“All hollow,” Aaron agreed.
“You’ve got something wrong with your legs, don’t you?”
“That’s right. Something wrong with my legs. What’s your problem?”
“Will you promise not to tell?”
“No.”
“I won’t tell you unless you promise.”
Aaron sighed. “You have my word, Scudder.”
“Nothing,” Branch whispered. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I got in by pull.”
“Rosie arrange it for you?”
“How’d you know?”
“Two and two, Scudder.”
“Anyway, you won’t tell. You promised.”
Aaron drank his Scotch.
“This sure is a big room. I almost feel like I have to shout so you’ll hear me.”
“Well, restrain yourself.”
“You’re funny.”
“Hilarious,” Aaron agreed.
“You are.”
Aaron glanced out the window.
“That Scotch getting to you?”
“I feel a distant buzz.”
“Excuse me,” Branch said, and he got off the bed, moving to the bathroom. From his position in the chair Aaron could see him. Branch half closed the bathroom door but Aaron could see him as he poured his drink down the toilet. Aaron returned his gaze to the window. A moment later the toilet flushed and Branch was back. Lying on the bed, he brought the empty glass to his lips, licking the edge with his tongue.
“What river is that out there?” Aaron asked.
“I don’t know. Some river.”
“It’s picturesque as hell.”
Branch got off the bed and came close to Aaron’s chair, staring out at the water. “It is at that,” he said. “Yes, indeed.” Again he licked at the edge of his glass. “I’m ready for a little refill, Aaron. How about you?”
Aaron finished his drink. “Love it.”
Branch filled the glasses with more Scotch. Then he handed one to Aaron and sprawled down on the bed again, his head propped on an elbow.
Aaron looked at him.
Branch began to fidget. “It’s sure nice this suite is air-conditioned. Imagine how hot it would be otherwise.”
Aaron said nothing.
“What are you looking at me like that for?”
Aaron did not reply.
Branch was fidgeting badly now, his fingers fluttering on the bedspread. “What is it, Aaron? What’s the matter?”
“Lecher,” Aaron said.
“Huh?”
Aaron laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?”
“You filthy lecher. Trying to get me drunk. You ought to be ashamed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw!”
“Saw what?”
“Will you quit with the innocent act? I saw you. Through the bathroom door, Scudder. You should have closed the door all the way. Fool. Didn’t you think I could see? Why didn’t you close the door? Why didn’t—”
The answer made him shudder.
“Jesus,” Aaron whispered.
“Don’t say any more, Aaron. Be careful now.”
“You wanted me to see,” Aaron whispered. “You wanted it.”
“No.”
“Yes! You wanted me to catch you.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t.”
“So I’d punish you for being such a bad boy.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You love punishment, don’t you, Scudder?”
Branch sat up on the bed. “No.”
“Oh, it’s so obvious, Scudder. It’s written all over you. Admit it. You love being punished.”
Branch stood.
“Sit back down!”
Branch sat back down.
Aaron smiled. Slowly he drew the white sheet tightly around him. “Do you know the poem, Scudder, about the sadistic man? ‘A sadistic man had a masochistic wife and he beat her every day and they led a happy life.’ Do you think we could have a happy life, Scudder?”
Branch took a long drink of Scotch. Then another.
Aaron ran his hands across his chest. Sunlight streamed in through the window, but the room was cool. Aaron smiled again. “You desire me, don’t you, Scudder? Don’t you, you fat fairy, you swish, you queer? Don’t you?”
Branch drained his glass.
“Don’t you?”
Branch spoke. It was barely a whisper. “Yes.”
“Desperately?”
“Yes.”
“More than you ever wanted anything ever before?”
“Yes. Yes.”
Aaron stood, his chin held high, his body straight. “All right then, Scudder. You can have me.”
Branch started to get up.
“But it’s going to cost you.”
“I don’t care what it costs. I don’t.”
“And not just money, Scudder.”
