Anthropology of an American Girl

by Hilary Thayer Hamann

  “At the beach,” Joey told Lee and Chris with a jerk of his head. It seemed as though they’d been talking about it. I wondered if they’d mentioned Mark. Joey kissed me, then told Rourke he was sorry his wife, Anna, couldn’t make it, but she had to stay home with the kids. “We tried to get a sitter but nothing doing on a Sunday. And my mother was at church all day, so she’s wiped out.”

  “What are you talking about? How can anyone get ‘wiped out’ at church?” Chris snapped derisively. “She just has to sit there.”

  “Who knows what she does. I think they got her cleaning. She comes home and naps.”

  The three of them sat on one side of the booth, and I slid sideways across the bench opposite them with my back to the dining room, gripping the table to steady myself. I wasn’t very steady. I tried to copy the others; they seemed more or less sure of distances and weights. I left a place for Rourke but he just stayed standing at the end of the table.

  “Where’s Rob?” he asked.

  “Good question,” Chris said.

  Everyone looked to Joey, who shrugged. “I’m not his keeper.”

  Rourke scanned the restaurant, then excused himself. When he was gone, I felt self-conscious of my body in that dress—my breasts beneath the halter top and my thighs under the skirt, the bare way they were touching.

  “So you’re an artist,” Lee said, leaning sweetly over. “I wanted to be an artist,” she confided. “But my parents didn’t think it was—not that there’s anything wrong with—actually, I mean, I think they were afraid I’d marry a—well, you know. It’s just—it takes confidence. You must be confident.” Lee’s eyes were millimeters too big for her head, and when she talked, she talked fast, captivating you with insecurities. She and Chris picked at the antipasto simultaneously; they had matching wedding bands. “Do you eat meat?” she asked. “I don’t. But there are these stuffed pork chops that everybody gets that look really good.”

  When Rourke returned, he came up behind the waiter, who was reciting specials. As soon as the waiter realized everyone was looking behind him, rather than at him, he turned and said, “Oh, sorry, Harrison.”

  Rourke slid in next to me, and our two bodies notched together like pieces of a puzzle. He seemed better, lighter: I figured he’d found Rob. As soon as the waiter started talking again, Rourke cut him off, saying, “We’ll take two swordfish.”

  Chris collected his menu and Lee’s menu and tapped them on the tabletop before handing them over to the waiter. “Make that four.”

  And Joey said, “Five.”

  “So, what happened?” Chris asked Rourke. “You find him?”

  Rourke said, “I just saw his car in the lot. He’s parking.”

  I pressed lightly into him, and beneath the table, he touched the top of my thigh. My hand drifted shyly into the complicated space between his legs.

  “So you went to the Jersey beach today,” Lee said. “It’s different from East Hampton, right?”

  “Very different,” I said, and nodded.

  “Hey, Evie,” Chris said, “did Harrison tell you he used to run Skee-Ball at Coin Castle?”

  I looked at Rourke. “No, he didn’t.”

  Rourke smiled. “Must have slipped my mind.”

  “That’s where he met Rob,” Lee said. “How old were you guys, thirteen?”

  “Thirteen,” Rourke said. “That’s right.”

  “And it was love at first sight,” Chris joked.

  “Not quite,” Joey said. “Rob always tried to hustle him.”

  Rourke said, “Tried to is right.”

  Rob stood at the head of the table and hunted through his pockets for something, withdrawing nothing. He’d come with Lorraine, the redhead from the day before. She said hello and distributed kisses, but Rob said nothing, not to me or anyone, though his eyes frequently darted to Rourke’s. Though he was in a bad mood, I felt better with him there. Everyone did. You could tell by the way they shifted in their seats, coming up higher and adjusting the bands of their watches. Rob gave you the feeling that everything was going to be okay, that there was nothing going on in the world that he did not already know about and have an opinion on.

  Rob pulled a chair to the head of the table, and bumped up next to Lorraine. I figured she was his girl. She acted bored like she was. “I had rust comin’ out of my pipes all day,” he reported with miserable enthusiasm. “It was like clay.”

  “You gotta call,” Chris said.

