The Hair of Harold Roux

by Thomas Williams

  “Sometimes they know more than you suspect.”

  “The way Mary was educated it was a sin even to have any curiosity about the subject. I asked her what she was going to confession and confessing to all the time and she blushed.”

  “Goddam. With Mary I kind of believe it,” Nathan said. “But how about Naomi? She could give Mary a course in the rough mechanics, from what you’ve told me.” Allard had told Nathan about Naomi, though with some reservations and a serious pledge of secrecy. He considered it a rather juvenile need, but he’d had to tell somebody. He wondered if he’d told Nathan because he and Naomi were both Jewish, and then had complicated feelings indeed about his motivations. Nathan hadn’t seemed to have any proprietary feelings about Naomi, but then, of course, he was Unitarian.

  “Naomi concurs about Mary’s fairly total innocence.”

  “Amazing. Amazing,” Nathan said. “But Mary knows you take Naomi out to the woods and jab her, doesn’t she?”

  “I doubt it. I really think she doesn’t know what we do out there. I don’t think she can get her mind around it.”

  “Now, that is what’s called purity,” Nathan said, with an oogah muted so as not to awaken Knuck. Then, in deep seriousness: “But Allard, I have to say that Mary Tolliver is the sweetest, loveliest girl I’ve ever laid these old eyes on.” Nathan was twenty-two. “Yes, you’ve got some kind of a queen, there, Allard. There’s nobility there. I mean it. And a sense of humor, intelligence. Yes, Mary is one in a million. You’re one lucky fellow.”

  They were both quiet, musing upon their mutually accepted high seriousness. How dramatic it was; they could almost hear sacred music.

  Allard lay back on his bed. What a decision he could make. It would be so sweet, life with Mary. They would move into one of the small, one-room apartments built for married veterans with no children. How right, how companionable it would be to study together in the evenings. Her wonder at their legal, sanctified status, her wonder at the powerful dark postures of love, her ecstasy at having the one she loved passionately at work upon her shy yet eager body and mind. He would perhaps do more studying for his classes than the minimal amount he did now, but mainly he would have the calm, the time, to write his play and his novel, to create, and thus to deserve the life he would bring lovely Mary toward. She would of course leave her Catholicism gradually behind, and he would become famous. Not famous, really. What he wanted was more a solid, respected reputation as a man of art. In that life they would be surrounded by people of wit and accomplishment. They would have a future uncloying, always new and good. And Mary would be there to relieve his pressures—to, in fact, worship at the altar of their union. Well, not quite like that. Of course it would all be mutual. What gave pleasure to one would give pleasure to the other. In the haze of these idyllic thoughts, her own, more immediate, dimensions and textures came to mind and he began to gather toward thickness. A strange golden light gleamed into, or out of, his eyes and he was falling, absolutely sure of what he was going to do.

  Though Boom Maloumian got the last word that evening, it was to Allard merely a passing grossness, a minor interruption. Short Round was the first to come into the room. Laughing, giggling, wary, dingy around the eyes, he was followed by a contentedly roaring Boom Maloumian.

  “What? What?” Knuck said, convulsively waking into speech.

  “Boom, you got to tell them!” Short Round said. “The one about the mud!”

  “Well, now,” Boom Maloumian said. “It seem you got to heah ‘bout Rastus. Rastus, he a stud. I mean, he a stud! Rastus got a whang on him drive them nigguh gals plumb crazy.

  Speshly this little ol’ gal Mandy. She think she sumpthin’, too, snatch fulla honey, she a powerful lovin’ gal. Anyways, she finely git Rastus away fum them other gals an’ man, they bofe in a hurry! Onliest place handy is down by de levee in de nice soft Mis’sippi mud. Purty soon they goin’ at it hammuh an’ tongs. Atter a while Rastus, he ask, ‘Is it in, Mandy?’ Mandy, she say, ‘No, Rastus, it in de mud.’ ‘Put it back in, Mandy.’ Little latuh on Rastus ask, ‘Is it in, Mandy?’ ‘No, Rastus, it in de mud.’ ‘Put it back in, Mandy.’ Little while latuh Rastus ask, ‘Is it in, Mandy?’ ‘Yes, Rastus, it in.’ ‘Mandy, put it back in de mud.’”

  Short Round’s screeches of laughter followed Boom Maloumian’s deep rumble down the hall.

  “Put it back in de mud!” Knuck Gillis said. “That’s rich. My God! Put it back in the mud?”

