He drew it, ducked away from the door, and crossed the street, down which he hurried, swept along by the flooding memory of his recent conversation with Jimson in the Forbes Building. All that talk about Boyd Joyner and his adulterous wife! Why, he’d been making a goddamn fool of himself, while Jimson was probably smirking inside at his ignorance! And all the time! Pierce Jimson, of all people! Leader of the town council, leader of the church choir, leader of the chamber of commerce, and a dissolute, wife-stealing goat! The town tottered. My God, the hypocrisy of that man, conducting an adult Bible class (attended by Raleigh himself, and other innocent decent Thermopyleans) on “The Call to Christian Marriage.” Well, many are called, but obviously some are already off on a party line! How the hell did Jimson let this happen to him? Oh, all right, Lizzie Joyner was pretty. Always made you feel that if she had a problem, you could fix it for her. Now that he recalled, he’d enjoyed getting her stalled car started in the Forbes parking lot one cold evening, because she’d been so grateful and so humorous about forgetting to turn off her lights. All right, she did have a certain appealing…but for Pete’s sake! And what about Boyd Joyner? What a horrible humiliation for him if he ever found out. And God knows, if Ned Ware ever once heard about it, he’d blab the whole tale, with his commiserating sigh of gleeful sympathy, not only to Boyd but to everybody else in town. Thus musing, Hayes set out on a brisk jogging walk through the streets of Charleston; he really had not been getting enough (at least of the right sort of) exercise. An hour later, he entered a large elegant hotel to use the facilities. He heard “Summertime” being played on a piano, and as it was a favorite melody of his, he wandered into the bar. There he eventually found himself seated at a table, near a white baby grand piano, at which an attractive, freckled woman with long auburn hair was singing—with little regard to gender—“Bess, You Is My Woman, Now.”
By the time Raleigh had finished his first scotch, he’d decided that never in a million years would he do to Aura what Pierce was doing to Brenda Jimson. After his second scotch, he became consumed with retroactive jealousy about an incident that had occurred years back, when he’d flown into a sulky rage at the Civitans’ Christmas dance over what he’d seethingly called “Aura’s behavior.” She’d spent most of her drunken evening giggling in the arms of Dr. Wilson Carmichael, a notorious satyr from his youth, a high-school master of ballroom dance steps, including the tango, which nobody knew how to do, including the then-popular “spin.” It had been enough to make you dizzy to watch Sonny Carmichael, like a redheaded top, zipping one poor breathless girl after another in big blurred loops around the gym floor. It had been enough to make you nauseated to hear this insufferable twinkle-toes brag of all the Thermopylae High virgins into whose panties he had spun, chacha’ed, and mash-potatoed his way (among them the cheerleader Raleigh had seriously dated for two tortured years of self-restraint). And fifteen years later, it had still been enough to make Raleigh Hayes too angry to breathe without pain to see Aura fly by, in a waltz, in a foxtrot, in the cursed tango, hour after hour, chirping things like, “Oh, Sonny, I haven’t danced like this in ages!” While Carmichael burbled things like, “All righty, here comes the reverse, now, and turn, dip, left. Sweetcakes, you are good enough to eat!” While everybody else finally stopped their two-steps and just stood there and applauded! And most unforgivably of all, only four years earlier, Aura had actually allowed this cad (whose motives in becoming an obstetrician were doubtless too vile to be dwelt on) to deliver the twins! Raleigh had declined to speak to his wife for three days following the dance, and her response to his attempt, then, to bring her to trial over her behavior (“Well, dammit, Raleigh, why don’t you go take dancing lessons if you’re going to be so ridiculous, or just pee in a circle around me, and maybe nobody’ll cross the territory”) had added another whole week of silence.
