Mike Rodenska could not pinpoint the precise moment of transition. He knew only that he had been standing trying to comfort a weeping young woman, and that he had been feeling fatherly and awkward as he waited for the storm to diminish. He had been glad, he knew, when it started to diminish. But somewhere along in there, things had changed. It was a new relationship. Perhaps their mouths had come together by accident. But there it was. Her mouth upon his in a raw, warm, soft, compulsive insistence, taking eagerly the weight of his mouth. His hands, moving not in comfort but in more intricate design, readying her. Her fingers stabbing into the meat of his back. Her hips beginning to pulse against him, her breasts hard against him, his right hand sliding down to cup her haunch as that great elemental force dizzied them, beseeching them to find a place, very near, to lie down and join themselves together.
The alarm bells were all going off in the back of his mind, and there was a little man back there, very busy, running around stuffing rags between the clappers and the bells, deadening the clamor. She ripped her mouth away and made a convulsive sound and thrust so hard against his chest she pushed herself back and away, off balance, almost falling, but recovering to stand six feet away, breathing deep and hard, black hair wild across her face.
“My God, God, God!” she said, panting.
“I didn’t … I wasn’t … I didn’t mean to …”
“Oh, Mike.”
“Look. Don’t cry again. Just do that. Don’t cry.”
“I won’t cry.”
“This was just an accident that didn’t happen. Okay? Nobody’s fault.”
“I’m an accident walking around looking for a place to happen. Looking for a person to happen to. Me and Debbie Ann. Oh, Christ!”
“Feel sorry for yourself. It sounds dandy. I didn’t start it. You didn’t start it. My God, would we want to? What the hell is this place tonight, a convention hotel, maybe? Listen, Shirley. Look around. Moonlight, tropic night, beach, and a couple or three drinks. You can figure that a lot of people have got carried away under much worse conditions. So who are we? Invulnerable? You broke it up. I didn’t. I knew I should, but I kept telling myself I’d get around to breaking it up in just a minute or two. Sure! Like maybe by dawn. You broke it up, so select a medal. But don’t go bleating around about being sorry for yourself, or being just like Debbie Ann.”
And suddenly, astonishingly, she was laughing. Genuine laughter. Not a trace of hysteria. He felt abused and indignant. Don’t laugh at the little bald man, honey. It ain’t polite. Then he sensed that she was laughing at both of them, and he saw how funny it was, how it was funny in a very special way, so he laughed too, and it felt good to laugh. As they walked back toward the Tennyson house the laughter kept coming back, and each time it was a little less than before, and by the time they got there it was all gone.
“What a crazy, crazy night, Mike!”
“I’ve spent quieter evenings.”
“I’d like to fall in love with you, Mike. I think I could. I don’t think it would be hard to do.”
“Don’t give it a thought. Please. I’ve got enough problems.”
“All right. I won’t fall in love with you. You know, I feel better than I have in months and months, right now. Tears and laughter. Therapy, I guess. From now on I’m going to be all right, Mike. From now on I’m not going to take myself so darn seriously.”
“It’s a sound program.”
“And I’ve been thoroughly kissed. That’s sort of a reassurance.”
“As if you needed any.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Good night, Mike. If there’s anything I can possibly do about … the mess at the Jamison house, let me know.”
“Sure. Good night, Shirley.”
He walked back alone, quite slowly, only half-aware of the beauty of the night as he did some cautious probing within himself. I kissed a pretty woman. Nothing else happened. A lot else could easily have happened. Or maybe not so easily. Who can tell? But let’s say it could have. What then? It would have put me right on Troy’s ball team, playing left field. Because I can’t feel casual about a thing like that.
