He was standing, staring at tracks of swift phosphorescence a few feet from shore, wondering what was causing them, when Shirley McGuire said, “Boo, you all.”
She was two feet from him. The soft sounds of the waves coming in had masked her approach.
“Turn your back while I get back into my skin. Like putting on long johns.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Where’s Debbie Ann?”
“She wanted to drive me back to the Tennysons’ but I said I’d rather walk—it isn’t much over a mile—and I asked her if she wanted to walk with me, it’s so beautiful, and she said no thanks. So when I was thinking it was all kind of spooky and deserted and there was a figure in the distance, and I was going to make a big circle around it, it turned out to be you. Want to walk with me?”
“Sure. And carry your shoes again, even.”
“Not necessary. These are for beach walking.”
After they had walked in silence for a while she said, “That was especially nice tonight, Mike.”
“I thought so.”
“It’s something I’ve missed. It was like that around my home, that kind of talk. But not after I was married. I should have been smart enough to see that it was a bad sign that anything abstract made Bill uncomfortable.”
“So you quit because the talk was bad?”
“Don’t be nasty, Mike. The bad talk was a symptom. Bad drinking was another. And getting beaten up was another. You say you’ll stick it out for the sake of the chee-ild, and then when said chee-ild sees you get hammered to your knees in front of his high chair, you start wondering how much good it’s going to do him to grow up in that kind of an environment.”
“I’m sorry. It’s too easy to make a cheap remark.”
“A marriage can be impossible, Mike. Mine was. That’s all. I had it just about as rough as it can become, and this is just as much convalescence as it is divorce. I’m not trying to unload my troubles. I just … want you to know this isn’t self-indulgence. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“So we drop it. I’ve been thinking about you. And all this going on with Troy. You’re like the man who came to dinner and found out he was expected to cook it and serve it and clean up afterward.”
“It makes me feel important. You know. Needed. One of life’s empty little pleasures.”
“Ah, you’re a bitter man, Rodenska.”
“No, I can’t be bitter, baby. A little fat man is never bitter. He just pouts. You got to have the big lean type to be bitter.”
“You are not a little fat man. You’re just … dignified in a stocky sort of way, and you have nice shoulders and nice eyes.”
He stopped in the starlight and beamed upon her. “Say, you come through nice.”
“Okay. Tell me something nice about me.”
They started walking again. “Okay. Tonight when you said anything, it made sense. You talked just enough, and not too much. You laughed in the right places. That’s what you need for a good group. People who all laugh in the right places.”
“Mother said beware of men who compliment you on your mind.”
“The rest of it? Hell! You look like Lamour should have looked when she used to do those South Seas things, only a little more on the savage side.”
“Me got faded sarong, sailor man. Cook plantain. Share grass hut, maybe?”
“Baby, I just got off that ship out there and I didn’t know there was nothing like this in the world. You know what I’m going to do? I’m just not going back to that ship, ever.”
“Sailor man likes photogenic little coral atoll? Photogenic sarong. Sailor man likes … ah, God, let’s drop it.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Every little while the bottom falls out of any mood I’m in. Games don’t last long these days. Don’t mind me. I should have gotten a place of my own. My aunt and uncle are just too damn solicitous. And indescribably disapproving. Poor little Shirley. Know what I want to do?”
“What?”
“It’s pretty silly. Maybe it’s self-conscious.”
“Try it on me.”
“I would dearly love to get revolting, sloppy, stinking drunk. With somebody standing by to take care—somebody I could trust not to let me do anything horrible or sick. I feel as if it would … release some kind of tension. And afterward I want to have a hangover so bad, I’ll never want to do it again. One of these days, when I’m ready, will you be the male nurse?”
“Where do you want this debauch?”
“Somewhere private. I don’t want anybody to see me in that condition. I’m very prim and conventional. I’ll think of a place.”
“Let me know.”
