him. Oh, yes, very likely.” “Go ahead,” Charlie said.
“He has already asked me. That was the purpose of his visit.”
“Swell,” Charlie said. “Many happy returns.”
He felt good. He was no longer confused. He might as well go. What did all this matter to him? Gibberish!
He said, “See you around, Jill!” He stood with his arms akimbo. Let her see the goddamn sweat marks under his arms!
She did not turn around. She said, “Good afternoon, Charles Wright.”
“Good afternoon,” Charlie said lightly.
He went from the kitchen to the hall to the screen door. The door banged behind him. As he went down the porch steps he began to whistle that song Ray Bolger had danced to. He took his time walking down Deel. He remembered the name of the movie that song was from. It was “Where’s Charley?”
Take your time.
He would. He was in no hurry.
Chapter Thirteen
We will prove that the defendant, a ruthless murderer in a boy’s body, willfully and knowingly committed this crime, being of sane mind and sound body.
— From the opening statement by the prosecutor, Nathan Lee
HE DECIDED HE WOULD GO. He would go to Jake’s and get a soda. It was nothing he had to do immediately. He could walk around for a while, for the love of Pete.
The only thing he didn’t understand was what he had been like before. Years before. One damn year ago, what had he been like? He used to read a lot. Ski. Talk to his mother.
Miss Jill Latham. She did it all, and there was shame curling through him, winding up in his entrails like a cobra. If he could only know it was over now.
You said that before.
This time it is over. I won’t face her again, think of her again. This time it really is over. Sure? No.
Keep walking. Walk. Walk. Walk. Wear out your legs.
Charlie walked around blocks and down and up side streets. He knew he could never think about it again if he could know he never had to come face to face with her. Yet he panicked when he thought of never seeing her again. He was too good for her, he told himself that, but it did no good.
How do things come to be? You think there is no scheme to things and yet things come to be that are strange. It is the way in the whole world like a web entangling everyone. A month ago you are a nice kid who reads in the library, and now, thirty days later, you are a dirty person. You are dirty and crazy and no one in the whole city of Azrael, in the whole state of Vermont, in all of the states and in the continent would believe what you are. What has come to be.
She was like you, too. Together you changed, reacted on one another, and made a mess. A God-awful mess.
Nuts! She was always screwy.
Keep out of this, I warn you.
Don’t be so hell-bent dramatic. Get a soda or something.
There was no one he could go to. He had no one. Once he had had the image of her. It made him think of the part in the Bible about the beautiful image with feet part of iron, part of clay. Where was it from? It didn’t matter. The idol fell, for iron and clay did not mix. Jill and gin? No, she was loony even without the gin. She was all clay. He knew where it was from. Daniel.
He walked faster
without paying much attention to where he went. He had to walk it out of him. He had to forget himself, forget what he had done. He had not done a goddamn thing. Why did he feel lousy?
When Charlie got to Jake’s he went in and sat on a stool. He paid a quarter for a cherry soda. Jake was sitting behind the counter reading the sports page of the newspaper, scratching his bald head absently. The fans were going, and some kids in a back booth were singing to the music from the jukebox. Charlie watched the red liquid come up in the straw and he blew in and out on the straw, delaying his taste of the soda.
He simply didn’t think about much at all now. Not about anything important. The cherry soda made him think of a cherry tree that was in back of the bungalow on Conrad Street. When he was a kid he used to climb up in it and think. He remembered the time he was sitting way up in the top when the blossoms were new and it was spring, and in school his class was learning the alphabet. He was just a tyke. He had trouble with the alphabet because he could never go beyond the letter F. A was for apple, ? was for brother, C was for candy, D was for day, E was for eat, and F was for father. That time in the cherry tree he worried about it. It was funny that he could remember it now.
That made him think of the story about George Washington cutting down the cherry tree. He took an ax to it, young Washington did, and wham! Curtains for the goddamn cherry tree.
Charlie had to laugh at the clever way his mind worked. He bet nobody in the whole creepy world had his sense of humor. He was a regular clown, that’s all.
He sipped the soda slowly and it was too warm. There was about a teaspoon of ice cream in the thing. He glared at Jake but he didn’t say anything. He just thought, You fat dirty slob, you can’t even make a soda. You big fat dirty slob. He imagined what Jake would look like undressed. God!
Jake felt his eyes on him and he looked up and grinned in a lopsided way, as though he were asking Charlie if Charlie wanted anything else. Charlie said, “It’s a scorcher today.”
