Then they called us all into the living room again after they had a chance to look the body over or something. We had to sit there while a man named Fish made a speech. Everybody looked solemn. I was crying sort of to myself and I wasn’t even listening very much. Then he said a dreadful thing about her being stuck in the back of the head with something. Killed! Somebody had murdered my Wilma. Just thinking of it made me feel like a tiger or something. I would gouge their eyes right out. I’d jump up and down on them. And we all had to wait around for big shots to come. I kept trying to remember where we’d all been in the water. But that wasn’t any good because we’d been moving around a lot and I didn’t know exactly when it had happened to her. Noel left the room, saying she had a headache. I bet! I waited for Steve to follow her, but he was busy trying to talk them into something about reporters that would be coming.
I just sat there. I stopped crying. I kept thinking about who had murdered her. Judy Jonah was talking to a trooper. She glanced at me and then she sort of frowned at me. Not really at me…
I wonder what the trouble is. She looks sort of funny. Somebody is behind my chair. There is a hand. Nobody should touch anybody like that, put his darn hand on my breast reaching around from behind me, right out with people looking. If this is Paul’s idea of a joke…
Chapter Eight
(GILMAN HAYES—BEFORE)
EVIS HAD PHONED from the gallery. He wanted to know when he could have more work. He said he could sell it. People were waiting for more to come in. I told him I wouldn’t work for a time, maybe a month, maybe two. He said it might be smart to get some work in before his customers cooled off. I told him I didn’t like the implication. I didn’t like the hint that I was some sort of a fad. He apologized to me. But there was a practiced smoothness about the apology that I didn’t care for. I hung up on him.
The world is full of drab inconsequential people like Evis. Living half lives. Afraid to grasp. The world gives to the ones who take boldly. People like Evis are there to be kicked.
But his manner had bothered me. Even though I knew I shouldn’t let it. I went to see Wilma. It was midafternoon. She let me in and then went back to the phone. She was talking in Spanish. Finally she hung up. “I was talking to José,” she said. “Telling him how many were invited.”
“To what?”
“Did you forget, dear? This coming week end at the lake.”
“I guess I forgot.”
She sat beside me and took my hand. “What’s the matter?”
“Evis asked for more work. I didn’t like the way he asked me.”
She shook her head, almost sadly. “When will you learn what you really are, Gil? How long is it going to take you? Grimy little people like Evis don’t matter. He’s a parasite, feeding off your strength. Humility doesn’t become you, darling.”
I could feel the strength coming back into me. She is the only one who can do that. Sometimes I feel as though she created me. But that is wrong, of course. She merely brought out what was already there, hidden behind all the weaknesses and uncertainties I used to have.
I had wasted so much time before I met her.
I want to laugh when I think of the pathetic thing I was. She saw what was there.
I’ve never made friends. You do or you don’t. It seems that easy. I never knew why. She told me why. The less gifted always sense the difference. That’s easy to understand, isn’t it? She talks about mutations. The inevitable change in humanity. To become bigger, stronger, quicker, more ruthless. A survival thing, she has told me.
And I used to crawl and beg. Oh, not obviously. But thankful for the little jobs. Lifeguard, counter boy, usher, dance instructor, model. Little people throwing scraps to me, and hating me because they could sense that I was better. Women were easy. They have always been easy. Wilma says that is a clue. I should have been able to read it. They are easy and meaningless. Except Wilma. Because of what she has done.
It was always a dream. From the time, I guess, that Sister Elizabeth, in the Home, said I could draw. She put that picture on the cork board in the big hall. Of trees. I drew every leaf. She told me what I had to do. Study, work, study, work. She should have known better. Where is there time for that? They let you go when you are old enough. When I was little they thought I would be adopted. I was out three times. But I was sent back. They wanted kissings. I could not do it. I stood and looked at them. Unresponsive, they said. They let me go when I was old enough and they found me the job and the place to live. How can you study and work to be an artist? The books were too hard. I learned the words so I could say them. And lessons are expensive. I would take some and then I would quit because they would not let me do what I wanted to do. Sit here, they said. Draw this pot. Draw that apple. You could go on for years drawing the dull things they put in front of you. That is not being an artist. I took them the things I did myself. All the colors swirled together. They always laughed and pursed up their mouths and tilted their heads on the side and used the words I had learned. Little people, refusing to see what was better. Hating me.
