Contrary Pleasure

by John D. MacDonald

  The more he thought about it, the more positive he became that Marty was going to say no. His hands felt wet and he dried them on his handkerchief. He began to get sore at Marty. The little bastard would say no, all right.

  It wouldn’t hurt to make a quick check and see if Marty was flush enough to spare the cash. Just a quick check.

  He remembered going to the bureau and the way the top drawer creaked a little as he pulled it open. Marty always put his wallet in there when he went to the shower room. Brock took the wallet and opened it and saw the wonderfully crisp sheaf of bills. Marty liked new bills. His hands felt shaky. He thumbed through the bills, counting the three twenties, a ten, a five, and four singles. He took the three twenties out and started to put the wallet back. He hesitated, then opened it again and took out the ten. Seventy dollars. Marty certainly didn’t need it. Anyway, he would pay it back. Mail it to Marty in a plain envelope after he got the summer job. No harm done.

  He felt a sudden need for haste. He opened the door and looked down the hallway. It was empty. He walked lightly and quickly toward the staircase. He glanced into one of the rooms as he went by. The room door was open. A boy sat at a desk and glanced at Brock. The guy looked faintly familiar. But, hell, he’ll never remember me. Marty won’t even know when he lost it. He was only two blocks from Elise’s place when he realized that the bills were still folded tightly in the palm of his hand. He stopped and, with great casualness, transferred them into his wallet, sliding them in beside the single dollar of his own. He’d promised Elise, hadn’t he? What the hell could you do? You couldn’t go back on a promise. Marty would never miss a lousy seventy bucks. Anyway, he was going to get it back, wasn’t he? It was just a loan.

  So he had given Elise forty dollars and she had taken thirty-five of it down and given it to the wife of the building superintendent and come back upstairs and they had gone to bed, he with greater eagerness than ever before, as though in this way he could blind himself. Later it rained again. They made toast of stale bread and ate it with jam. In the evening they went out and ate well and went back to her place. Every once in a while he would think of Marty. And he would feel angry with Marty. He stayed with her all night and missed his first two classes, and went directly from her place to his eleven o’clock class without textbook or notebook.

  At eleven-thirty a man came in and tiptoed to the front of the hall. The lecturer frowned at the interruption. The man whispered to the lecturer. The lecturer checked the seating chart and Brock saw them both look directly at him. His heart seemed to make a wild, fluttering leap within him.

  “You’re excused, Mr. Delevan,” the lecturer said.

  Brock got up. He walked down the aisle and followed the man out into the corridor. “What do you want me for?”

  “You’re wanted in the office of the Dean of Men, Delevan.”

  When Brock walked into the office, he knew it was all over. He had fallen through the air for a long time and this was the shock of landing. His faculty advisor was there, and three members of the student council, and Marty, and the boy who had glanced at him as he had passed the open door. They kept glancing at him and looking away nervously.

  The Dean of Men said quietly, “This is a serious matter, Mr. Delevan. I shall ask you a question. Did you go to Mr. Greenshine’s room yesterday at about a quarter past twelve and, without Mr. Greenshine’s knowledge or consent, remove seventy dollars from his wallet while he was taking a shower?”

  The words came from far away. And so did Brock’s voice when he answered. He tried to talk about a loan, but it sounded weak and silly and strange. He couldn’t put it into words. It was a Thursday. They made him wait in another room. Then he was called back in. The others had left. Just the Dean of Men was there. It was a Thursday.

  “I’ve placed a long distance call for your father, Delevan. It will save time if you listen to this end of the conversation.” The dean was a mild-looking man with a soft voice. “You may sit down.”

  The phone rang and he picked it up. “Mr. Delevan? May I speak freely about a personal matter on this line? This is Hardy, Dean of Men. All right. I am most sorry to tell you, sir, that yesterday your son, Brock Delevan, stole seventy dollars from another student here. He has been expelled as of noon today. No, sir, there is no doubt about it. He is here in my office and he has admitted it. No, sir, there is no chance of a mistake or a misunderstanding. The student involved does not wish to press any criminal charges. He will be satisfied if the money is returned. Do you wish to speak to your boy? I see, sir. I understand. I’ll tell him. Yes, sir. Good-bye.”

  He replaced the phone gently on the cradle. “Your father will arrive in the morning, Delevan. He will give me the money and I will see that Mr. Greenshine gets it. You can meet your father here in my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Do you have enough money for a hotel room?”

  “I can stay at the house until …”

  The dean shook his head. “I’ve seen this happen before. I don’t think you should stay at the house. I don’t believe they would let you stay there in any case.” Hardy looked intently at him. “Why did you take the money, Delevan?”

  “Do I have to answer questions?”

  Hardy stood up. “That will be all.”

