“Let’s go in here,” I said, leading the way into a Greek’s where they served both liquor and ice cream. While Tom sipped a chocolate soda I had a whiskey. If I’d been alone I’d put down two or three.
He got drowsy on the way home and I gave him a horseback ride. He was fast asleep when I tumbled him carefully onto his bed, and he didn’t wake up when I undressed him. I wandered out to the back yard with a bottle and glass, and fell asleep on the glider somewhat drunker than I had expected.
I was awakened some time after midnight by a tremendous crash. My wife was standing over me shaking my shoulder. The noise was repeated, or rather prolonged, one great blasting roar echoing another. There was a fiery glow in the western sky.
“It’s the end of the world,” she said. “You better get up.”
I climbed to my feet and looked wildly around in utter panic and confusion.
“How do you know?”
“It can’t be anything else. It all fits. Christ has come back. This is it, Stan. The Second Coming.”
So the nut was right after all. I had slipped off my shirt and pants in the heat, and now I climbed back into them with the speed of a fireman answering a 4-11. Elsie was in her nightgown and she ran down the hall to get Tom up and dressed as well as dress herself.
The sounds continued, one crash after another that shook the earth. The light in the sky was a weird succession of colors, vivid red and ghastly green and then sulphurous yellow, all smothered in billows of smoke and shot through with flashes and sparks like brimstone raining from heaven for a fact. Lights were going on in all the houses around us. People appeared in back yards or ran up and down stairs shouting and screaming and wringing their hands. “Oh my God have mercy!” a woman in a nightgown on a porch across the alley said. The pandemonium was unbelievable. How many would be redeemed? How many damned? How would the whole thing be managed? Would we all literally be separated into sheep and goats, some herded to the right, some to the left? What about Sidney Hook? Would his logic, so crystal clear in the light of day, stand up under this terrific beating, this truly ghastly blood and thunder? What would his reason avail him now? Or mine avail me, on a more modest scale of course. Were the graves opening in the cemetery and yielding up their dead?
I hurried into the house in time to see Elsie leading Tom from his bedroom. He was white as a sheet, but she had him dressed and ready. Even his hair was brushed.
“I repent,” I said. “I take back everything I said. I am sorry for my sins and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior, now and forevermore. Amen.”
“I hope it isn’t too late for that,” Elsie said. She had hastily dressed too, but I noticed she had slipped into something comfortable. None of the vanities of this world now. “For myself I have no doubts. I know that my redeemer liveth, and because he lives I too shall live. Tom has said his prayers, and I think he understands. He’s not of the age of discretion, anyway. I had him baptized, by the way. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d object. But how about you?”
“I never was.”
“Don’t you think you should take care of that now?”
“Check.” I ran to the kitchen tap and put my head under it, saying the words as I knew them and turning the water up full force. Elsie said she didn’t know whether it would hold up, a person baptizing himself, but agreed there was certainly no harm in trying. And while it might be too late for prayer too, there was certainly nothing to be lost by dropping on our knees together, and maybe something to be gained. I led us in prayer, as head of the family, babbling out penitent entreaties and pleas for mercy for all of us above the noise of the nightmare still going full blast outside. Where at one point I heard a neighbor call out, “It’s dat great gittin’ up mawnin’!”
“Christ coming alone?” Tom asked when we were on our feet again.
“We don’t know yet. It’s too early to tell. The best thing to do is sit tight and see what happens. All we know is, we acknowledge him lord and master.”
“And how!”
“I’m not making any excuses,” I said through chattering teeth, “but he did tell his disciples he would come back in their time. I merely raise the point. That and a lot of other discrepancies—from a human point of view—naturally made us figure the Bible was untrue, but it turns out that they are all part of the divine mystery, which I now accept lock, stock and barrel.”
“You could be a credit to the church.”
“I wonder how the Salernos will make out.”
