Naked Came the Stranger

by Penelope Ashe

  Even now he sometimes woke up screaming. Laverne assumed it was the sound of guns and the calls of dying men that echoed through his sleep. But Ernie heard only his own screams—his screams and the sound of water falling on a bare wooden floor in a dingy room in Honolulu.

  The perspiration even now was rolling off Ernie’s forehead. He hoped his shuddering there in the dark night would not awaken Laverne. Laverne. Ernie had married her because she was one of the few women he could remember saying no to him. Maybe, he reflected, it was because she was one of the few women he had ever bothered to ask. “Not until you marry me,” she had said. Ernie didn’t believe her, not at first, but he soon learned that Laverne was a threshold girl, able to stop repeatedly just this side of fulfillment. He couldn’t stand it any more and, out of curiosity, agreed to marry her.

  She wasn’t bad looking then and not much worse now. She had maintained through two births a pair of breasts that Ernie counted among the finest in Christendom. She was an Italian-Irish mixture who had somehow managed to capture the worst characteristics of both nationalities. She didn’t like to drink and she didn’t like to stay up late and she always chastised Ernie when he did either.

  The best thing about Laverne had been a father old-fashioned enough to believe in a dowry, which meant a partnership in a construction company specializing in swimming pools. And when suburbanites found they could dig themselves even deeper into debt with a pool, Ernie and his father-in-law were there to help with the digging. Ernie was vice president in charge of pools, which had made him affluent enough to settle in King’s Neck rather than Levittown or Huntington. Ernie had been happy in a Bayside apartment with a breakfast balcony. But Laverne wanted to become part of a community—to have roots, as she put it. So Ernie bought a waterfront lot with a seven-bedroom, split-level ranch. They still had no roots, but now they had a mortgage that would grow old with them. The one thing they owned free and clear was the pool.

  From the beginning Laverne had never been anything less than a dutiful wife. And not much more. Ernie realized, of course, that Honolulu was a tough act to follow. It could be said of Ernie and Laverne that their marriage started off in low gear and then bogged down.

  Ernie’s feelings about most of his neighbors were generally expressed in simple terms. “Pushy goddam Jews”—that was one of his favorite appraisals. He took great delight in padding his neighbors’ bills when they came to him for a pool on the erroneous assumption that geographical proximity might save them a few dollars.

  The Civic Association, the Save Our Schools Committee, the Republican Club, the Young Americans for Freedom—the only thing that meant a good goddam to Ernie was a party. Last night’s blast was one of the best. Gillian had been standing beside the pool when he first saw her. She was wearing that low-backed green dress with high heels to match. He was talking to someone, Melvin Corby it was, and he’d just said, “Show me the guy who doesn’t eat it and I’ll steal his girl,” when Gillian walked across his line of vision. Corby had told him that everyone on King’s Neck wanted a slice of that butt—only those weren’t the words Corby had used (pushy goddam Jew)—and Ernie could understand why. Then, later, she had come on with him at the bar.

  It was hard for Ernie to believe he had scored with her so quickly. She was class. But it all confirmed what he had always maintained, a broad is a broad.

  Ernie fell asleep then. And less than an hour later Laverne woke up to hear him screaming. He woke up screaming something about ice cubes, and when she tried to wipe the perspiration from his brow he begged her not to touch him.

  Ernie didn’t see Gillian until the following Friday. He was at the Plaza having a sandwich and Gillian was having a late afternoon martini. Apparently she was not having her husband because Bill was sitting at another table talking to several men in business suits. The Plaza was next to the King’s Neck Railroad Station and, unlike most restaurants near railroad stations, it was reasonably sanguine. At night there was a darky piano player, and it was known as the launching pad for those who planned to swap mates for the evening. This, to Ernie, made excellent sense, but it also made excellent sense never to broach the subject to Laverne. In the afternoon it was reasonably quiet and Ernie, a man who always looked out of place in a white collar, would sometimes stop off between checks on his work crews. He had been scoring for eight months with one of the waitresses who had to quit when her husband changed jobs.

  “Hello there.” Gillian carried her martini to the bar and took the stool to his left. Her hair was up. Ernie put his notebook away and took a long look.

  “Like another one?” he said.

  “Why not?”

  Ernie had been debating which stop to make next. Seeing Gillian again, he knew which one he wanted to make. He excused himself and telephoned his foreman. He said there would be no need to check the Freeport job unless there were problems. No sweat, no sweat at all. He went back to Gillian. She was at the table again. Her husband hadn’t seemed to notice anything. Ernie had once played against a quarterback who looked like Bill—no chin at all—Michigan, it was—and he got hit once and that was it for the afternoon.

  “Would you join me in one?” Gillian was asking.

  Ernie didn’t like martinis. He didn’t trust them. Anything that looks like water and tastes like fire—he knew he couldn’t handle them. But that was the challenge and he nodded assent. He watched the new waitress as she walked away. Maybe there was something there, too, he thought as he watched her posterior stretching the white nylon skirt. Ernie was always working on the next one, even when he was in the middle of drumming up action. He had never discovered that man has relatively little to say about it.