All right. So I feel relieved I didn’t get into a mess. But I feel more than that. Strengthened, somehow. In a way I don’t understand. Because we laughed at ourselves? Maybe. Because I accept concern and involvement in the lives of Troy and Debbie Ann and Mary? Maybe that’s some of it. But here is what I know. Those big waves are going to continue to come at me when I’m not looking. And they’ll hurt. But tonight, somehow, I got my feet planted a little better. The waves won’t do quite as much damage. And I can feel a little sorry that they won’t. So I cannot yet look squarely at the idea of being alone, but I can look sort of sideways at it.
When he got back he took a chair off the cabaña porch and placed it on the beach, facing the Gulf. He sat there a long time. He struck up a lazy conversation with Buttons. What do you think, kiddo? I think you’re still letting people take advantage of you, Mike lamb. Leaning on you. The Curse of Rodenska. Okay, I am, but it’s something to do, and they need somebody, and I haven’t been able to do much of anything anyway. What about Shirley? What do you want me to say about her, Mike? She’s young and pretty and reasonably bright and pretty mixed-up. Don’t take her on as a problem. Take somebody on, someday, Mike, but not because you think they need you. Wait until you need them. Okay, but how about the way I all of a sudden found myself climbing all over her? I knew you were going to get around to that, Mike. What are you after, a clear conscience? Absolution? I am certainly willing to testify you’ve never been exactly backward in that department. But you won’t get any built-in excuses or forgiveness out of me. Your degree of continence is your own problem, my boy. Now that my concern is … academic, you have only yourself to live with. But I can tell you you’ve never been cheap—if that helps you any. Thanks, girl, but that wasn’t exactly what I was digging for. I know, Mike.
So he dozed there, and when he opened his eyes the world had changed. He felt a little chilly and stiff. The gray of dawn had come. He yawned, growled, fingered his chin stubble, and carted the chair back onto the porch. There was a line of red in the east. He felt totally relaxed and slightly surly, and a little bit reckless.
Reckless enough or, as he later admitted to himself, curious enough to creep up upon the Skimmer, board her with great stealth, and move forward along the side deck until he could look down into the cabin. There wasn’t enough daylight yet so that he could see distinctly. He didn’t particularly wish to see with total clarity. He looked down through the oblong of screening. They lay entangled in the bunk, a blanket across their hips. Troy snorted in his sleep. Mike could see enough of a pale scramble of limbs to know the two of them were there, but not to be able to tell which was which.
A tender scene, he thought. I will be the loving dicky bird and go gather dead leaves and cover them up.
He stepped ashore, scowling, and trudged to his room, went to bed, and fell into sleep like stepping into a mine shaft.
Nine
AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK on Sunday morning, as Mike was on his second cup of coffee and had just lit the first cigar of the day, Debbie Ann came out onto the patio and joined him at the small table. She moved quickly and smiled a cordial greeting. She wore pale blue linen shorts and a white shirt with long sleeves, cut like a man’s.
“Durelda tells me you’ve eaten enough for three. She’s very pleased with you. All I can manage is hot tea, and a small experiment with dry toast.”
“Hung?” he asked.
“Uh huh! Totally.”
He looked at her with inward awe. She gave a superficial impression of daintiness, freshness and good health. She looked not quite seventeen. He looked at her dispassionately and marveled at the duplicity and resilience of woman. Her mouth had a bruised and pulpy look. There were dark shadows under her eyes. A scratch on her throat disappeared into the white shirt. And he had noticed that when she ha
d seated herself, it had been with a trace of awkwardness, a barely perceptible wince of pain or stiffness.
The little filly had had a hard ride over the midnight steeplechase. Brown hands had lifted her over the moats and stone walls and brought her, winded and sprung, back to the stables.
He also detected a smugness about her, a little flavor of accomplishment, the end product of stolen satisfactions. Yet there was defiance commingled with the smugness, and perhaps some doubt. She was like a naughty child who would, through the blatant innocence of her poise, attempt to evade the deserved spanking.
Durelda served the tea and toast and went back to the kitchen.
“Saturday night comes around a little too often,” Debbie Ann said. “Somebody should change something.”
