by Packer, Vin
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, that’s what I did. I stood around like Marty…. So I got analyzed, and it helped my social life.” “Good.”
“I keep up with things now. Like camp … Are you sure you don’t want a hot dog?”
“You do, so why don’t you get one?”
“Do you mind sitting here alone? I could wait until Sam and Terry get back to the table.” “I don’t mind.” “Are you sure?” “Yes.”
He got up and pawed his way through the crowd, and Lois Faye felt close to tears.
Then suddenly, then miraculously, Lois Faye saw Charles walking toward the table. She realized she was seeing the only person with whom she wanted to be.
• • •
A half hour ago, when he had left the apartment, he had told his father, “Don’t worry about it.”
“But I do worry about it, Charles. I should have told you this afternoon when you came to the institute.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
“Let’s just forget it.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do about it?”
“I’m sorry, Charles. I know it’s humiliating.”
“It’s no skin off mine,” Charles had answered.
It wasn’t either. It was skin off Hagerman. It was good for a lot more than $150. He didn’t need a tape now to make Blouter believe what Hagerman had said: Hagerman had been telling the truth, divulging top-secret information, not playing a mean little prank. Blouter might have forgiven a prank, but he would not forgive this. No wonder Hagerman had paid off so easily. No wonder a lot of things: no wonder Charles had been pocket-pledged the second night of Rush; no wonder Hagerman had hated him on sight; no wonder Mike had roared at Charles’s imitation and called Hagerman over to hear…. A rich man’s joke is always funny.
• • •
Charles sat down across from Lois.
He said, “I was just passing by. I heard the music and I saw the pictures of the girls out front, and I thought what-the-hell, you’re not in the big city every day and ten cents isn’t going to break you. Want to dance?”
“Charles, can we go?”
“What? Leave all this action? I’m rich as Croesus, and very big in the world of little gifties from Tiffany’s.” “I want to go; can we go?”
“Where? El Morocco? Twenty-one? The Stork Club?” “The Stork Club? The Stork Club isn’t open anymore! You’re such a hick!”
“Let me tell you about the ant farms I manufacture.” “Oh, Charles. I missed you. A lot!”
Charles smiled. There was some change on the table near his elbow. He eased his arm back until his palm made contact with it. “You didn’t even know I was gone.”
“I did! It was just awful, this whole evening.”
“You know what time it is, don’t you? The dorm closed an hour ago.”
“I’ve already signed out.”
“You what!”
“I was going to stay all night with Swanny.” “Was I supposed to hitchhike back?”
“Charles, I’m being honest with you, at least. I didn’t have to tell you.”
“I’m awfully glad you did. I feel great.”
“It isn’t easy to be honest. Give me some credit.”
“You were going to stay with Swanny. We were coming in to buy you a Pucci, and have dinner, and you were going to stay with Swanny. I could turn into a cynic; old Docile Charlie could turn into a cynic, do you know that?”
“Charles, my date is going to come back any minute. Let’s go.”
“Where? Are you planning to sleep at the house?”
“You don’t have to be in until three this morning! You told me that!”
“Where are you going to be at three this morning?”
“You always make me beg you to take me to the Bluebird,” she said. “You like to lord it over me!”
Charles Shepley roared; so did Lois.
Then he slipped the change from the table into his overcoat. While she was in the ladies’, Charles went to the lounge and called the Bluebird for a reservation; after that, he very gracefully pocketed a gold cigarette case he saw resting on a couch.
There was a boutique in the Cheetah. Before they left, Charles bought her a pair of backless suede boots.
“You’re in a better mood than I’ve ever seen you in in my whole life!” she said later, as they were crossing the George Washington Bridge.
“I have some game in me,” he smiled.
“At last!” she answered.
He was thinking that by the time he got back to the house, most of the Pi Pis would be asleep; he was thinking of Blouter’s suite on the third floor, unoccupied, vulnerable, with the petty cash in a portable lockbox in Blouter’s closet.