“Never mind them. We have to put our own house in order. I think while we’re waiting we’ll just sit here and sing a hymn. It’s impossible to know how long it will take. Did you see anything while you were out there?”
I shook my head. I really didn’t dare look. I was shaking in my shoes, which I now noticed I had on but hadn’t tied. I stooped to lace them, and when I stood up again I glanced through the kitchen window out of the tail of my eye. There was no sign of anything yet but the flashes and the explosions went on full blast. How would he appear? Would he come floating down, surrounded by angels, the way you always saw it in paintings? Or would he simply materialize miraculously in all the houses in all the world at once?
I took the initiative in singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” giving the pitch and leading off as we raised our voices in the grand old hymn together as a family. In the middle of it the telephone rang.
“You’d better get it,” Elsie said.
I answered. It was Art Salerno.
“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t missing the show, paisan,” he said. “Afraid you might sleep through it.”
“What show?”
“The fireworks factory. The whole thing is going. Can you see it from there? Otherwise come on over. We got a perfect view.”
“Why don’t you and Lena come over here.”
“Well I think it’s better here. We even thought of going up on the roof.”
“Look, why not pile into my car and drive over.”
“I don’t know how close you can get. They’ve got all the engines in town there and it looks out of control. Well all right, let’s.”
I took Tom and the three of us went over. Elsie refused and Lena didn’t want to go either. The streets were full of cars tooling like mad toward the river where the factory was. It was a sight of course you’d never see in your lifetime again, and a night you wouldn’t forget, but we couldn’t get very close up. The cops had roped the area off for a square block around to protect sightseers from injuries by explosives going amuck, because not all of them went up of course, but sideways and all around in crazy circles, causing some damage to surrounding buildings but fortunately not injuring anyone seriously. We all stayed well inside the car with the windows up. One or two firemen were hospitalized, and several people were hurt in the jam. By the time we arrived most of the explosives had gone off, but we did see a few rockets streak across the sky and a few last star shells burst over the rooftops and drift in dreamy showers toward the ground.
By three o’clock the factory was a faintly smoking shell itself, like a firecracker shot off, and we drove home. I put Tom to bed for the second time that night, and dropped in exhausted beside Elsie. Her eyes were shut, but I doubted she was asleep. They were shut a little too tight, and her position seemed a little too rigid for relaxation. I put an arm around her and soon dropped off myself, sleeping the sleep of the just till nearly eleven o’clock the next morning.
five
I MARCHED PAST Lena when she opened the door to admit me for our rendezvous and was waiting for her in the middle of the parlor when she came in after closing the door.
I jerked my coat open to exhibit what was holding my pants up.
“Look,” I said. “My birthday present.”
“What? What are you talking about? What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me? Come closer. Bend down. Peer at it. Take a good look at the latest outrage perpetrated on human int
elligence. This.” I snapped the buckle with my thumb. “This is what I get for my birthday.”
“A belt?”
“Not just any belt, but something special. This is—listen carefully, make sure your ears aren’t deceiving you—a Bible belt! Yes, it’s true. A leather belt with Scriptural texts tooled into it all the way around. No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. What you see is really there.”
Lena had to put on her glasses. She sat down on the sofa to read, pulled me toward her by the waist. “Come over here, do you want me to get down on my knees?”
Holding the skirt of my coat up, I revolved slowly before her as she scrutinized the texts tooled into the leather for my edification: John 3:16; Matthew 16:26; Psalms 51:2; 1 Corinthians 13:13, and many more.
Lena took her glasses off and set them down as I let my coat drop.
“How did you ever get mixed up with such a woman? Why did you marry her?”
“That’s not the point—we’ll come to that later. The first thing that must rouse your curiosity too is, do they know what the term Bible belt means? These people she’s mixed up with, these Fundamentalists, do they know what it refers to? Or are they so dumb that even—what’s his name who coined the term?”
“Mencken.”