  Brock walked to the fraternity house. One of the freshman pledges stepped in front of him just as he got inside the door, blocking his way. The freshman looked scared. He did not speak. He held his hand out, palm up. After a moment Brock understood. He took off his pin and put it on the outstretched palm. The pledge pointed to a corner of the hallway. Brock saw his two suitcases there, his topcoat and overcoat on top of them. He went over and picked them up. The pledge stood, holding the big front door open. Brock felt the silence in the house. He sensed that they were all back, out of sight, listening. Maybe they wanted him to cry like a baby. He stopped in the doorway, turned around and yelled, “Good-bye, dear brothers! Good-bye, you dull bastards!” The pledge slammed the door hard as he walked down the steps.

  Elise had known that he had classes and a lab that would take him until four, and they had agreed to meet in the cellar beer joint at four thirty. He walked to her place and carried the two suitcases up the three flights. He still had thirty dollars in his pocket. It would buy a pair of bus tickets. The old man could wait around the dean’s office for a long long time. They would get out of this crummy city. Take a new name. Call themselves husband and wife. Get jobs. In a few years this would all seem far away.

  He set the suitcases down and he had his hand lifted in order to knock when he realized that a strange noise was coming from inside the room. For a moment he could not identify it, and then he realized that it was the familiar and hideous sound of the springs on the ancient studio couch, a rhythmic surge and creaking, too well known to him, too well remembered. “Elise!” he yelled. “Elise!” and his voice cracked on her name, the way it used to long ago when his voice was changing.

  There was a sudden silence in the room. And he thought of other answers. Someone else was in there. Or she was doing some kind of exercises. Or her husband had come back. The silence continued. He put his ear against the door and thought he heard whispering. He banged on the door. There was no answer. And he remembered something he had seen in a movie. He backed up a little and swung his leg up and stamped his heel hard against the door, just above the lock. Wood ripped and the door went open so easily that he lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees, just inside the doorway. He raised his head stupidly and looked at them there. It was like a dirty picture that had been passed around in high school a long time ago. It was Elise, and it was a squat, brutal man he had seen several times on the stairs in the building, or standing in front. He had always nodded at Elise, and Elise had told Brock that the man drove a taxi. It was all gone in that moment. It was just a dirty picture of somebody he had never known. The woman made a thin sniggling sound. The man yelled at him to get the hell out. He pulled the door shut. He felt a great calmness. He
picked up his suitcases and the two coats and went down the stairs with even, methodical tread. Down in the lower hallway he had difficulty opening the door. One of the suitcases banged against a doorframe. It spilled open and everything fell out. He knelt and repacked it carefully. He saw that they had put his dirty laundry right in with his fresh clothing. He felt calm and far away and it shocked and surprised him to feel tears running down his face, to stick his tongue out the corner of his mouth and taste the salt.

  He checked in at a small hotel near the campus. It was still afternoon. He undressed and went to bed. When he woke up, it was daylight. He did not know if he had slept an hour or a week. He phoned the desk. They said it was a little after nine in the morning. After his shower, he shaved. It seemed wrong that he should still be wearing a Delevan face, a face bearing the clan resemblance, eyes that tilted down at the outside corners, shelving brow, the high-bridged nose, the heavy mouth, an expression elusively whimsical.

  He got to the dean’s office at precisely ten. His father was there. The old man said evenly, “Hello, Brock.” “Hello, Dad.” “Wait in the hall, Brock.” “Okay.”

  He waited in the hall a long time. The old man came out. He didn’t look at Brock and he said nothing. Brock fell in step beside him. Once they were out of the building the old man said, “Where’s your stuff?”

  “In a hotel room. The Cardinal Hotel. Three blocks up Thompson.”

  “I know where it is.”

  The old man did one strange thing. He stopped short near the quadrangle. He stopped and just stood there and looked at the kids walking by. Classes were changing. Girls with one arm hugged around a stack of books. Sweaters with letters. The old man stood and gaped at them as though he had never seen college kids before. Then he started walking again. They went up to the room. The old man said, “I left Greenshine’s money with the dean. Do you owe any money?”

  Brock had the list in a small notebook. The old man sat at the desk. Brock read off the names and accounts and where the guys lived. The old man copied them all down and totaled the figures. Ninety-six dollars and fifty cents.

  “Have you hocked anything?”

  “My watch and some clothes.”

  “Give me the tickets.” Brock took the tickets out of the back of his wallet and gave them to the old man. He stood up. “You wait here. I’ll redeem this stuff and pay those boys back.”

  “I got the addresses. You could send them checks. That would be all right.”

  “I’ll pay them in cash.”

  “But it would be a lot easier to—–”

  “I know that. I know that.”

  “I don’t get it, Dad.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  The old man was back by one o’clock. He had a suit box tied with string. He took the wristwatch out of his pocket and handed it to Brock. Brock strapped it on his wrist. He remembered that it had been the big high-school graduation present. He even remembered the box and the way it was wrapped and the card. The old man had a funny look. He went into the bathroom and shut the door. After a little while Brock heard him being sick in there. He thought of the bad time the guys probably had given him. They had no reason to do that. The old man hadn’t done anything. Brock called through the door, asking if he was all right, if he could help. The old man said no in a strained funny voice. Brock sat on the bed. His father was in the bathroom for a long time. He looked pasty when he came out.

  He planted his feet and stood in front of Brock. “What was it? Gambling?”

