“Don’t call me a whore.”
“Don’t try and sneak out of it either, goddam it.” He grabbed her and started to shake her.
“Let GO!”
“Admit it. You want to fight because I’m free, because you can have me and you’re afraid. Admit it.”
“I said let—”
“I get rid of my wife and all of a sudden you don’t want to play.”
“LIAR. LYING BASTARD.”
“WHORE!”
“You never told her about us. You NEVER TOLD HER. LIAR LIAR!”
“You WEREN’T PREGNANT!”
“I was.”
“Now who’s the liar?”
“I had to do something!”
“LIAR!”
“GET OUT! YOU MAKE ME SICK! I HATE BASTARD LITTLE-BOY LIAR. WEAKLINGS AND YOU CAN GET OUT!”
“TRY ... AND ... STOP ... ME!”
Charley slammed his way out to the street. “Bitch,” he said aloud. “Oh, you lying bitch.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking east. The first bar he came to he went in and had a shot of Scotch, then another. After the third shot he paid and walked outside and continued east until he saw another bar. He hesitated outside this one, but it seemed very nice, much nicer than the other, so he paid his respects for a double shot and then took up his journey again. When he got to Central Park he realized that he had got where he had intended to get, but now he had forgotten why. He looked at his watch, calculating whether he could make the next Princeton train, and the thought of Princeton brought Betty Jane to mind, Betty Jane conjured Jenny, and Charley sat down hard.
They were both gone.
For a moment it was hard for him to catch his breath. Both. Gone. After over two years. Charley sagged back against the bench. Two years and all for nothing. Two years and two women and the total was nil. He pictured Betty Jane’s face, Jenny’s body. Charley put his head in his hands. For a moment he felt overpoweringly lonely. Not that he expected pity; not that he’d earned it; still, he felt lonely. “I have blown it,” Charley muttered to the bench. “I have blown it all.” Once upon a time he had had a wife with a princess’ face. Once upon a time he had had a mistress with melon breasts and sweet thighs. And their love, he had that too. All their love. Now he had nothing. Now they were gone. Both gone. After two long years, both of them gone.
So why am I smiling? Charley wondered.
Am I smiling? He put the tips of his fingers to the edges of his mouth. I am. I am definitely smiling. Charley stood. His feet began to move, carrying him deeper and deeper into the park. His feet were dancing. Charley looked down at them. They shuffled along through the park, and every so often a heel kicked up, and a hansom cab went by and Charley cried “Happy New Year” and then his fingers began snapping in time with the rhythm of his feet, and his body began to sway, and he spun through the moonlight, a blissful smile on his face, no weight whatsoever on his good free shoulders, and he laughed and laughed and made a microphone with his left hand and brought it to his lips and said, “Calling all cars! Calling all cars! There’s this dancing nut in Central Park!” Charley shrieked with joy.
“And it’s me!”
XXI
“FOOL!” AARON SAID. “YOU’VE burned the toast again.”
“I’m sorry,” Branch muttered.
“I didn’t think you were glad about it, Scudder. Burning the toast on purpose—my God, only a Hitler could do a thing like that.” He reached across the dining-room table for his pack of cigarettes. “Now here’s the point, the important thing, the thinga importanta, as we Kurdish scholars say—dammit, the pack’s empty.”
“Well, don’t look at me. It’s not my fault you’re out of cigarettes.”
“Everything’s your fault, Scudder,” Aaron told him. “Don’t you know that yet?” Pushing back from the table, he stood and hurried out of the room, turning left down the corridor to the master bedroom. The bed was unmade, but otherwise the room was neat enough. Aaron stared out the window at the Hudson River, half covered with January ice. Then he turned and started to search. “Where’s my cigarette carton?” he called.
“I think it’s in there someplace,” Branch called back.