  The telephone rings, surprising him. Who wants him now? He feels guilty, violated, defensive. If he could only let the thing ring. He could let it go on and on until it lost its breath and quit. But it insists; its shrill, self-confident yowl demands him, and so he goes to it and picks up the black bar, the crooked Bakelite dumbbell, and puts it to the side of his head. “Hello,” he says in his always receptive, neutral telephone voice.

  “Hello, Aaron? Hey, man?” It is Mark Rasmussen, his voice high and accelerated, coming from a long way off as if through a conduit.

  “Mark!”

  “See see shoo shoo!” Mark laughs. “Aaron, now! Wee green pinkadoolic voices tell me you’ve been inquiring after me, man. Very paternal, responsible. Brother’s keeper, like. I mean, pardon me, just mean to say it’s all fine, okay, so don’t worry about anything. Okay?”

  “George and I want to help you, if you want us to. Where are you, Mark?”

  “You’re both sweeties. Indeed you are. Appreciate it oh so much but never mind, huh? I mean, forget it? It’s such a bummer, the whole bit. Bummer bummer bummer, as we used to say. But I’m all right. Strictly in control. Right on top of things, so just wanted to ease your mind, give you a friendly ring on the telephone. Mean it. No, wait a minute. Didn’t mean to sound so bad. Why do I always give the wrong impression like that? I mean Aaron you’re perfectly well away—aware—of what a stupendous bummer it all is and I don’t mean to confuse the issue. It’s merely the consensus of opinion, so don’t worry about a thing. Not a thing. Right? Anyway, I’ve got a busy schedule, so I’ll be saying ta ta and cheerio now, okay?”

  “Mark! Don’t hang up!”

  “Hang up! Hang up!” Mark says, sliding into his sissing laugh again. “Oh, I mean! See see see see!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Aaron, I hate to tell you, but I’m on earth! Same place you are, and I’m looking out of this teeny-tiny crack. Did I happen to mention what a bummer? Sad. But don’t worry, now, Aaron. Everything under absolute control. Don’t mean to sound so shall we say bitter about it. Giving wrong impression again, I can tell. Really very calm. Calm acceptance. If I had an udder I’d give five gallons of rich cream. No shit.”

  “Mark, damn it!”

  “Just thought you ought to be the first to know Federal Government ran out of good trips. Inside information.” Mark laughed for a while, too long a while, then sighed. “Sorry. Strictly unimpeachable source. High up in Pentagon. Unimpeachable! No fun even burning babies any more. Up to the ass in cooked babies. Oh dear, here I go again, giving the wrong impression. Don’t mean a word of it. Scout’s honor.”

  “Where are you, Mark?”

  “Oh me, I can see I’m not making my point again. Where I am is in this box, smelling slightly of piss, with teeny-tiny cracks in it. Or did I mention that before. But Aaron, are you there? Lately people tend to go away, don’t know why. Giving absolutely wrong impression again, but anyway I’m in this box with heretoforementioned teeny-weeny cracks. But Aaron, in the glass—right in the middle of the glass is this pretty silver wire. How the hell did they get it in there? I mean it kind of makes you proud just thinking about it. I’d like to just spend the rest of the day looking at it and feeling proud, but I’ve got a date, you know, and now I really do have to run.”

  “Frank Hawkes told me you were down on all of us,” Aaron says.

  “Shit, I’m surrounded. Cute little pissers, full of warped love, which is why they want to kill, but they don’t. No alternatives, right? Even that ol’ boy dep
uty sheriff broke my hand way back in the ancient age, the old times, man, when there wasn’t any black and white. Remember? Salt and pepper then. Now spade cats I was in jail with won’t shake my hand. Fucking honky. I understand. Understand perfectly. Ta, ta, comrade. Perfectly all right.”

  “Mark, please tell me where you are.”

  “Broken record, dad. Broken record. You ought to hear yourself. Where are you Mark where are you Mark where are you Mark where are you Mark. On and on like that. Lack of communication. Ill of our times.”

  “Okay, but you don’t sound exactly normal either.”

  “Oh well now. Let’s not get insulting about it. Not worth it, you know. Shall I say that I rather sense that I’m a little quick? Yes, I’m very quick at the moment. Very quick. Got to slow down a little. Got to see the elevator man. Genius. Control. Up and down. A little down will fix me up. Down, up, right? Dichotomy, paradox, Professor? Oh shit, there I go again, giving the wrong impression. Communications failure. Short circuit in the intercommunication complex. Absolute flop. Just terrible.”