  “No sir.”

  “A girl?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Get her in trouble?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You wanted the money, then, so you could give her a big time.”

  “I … I guess so.”

  “Sleeping with her?”

  “Yes.”

  The old man stared at him expressionlessly. “Every damn thing in the world. Every damn thing. Every damn chance. Now a thief. A stinking filthy sneaking thief.”

  “Wait a minute, Dad. I—–”

  “Oh, shut up. I hope that she was the best lay since Cleopatra. And it would have had to be a thousand times better than that to make it worth what you’ve done to yourself, what you’ve done to your mother and to me. Love doesn’t come that high, kid. There’s too much of it around. Pick up your stuff. We’ve got a flight to catch. And don’t open your damn mouth.”

  The old man had never spoken to him that way before. He had never used that kind of language. He was glad his father hadn’t seen Elise. That would have made it worse. But he didn’t see how he could feel worse. It couldn’t ever get any worse than those minutes when he was at the foot of the three flights of stairs putting things back in the suitcase, knowing the two of them were up there in her room.…

  Now he lay in darkness in his own room and he heard the faint buzzing and knew the records had ended some time ago. He got up in darkness and reversed the stack and started it over again. School was out now. Next year they would come back and they would talk about him in the fraternity house. And maybe the next year they might remember him and talk about him too. And then nobody would remember any longer. He saw himself in Marty’s room. They talked about moments of decision. That wasn’t any moment of decision. There hadn’t even been any thinking. Just taking the money in an automatic way, as though he were dreaming. If you could find any moment of decision, it was that moment when he left the bar and walked toward the booth where the strange girl sat. Or maybe the moment he had turned away from the lab door after walking all the way over there.

  He saw himself in Marty’s room. A little automatic toy figure about four inches high standing there opening the top drawer of a toy bureau. Why? Like a sickness. As if he hadn’t been there when it was happening. One day in high school one of the guys had worn a trick ring. You held it up to the light and looked through a little hole and you could see a naked woman. April and May had been like that this year. Like standing in a crowded place while people shoved by you, but you didn’t notice being jostled because you stood there in the middle of the sidewalk looking through the little hole in that ring, looking at that naked body, that woman-body, that only clear and real thing in the world, while all the rest of the world was just people shoving by you, going no place in a hurry, wanting to push you out of the way.

  He wondered who would pay her rent on July first.

  The summer was ahead. He knew they expected him to do something. To make some sort of decision about himself. He knew that he was expected to get some sort of a job and work hard and try to get into the fall session somewhere. But it made him tired to think about it. He wanted to stay in the room and keep the music low and keep going over April and May, trying to figure out what had happened to him. There were good guys and bad guys. Could you be a thief from the very beginning and not know about it? Would you steal again? He wanted to be alone. He wanted something that was broken to begin to heal. But it didn’t heal. It stayed broken.

  He knew that Ellen had heard some of the talk. Enough so that she had guessed the rest. He saw it in the way he would catch her looking at him, a pinched look in her eyes, a flatness in her stare, a look not of hurt, but of appraisal. They had passed, long ago, from the embittered warfare of childhood into a relationship of pride and trust, a sense of maintaining a united front. And now it had become something else. All gone now, the shrill yelling as the brother broke into the clear and went up and up, hand reached for the wobbling ball, framed there against the autumn afternoon, shadow lanky in late cold sun, and a hero had died. Meat had spoiled, and the flesh turned sad, and the eyes turned inward to look at the pitilessness of what might have been.

  It was the death of dreams that mattered. Those slow dreams that are used to bring on the true dreams of sleep. Taking the long walk from the bullpen to the mound in the bottom of the ninth, and the bases are full of Yankees and Mantle is up, standing expressionlessly aside but watching closely as you take the warm
-up pitches, and the stands are muttering who is he who is he, and others say a kid named Delevan they brought him up from class A for the pennant race and they say he’s got stuff and then you are ready and Mantle steps in with that blocky face and the big back flexing and you let it go for steeeeerike so blazing fast he doesn’t even twitch and steeeeerike again and on the last one he swings in desperation too late and then the next hitter gets a tiny piece of one enough to send it spinning crazy off to your right and you pounce and make the play at the plate so it is two down and the stands yelling and the manager looking like he would cry and they put in a pinch hitter who bangs one foul but just barely and you steady down and burn one by and then break his back with the floater and that’s the game and the series.

  Now you come up and the big back flexes in that power swing and you turn and watch it out of sight over the roof of the left-field stands.

  There was the dream where you floated down through the tropic sky and pulled the shroud lines and landed like a cat and cut the chute loose and buried it and that night moulded the plastic explosive to the bridge trusses and hid while the train burst in red fatness.

  Now they stand down there and look up and as you swing close enough the finger tightens on the trigger.…

  Your putt stops short of the hole and you watch Player tap his in.

  You walk down the dusty street, spurs jingling in cadence and fingers hooked and ready, but you are a bit slow and lead spanks dust out of your shirt and later they all come out of their hiding places and look at your body there in the road, and they congratulate the hero.