“Thanks,” Aaron muttered. For a moment he contented himself with opening and closing dresser drawers, but then, quite to his surprise, he found he was angry. He tried to master the anger but he was no match for it, and soon his hands were ripping the sheets and blankets from the mattress and the fat pillows were flying across the room and he had the bed half up on end when Branch shouted at him from the doorway.
“Aaron. Aaron!”
Aaron blinked, then slowly lowered the bed back to the floor. “Trying to find my cigarettes,” he managed.
Branch was watching him. “Maybe they’re in your study,” and he pointed toward the rear bedroom. “You smoke a lot when you write.”
Aaron shook his head.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m supreme.”
“Come on, then. It’s Sunday; let’s go finish brunch. You shouldn’t smoke when you eat anyway.” They walked back to the dining room and Branch sat down and picked up his coffee cup and started to fill it.
“My God,” Aaron said. “What’s that you’re pouring from the coffeepot?”
“Coffee.”
“Then why isn’t it brown?”
“Oh come on, it’s brown.”
“Sort of a wan brown, maybe.” Aaron cleared his throat. “All right, everybody, it’s time for a little community sing. Here we go. ‘Wan Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave ... ” He looked at Branch. “Laugh.”
“That was very clever, Aaron. Really very—”
“Laugh.”
“I don’t feel like it. I’m sorry.”
“That’s the truth, Scudder. You’re the sorriest vista on my horizon, I’ll tell you that.” Aaron poured himself some coffee. “Why didn’t you laugh? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t be like that. Tell Uncle Aaron. Smile, Branchy-poo. What have you got to be unhappy about except that you’re a faggot with halitosis?”
“Do you have to be so unpleasant?”
“That’s my job, isn’t it? I’m the sadist in this relationship.”
“Sometimes you’re not so funny, Aaron.”
“Watch it there, Scudder, or I’ll start being nice to you.”
“Dry up.”
“That’s it!” Aaron cried. “That’s it! Pencil, pencil,” and he got up again, going into the living room, returning a moment later with a pad and pen. “It’s poetry. Genius. ‘Dry up.’ What an image! I’m weak. ‘Dry up.’ Branch, it’s Shakespearean! God, you’re clever. I hate you for it. I’m supposed to be the writer, but you—you—have the talent. Oh, why can’t I think of things like that? Why? Why?”
“O.K.,” Branch said. “You’ve embarrassed me. Are you happy?”
Aaron smiled. “Every little bit helps.”
“What’s with you today?”
“I might ask the same of you. As a matter of fact, I think I did. Something is the matter, isn’t it? With both of us. Have you any ideas? Of course you don’t. Mongoloids rarely get ideas, and—”
“How about changing the subject?”
“Wonderful. Let’s talk about your Oedipus complex.”
Branch said nothing.
“Aw, now don’t be embarrassed about it, sweetums. Here; let me ask you a few intimate questions.”
“I do not have an Oedipus complex.”
“Scudder, you are so sick—I mean, what goes on between you and your mumsy—”
“That’s enough, Aaron!”
“Ah, but you’re a fiery wench, Scudder, you know that?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m out of cigarettes! That’s symbol as well as fact, so obviously you won’t understand, you’re so tied up with your own petty problems. All you’re worried about is that your mother is pressuring you to get the hell ba
ck to Ohio. Well, so what if you go back to Ohio? So what if you live a life of anguish and misery? What does that matter when compared with the fact that I’m out of cigarettes? Your existence was at best meaningless, you measly little fink, but when a man of my stature is out of cigarettes—that’s tragedy, Scudder. Cry.”
“Aaron—”
“Cry!”
“Shut up!”
“On one condition.”
Branch looked at him a moment. “What’s the condition?”
“That you admit you have an Oedipus complex.”
“Oh, please.”
“Admit that your relationship with your mother is so sick that Freud would have paid you twenty-five an hour.”
“My relationship—I’m really angry, Aaron—my mother and I! Oh, you wouldn’t understand. You just wouldn’t understand, that’s all. What’s the point? All you understand is cruelty. You don’t know what love is. I happen to have a good warm honest loving relationship with my mother and that’s all there is to it.”