“Mencken. That even Mencken didn’t fully realize how dumb they were when he pinned the label on them. Or—or,” I said, walking the floor, “do they know what it means and they’re being clever. Turning it back on the intellectuals, they’ve got that much sense of humor. Or is it neither but they’re just piously hitting back at what they know is a term of ridicule. It’s hard to know which way to be disgusted. But here I am, the recipient, wearing the article of apparel with texts carved into it instead of figures like on a cowboy belt.”
“What does Elsie think? What point of view did she give it to you in?”
“She doesn’t know anything exept that they were selling them at the mission for gifts, souvenirs, and thought it would be nice to give me one. She doesn’t know anything about Mencken and all that, the original Bible belt. Besides she’s not in a very talkative mood since the other night when Christ didn’t show up.”
“What did you ever see in such a woman?”
“What did I see in her? She thought the sun rose and set on me, that’s what I saw in her. Also she gave off a little gurgle of bliss every time you kissed her, like the sound you hear when you shake a ripe honeydew.”
“How do you feel about her now?”
“Sexually or personally?”
“Sexually.”
“How the hell do I know?”
“Well then personally.”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Then why do you ask me to be specific, since the answer is the same for both?”
“Darling, our first quarrel,” I said sarcastically. Then I relented and reminded her how sweet Elsie was when we were all young, and that (to answer her original question) I didn’t marry her when she was a woman but when she was a girl. An important point. “You remember her then, zaftig and warm—”
“You keep using that word as though you think it’s Polish. It’s Jewish you know.”
“I know that very well. She was no brain, but soft and warm and friendly, and always neatly dressed. Now she clops around in a wrapper with her hair twisted up in a bun, Christ’s bride. How does she expect to hold a man? Could I have a drink? I know it’s only the middle of the day, but I feel the need.”
Lena seemed slow and more than usually deliberate as she went to the kitchen, from which she returned with a whiskey and water for me. Nothing for herself. I didn’t like her mood. She looked like something was eating her. I noticed it the minute I came in. I was now sitting on the sofa, and she set the drink in front of me and took a nearby chair—the one I’d been sitting in last time—and watched me while I drank.
I took a generous swig. “I’m married to a woman who never heard of Mencken.”
“Did you when you first married her?”
“No, that’s right. I didn’t. Or lots of things that you’ve taught me, Lena. Oh Lena—“ I reached to take her hand across the table again, but this time she pulled away. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter?” She reached for her cigarette holder and in a twinkling was walking the room again snorting smoke. “You come in here to what’s suppose to be a rendezvous going fifteen to the dozen with complaints about your lot. Did you give any evidence that this was a love trist, carefully prepared for and long looked forward to? Did you even greet me? Did you even notice what I’m wearing?” She had worked around behind me and now clapped a hand over my eyes. “What have I got on, you who so notice what a woman wears that you can give me blow by blow details about your married life. What have I put on for you?”
“I don’t know, Lena. I’m sorry. I was just too upset.”
She restored my sight, allowing me to take in the green and red silk lounging pajamas, the golden slippers and the crimson band around her hair. She was really gift-wrapped. I whistled. “Lena, you’re gorgeous.”
“It’s a little late for gorgeous. The whistles are quite tardy, you had your opportunity several minutes ago. No, you don’t want me—you just don’t want somebody else. You just come in here to complain about what your wife gives you for your birthday and what she wears, not to see me. How does your wife expect to hold you, you say. How do you expect to hold me if you don’t notice what I’m wearing, who went to all the trouble to pretty up for her gentleman caller. How do you think that makes a woman feel? What am I, a woman or an emotional dumping ground?”
“You’re a woman, Lena,” I said with a catch in my throat, “and what a woman.”
“Do you realize what it is for a woman to give herself to a man? What’s at stake?”
“I’m not asking you to give yourself to me, only lend yourself.”
“Oh my God! You’re getting to be a born fool.”
“Over you, Lena, over you.”