So I did very little of it. And I didn’t show it to anyone any more. But on Sundays I would put on my good clothes and walk where there were the best-dressed people and walk among them and pretend all the time that I was an artist, a very good one. And on those Sundays I would usually find a girl. That was never very hard. As Wilma says, that should have been a clue.
I am ashamed of the way she found me. It was a job for Gherke. Sometimes he would use me. Not often and not for much money. I would have to lean, sweating, over some meatless girl, trying to look charmed and devoted to her, while Gherke fussed with hot lights and camera angles, always complaining about my wooden expression. The ad she saw was for Ferris perfume. She asked at the agency and the agency sent her to Gherke and Gherke told her where to find me. She sat at a stool. I had to wear that monkey hat behind that counter. Ridiculous. She knew my name. She waited until I was off. I thought it was just more of the same. I did not care. She was older, but not too old, I thought.
That night was what made everything different. It was not what I thought. It was at first, but not later. Not with those lights low and with her asking me the questions about myself. She knew when I was lying. I have always lied. Usually I say things like coming from a rich family and my people killed in a plane or something. But she kept asking and after a little bit I found I was telling her everything. Sister Elizabeth, drawing every leaf, how it was easy with girls, everything, and after a while I was crying. I couldn’t remember crying before. She told me later it was like psychoanalysis. Releasing tension. It all took a long time, because I could not express myself well. It was dawn when it was over and I felt as if I had run as fast as I could all night long.
Then she told me what I was. I had never known it before. She told me how the world always tries to suppress the best.
That was the beginning. After that came the clothes, and how to treat people, and getting the studio apartment for me, and her there all the time while I painted, doing pictures very quickly, and Wilma telling me all the time to be bold about what I was doing. Not to try to paint something, but to paint a feeling. With big sweeps of color and spatters of paint.
She introduced me to Steve, and it didn’t matter to me that he didn’t like me. She said he had his job to do and he would do it. We went to good places and were seen there and after a while I was in the columns and then that man did the article on my work and then the gallery took me, and then there were all those arguments in the art sections of the papers and people began to buy the paintings and talk about me.
But she had taught me how to act. To always remember that I am better. That they are all slobs. Treat them as such. They like it, she said. They come back for more. It is really very easy to do. I had always acted sort of that way, but it was an unnatural shyness. I mean it just looked like arrogance.
Wilma made everything come true, but I know now that even without her it would have happened anywa
y. It might have taken longer. That is all.
There is still a weakness in me. Like when Evis acted that way. I had to go to her again because she could make me feel strong and whole again. But I am going to get over that. So nothing can disturb me. I am, as she has explained, a mutation. What the race of men will one day become. She is a little bit that way, but not so much. The ones who are that way, they are big and strong and quick. I have always been bigger and stronger and quicker than the others. I can walk down any street and look at men and know I can knock them down. And look at women and know I can have them. That is the way I look at them. So that they know it. They have always hated me anyway. They have always rejected me. So it makes no difference if I give them more cause, does it?
At first Wilma bullied her friends into buying my work. She knew it was good. And then strangers started buying it At first I would read something. It would say, “Weak, amateurish, exhibitionistic. A monstrous joke. A triumph of press agentry.” It would make me uncertain.
But she would have another clipping. It would say, “Gil-man Hayes exhibits a truly startling growth in his latest work. His dynamic approach to space relationships, his iconoclastic attitude toward traditional concepts of design, his daring use of color have burst open new frontiers in subjective art. We predict that…”
I keep the good ones in a scrapbook.