“I don’t care.” He started toward Aaron.
“Stop.”
“But—”
“Stop!”
Branch stopped.
“Now. On your knees.”
“Aaron ...”
“On your knees, Scudder.”
Branch knelt.
“All the way down. I want your head touching the rug. Bow. To me. Bow!”
Branch bowed.
Like an emperor, Aaron walked around him, studying the huddled figure. “You like being punished, don’t you, Scudder?”
“Yes.”
“You will be punished. Rest assured.” Aaron lifted his left foot, bringing it down, his heel on Branch’s neck.
“You’re hurting me.”
“You love it. Shut up.” He held out his right hand, fist clenched, thumb extended. “Well,” he shouted. “What shall it be? Thumbs up or thumbs down?”
“Aaron ...”
Aaron pressed down harder with his heel. “Oh God,” he said, and his body shook with anticipation. “The things I’m going to do to you.”
Part III
XI
AS SOON AS SHE saw Manhattan, Jenny knew she had made a mistake.
She sat very still, staring out, as the bus roared toward the approaching city. Oh dear, Jenny thought, what am I going to do? I still get lost in Duluth. What’s going to happen to me here? For a moment she imagined the headline, “Girl Dies Trying to Find Radio City Music Hall.”
Jenny looked away.
You stop this now, she told herself. I’m not kidding either. Millions of people find their way around, you can find your way around, right? Right! That’s better. See you don’t panic again, right? Right. Promise? Promise. O.K., look at it. It’s not so big. Just look.
Jenny looked.
Oh dear, she thought, it’s growing.
“I just love New York.”
Jenny turned to the thin lady next to her. “Auh?”
“Yes, it’s a wonderful place. I love to travel but New York’s my favorite. Some cities, they make it so hard for you. But here it’s just so easy to get where you’re going.”
“It is?”
“Oh, yes. The crosstown streets, they’re nothing. They just go up, one number at a time.”
“Fancy that,” Jenny said. “You mean fifteenth is between fourteenth and sixteenth?”
“Yes. And the up and downs are simple too. First, Second, Third, Luke, Paul, Matthew, Five. That’s the East Side, and—”
“Luke, Paul, Matthew?” Jenny said.
“Lexington, Park, Madison. Luke, Paul, Matthew—that’s what I call a memory help. I get most of my memory helps from the Bible. Do you read the Bible?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, then, you’ll never get lost in New York.”
“Fancy that,” Jenny said, and she turned back to the window, whispering Luke, Paul, Matthew, Luke, Paul, Matthew over and over while she stared out at the tiny town.
I’ll never make it, Jenny thought as she saw them unloading her two enormous suitcases. Her arms were already pract
ically full, what with her pocketbook and her magazines and camera and two street maps of the island of Manhattan plus four tourist guides (three hard-cover, one paperback), so how was she ever going to manage her suitcases? Her mother had urged her not to take everything and even her father had suggested that she might leave a few odds and ends around the house. But she had resisted their suggestions, not because she was stubborn but rather because she knew she was, at heart, a coward, and it seemed wise to bring it all: if there was nothing to run back to, there would be less chance of running back. But as she stood between the great bulky bags, Jenny doubted her decision: after all, eleven stuffed animals was a lot of stuffed animals.
Jenny sighed.
I’ll just have to get one of those redcaps, she thought. That’s just what I’ll do, but I wonder how much you have to pay them? “Redcap?” she whispered. “Redcap?” And she opened her purse and when she did she was glad she had whispered because all she had was a hundred dollars in travelers’ checks and a twenty-dollar bill and three pennies. “Whew,” Jenny said. That was a close one. I’ll have to get change. She looked around for a place, but then she gasped because out of the corner of her eye she saw a titanic Negro redcap bearing down on her and he had a big scar on his left cheek and if he took her bags and she tried to give him the twenty-dollar bill he would think she was either a cheapskate phony or a girl who hated Negroes and then he would whip out his razor and she saw the headline that said “Redcap Slays Racist Girl Visitor” and he was right up on top of her now and Jenny was about to say “But I like Negroes” when suddenly a blond man came up from behind her and said “Need a hand?” and whisked her two suitcases up and started walking for the main entrance.