“We lost track of you people around eleven o’clock.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, did you? You two seemed so enthralled with each other I didn’t think you’d notice if the roof blew off.”
“She’s a nice girl. Fun to talk to. But enthralled isn’t the word. Sorry. I’d like to be more exciting, but I can’t manage it.”
“Maybe you don’t get enough encouragement.”
“Where did you go?”
She had bitten into the toast. She took her time before answering. “Oh, we walked up and down the beach to sober Troy up, and me too, I might add. And then we did a little moonlight swimming. Nothing very exciting. Is Troy up yet?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
“He’ll have a head again. Not as bad as last time, but a pretty substantial one.”
“Who are you trying to kid, Debbie Ann? Me or yourself or Troy or your mother? Or everybody?”
She clattered the teacup down and stared at him. “Kid who about what? Make sense.” Her eyes were wide and utterly innocent.
“Before I walked Shirley home we went over to take a close look at the boat in the moonlight.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. She turned dull red under her tan. “Oh! That’s a little embarrassing, friend.”
“Just that? Embarrassing?”
With narrowed eyes she said, “What would you like me to do? Tear my hair out? Beat my head on the wall? Set fire to myself?”
“Those aren’t bad ideas, but maybe you could feel a little ashamed. A little guilty.”
She shrugged. “Not particularly. It’s better if nobody knew. But you do know. And I’m assuming it was an accident. It’s too bad, but it isn’t exactly the end of the world.”
“All right. It isn’t the end of the world. I’ll buy that. But it’s a filthy relationship. Shameful.”
Her smirk didn’t quite come off. “Moral judgments so early in the morning? Come now, Mike. Loosen up. It was just one of those proximity things. That’s all. Nobody’s fault. It’s been building for a long time. That ole black magic. And sooner or later it was going to happen, and it did. A little debauch, to clear the air. It isn’t really meaningful, Mike.”
“To Mary?”
“Her marriage is bitched up beyond all recognition, and you know that as well as I do. What did she lose by what we did? Nothing at all.”
“I keep wondering what she’d think of you.”
“Oh Mike, really. Can’t you guess? If she ever finds out—and I don’t see why she has to—I know just how she’d react. Even if I gave a detailed confession, she wouldn’t listen. It would be her poor baby trying to conceal a case of drunken rape for the sake of the family honor, to avoid scandal. I’ll say to you that it was a little sneaky, and mostly my fault—hell, entirely my fault—and probably it shouldn’t have happened, but it did and it’s over and it might happen again and might not, and who can tell? But you don’t have to act as if I’m a criminal or something.”
He frowned at her, studying her. “I guess I don’t understand. You seem more mischievous than vicious. But you can perform a vicious act of seduction, a dangerous, damaging act, and have no more idea of the meaning of that act than a sand flea. You can even defend that act.”
“And why not? It’s a big busy world, Mike. Lots of things go on.”
“I guess it’s because you’re empty,” he said. “Empty in a way you don’t comprehend. It’s like being a psychopath. You have no basis for morality, do you?”
“That has the reek of church talk, doesn’t it?”
“All right. You are godless. A reincarnation of the same scented bitch that has appeared and reappeared in history. I thought they were evil women. Consciously evil. I didn’t know they were just empty. It’s kind of disappointing in a way. It takes the drama out of it. They weren’t overthrowing kings and princes and kingdoms out of malice after all. They were just satisfying a little clitoral itch, and when things started falling down they probably looked around and said, ‘Who, me?’ ”
She stared at him with a flat, surprising malevolence. “Now I get it.”
“You get what?”
“All this literate lecture routine. You didn’t make out with McGuire, did you? So you get righteous about the whole thing. I’m real nasty. And if you’d made it, my friend, you wouldn’t have one word to say, would you? I’m so sorry, dolling.”
She laughed, and he sensed she was trying to make her laughter sound completely genuine, but her eyes were not right for laughter. There was a wariness in them. The laughter sounded more artificial after it had stopped.