“Hey. Here we are! It turned out to be a real short walk, Mike. Thanks.” She turned and put her hand out to him, standing up the beach from him where it was so sharply sloped her eyes were level with his. Her face was clear in the starlight. Her hand was small, warm and slightly, not unpleasantly, moist. Black bangs and heavy black brows shadowed eyes, and a triangular paleness of face, narrowing to the broad line of the mouth.
They said good night and he waited there until she turned under the night-light over the side door, and waved at him, and let herself in. He turned and walked slowly back the way they had come, thinking about her. Where they had walked side by side in moist sand their prints were sharp and clear.
She doesn’t look like what she is. So who does? I’ve marveled at them—statesmen who look like pickpockets, murderers who look like scout leaders, whores who look like seamstresses, bankers who look like football coaches.
Bless you, Shirley McGuire. After they have tumbled you over the reef, and torn all their raggedy holes in you, walk safe ashore. No rats in the roof of your grass house, baby. Fruit on every tree. No hurricanes. Stay dry when it rains. Have some love, not for earning it, but because you can give some—and that’s the only way you ever get any back.
The Gulf sighed, like the steady breathing of some ancient hibernating thing. The night crabs marked his passage. When he got back to the house he stood for a moment on the beach and looked at a star.
That’s the way they’ll find out what we were, he thought. They’ll go whistling up there and settle down and look back, right along this path of light from me to the star. Train their instruments and take a look at light rays fifty thousand years old. What were those creatures back there, down there? One of them stands on a beach in the ancient past. On a wrinkly ball of mud and water. Looking up. Why did they do what they did? What were they thinking about? Were they aware, as we are aware, or was it just a refinement of instinct which almost simulated intelligence?
Go to bed, Rodenska, before you flip. Before you bug yourself with the ineffable grandeur of your night thoughts. Go wash your fangs and lie down.
On Thursday morning at nine when he walked into the main part of the house, Durelda said, “Moanin’, Mista Mike. Worl’ all covered up white and misty.”
“Moanin’ to you, Durelda,” he said. He saw a quick glint of amusement in her eye. He wasn’t intending to mock her, and she knew it too. But it didn’t hurt anything to let her know he was aware of being Uncle Tommed. It was a part of the essential defenses she had raised against her environment. It was a maintenance of established order, and thus comforting to all involved.
“Suppose I set you in the dinin’ aye-ria on account everything’s soaked wet on the patio this morning.” The final word came out with a crispness of diction that matched and replied to his gentle dig at her.
“That’ll be fine.”
“Miz Debbie Ann isn’t up and the mister isn’t up and I got no idea what he’ll want.”
“I’d plan on just juice and coffee when he does get up.”
“Your eggs same way today?”
“Same way every day, thanks.”
“Sun’ll burn this yeer fog away quick.”
The morning paper was on the table. He found the item on Troy on the bottom of page three, headed BUILDER ARRES
TED. It was short and reasonably fair, neither exaggerated nor underplayed. Estimated damages to the car were four hundred dollars, plus eight hundred dollars other property damage.
After he finished breakfast he went quietly to the bedroom and looked at Troy. He didn’t look like anybody who was about to wake up. There was a sour musty smell in the room. He decided he would have time to run in and get the cash for Jerranna from the bank. After he got the thick packet of tens and twenties from the bank, he looked up Signs of Ravenna and went to the sign company and talked to a reasonable man about the boards for Horseshoe Pass Estates. Despite Mike’s assurance that soon he would be in a position to make some fair settlement on the previous contract and set up a contract for a slightly smaller program, the man was reluctant to promise any cooperation. But after Mike, smiling confidently, said, “Mr. Purdy Elmarr is anxious to have this project run smoothly. Why don’t you give him a ring?”—after that the man said he would phone the attorneys and tell them to delay action on the past due contract until Mike had a chance to make arrangements.