“Secretly,” Aaron whispered. “Secretly—”
“Just don’t say any more.”
“I’m going to make you admit it, Scudder. I’m going to make you face up to the fact that that ‘good, warm, honest, loving relationship’ isn’t good, honest, warm or even a relationship. But loving? I’m going to make you admit it, Scudder. Watch. I’m gonna trap you, Scudder. Watch. I’m;. going to make you admit it with your own fat lips.”
“Aaron, be nice!”
“I’m—I’m—” Aaron covered his eyes with his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered then. “Please. I’m sorry.”
Branch reached across the table. “Forgiven.”
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Aaron whispered.
“Look at me.”
Aaron shook his head, his hands still over his eyes.
“Aaron, it’s all right. I’m not mad anymore.”
“It’s not all right. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Sometimes—” He pushed out of the chair and moved to the window. “Branch?”
“What?”
“There’s something you’ve got to do for me. We’ve been living together almost six months now and I’ve never asked anything like it before. I won’t be bad to you anymore. I swear. I’ll change. But you’ve got to help me, Branch. You’ve got to do this thing.”
“What?”
“Go to the drugstore and get me some cigarettes.”
“Huh?”
“Right now. It’s got to be right now. I’ll be your slave if you go now.” Aaron turned. “Well?”
“You son of a bitch,” Branch said.
“I don’t get it,” Aaron said. “Here I promise to be your slave if you’ll just go get me a pack of cigarettes and you swear at me.”
Branch said nothing.
“I’m so confused,” Aaron went on. “Here it is five minutes before twelve and I offer you myself as a slave for a ten-minute jaunt and you say no. I just—” Aaron snapped his fingers. “No, wait, it’s Sunday. And who calls on Sunday? On the dot at twelve every goddam Sunday! Mumsy. So if you went out for cigarettes, you’d miss her call. Is that why you won’t go? Am I getting warm?”
Branch said nothing.
“But wait. I tell you what. You go get the cigarettes and when she calls I’ll just tell the operator that you’ll be back in a couple of minutes. And if she calls station to station I’ll chat with her just until you get back. O.K.? Now will you go?”
“Do you get pleasure out of this?”
“Bet I do, psycho. I’m getting to the juicy part now. I’m getting to the meat, if you know what I mean. Here’s the crux coming up. You see, here’s this guy who says he’s got this great relationship with his mother. And this guy, he’s got a roommate, see. And they’ve lived together almost six months, see. And the mother thinks he lives alone. That’s why, when she calls at twelve noon Sundays, the roommate can’t answer the phone. Raise too many questions. And that’s why when this hag comes visiting her little precious, the roommate has to pack up all his worldly goods and sneak off someplace till Lady Macbeth has gone away. The guy’s afraid to tell his mother. He’s afraid she’ll he jealous. He’s afraid—”
“That’s not why! It’s not—”
“What is, then?”
“I could tell her. She’d understand. It’s just that the subject’s never come up. I mean, there’s a proper time to tell a thing like that to your mother, that you’ve got a roommate, and the proper time, it just hasn’t—I mean, I could tell her. I could. That’s the truth. It is, damn you. Why do you attack me like this now? Why do you do this just before she calls me? Don’t you understand she’s trying to get me to come home? I want to be a producer more than anything else in the world. I want my name to mean something. I want my name to be connected with things that mean something but I’m nobody and Tennessee Williams isn’t about to trust me to produce his next play. I’ve got to find talent and it takes time and I work every day at it and you know it but she doesn’t. She’s trying to make me come home, so I’m out of cigarettes too, Aaron, so leave me the hell alone.”
“You know the sickest thing of all, Scudder?”
“What?”
“We’re both enjoying this.”
Branch looked at him. “Are we?”
The telephone rang.