“But,” Jenny said, tagging along after him, “but,” but by the time she had actually caught up to him they were on the sidewalk and he had put the bags down and said “You’ll probably have trouble getting a taxi” and then he was gone, and she could only shout “Thank you, thank you very much” after him.
“Hop in.”
Jenny looked at the man in the car. “Are you a taxi?” she said finally.
“Am I a taxi. Am I a taxi?” The man shook his head. “You wouldn’t be, by any chance, new to New York?”
Oh, wouldn’t you like to know, Jenny thought. Well, you don’t fool me. I’ve heard about you taxi drivers. How you drive people hundreds of miles out of the way and take all their money and like that. “New?” she said. “Oh, no. I’m a veteran traveler. I happen to have been here thirty-five times.” She opened her purse and took out a piece of paper. “Now, I want to go to the Dixon Hotel. That’s in Manhattan. On West Forty-fifth Street. One hundred and sixty-four West Forty-fifth Street. Do you know where that is?”
“Well, now, lemme see,” the driver said. “That’s a toughie. It’s in Manhattan, you say. One sixty-four West Forty-fifth. You don’t happen to know, is it on the uptown or downtown side of the street?”
Jenny consulted her paper. “The downtown side.”
“Then I think I can find it.” He waited while she shoved her bags in the back and when that was done he said “Dixon Hotel, I’m really nervous,” and then he started to drive.
“Oh, by the way,” Jenny said from the back seat.” If you get a chance, you might go through the theater district.”
“The Dixon’s in the theater district.”
“Of course it is. I was just testing you.”
“Franklin Truman.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s my name, Franklin Truman.” He jabbed a finger at his hack license. “See? Franklin Truman. Easy to remember. So when I do to ya whatever it is you think I’m gonna do to ya, you won’t have no trouble telling the cops.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Little girl, listen—”
“I am not a little girl.”
“All right, big girl. Listen, big girl. I’m seventy years old, with eight grandchildren and a thyroid condition, is it likely I’m gonna rob you blind?”
“I never said—”
“You got me so nervous up here I’m quivering. Forty-eight years I’m hacking I never met anybody so suspicious as you. I rode Dutch Schultz the week before they shot him and he wasn’t nearly as suspicious as you and he had reason to be. Now I’ll get you to the Dixon, but have a heart. I got feelings, lady. I never stole anything in my life. I got pride.”
“Oh dear, I didn’t mean—”
“My daughter I put through Bryn Mawr college, my son through Massachusetts Tech; I’m proud of that. I never once yet cheated on my wife; I’m proud of that. I ain’t a bug, lady; quit making me feel like one.”
Jenny bit her tongue and stared out at the traffic. “I’m sorry, Mr. Truman,” she said.
“Franklin.”
“I’m sorry, Franklin.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jenny.”
“Jenny?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a nice name.”
“Do you think so?” She leaned forward in her seat. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“It’s not that I’m suspicious—no, I guess I am suspicious—but anyways, the reason that I’m particularly suspicious today is, well ...”
“Go on, go on.”
Jenny put her head up next to his. “In all my life,” she whispered, “I’ve never been more than thirty-two miles away from home before and I’m absolutely fantastically nervous.”
“You mean this is your first trip to New York?”
“Yes. My very one.”
“You could a fooled me.”
“I was trying to. I think it’s terribly important that people think I’m a native, don’t you?”
“Definitely.”
“It’s no good being a stranger. Why, I’ve heard stories about things that happened to strangers in Duluth that would make your hair stand right up on end.”
“I believe it.”
“It’s the truth. Oh, the stories I could tell.”
“Why are we whispering?”