It was a little after eleven when he got back. Troy was in the shower. He came out to the patio at eleven-thirty, in a blue mesh sports shirt, spotless beige slacks, clean-shaven, in an obviously ghastly condition, physically, mentally, spiritually. How come, Mike thought, a hangover is comical, like a black eye, or somebody slipping on a banana peel and cracking their pelvis?
Troy lowered himself carefully into a redwood chair and said, “I drank so much water I’ve got the bloat.”
Durelda came to the doorway and said, “Fix you up something, Mist’ Jamison?”
“I’ll try some black coffee, thanks.” As soon as she left Troy said, “Take a good look at a fun-loving playboy.”
“Got any questions?”
“I cracked up the car and spent some time in the drunk tank. Debbie Ann got me out. You got me to bed. Is that the essentials?”
“Yes.”
“Was anybody hurt?”
“No.”
“Thank God for that. Thank God for there being no kid on a scooter or a bicycle. Another thing. Does Mary know?”
“Yes.”
“She told me when she took off for me not to try to get in touch with her. She said you’d be in touch. Did it make you feel important, relaying my little disasters?”
“For God’s sake, Troy.”
“Is she coming back today?”
“No.”
“I don’t think I could take her on top of everything else. She’s so goddamn noble and understanding and unselfish.”
“She’s all three of those, truly.”
“And I’m a pig? It follows.”
“You’re sick.”
“That’s just about the most meaningless thing you could say.”
“How about that thing right in the middle of your head, Troy? It takes up too much room. It’s round and black and lumpy, like a ball of black rubber snakes. You thought it had gone away yesterday.”
Troy stared at him, his eyes pinched almost shut, his face slack. Mike could sense his enormous surprise, his fear. But in a few moments he saw the forced smile he had expected. “Now who’s sick, Mike? You giving it to yourself right in the vein?”
“You told me about the round black thing, last night.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“I think you do.”
“I was as drunk as a man can get, Mike. I was out on my feet. I probably babbled. Drunks talk nonsense. You’re a fool to take stuff like that seriously.”
“I did. You promised to see a doctor.”
“That’s a promise I don’t remember. I don’t keep promises I can’t remember. What’s wrong with you? I haven’t got time for nonsense like that. I’ve got work to do.”
“I looked into that too the last few days, Troy. I think I know a way you can make out all right.”
Durelda brought the coffee and put it on the wide arm of the chair. As soon as she had gone, Troy said, “It was only a question of time until you got your nose into that too. Somewhere you got the idea you can run my life better than I can.”
Mike looked at him for long heavy seconds. He got up. “You can go to hell, Jamison. I’ll be gone from here in twenty minutes.”
He’d walked ten feet before Troy said in a different voice, “Wait a minute, Mike.”
“You want a chance to see if you can make it worse? I don’t need proof. You can. You’re good at it.”
“No. I want to say … I’m sorry. It was a hell of a thing to say. I didn’t mean it. I’m … not myself. Sit down.”
Mike sat down again, wary and still angry. “Only because of Mary, boy. Not you. Take your choice, boy. You’re either sicker than you’ll admit, or you’re a worthless s.o.b. Take your choice.”
“Great choice.”
“I’m fresh out of alternatives. You weren’t raving last night. There’s something wrong with you. If you don’t think so, see a doctor and prove there isn’t. Or go to hell, believing you’re sane.”
“Now I’m nuts. Is that it?”
“Your actions aren’t rational. They’re self-destructive. They were like that once before.”
“Now a few drinks is suicide.”
“For some people. How about that doctor?”
Troy turned his face away. He waited long seconds. “Maybe there is … something going wrong. And maybe it scares me a little. But I can work it out myself.”
“You’re doing so well at working it out yourself. Unbelievable!”
“Get off my back!”
“The doctor, boy. The doctor!”
“Listen. I’m in no shape to make a decision like that now. Today. For God’s sake, give me a chance to unwind a little.”
“How long will that take?”