  “Mark, how can we help you?”

  “You’re awfully slow, Aaron, or shall we say that you’re a real pile of goo? Shit, I mean you’re a perfect sweetie, a perfect marshmallow. We’ll keep in touch, huh? I mean, don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Suddenly the hornlike voice turns hard and angry. “And in any case, Aaron, fuck off, will you?”

  A woman’s flat, businesslike voice says, though with a certain institutional breeziness, “Deposit sixty-five cents for three more minutes, please.”

  “I haven’t got the change, honey,” Mark says.

  “Mark, give me the number. Let me call you back.”

  “I told this guy to fuck off, operator. What do I do now?”

  Then silence. Far off in the the ether, women’s voices chat busily, just below the level of understanding.

  Suddenly Aaron remembers another dream he had last flight. First comes its heavy mood—horror at a lack of horror. Deep calm. It was on a lake with an Indian name—Min-netonka, Iduhapi, Pasquaney—a calm, clear lake surrounded by forest, with only a few cabins on its shores, and those were old dark cabins made of logs or rough lumber some time in the teens of the century. In those cabins would be found mounted antlers, beaded doorway curtains, hand-operated pumps in the kitchen sinks, blue enameled tin dishes and cups, bare pine studding dark orange with age, stone fireplaces with half-log mantels, owl’s-head andirons, kerosene lamps. In the dream Aaron stood up to his waist in the cool water, near the end of the dock, tying the mooring line of his small sailing dory. It was dusk, the sky darkening into an orange the color of oak leaves in the fall—that rich subdued orange-umber that seems so warm. Several yards away, on the float, Agnes sat, gleaming from her swim, touched on smooth shoulders and arms by the sky’s orange light. He did not speak to her, nor she to him, but she watched him carefully, levelly. Her hair, darkened and flattened by the water, covered her head like a hood. The evening wind, barely felt, was warm. His feet were down in darkness, in the slightly risky other-world of water things, but he could look down his body past chest, sternum, ribs, into the darkness. Currents of delicately changing temperature passed his thighs. Upon the float, Agnes, still watching him, pulled her legs up to sit with her arms around her knees. It did not seem startling that the Negro body floated next to him, impassive black face up. It was the body of a husky man. The dead eyes were open, showing a brown stain in the whites. Bluegum, he thought, the blackest of the black. The body nudged him, and he pushed it slowly away, his hand white against the thick, shiny hair on its head. Another body floated near the dock, just the back of the woolly head and onyx shoulders above the water. Out in the lake, several more naked black bodies, men and women, floated low in the calm water. It did not occur to him to wonder what event had caused these well-formed black bodies to be here, floating with stern calm in the evening water. The fact signified its own inevitability. Someone would have to remove the bodies from the lake, but he did not feel immediately responsible. It would be taken care of later. Perhaps he would write about it, but it didn’t fit into his plans for the next morning’s work, nor would it interfere with this evening’s calm enjoyment. Perhaps there was a slight doubt; it seemed sadly ominous that the bodies were here. Of course if they weren’t removed for several days they would begin to pollute the lake. When he had finished tying the dory for the night he looked deep into the water and saw the buoy anchor line going down, down, fading into that other element. He then felt some fear. Agnes slipped without a splash into the water and slid toward him as if propelled by fins. Briefly their cool mouths touched, and they walked, pushing the weight of the water aside, to the shore. Here, the one white body, that of an older man with shaggy gray hair and beard, lay in the shallows, his mouth wide open, torn-looking, as though he had died in the midst of a scream.

  He has been holding on to the telephone, and now he puts it back into its cradle. He is still stunned and bemused by those dignified bodies, and by his attitude in the dream of calm acceptance. “In dreams we are other people,” he says out loud, his voice startling him as though someone has sneaked up behind him and spoken into his ear.

  But in dreams we are really, truly ourselves, aren’t we? Except that in dreams all is supposed to be in code. Nothing is what it seems.