I tried to take her again but she backed off once more, and once more circled the room, breathing fire and letting me have it. Suddenly I drained my glass and set it down. “I’m going out and get drunk.”
I started for the door, but her next outburst stopped me cold.
“Go ahead! You’re all alike. Prove conclusively what I’m trying to say and what you’re leading me right up to, go ahead, save me the trouble. Spoiled children! Punks with infantile motivations, not masterful lovers having poetic affairs. You don’t want to add a little poetry to your life, you just want to subtract a little of the prose. You just want a shoulder to cry on, ‘My wife doesn’t understand me.’ Why don’t you be a man once. Admit you behaved poorly and apologize. Then I might relent and admit I was probably a little hard on you, but you deserved it. In that way clear the air—for the triumphant gesture. Instead of running off like some high school kid that didn’t get his way, why don’t you begin over? We might have what you came for, we might yet touch the stars, if you’d behave for once like a lover. Go on, why don’t you sweep me off my feet and carry me to bed in triumph?”
“All right, I will!”
But that was easier said than done, as I saw when it was too late.
I strode briskly toward her, but began to slow down thoughtfully as I got close to her. I have given a rough idea of her size, from which her weight can be imagined. I slung one arm around her shoulder and the other under her knees, in the traditional manner, but the instant I picked her up my own knees buckled under me and I gave an involuntary grunt that didn’t set very well either. At the same time I felt a sharp twinge in my groin that made me think of Art, now joyriding through lower Michigan in the cabin of the truck. I had forgotten that Lena is to the average woman as a Mendenhall is to an apartment spinnet. It was the strain of carrying a heavy weight out in front of you that I explained was my objection to topping a piano.
My legs sagging, I staggered toward the bedroom. It was a good thirty feet away, and it seemed like thirty mile
s. It was very embarrassing, but we were both stuck with it. “You’re a magnificent hunk of woman, Lena,” I puffed, but it was little use. Halfway there I had to ease her down and readjust my grip. I let her feet down to the floor but kept her weight on my knee, so that she was sort of sitting on my lap for a moment. Then I heaved her up again with another grunt and plodded forward some more.
The rest of the journey I managed better, but when we reached the bedroom door a fresh embarrassment greeted us, the worst of all. I couldn’t go through it. I had to maneuver us through sideways, and that extra effort disorganized my grip completely, so that this time I had to let her slide all the way to the floor. Since there was no room in the doorway to pick her up again, I stepped around behind and dragged her across the threshold by the armpits. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” she said. So to make a joke of the whole thing, a lark, I slung her over my shoulder in the fireman’s carry, or, as you might say, like a hunter bringing his kill back to the cave. I dropped her over onto the bed and flopped down on my back beside her, puffing like a steam engine.
“I guess I’m out of condition,” I said. “Been in the office too long.”
She got up, climbing over the foot-end of the bed to avoid stepping over me. “Thank you,” she said, and marched out of the room.
“Now what?”
“If taking me to bed is compared to moving furniture, then I doubt whether I’m interested,” I heard from the parlor.
“That’s not what I said,” I answered from the bed.
“It’s what you inferred. You say you’ve been in the office too long, meaning not working on the truck. On the truck you handle furniture. If you were still handling it you’d be in better trim to handle me. The parallel is clear and I thank you.”
I got up, after another four or five minutes lying there arguing across the two rooms. The look of her sitting there in the parlor told me clearly enough the afternoon was a dead duck. My parting shot was that she was probably the victim of Puritanical guilt, and that all these methods of throwing a monkey wrench into the romantic works at the last minute were excuses for avoiding the climax her conscience refused to permit. “You’re the one who’s afraid of Mrs. Grundy, so I’ll return the book as soon as possible,” I said, and slammed out the front door. The last thing I saw was a foot in a golden slipper, tapping the floor. She looked as though she’d like to get into the car and ride into the sunset, only it was only 2:30.
Let Me Count the Ways: A Novel Page 6