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow, Mike. Tomorrow. Nothing is going to be any good today. The only feeling I’ve got about today is to try to live through it. That will be the only project I can handle. By tomorrow afternoon I can talk about this thing and make sense.”
“All right. We’ll leave it that way.”
“What’s this about the development?”
“That will keep. Don’t think about that. Think about yourself. For once in your life, try to look at yourself as a stranger might.”
The attempted smile was a horrid grimace as Troy said, “It’s a lot easier not looking too squarely at some of the things you do.”
“For you, it’s time.”
“The thing is, I’ve never felt like a bad guy, really. I act like one. Then I want to get away from myself. But that’s the one thing they won’t let you do. That’s the big trap.”
“What are you going to do today?”
“Be a vegetable. Lie in the sun. Take a nap later. Even standing up makes me feel weak and sweaty.”
“You’ll stay around? You won’t leave?”
“God, no!”
Mike spent the brief time before lunch writing to the boys. He had lunch alone. Debbie Ann had gone into town to have lunch with somebody. Troy didn’t yet feel like eating.
After lunch he finished the letters and mailed them on his way to Ravenna Key. He got to Red’s at two-thirty. Birdy and Jerranna weren’t there. He asked Red about them. “Haven’t been in yet today. Probably at the cottage.”
He went to the cottage. Birdy sat on the floor of the small porch, bare to the waist, intently weaving some unidentifiable object out of long thin leather thongs. His thick fingers were nimble, his expression intent. Muscles pulsed in his chest and shoulders as he worked.
He looked up, the fingers still working. “Go on in, hey. She’s sacked out. She said you’d be around.” He had made no attempt to lower his voice.
“Did she tell you what I’d …”
“Mike?” she called, her voice faint and grainy with sleep.
“Go on in, hey,” Birdy said.
He went inside. Venetian blinds cut the white light to thin slivers. Doors stood open inside. There was a sm
all living room, a small bedroom, a bath, a kitchen corner in the living room. The place was a welter of clothing, magazines, empty bottles, unemptied ashtrays. She had been sleeping on the living-room couch. She sat up as he came in, combing her hair back with the spread fingers of both hands, yawning so widely he saw where back molars were missing. She wore crumpled white shorts and a red canvas sheath top.
“Christ!” she said. “Sleeping in the daytime gives me a mouth like a birdcage. Dump the stuff off that chair and sit, Mike.”
He picked the pants and magazines off the chair, tossed them onto another chair and sat down, facing her.
“I brought the money.”
“I told you, Birdy,” she called. “He brought it.”
“That’s nice,” Birdy said sourly. “That’s real nice.”
“So what’s the deal?”
She yawned again, and shuddered. “Somebody walking on my grave. The deal? That’s the trouble. A deal. It’s another way to say I get pushed around. You know?”
“Not exactly. It’s a thousand bucks. I’m not flipping you a four-bit piece to stop singing.”
Birdy came in, blocking the light from the doorway for a moment, and then leaned against the door frame just inside the room. He patted his hair. “It’s still a deal, buddy. You pay us and we say, ‘thank you sir, oh thank you sir,’ and take off.”
“Maybe we’re not getting through to each other,” Mike said patiently. “Or maybe I’m stupid. I’m paying you to do something. Paying you damn well.”
“And you don’t care if we like it here or not. You don’t care if we’re ready to go yet,” Birdy said in a complaining tone. “People are always pushing.”
“Won’t you go sooner or later?”
“Sure. Sometime.”
“So go now and get paid for it.”
“That means we’re doing what you want, not what we want,” Birdy said.
“That’s why I’m paying you!” Mike yelled. “To do what I want instead of what you want.”
“You see?” Birdy said. “Pressure. All the time pressure. And I don’t like it. No matter where we go then, we got to get used to the idea the only reason we’re there is you pushed us out of here.”
Slam the Big Door Page 15