  “I did call,” Rob said, leaning back in his chair. “I go, ‘I’m supposed to shower in this shit?’” His left shoulder wrenched up. “I go, ‘What, am I supposed to make coffee outta this crap?’”

  As the waiter delivered two pitchers of wine and checked on Rob’s and Lorraine’s orders, I wondered who in Jersey took such calls.

  Rob scanned the table and said, “What did you guys get, the swordfish?”

  Everybody said yeah, yeah, swordfish, yeah.

  Rob flipped his hand. “G’head, Ronnie, make it two more.”

  “They must’ve been working on a main line,” Joey speculated about the water pipes. “They probably stirred up sediment. Give it a day.”

  Lorraine rearranged her bag and laid a pack of Larks near her plate. She looked like the kind of girl with brothers, the kind with a knowledge of pistons, lures, and end zones. The frayed tips of her ginger hair reached in a fan of kinky curls as if to capture creatures. It was like underwater hair. “I keep telling him—use bottled.”

  Rob clicked his tongue. “It’s the pipes, Lorraine, not the water.”

  “Lemme tell you something,” Chris informed all of us, “that bottled water thing is bull. New York State tap is best. Studies show.”

  “Lot of good that does us here in Jersey,” Rob said.

  Chris said, “Yeah, well. I’m just saying.”

  Lee cut in, leaning toward Lorraine and asking how was Mark Ross’s house in the Hamptons.

  Lorraine swiped her hands through the air and said, “Unbelievable. Gorgeous.” Gaw-jus.

  Rob shook his head with disgust and shot back the first of several glasses of wine, going, “Fuckin’ guy.”

  After dinner Lee and Lorraine went home. Lorraine didn’t feel well. At least, that’s what she said, though it was obvious she and Rob were fighting, probably about his drinking too much because she took the car.

  “Leave me stranded,” Rob called after the taillights. “G’head. I don’t give a shit. I’ll make new friends.”

  Lee said she had to work in the morning. She was a market analyst for Lehman Brothers on Wall Street. It sounded like a big job, in terms of responsibility, somewhat like being a surgeon or a bus driver. I wondered how somebody so little gets a job so big, and what she’d been doing out with us, drinking pitchers of sangria. She slid behind the wheel of their new white Cherokee, her head rising inches above its northern arc. “It is Sunday, isn’t it?” she checked with Chris. “I have work tomorrow, right?”

  Chris kissed her through the open driver’s window. “Yes, babe. It’s Sunday. Go home.”

  “Keep an eye on him,” she requested of me with a wink.

  “Okay,” I said, though it seemed like a major obligation. I watched her pull out and wondered at her husband’s iron constitution. I would not have been able to let my wife go like that, into the night like a lame firefly, buzzing off sideways into an immeasurable wood.

  “Let’s get outta here,” he said, climbing into Rourke’s car. “Let’s head over to Vinny’s.”

  Vinny-O’s was the kind of place my dad would have called a beer garden. It was booze-logged and corrosive and lit primarily by backward neon. How we ended up there I wasn’t sure, except to say that Rob had to meet somebody, and nobody was very happy about it. I didn’t ask about the names of the establishments—Mineo’s and Vinny-O’s. I got the feeling it was a Jersey thing.

  We walked into the clatter of pinball and the ching of the bowling game and “Two Tickets to Paradise” by Eddie Money. I went straig
ht to the bathroom, which was filthy and poorly rigged. There were convoluted instructions on how to flush posted over the toilet, and they were yellowed, not necessarily from age.

  LIFT TANK TOP [CROSSED OUT] TOP OF TANK TO SINK. PULL STRING, HOLD OR TIE TO HOOK BY LITE AND REPLACE TOP. TAKE OUT STRING TO EXIT.

  I looked, but there was no sink and no hook. There was a string—but it was wet. Needless to say, the toilet had not been flushed for some time. Voices came through the wall from the men’s room, low and intermittent. When I came out, Rourke was near the front door, deep in conversation with Joey, so I went to the bar and bought myself a beer.

  “Bottle or tap?” the bartender asked.

  “Tap,” I said. It seemed like the thing to say.