  “We just got in from New York,” Gillian was saying. “Do you ever listen to our show? I don’t blame you—it’s basically for women anyway.”

  When the martinis arrived they were on the rocks. Gillian jiggled the glass and noticed the expression in Ernie’s eyes. She jiggled the glass again and again it happened. It was as though his eyes had turned to ice. It was the same look she had seen Saturday before he turned into a raging animal. Gillian had minored in psychology at Bard, but the psychology she relied on now was something she had been born with.

  “The ice cubes look nice, don’t they?” she said. “Nice, just floating in the glass.”

  Ernie could feel the dampness on his forehead. He reached for his glass and took it in a single burning swallow. Better, better now. Gillian watched the small scene with mounting academic interest, as though once again she were observing from a concealed vantage point. She said that it might be wise to go slow on the martinis, particularly if he were not used to them.

  “I’ll drink what I fucking please,” Ernie snarled at her. “I was drinking when you were still using candles on yourself.”

  Gillian knew then she should get up and leave. She looked over at her husband’s table—the men had all disappeared. She felt uneasy then, but didn’t protest when Ernie ordered the last round of martinis.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” she said.

  “Where’s your husband?” Ernie said. “Where’s old shithead off to now?”

  “Is there anything you want to tell me, Ernie?”

  “Why did you marry a shithead like that?” Ernie said. “You’ve got to have a screw loose, marrying a shithead like that.”

  “Go ahead,” Gillian said.

  “Broads,” he said. “I’ve fucked more broads than the sultan of Baghdad or somewhere. And I’ve fucked your kind before. You broads who think your ass is made of gold because you went to college.”

  Gillian took a drink from the fresh martini. She opened her compact and studied her lips. She knew it was time to go but, even as she thought it, she chided herself. Chicken. What can happen now?

  “I’ve had things with broads,” Ernie was saying, “things you wouldn’t believe.”

  “How do you know, Ernie?” Gentle now. “How do you know unless you tell me?”

  �
�I had a thing with a broad in Honolulu.…” He stopped and looked around. The main room of the Plaza was all but deserted. The waitress with the nice ass was polishing glasses at the bar, laughing at something Benny the bartender was saying.

  “You were telling me about Honolulu,” she said.

  “Mind your own fucking business,” Ernie said. “You want to know what they’re gonna put on my tombstone. Here lies Ernie Miklos, yes sir, here lies Ernie Miklos, he got his in Honolulu.”

  “Tell me about the ice cubes, Ernie,” she said.

  “Up my ass,” he said. “That’s right. That little cunt shoved it right up my ass just as I was blowing my load. She took a chunk of ice and jammed it there. She took me, all of me, and I came for it seemed like three days. I thought my teeth were going to be sucked right through my prick. Oh God.…”

  Ernie slammed his head down against the table. The bartender and the waitress stopped the giggling and looked around as Ernie screamed again, “Oh my sweet God!” His head fell back against the wall and his eyes were closed tight. Gillian was unprepared for this display and her purse slipped off her lap onto the floor. She reached down, and the dregs of her drink spilled down the front of her grey suit.

  “Right up my ass,” Ernie said softly. “What do you think of that, huh, bitch? Right up my ass with the ice cube.”

  “Are you all right, Ernie?” she said.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Miklos?” the bartender called. “You want someone should take you home?”

  “Is he some kind of a nut?” the waitress whispered.

  “It’s all right, Benny,” Gillian called back. “I live near Mr. Miklos and I’ll see him home.”

  Ernie felt her hand on his arm, felt himself being led toward the door.

  “Yeah,” he was saying, “right up my ass.”

  It was a patio but it wasn’t his patio. Next to him there was a cold Bud and he reached for the can. He could see the Sound through the trees. He could see the umbrella. He could see Gillian sitting in the next chaise.

  “Drink it,” she said, “you’ll feel better.”

  “Why did you let me drink that shit at the Plaza?” he said.

  “I didn’t know what would happen,” she said.

  “Well, aren’t you the hot shit,” he said, drinking the beer. “You know it all now.”

  “Yes,” she said, “even about the Japanese lieutenant.”

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  Ernie threw the empty beer can onto the patio and listened to it clatter. Gillian moved over toward him and sat on the ground beside the chaise.

  “It might be more comfortable in the bedroom,” she said.

  “I’m too smashed,” he said. “I’m bombed out.”

  “Not for me,” she said. “Not for what’s waiting for you.”

  Ernie felt himself coming apart. He could feel the martinis in his stomach like hot coals. He followed her through the plate glass doors to the poolside bedroom. Unglued. He fell onto the bed and he managed to reach up for her. Her hair was still up. Like some goddam Egyptian princess. Like Liz Taylor in that movie. She wasn’t even looking at him as she reached down and began stroking him. He could feel it happening again, even this drunk, goddam!

  Ernie Miklos was beyond effort and he made no effort. He just lay there and let it happen to him. And as it was happening, it was different, lazy. He didn’t know it could be that way, goddam.

  “I’m going to come,” he said.