It was in thinking of the Jimsons and the Joyners that Raleigh was led to this unhappy memory, and from there, via his second scotch, to reflections on what Aura might have meant by going out to lunch with “guys,” whom she had claimed were “just a bunch of Democrats who want to talk politics,” but had then confessed included their lawyer, Dan Andrews. Now, Dan (as Raleigh well knew from rooming with him in college, when Dan had befriended him in order to get into his fraternity, and then dropped him in order to befriend the inner circle—Raleigh was the fraternity’s token grind), as Raleigh all too well knew, Dan Andrews was an aggressively competitive, invidiously ambitious, selfish rotten person. It was for these very qualities that Raleigh had engaged him as his lawyer. The man could not tolerate losing face, and by extension, cases. But he was a human consumer, trading wives in like cars for newer models. How dare he go out to lunch with Aura? How dare Aura be so stupid, so indiscreet, so wanton, as to accept this slimy invitation!
Raleigh, who by now had eaten all his cashews and shredded his napkins, ordered a third scotch. If the second drink had made him angry, the third had a very different effect. Halfway through this drink, he began to hear again the music from across the bar, and he remembered that he loved listening to music. Where in the world were all his mother’s old classical records, where were all his old jazz records? Were they in the attic? No, that’s right, he’d taken them to “Peace and Quiet.” He remembered that he loved live music; despite Aunt Victoria’s contempt, hadn’t his father’s informal little family combo actually been pretty good? Hadn’t he himself actually shown a lot of promise on the trumpet? What a shame that here they were with a piano in their house, and neither of the twins had gotten past Thompson’s first book of lessons, and nobody ever played it except Mingo, who invited himself over to play “Happy Birthday,” or Christmas carols, or any other excuse he could find. Wasn’t Mingo surprisingly skilled? And this piano in the bar now, this was really very pleasant, particularly these Gershwin tunes, particularly when so touchingly played by someone with so sensitive a face and such long long hair that fell over her eyes. Yes, Hayes would just slip a few tens into her brandy snifter atop the piano; how sad it held only one bill.
It wasn’t long after the Thermopylean had come over with an unsteady smile and made his contribution to music, that the pianist ended her stint at the keyboard with a sad run of scales to finish “The Man I Love.” She was replaced on the white bench by a middle-aged man who immediately began singing, “Bess, You Is My Woman, Now.” The woman, bringing her vodka collins along, joined Raleigh Hayes at his table and said, “I guess you like Gershwin.”
“I love him,” Hayes replied, and bit his mouth to discover if it was as numb as it seemed.
“Mind if I have a drink?”
“I’d love one,” Raleigh replied. “Pardon me, please have a seat.”
“I’m Rusty, what yours?”
“Mine? Scotch.”
She laughed. “No, your name.”
“Raleigh. Raleigh Hayes.”
“Like the city? That’s funny.”
“No, actually I was named for Sir Walter Raleigh; you know, the Lost Colony?”
“That’s funny. I guess you like my playing.”
“I love it.”
Now, because our hero lived, as we know, almost entirely inside his head, and tended to think of his body as an alien enemy to be subdued into longevity, he had only the most perfunctory notion of what he looked like. He certainly would never have described himself as a basically good-looking man. But he was. He was not dazzlingly good-looking, like his brother Gates, nor affably good-looking, like his father Earley, but he resembled them both enough that, now, given his elegant new clothes, and the fact that he was too drunk to keep his mouth pinched and his eyes squinted, he looked (as Aura had told him not so long ago in their bathroom) “pretty good.” It was not, however, this cause alone that brought the freckled pianist to his side. Raleigh, whose pockets were full of money destined for various parties, had, in the dimmed light and with his diminished faculties, pushed not, as he supposed, two tendollar bills, but two hundred-dollar bills, into the bran
dy snifter, which meant to the piano player (a woman of some sophistication, as well as an apartment she couldn’t afford, and an amorous disposition) more than our hero intended (or knew he intended) to say. Therefore, after much good-humored talk about music and several more rounds of drinks, and after Raleigh’s odd announcement that he believed himself on the Atlantic Ocean in “Easy Living,” this kind musician insisted on helping the Thermopylean find his way back to the Ambrose Inn, to which she was obliged to lead him by the arm. Along the way, he fell into a fit of humming. This was followed by a fit of terror when he became convinced that bugs were scurrying over his shoes.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Rusty laughed. “They really are. Palmetto bugs, they’re all over at night around here. Creepy, isn’t it?”