“That’s a habit I have; it prevents eavesdropping.”
“Understand me, I got nothing against the practice. It’s just we’re all alone in the cab.”
“You’re probably right,” Jenny said, and she sat back against the cushions. “Do you know what, Franklin? You have a very sweet face. I don’t understand how I could ever have mistrusted you with a face like that.”
“Happens,” he said and he turned a corner.
“Stop!”
“What-what?”
“Look. At that theater.” Jenny pointed to the left. “That’s Stagpole’s play. See? The Left Hand Knows.”
“So?”
“Well, he’s practically my favorite writer. He’s won the Pulitzer Prize. Two times. For a novel and a play. He’s the only one who ever did that except for Mr. Wilder. And I know him. Well, I’ve never met him, of course, but my boyfriend—I guess you’d call him my boyfriend; we grew up together, of course he’s my boy friend—and his father, he runs the lodge—he’s very rich, he doesn’t have to run the lodge, he just does, ever since he had this heart attack—and he and Stagpole both came from Illinois, the downstate part to begin with, and whenever they see each other, why it’s just as friendly as can be, and Tommy—that’s my boyfriend—well, I think it’s pretty impressive winning two Pulitzer Prizes, don’t you, one for a novel and one for a play?”
“Your boy friend won the Pulitzer Prize? That’s marvelous.”
“No,” Jenny said. “I didn’t tell it right. But it’s very exciting all the same, don’t you think so, Franklin?”
“I’m thrilled, and I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“New York is certainly a wonderful place,” Jenny said. “Do you know a nice hotel I could stay at?”
“A nice hotel? What’s wrong with the Dixon? Haven’t you got a reservation?”
“Oh, I made one but they probably forgot a
ll about it. I mean, things like that happen to me all the time. I lead a very perilous life. Why, did you know that when I graduated high school they forgot to give me a diploma? They just skipped right by me in the alphabetical order. The principal, he was absolutely mortified, but I expected it to happen. I just sat there while he was calling the roll and I thought, Betcha you forget my name, Mr. Lund, what do you wanna bet?”
“That’s terrible.”
“You should have seen what happened when I went to secretarial school. In Duluth. I was there for three months before anybody—”
“I happen to be very well connected at the Dixon,” and he jumped the car ahead. “Now just relax and leave it all to me.” He cut in and out of traffic, gunning the car, making a light at the last possible moment, finally pulling up in front of the Dixon Hotel.
The Dixon doorman opened the taxi door. Mr. Truman shook his head. The doorman looked at him. Mr. Truman beckoned once with the index finger of his right hand. The doorman shut the taxi door and walked around the car until he stood outside the driver’s window.
“Franklin,” the doorman said out of the side of his mouth.
“Mort,” Mr. Truman answered out of the side of his mouth.
“Something?” Mort said softly.
“Wantcha to take care of this girl.”
“Consider it done. What’s her name?”
“What’s your name, Jenny?”
“Devers,” Jenny said.
“Devers,” Mr. Truman said out of the side of his mouth.
“Devers,” Mort said, nodding.
“Check that her reservation’s straight,” Mr. Truman said.
“Consider it done,” Mort said, and he hurried into the hotel.
“This is really very nice of you, Franklin,” Jenny said. “But I never meant—”
“It’s no trouble. He owes me money.”
“Oh,” Jenny said. “Well, I hope he pays you.”
He turned around and looked at her. “You’re a pretty girl, you know that?”
“No, I’m not pretty.”
He looked at her again. “Well, just the same, you got qualities.”
“I’m very nice,” Jenny said. “At least I try to be.”
“Why’re you here?”
“Oh, because my boyfriend’s in town visiting. Well, he’s supposed to be in town visiting. He’s probably gone away unexpectedly, but I thought since he was here that I ought to come then because it would give me somebody to talk to. I think that’s very important, don’t you, to have somebody to—oh, here comes Morton.”
Boys & Girls Together Page 38