  He wanders into the kitchen. He’s just had two beers. If he doesn’t drink any more at all he can at least think coherently about the hair of Harold Roux. He ought to call Mark’s mother, but he can’t stand the idea. Maybe he’ll send her a post card, but what can he tell her? That Mark called and said not to worry in a voice that obviously had the heebie-jeebies. “Mark’s fine, Mrs. Rasmussen, he’s just a hair strung out, is all. On his uppers, you might say. Can’t get off E (Empty), but I don’t believe he’s on H …” But what the hell does he know about it? He’ll have a drink; he knows about addiction, all right. It’s right now, reaching for the half-gallon of Beam, not wanting it but having to have it. Or watching a student who takes whole minutes to find a ragged manuscript in his book bag, moving so slowly, so slowly. That’s heroin, probably. Or is it Seconal? In the recent past they have written him stories and poems about all the stages along the way, about smack and a one and one nosin’, and a two and two, about so and so’s OD’d and he’s dead so they leave him. He’s dead, so what can they do? Heavy, man. Heavy.

  The chemicals stain the ice cubes. C2H5OH: ethyl, or ethanol. He knows that language. He’s smoked pot occasionally over the years, too, but there’s that mean, nasty business of the law hanging over it, and like it or not he’s got too much to lose; he’s got insurance policies, a mortgage, a profession, children to feed and doctor and educate. But the state’s own commission hustles the booze, so that’s okay. He drinks. Blagh. The dope goes down and assaults his pyloric valve. It’s a depressant, for Christ’s sake, and who needs to be depressed? He lights a cigarette, another kind of dope with its grinning skull of blue smoke, gray after his lungs efficiently filter it. He swings his hand through the hemorrhage of smoke, roiling it madly.

  With his drink expertly in hand he is, as always, drawn back to his study, to the scene of the crime. Commission or omission.

  The dormitory room, its bland maple furniture, its putty-colored cement block walls, on a spring afternoon. Outside it is raining and has been misting and dripping all day.

  Nathan Weinstein, at this time, was having a very short infatuation with sparkling burgundy. He didn’t really like whiskey or beer; he wanted his drinking to be fancy and ceremonial, the way it would someday be when he was important, suave, consorting with the influential of the earth. So he’d bought a case of sparkling burgundy, a thirty-five-pound block of ice, a washtub, a set of six champagne glasses with hollow stems, a box of fancy unsalted crackers, and several jars of salmon and whitefish caviar. Knuck Gillis busily chipped the ice with the bayonet from his souvenir Arisaka rifle. Before they thought to lock the door against thirsty visitors, Hilary David Edward St
. George ambled amiably in, so they invited him to stay.

  “Oh, I say!” Hilary said. “My! You fellows are preparing to have a bash, what?”

  Hilary had come over to give Allard a set of photographs of Mary. He often followed the two of them around, snapping pictures, preferably of Mary alone. At the Student Union or downtown they’d see him, waiting for them, following them, or sitting across a room mooning at Mary. It made her genuinely upset and sad to see this, but it didn’t bother Allard. If bloody Christopher Robin wanted to shadow them, it was no harm, which was strange because Allard didn’t like to be followed at all. He was the hunter; if any stalking was to be done he would do it. So what it meant was that Hilary David Edward St. George hadn’t the force, or the presence, to irritate him that way. Yet Hilary was a legitimate hero, a former RAF flight sergeant who had flown “Hurries,” as he called the Hawker Hurricane fighter. He’d shot down an Me iooe, a Henschel 127, and (he laughed deprecatingly about this) a Feiseler Storch. Allard had seen the documents and the gun camera series that confirmed these victories. It was true, all of it, and what a lark it had been for Hilary. A tall, gangly boy of twenty-seven, he looked fifteen, with his thick black hair standing up from his head like a busby, his cheerful, vacuous smile and constant chatter. His father was English, his mother from a somewhat Brahmin family in Boston. Hilary’s accent was somewhere in between. He made model airplanes in his room, charmingly confessed that what he really enjoyed was to sit in his bath and squeeze little whiteheads from his scrotum, so he missed his mother’s house in Boston where they had wizard great tubs. He had asked Mary to marry him and taken her down to meet his mother. (“Hilary’s mother is awful—both meanings of the word,” Mary had said afterwards. “And how could I marry someone I always want to pat on the head?”) One of Hilary’s stories was about a time he’d gone, just for a lark, as a gunner on a Lancaster flown by his friend, a four-engine type named Bunny Berkhamstead. Good old Bunny! On the way home over the Channel the bomb-bay doors were jammed open and the navigator, silly clot, forgot and stepped out. No parachute. They all got to giggling so hard Bunny almost lost his way back to Blighty. Funniest thing that ever happened. “Oh, that clot, that silly, silly clot! They were all laughing so hard Bunny could hardly bring the aircraft down, nearly forgot to lower his undercart!”