I go to be with Wilma, and in that she is very demanding, but for me it is not like the others. It is like a comforting. Like being protected from outside things that want to hurt you with sharp edges. A warmth around you. Sometimes we laugh together at Hess. He is such a ridiculous man. So helpless. So futile. I think of how insignificant he is and how strong I am and I want to put my fist through his skull. I know I could do it. It would be like tearing brittle paper. As if he were not really there. As if he were not really alive. The way I am. The way Wilma is. I am strong enough to put my fist through the world. It would tear like paper, too. As easily subdued as that Mavis was, walking around trying to be Wilma. And can never be.
Once I remembered the party at the lake, I was glad. I like it up there. I remembered Amparo Loma. Perhaps this time.
Wilma and I left very early on Friday morning. Her driving frightens me. I do not let her see that it does. She was quiet on the way up, intent on her driving. On one straight stretch she made the little car do 110. It will go faster. She laughed when we were going the fastest. I could not hear her. I saw her mouth and knew she was laughing. She has done a lot of living. She is older. She can go fast. I have a lot left to do. I thought of the car overturning, and of my skin and muscle and bone sliding and grinding over concrete. It made me feel pale. But I could not let her see it.
It made me feel pale like that time in the Home. There was a concrete fire escape. It had an iron railing. I was small. One of the big boys took me out on the top landing. He held me over the railing. I could not even scream. I saw the bricks down there. There was nobody to help me. He brought me back over the railing and dropped me. It hurt my head. I started to cry. He slapped me. Then he turned his back. He leaned on the railing. He ignored me. I wasn’t there any more.
We got to the lake at two o’clock. There was nothing there but the old station wagon José uses. She walked in and checked everything and gave orders. What to serve. Where to put people. She sent José to the village for more things. I swam and rested on the dock in the sun. I let the sun unwind my nerves. I could hear her yelling at them in the house. In Spanish. She treats them like dogs. They don’t seem to care. I guess it is because of the money.
The others came. Randy and Noel Hess. Judy Jonah. Steve Winsan. The Dockertys. Wallace Dorn last of all. They all drink too much. I have never enjoyed drinking. It dulls things. It spoils things. I make a drink last a long time. I did not pay much attention to them. I almost laughed at myself. Once upon a time I would have thought this was the greatest thing in the world. You get used to nice things quickly. I have always liked nice things. Clean smells. The feel of silk. Long showers. Now I had them, and would always have them, and I knew it was meant that way from the beginning.
I sat with them and listened to the foolish talk they made. I played a game. This was my place. I was a baron. Wilma was my aging lady. Soon I could be rid of her. And rid of her empty friends. And I could live here alone, with the brown Amparo. And beat her severely when she displeased me. When I had a party, it would not be these people. It would be people who depended on me, who needed my strength. I would tell them what to do. And when.
Usually, when we were in a group, Wilma would look at me from time to time, and there would be a quick understanding between us. But she had acted strangely on the way up. She had acted strangely ever since we had talked about Evis. I could not catch her eyes. I wondered if I had displeased her, and then I made myself stop thinking that way. It was the other way around. It was up to her to please me. We had changed status. Inevitably.
They played games. I have never cared for games. I danced with the Dockerty woman. She was a little drunk. I dance well. I knew her husband was aware of us, and I knew that the dancing excited her. It gave me pleasure to make him nervous. I knew, when we danced on the terrace, that I had only to take her wrist and lead her out into the darkness away from the floodlights. It was that easy. But I did not. It pleased me to tantalize her. She meant nothing. I knew the others were aware of our dancing. All of them watching us, pretending not to. All of them envious of me. Or of the Dockerty woman. That was pleasant too, to feel the emotion of them, of the weak ones watching the strong.