  The louvers to the bathroom corridor flagged again on their spent hinges; I turned to see Rob and Chris coming out with a third guy, who cut through the front and disappeared. Theirs had been the voices I’d heard. At first I suspected they’d been buying coke, though they didn’t look high. Maybe it had to do with gambling. Chris breezed past to join Joey and Rourke by the window, but Rob came to me, tossing his arms slightly out, grinning as though he hadn’t seen me for so long.

  “Holdin’ up the bar, gorgeous?” He landed at my side and shifted in half circles, like a cat getting ready to lie down. Eventually he settled, lit a cigarette, and examined me. Each of his features looked as if it had been broken twice, yet there was something irresistible about the urgent way they all pieced together, like a skyline. He took a sip of my beer and grimaced. “What the fuck is that?”

  I thought it might be Schlitz.

  “Schlitz?” He looked over his shoulder to the bartender. “Hey, Marty.” Marty didn’t move. His arms were folded across his chest, his eyes fluttered back. “Jesus,” Rob mumbled to me, then he shouted, “Marty! You alive?”

  Marty roused himself and hitched lamely over. “Sure, Robbie. I’m alive. Unless you happen to be a bill collector.”

  “You’re startin’ to worry me over there,” Rob said. “I seen more blood run through a goalpost.” He lifted my glass and gestured with it, saying, “Gimme something to rinse the taste of this outta my mouth.”

  “How about a shot of Red?”

  Rob pulled a wad of bills from his pocket. “Nah, I’ll take a screwdriver.” Sh-crew-driva. “Want something else?” he asked me. “A little brake fluid, maybe? Some rubbing alcohol?”

  I told Marty I’d take Courvoisier if he had it.

  “That’s a giant leap,” Rob said, “from Schlitz on tap.”

  “That’s because you’re paying,” I told him.

  We got the drinks and toasted. “So, whaddaya think of Jersey?”

  “It’s all right,” I said. The cognac burned my throat.

  He said, “First time?”

  Actually I’d been a few times. My dad and Marilyn had taken me on vacations to visit things such as underground railroad sites and revolutionary war battlefields. I said, “Not technically.”

  “Not technically,” Rob repeated with a smile, and he signaled for another drink. He looked off, as if distracted by something, maybe just something in his head. He bit the inside of his cheek and jiggled the leftover ice in his glass, making a sound like a beaded instrument. I waited and watched, because that’s the thing to do with someone who is complicated and drinking heavily. I’d had lots of practice with Jack. Frequently, people try to act screwed up, but Jack really was. Sometimes you hear, He was as strong as ten men! Jack was not strong that way; he was screwed-up that way.

  “So, you made it through,” Rob said. “You and Harrison. I’m surprised.” He took a drink, and his eyes skimmed the ceiling, lingering before returning to me. “So now what?” he asked.

  I hadn’t thought about it; I hadn’t thought about much of anything. I glanced over my shoulder to Rourke; he didn’t look back. Music started, mournful music, making me feel kind of lost. I set down my glass and pushed it away.

  Rob watched me for a minute, then said, “You like to dance. Come dance with me.” He took my hand and led me to a place between the bar and the empty dining room next to unused tables. His wiry arms held me square and polite.

  Sometimes when I’m feelin’ lonely and beat,

  I drift back in time, and I find my feet, down on Main Street.

  “Remember you and Mark danced at the Talkhouse?”

  I said that I did.

  “I called you Countess,” he said, and I asked him why.

  “Because,” he said, “you have rank.” He leaned close, whispering, “Just be careful.”

  His words gathered at my ear. I felt something surge through his body, ragged and incongruous, frustrated in its effort to transfer smoothly. Then I felt myself traveling back—it was Rourke, pulling me away. Though he stood naturally, you could tell he was not happy. Rourke didn’t need to posture to intimidate, he just had to be within reasonable range of his object. His fingers closed tight on my wrist.

  “Let’s go,” he said, taking a step, pulling me closer, my back to his front, like a hostage.

  The road home was not the same as the one we’d taken on the way there. It was a local road, leafy and closing in, top-lit and wet. We made it back in minutes. The light in the third-floor room was lit; I liked seeing it. It made me feel safe. Rourke leaned over and popped my door. “You know where the key is?”

  I nodded, getting out. “In the box.”