Fourteen
Thorpe said, “Have you read the morning papers, Hagerman?”
Hagerman had a hangover. He was in his room, still dressed in pajamas, swallowing down Gelusil.
He had not read the newspapers yet, but he had known what to expect. When he had come in last night, Burroughs had told him all about the police and the reporters hovering around Matilda Holt’s place, and how it had inspired him to flush the sugar cubes down the john, and Hagerman had gone to sleep pleased to think that Bud would never know that Hagerman had tried to dose Shepley with them. Hagerman had wondered what would have happened if Bud had gone ahead with his experiment, and discovered the cubes were ordinary Dominoes; he would only have had to swallow one, found it produced no reaction, and then analyzed the other three.
• • •
Things had a way of working out in Hagerman’s favor; now if he could just get Thorpe off his back, he could go to his classes and conduct the pledges through their Day of Purgatorio, and calm down, and carry on.
Calm down and carry on.
“No, I didn’t read the papers. But I know what’s in the papers.”
“You know about that Mrs. Holt?”
“I know about that Mrs. Holt. Thorpe, someone gave me the wrong information.”
“Someone gave you the wrong information! That’s funny, that’s really funny. Do you know the kind of trouble I’m in? I could be kicked right out of this school, Hagerman!”
“You are not in any trouble, Thorpe! You are an innocent party in a very nasty hoax!”
“Are you going to tell them I’m innocent?”
“Them, Thorpe? Who’s them?”
“The police, Hagerman!”
“Sit down, Thorpe. Stop shouting and sit down. Do you want the whole house in on this?”
“The whole house is downstairs eating breakfast, Peter! I can’t eat breakfast! I read the paper, and I puked!”
“Sit down, Thorpe.”
Hagerman stretched out on his bed and put a damp washcloth over his face, leaving his mouth uncovered. He said, “Now listen to me. Carefully. There is a psycho loose in this city, and we were his victims. Now. This certain psycho, whom I have not laid eyes on, scrawled a note on the wall of the men’s in a Socony station where I went for gas yesterday morning. Now. This note gave Matilda Holt’s address, and this note said, The best piece of tail this side of the river. She works alone. Five dollars for fifteen minutes. She looks like anything but what she is. Tell her Turtle sent you.’ … Thorpe, it happened that way, and I cannot express myself, but, Thorpe, I swear to you on a stack of Bibles, I had no idea that poor woman was the object of some obvious psycho’s sick cruelty!”
“What about the phone calls? Did we make any phone calls to her?”
“Thorpe, may I ask you a question?” “What?”
“Are you even remotely aware of my feelings about Vietnam? Do you know that I did a thirty-page paper on Peter Dawkins? Are you even remotely aware of how it turned my stomach to hear that burlesque of the song about the Green Berets, which you and Shepley were amusing yourself with the other afternoon?”
Thorpe sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
>
“Do you honestly think I would willfully persecute the mother of one of our fighting men risking his life in Vietnam?”
“No. I guess not.”
“You guess not, Thorpe? You guess not, mother-lover?” “All right. I know you wouldn’t. But what about those phone calls?”
“The person who made those phone calls, Thorpe, is obviously the sick, demented, cruel creature who defaced the wall of the Socony station men’s room.”
“What are we going to do, Peter?”
“We are not going to do anything, Daniel. We are certainly not going to bring disgrace on Pi Delta Pi, because we were the victims of a nasty hoax.”
“Peter, she can identify me.”
“She’ll never see you again, Thorpe.”
“How do I know? I could bump into her anyplace.”
“Where? At the Unmuzzled Ox? At the Co-op? Out on our front lawn? In the Administration Building? Use your head, Thorpe. She is a sad little woman who hangs around Far Point with other sad little women; she shops in the A and ? and Woolworth’s and her whole world is that crummy main street which runs through Far Point, and how often do you traverse that crummy main street?”
“I go to the movies in Far Point.”
“Then go to the drive-ins. They show better pictures, anyway.”