Wilma had put me in the same room as before, the one with the door that connects with hers. But when I tried it, it was locked. I raised my fist to knock, then lowered it. That would be a loss of dignity. It did not matter. Not at all. I went to bed. There was the flush of the sun on my body. It felt good. And the faint weariness of much dancing. And the smell of rich things around me.
I slept. I have never, in my whole life, dreamed. They talk about it. I don’t know what they mean. Of that one thing I am envious. It must be nice. Little stories that go on in your head when you are asleep. I make up dreams sometimes, and tell them to women. They always seem interested. They like to tell me what the made-up dreams mean. It seems to excite them to tell me what my dream lies mean.
I was up early, as I always am. I was the first. Amparo brought my breakfast. She moved quickly away when I tried to touch her. I knew what this day would be. They would be drunk. But there would be sun and some good exercise. That was enough. I could wear my trunks all day. They look at me. It is good to be looked at, when you know that all of you is brown and strong and well formed. I liked posing for the life classes. Back then, in my stupidity, I thought their drawings of me were good. I know better now.
The others got up. Steve drove a runabout, pulling me on the skis. The fool let the towline go slack. Instead of releasing the bar, I tried to hold it. When the line came tight it felt as though it would yank my arms out of the sockets. It hurled me through the air and awkwardly into the water. I was certain he had done it on purpose. I would take his throat in my hand and bang his head on the concrete pier. But by the time I swam in, the redness had faded away. Hess drove the runabout. I taught Mavis how to stand up on the skis. She is a giggler. A fool. But her co-ordination was fair, and she learned and became very proud of herself. Again I knew her husband watched us warily.
That may have been the reason he got thoroughly drunk, stumbling around while we played croquet, disappearing finally to pass out. It turned into a sleepy afternoon. People disappeared, reappeared. I tried to find a chance to talk to Wilma, but she avoided me. Mavis lay beside me in the sun on the pier, talking inanities, sweating rather unpleasantly.
It was dark when I finally had a chance to talk to Wilma. She called me over to her. We went up and sat on the edge of the steep bank near the croquet layout. I watched them down there in the floodlights, swimming. And I heard them laugh.
And Wilma talked to me.
And talked to me.
And talked.
Chapter Nine
(NOEL HESS—BEFORE)
RANDY DID NOT LOOK directly at me when he told me we were going to Wilma’s place at Lake Vale for the week end. We do not look at each other very much any more.
I was given a present once. The woman next door brought it over. I had been sick. I was sitting up in bed. My mother was there. I took off the paper. There was a wooden box, just a bit smaller. And another. And another. My breath came faster. The last box would contain something tiny and exquisite. It had to. It had to be something very small and delicate and lovely and precious to merit all the boxes, one within the other. The final box was empty. I looked into it for a long time and felt as if somebody had been there before me and stolen whatever it was. I cried. My mother was ashamed of me. The woman smiled and said it was perfectly all right, but her eyes did not smile.
For a long time I tried to find something good enough to put in that box, the littlest one. There was nothing good enough. I stole a ring from a girl in my class. It had a red stone. I took it out of her desk. I hid it in my shoe. It hurt but I didn’t limp. I took it home and put it in the smallest box. Once it was in there I saw it clearly. One prong was broken. The silver was turning yellowish. It was not good enough. I had stolen. I had to be punished. I held a wire in the gas flame on the stove and put it against my arm. I did not cry. After the scab came off there was a thin white scar. It lasted for years. Now I cannot find it. I threw the ring into tall grass. I never liked that girl again. Once, during fire drill, I pinched her—hard. She cried and told on me. I was punished.
I am a lot of boxes. All going down, down to a tiny one. And nothing in it. Anything so intricate, so difficult to construct, the corners glued so carefully, needs something valuable inside. I am intricate. I am well made. To enclose emptiness. So it is a feeling of not being used. And of having been most carefully planned for use.
John D. MacDonald Page 10