  The car squealed in reverse, swung around, then shot forward. How able he was to exist in the misfortune of night. How afflicted he must have been, by ritual, by rivalry, by things mannish and abstruse, to go back out. I reached for the key, wondering how long it would take him to return, and whether he was going to have to drive those guys. It was strange to think that whatever safety home provided was inadequate compared to the riddling principles that moved him.

  I stepped through into the dark, remembering a small iron lamp on the bookshelves. I searched for it and turned it on. On a low table in front of the couch was a dish filled with the beach glass we’d collected. I went into the kitchen and looked in the cabinets. They were empty except for a new set of dishes.

  Just be careful, Rob had said, and also, So now what? I wondered what else Rob might have said if Rourke hadn’t stopped him? Though I had no reason to mistrust Rourke, for some reason I trusted Rob completely.

  I placed my palms against the bedroom door and pushed slowly. It was empty in there except for a bed and an antique metal table with a vintage work light and a black telephone. I took up the phone cautiously and listened for a dial tone. The closet was empty, but then, he’d just come back from months in Montauk. There were boxes in the hall. Like the rest of the apartment, the room smelled of cut wood. Possibly his parents had fixed it up because they intended to rent the place, though perhaps it had been done for Rourke. It was nice to think of him as loved, as the recipient of feelings that were worthy and true.

  When I heard the car, I went to the door and waited. Rourke seemed as relieved to see me as I was to see him. He pulled off his sweater before tossing it onto the couch. As he unbuttoned his shirt, his hand moved in practiced jerks. The thoughtful way he cast his gaze into space was lonely.

  “He okay?” I asked.

  Rourke nodded, saying, “Yeah, he’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I—”

  Rourke pulled me near. I leaned against his chest and felt his head on mine, his hand on my lower back. “Forget it,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

  What followed was less a kiss, less an embrace, than a precise exchange, a diving in from opposite ends and a rolling, gliding lull at center, like mammals swimming expertly beneath the sea. I felt known, I felt assimilated. I felt a gift from life that I hardly merited. He didn’t have to say that he loved me, not when I could see the gentle cast to his eyes and feel the puerile softness of his lips, not when I could sense the solitude in his hands resolved by touching me. If I didn’t know what he was risking to be with
me, I could feel when he held me the consequence of his choice.

  The next morning we stopped at Eddie M.’s house in Red Bank. They said that we were there to see a car and that Eddie M. was a friend from high school. Rob was there already when we arrived, taking a leisurely walk around a ’71 Corvette—yellow. It made me think of Mark’s Porsche, with the way it was sitting in the driveway like a lost shoe, like a princess slipper. The GTO and Rob’s Cougar looked like giant slabs of beef in the street. One day in Jersey, and I’d never look at cars the same.

  “They didn’t do too bad a job on the paint,” Rob said to Eddie M. “The problem you’re gonna have with the Vette is the heat coming through the floorboards.”

  “Tell him what happened to Jimmy Landes,” Rourke said, joining the conversation without ceremony. The two showed no sign of having argued in the bar the night before, if, in fact, it had even been an argument. There was a newspaper at the end of the driveway. I sat on the corner of the lawn, flipping through the pages, taking care not to look too hard. I didn’t want to know anything.

  “My wife’s at her mother’s,” Eddie M. informed me, strolling over, gawky like a farmhand. His eyes were electric and clear blue, like a husky’s. “Otherwise she’d make coffee.”

  “Why can’t you make it yourself?” Rob called over, in disgust.

  “Because I don’t know how to work the thing.”

  “It’s a coffeemaker, not a backhoe.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rourke said to Rob. “We’re going out.”

  “Where to,” Rob wanted to know. “Pat’s?”

  Rourke said, “Yeah.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Rob said. “He owes me fifty bucks.”

  “I’ll come too,” said Eddie M. “I can’t sit around all day waiting for Karen.”

  After Eddie M. put the Corvette in the garage, we took off in two cars, driving past the weeping willows, cyclone fences, and idle flags of the residential area onto the backstreets, where there were forlorn sidewalks and dwarfish brick buildings and the funereal reflection of ourselves as we proceeded in a long loose wave past the plate glass storefronts.