“It’s easy for you to be calm, Peter, but I — ” Peter Hagerman shot up into a sitting position. He said, “Have I got a wet rag over my face because I like wet rags over my face? Have I been swallowing Gelusil because it tastes good? Am I downstairs eating breakfast? Did I get any sleep last night after Bud told me about all of this? Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND, MOTHER-LOVER?”
“Okay, Peter. Okay … I didn’t mean you weren’t worried.”
“I’m sick inside, Thorpe. I think of that poor woman, and it makes me sick!”
“Maybe we just ought to tell the police. They’d understand.”
“They would, Thorpe? Are you SIMPLE?” “Wouldn’t they?”
“Thorpe, doesn’t your dull brain entertain any notions of self-protection? Don’t you realize that anyone in this fraternity could tell the police you’re a Vietnik?”
“I don’t agree with our policy in Vietnam; does that make me a Vietnik?”
“In the eyes of the police, it makes you a very logical suspect, Daniel. And you were very drunk last night. You know you puked in the street? You know we were eighty-sixed from the Ox?”
“I hope to hell you’d stand up for me.”
“You were back and forth to the men’s a dozen times. How could I swear you didn’t make a phone call, or ten phone calls? I wasn’t taking you to the john and back, you know … Thorpe, the police wouldn’t believe either one of us, and that’s a fact! Daniel, for our own sake, and for the sake of Pi Delta Pi, we’ve got to keep this between you and me.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” “You suppose, Thorpe?” “I know you’re right.”
“I hope to God you haven’t already blabbed to Shepley!” “I haven’t told anyone.”
“Good!” said Hagerman. “I just hope they catch that sick creep; I’d like to get my hands on him.”
Things had a way of working in Hagerman’s favor. After Thorpe left, while Hagerman was dressing, Burroughs came into the room, and shut the door, and sat down on his bed with a very long face.
Hagerman said, “What’s the matter with you?”
“This is strictly confidential, Peter. All right?”
“All right.”
“You remember our talk last night?” “Sure.”
“Well, you were sort of loaded, so I don’t think you realized how upset I was. My old man really read me out. He’s pretty good-natured, so when he busts a gut it shakes me up. You passed out and I didn’t sleep at all, and I got to worrying about my Spanish grades, because I’m darn close to flunking, and that’d be all I’d need.”
“So?”
“So it was late; it was after two, but I was wide awake and I figured I’d go over my vocabulary. I went up to study hall for about an hour. I was just putting the light out when I heard someone coming up the stairs. I wouldn’t have thought anything, but it was the way he was coming up the stairs, like he was sneaking up the stairs.”
“Who was sneaking up the stairs?”
“Shepley. Peter, he went into Blouter’s suite, and he turned on the light, and he shut the door. He was in there for a while, a few minutes, and finally I opened the door, and he was fumbling around in Blouter’s closet.” “What’d he say when he saw you?”
“He got very red in the face, and he said something about having a lot to drink, and being in the wrong room.” “Is that right?”
“But he wasn’t drunk, Peter. He came up those stairs as quiet as a cat. I don’t think he could have managed that drunk.”
“He couldn’t have, Bud. He couldn’t have.”
“I don’t think he could, either.”
“Bud, are you thinking the same thing I am?”
“What are you thinking?”
“That we caught our klep.”
“I don’t know that I’d go that far.”
Hagerman said, “I’d go that far. Bud, I think we ought to call a chapter meeting.”
“Let’s wait for Blouter to get back. Let’s ask Blouter. We can’t do anything without Blouter anyway, and anyway, maybe he was drunk.”
“So Shepley’s the klep. Very interesting. I knew that mother wasn’t any good the second I set eyes on him!”
“We can’t jump to conclusions, Peter.”
“I’m not going to jump; I’m there, Bud. I knew that mother was a sneaky mother!”
“But let’s not jump the gun, okay? Okay, Peter? Let’s watch him.”