“We can’t communicate,” he said. “Words don’t mean the same things to us. It makes me scared about my two boys. I don’t want them to get as far away from reality as you are, Debbie Ann.”
“Reality! If anybody is living in a dream world, it isn’t me.”
“You sure of that?”
“Positive.”
He stood up and looked down at her. The sun was bright on the table and on her hair. She looked up at him politely, with an assured half smile.
“Honey,” he said. “Just you hope nothing happens to wake you up. Because if you ever wake up, you’re going to have to look in a mirror. And you won’t like it. That is my message.”
He sensed that had he been within range, she would have raked his face with her nails. “It must be comforting to be so holy. What has anybody ever done for me? I’ll do anything I damn please. I’ve got no obligations to anybody.”
“You have to eat scraps and they beat you and beat you. Things are rough everywhere.”
“I can’t understand all this fuss over …”
He didn’t hear the rest of it because he had walked away, feeling sickened. He went to the guest wing and washed his hands. He was annoyed at himself for even trying to talk to her. Something was happening to people. To the young ones. Maybe, he thought, we’ve taken something away from them and haven’t given them anything to replace it. Maybe human nature does change every thousand years or so, and this is the time of change. I don’t like it. They figured out what made the dinosaurs extinct. A batch of fast little mammals sprung up, and they lived off dinosaur eggs. They didn’t give a damn for dinosaurs. They just loved those eggs. Wonder what happened to them when there weren’t any more eggs.
He had alerted Durelda, but it was not until two o’clock that she came out onto the beach and told him Mr. Troy was up. Debbie Ann had gone boiling off somewhere in her car. Somehow the word had been spread that the Sunday routine at the Jamisons’ was finished. There was pedestrian traffic up and down the beach, but nobody stopped at the house for the buffet brunch.
He gave Troy a few minutes and then went up to the house. Troy sat on the patio drinking black coffee. He was clean-shaven, dressed in fresh slacks and a crisp sports shirt. His eyes were bloodshot and he had the shakes so badly it was difficult for him to light a cigarette.
Mike sat at the table and said, “Another nice day.”
“Certainly is.”
“Lot of people on the beach.”
“Are there?”
He made Mike feel uneasy. There was a curious remoteness about him. There was too long a delay before his automatic repli
es. His eyes had a curious staring look, a look almost of blindness. Mike suddenly realized where he had seen that same remoteness before. He had seen it in cases of shock. Once he had arrived at the scene of an accident after it had happened. A man had skidded into a light pole. It had struck on the passenger side, crushing the man’s wife to death. There had been a stack of folded pamphlets in the car, advertisements for the small business they owned. The pamphlets were widely scattered on the wet street. The man had gotten out of the car. His right wrist was grotesquely broken. With his left hand he was slowly, carefully, picking up the pamphlets, one by one. When Mike had gone to him to stop him he had looked up with much the same expression Troy was wearing.
“I guess we never got around to that therapy you were talking about last night, Troy.” Mike heard his own voice, curiously jolly, elaborately casual.
“… Therapy?”
“You were going to drink yourself back to that moment of truth or whatever you call it.”
“… Was I?”
“Yes. I guess it didn’t work.”
“… No, I guess it didn’t.”
“Are you all right?”
“… Me? I’m all right. Why?”
“I don’t know. You seem listless.”
“… Hungover, I guess.”
“What are the plans for today?”
“… Plans?”
“What are we going to do?”
“… I don’t know.”
“Will you join me on the beach?”
“… On the beach? No. No, I don’t think so. I’m … I’m going away.” Troy got up, turned rather slowly and walked into the living room, toward the master bedroom. There was a jerkiness about his stride, a lack of coordination, a somnambulistic quality.
“Where are you going?” Mike demanded. Troy did not answer. Mike followed him into the bedroom. Troy took a suitcase out of the storage wall and opened it on Mary’s bed. He went to the bureau and began to select things from the top drawer.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from here.”
Slam the Big Door Page 18