  “Come on,” she said. “Come on all the way home, Ernie.”

  “Oh, God, no, no,” he was screaming again.

  He knew what was happening, knew somehow that it was going to happen. And then Ernie felt it. She shoved the ice in, the big rock candy mountain, the fucking iceberg, and then his scream died and his whole being oozed forth and he felt he would drown in what was happening.

  “Oh my God!”

  Together, like garden snakes, they contorted, moaned, gasped, clenched and throbbed. Fucking eternity, Ernie thought, fucking–A eternity! Ernie found what Cervantes and Milton had only sought. He thought the fillings in his teeth would melt. And even afterward, the throbbing went on.

  “Are you all right?”

  “God, God, God,” he said.

  “Ernie.…”

  “Get me home,” he pleaded. “Get me home.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Home,” he said.

  Gillian managed to dress both of them, managed to half-carry him to the car. It was only three blocks. Ernie felt the fire burning from his stomach to his head. He stumbled from the car and watched Gillian pull away. He staggered to the back of the house, fell blindly against the portable bar. He heard the bottles crack against the brickwork and the sound of the ice bucket hitting. The fire burned in his chest and he felt he was falling.

  Laverne heard the splash and turned on the pool lights. She saw the bar turned over and the broken glass, and then she saw Ernie floating face down in the deep end of the pool. From that distance she didn’t notice the ice cubes floating in the water beside him.

  EXCERPT FROM “THE BILLY & GILLY SHOW,”

  OCTOBER 19TH

  Billy: Later today, Gilly, we’ll be talking to an especially interesting guest, Creighton Schwartz, the editor of Hammer and Nail. That’s the country’s leading do-it-yourself magazine.

  Gilly: It should be fascinating, Billy. Especially to all our listeners in suburbia.

  Billy: No question about it.

  Gilly: I know that our own neighborhood is an absolute beehive of home projects.

  Billy: When you think of it, it’s incredible the way do-it-yourself has taken hold in this country in the last few years. And it’s not just the men. There are lots of women who can paint and hammer with the best of them.

  Gilly: I know. Some of my best friends do it themselves.

  Billy: Of course, lots of couples do it together.

  Gilly: That’s true, Billy. Actually, that’s part of the American tradition.

  Billy: Yes, it’s genuine togetherness. Not pseudo togetherness but the real thing.

  Gilly: Right. Doing it together can be a family affair.

  Billy: Precisely. A do-it-yourself project represents a way of building something together. Not just the project itself, but a foundation for living.

  Gilly: Eloquently said, Billy.

  Billy: In other words, it’s a way of cementing your marriage.

  Gilly: Ummm. Scraping paint side by side.

  Billy: Putting up wallpaper together.

  Gilly: Pairing on the paneling.

  Billy: Laying tile in unison.

  Gilly: That does sound like fun.

  Billy: When you’re working together, you’re building together.

  Gilly: And that’s the solid kind of value that results in a successful marriage.

  MORTON EARBROW

  MORTON EARBROW waited for the sweat to dry. He lay on rancid sheets, too tired to pull off his boxer shorts and grope in the darkness for his pajamas. And there, in the dark, he could hear the clicking, the familiar clicking, the clicking which would continue until sleep dulled his senses.

  “What time is it?” he called out. “What time is it anyway?”

  “One-fifteen,” his wife answered.

  But the clicking didn’t stop. The pattern of sound didn’t even change. She was down at the foot of the stairs scraping paint. She was down there with her can of McBry’s paint remover and a scraper. She was down there wearing rubber gloves. She was down there scraping paint and it was Saturday night.

  “Why don’t you quit for the night?” Morton asked.

  “Quit now?” she said. Click-click-click. “When I’m almost finished? Few more minutes.”

  He knew the clicking would go on and he would fall asleep and in the morning Gloria, she of the golden hair and honey-dew breasts, would be draped over the other side of the bed. She’d still be wearing slacks and sweatshirt, too exhausted to undress.

 
All this he knew, but he had to give it one more shot. Pulling his tortured body from the bed, straightening out his crippled body—crippled from having painted ceilings in eleven different rooms—he limped from the bedroom and down the stairs.

  “Thought you were going to sleep,” Gloria said, never turning her head from her work.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Gloria …”

  “Mmmmm,” she said.

  He had nothing to say and they both knew it. He tried to deliver the message in another language, a language they had both understood so long ago. He put his arms around her waist and rubbed his weekend beard into the dampness of her sweatshirt. He raised his hands until they touched the honey-dew melons that were her breasts.

  “Morton! For God’s sake!”

  “For my sake, Gloria,” he said. “It’s been so long.”

  “Soon we’ll be caught up,” click, click, click. “Soon we’ll be caught up with the house. Then we’ll have the time.”

  “Soon is too late,” he said. “Gloria …”

  “Think of the house,” she said, pointing her index finger at the woodwork that was finally showing through the layers of paint. “Think of what we’re building, the home our children will have.”

  “Children,” he said. “To have children you’ve got to.…”

  “Mor-ton.” It was a warning.