“I want to think about it,” Hagerman said. “I want to give it lots of thought. I won’t jump the gun, Bud.”
• • •
But there were always stumbling blocks, weren’t there? There was always something you could not predict; there was always something in the way, just when you thought the way was clear. It was the story of your whole rotten little life, from kindergarten to grade school to Choate to Sandstone Military Academy to Overland Military Academy to Frick School to Far Point College. You just never had any PEACE. You just never had a CHANCE to calm down and carry on. Every time you picked yourself up, you got another push; it was beautiful the way the mothers wouldn’t let you rest; wasn’t it?
“I’ve been outside waiting for Burroughs to leave, Hagerman, that’s where I’ve been.”
“No, Shepley. I didn’t mean where were you this morning., I meant where were you last night?”
“I was home, Hagerman. I was visiting my family in New York.”
“I meant where were you about three o’clock last night?” “I was in Blouter’s suite, Hagerman. Didn’t Burroughs tell you?”
“He told me, mother. What were you doing in Blouter’s suite. I’m very interested in your answer to that. So is Burroughs.”
“I was looking for the letter my mother wrote to Blouter. You know, about the silverware?”
“You still think such a letter was written, hah? You’re sick.”
“My mother admitted it, Hagerman. I was all worked up when I got back to the house last night, so I went up to Blouter’s suite to see if I could find the letter. You know how it is when you’re all worked up? I didn’t know what I was going to do with the letter. A letter like that is very embarrassing. You can appreciate that. Very humiliating. I guess I wanted to destroy that letter. But then Burroughs surprised me, and I gave him some cock-and-bull story about being drunk and being in the wrong room. It was a good thing I didn’t blurt out the reason I was really there, wasn’t it?”
Hagerman mumbled, “I have a class; I have a ten-thirty.”
“I’m cutting my classes today, Hagerman.”
“Mother, I don’t CARE what you’re doing!”
“You’d better care. I might have a nervous breakdown, Hagerman. A joke is a joke, see, but
now that I know it’s really true, I’m very tense.”
“I paid you a hundred and fifty dollars! That ended the matter!”
“Not for me, not after my mother told me it was true. I might have a real breakdown, same as Osmond. Remember how Osmond carried on? You were responsible for his breakdown, too. You could get quite a reputation, Hagerman. With the kind of reputation you could get, I think Blouter would probably consider deactivating you. What do you think?”
Hagerman flung the book he was carrying to the floor.
“Temper, temper, Hagerman. I haven’t lost my temper. I had myself under control. You really have to admire me, too, for controlling myself last night when I was so worked up. I could have spilled my guts to Burroughs, but I didn’t. Burroughs probably thought I was robbing Mike. Isn’t that what Bud thought?”
Hagerman said, “You better leave me alone, Shepley. You’re carrying this thing too far.”
“Is that what you told Osmond? You see, you can’t reason with someone who feels very tense. About the only thing you can do with someone who’s very tense is give them something to take away the tension. My tension would probably go away for a few hundred dollars.”
“I don’t have that kind of money. You MOTHER! I don’t have any money left.”
“I’m very, very tense, Hagerman. I really am.”
Hagerman said, “Shep, listen, I’m not rich. If I were rich — “
Shepley interrupted him. “Don’t whine, Hagerman. It increases my tension.”
“I gave you my LAST CENT YESTERDAY!”
“We could drive into New York, Hagerman. I bet your family would lend you some money. If my family’s willing to give silverware for me, yours ought to be willing to do something to help you out. That’s what families are for, don’t you think? If you can’t count on your family, who can you count on?”
“You’re blackmailing me!”
“That’s a very perspicacious observation, Hagerman.” “You’re BLACKMAILING ME, YOU MOTHER!” Shepley answered, “It’s a little something I learned from my mother, you mother.”
Fifteen
Dearest Janice,
It’s strange how you can hate someone, and then when you understand what makes him tick, you find your hatred for him dissolving into sympathy. Into pity.