“Give her my love,” Aaron said.
Branch went into the living room and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, hon.”
“Howdy, howdy.”
“How’re ya?”
“Fine. You?”
“How’d everything go this week? Work hard?”
“I tried to.”
“Tell me what you’ve done.”
“Well, I read half a dozen scripts. And I had lunch three days with agents. And I spent one whole afternoon, practically, talking with some people down at the Theater Guild. And I went to a couple of off-Broadway plays, just to see if the writers were any good. And I read two novels to see if there might be a play in them. And later today I’m going to a party some other producer’s giving and I’ve got an idea he wants to talk about something. And—”
“In other words,” Rose cut in, “nothing—that’s what you’ve done.”
“Now, Rosie—”
“Having lunch with people, going to parties—you call that work?”
“Well, as a matter of fact there is something very hot on the fire. But I can’t talk about it yet.”
“Is this very hot thing the same as what was on the fire last week and the weeks before that too?”
“Finding plays you want to produce—it isn’t easy, Rosie.”
“I understand that. I also understand your father and I built up this real-estate business with nothing but you in mind. Our gift to you. Along with our love. And you can’t run a real-estate business in Ohio from New York City! You want to produce plays—fine. Produce plays. But you’ve been there a long time. Long. And what have you produced?”
“But this thing that’s on the fire—”
“I tell you what I think, hon. I think you might think about maybe coming home. It’s been a reasonable length of time, baby. And there’s no sense in wasting your life. Not when there’s so much for you back here. You want to come back here, don’t you? You like it? With me.”
“You know I do.”
“We understand each other, baby. We always have.”
“Always.”
“Gramma misses you. She wishes you were home.”
“Give her my love.”
“I will. Darling?”
“Yes?”
“Everything’s clear?”
“Yes. If this thing that’s on the fire doesn’t work out, you think I ought to come home.”
“That’s sort of it.”
“I thought it was.”
“Bye-bye, baby.”
Slowly, Branch hung up.
“That’s telling her,” Aaron called from the dining room
.
Branch stood. Slowly.
Aaron burst into song: “M is for the million things you gave me. O is for—”
“I tried living back home.” Branch sat down at the dining-room table. “I did try ... but I couldn’t ... function. I don’t think I can go back there. I just ...” He shook his head.
“So don’t go.”
“You don’t understand. If I don’t find something to produce ... if I could just find something—”
“Word reaches me there’s something terrific on the fire.”
“Don’t laugh at me. Please.”
“What’s the big deal? She wants you to come home, tell her no.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“So what if she stops giving you a little money?”
“It’s not that. My God, money’s got nothing to do with it. I can always work. It’s the other things.”
“What other things?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, think about it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“If you thought about it, you might find out what you’re afraid of.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve got to find a play, Aaron. I can’t go home. But I don’t know if I can buck her. She’s so strong. Stronger than I am, but I can’t go home. What should I do?”
“Punt,” Aaron advised.
At 5:25 that afternoon, Aaron hurried along East 47th Street with Branch at his heels. “I didn’t want to go to this stupid party, Scudder; remember that. I wanted to go see the Humphrey Bogart. You’re getting your way. So shut up.”
“But we’re too early.”
“Nonsense. The invitation said five-thirty. We’ll arrive at five-thirty.”
“But you can’t go to a cocktail party at the time you’re invited. It isn’t done.”
“Hurry,” Aaron said. “I don’t want to miss a single second.”
“This is important to me, Aaron. Mort Blandings has a play I hear maybe is pretty good. And he might need a co-producer.”
“Well, why don’t you call him up on the phone and ask him? That way we can go to the Humphrey Bogart.”
“Because calling him up and asking is the best way I know of not getting the deal.”
“Here’s the address,” Aaron said. “And very spiffy too.” He walked up the steps of the brownstone and rang a buzzer. After a moment there was an answering buzz, so Aaron pushed the front door open.
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