“Shurrtillyish,” agreed Hayes. He got down on his hands and knees. She was absolutely right. Enormous black roachy creatures were crawling on the sidewalk, racing frantically from shadow to shadow. “Thash me, thas exactly me,” said Hayes, and fell into a contemplative mood. Suddenly a dreadful bell began to bong. “STOP THAT!” He leaped to his feet and slapped his hands over his ears. “WHAT IS THAT?”
“Wow, take it easy, Raleigh. It’s just a clock.”
“A clock?”
“Church clock.” She pointed above them. “See? Church. It’s nine o’clock.”
Hayes’s hand flew from his ear and smacked him hard on the face. “Nine o’clock! Goddammit! Daddy!”
“Hey, what’s with you?”
Raleigh abruptly realized that what was with him was someone he didn’t know, and he began shaking Rusty’s hand energetically, while babbling apologies. “Please shuuse me. Pardon me. Rushy? Rusty. I really preashate your going out of your way. I’m not like shis. Thank you. Got to run. Imporshant phone call. Familish ’mergency. Where am I? Which way…ah…I don’t know how…musht have had…Feel strange…drink…excuse, please. Goosh-bye.” Away ran Hayes backward, shouting apologies and crashing into a decorative horsehead hitching post. He turned the corner and left Rusty to conclude that it was all just as well, since the guy, while nice enough, was too far gone to know what he was doing, or else too odd for her to want to do anything with. And humming, “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” she walked back to the hotel, where with a rueful wink she joined her replacement at the piano in a duet of “I Loves You, Porgy.”
In this way was our hero saved literally by the bell from (possibly) jeopardizing the vow he’d taken fifty minutes earlier when he swore that never in a million years would he ever even give the appearance of doing what Pierce Jimson gave every appearance of having already done.
Hayes flung himself past two startled elderly women in rockers on the porch of the Ambrose Inn, and bounded into the hushed foyer. The proprietor, Mr. Vanderhost, was pinching back a trellis of fuchsia blossoms. Yes, said this soft-voiced Charlestonian, acknowledging by not so much as an eyebrow that his guest (despite his respectable clothes) was drunk as a skunk. Yes, he said, there had been a phone call at eight. Yes, from a Mr. Earley Hayes. No, no message; no, didn’t say where he was, yes, said he’d try again tomorrow night. “Beg your pardon, sir, I couldn’t catch what you said?” added this suave hotelier, who had perfectly clearly heard Mr. Hayes mumble, “Goddammit to hell son of a bitch,” as he stood, or rather swayed, against a Duke of Marlborough desk, from which Mr. Vanderhost smoothly rescued a Chinese vase.
“A gentleman also called on you, Mr. Hayes.”
“A genshman? What genshman?”
“He didn’t care to leave his name, sir. A fairly elderly and a fairly…small…Northern gentleman…in formal wear. With a mustache?” Vanderhost held his hand out slightly above his waist, and used the other to draw a small line over his upper lip.
“Yesh yesh.” Hayes recognized this brief description of Weeper Berg.
“He asked me to ask you to not…leave without him.” Vanderhost tapped his paisley handkerchief down in the breast pocket of his navy blazer, then fluffed it out again. “He did not care to be more specific.”
“Shank you.” Raleigh now slid back along the edge of the desk, and caught himself by grabbing a brass standing lamp, with which he attempted a short lively dance.
“Mr. Hayes, could I be of some help?” The proprietor pressed his foot discreetly on the lamp base to steady it.
Hayes was utterly mortified, having come to suspect he was giving the impression that he’d been drinking. “Yes,” he said, taking a great deal of care with each word. “I am not feeling very well. Do you happen to have any aspirin?”
“Of course. I’ll have some brought up to your room.”
So up to his room went the insurance man, and then down the hall to take a shower, for the Ambrose Inn, while luxurious, deliberately preserved its antique charm by declining to install private baths in its beautiful rooms. Raleigh, by his own testimony, almost never drank. Consequently, he believed all the false old wives’ tales (for possibly the old wives didn’t drink either) about methods to accelerate sobriety, which, as habitual inebriates know, cannot, and should not, be attempted. First he took the aspirin. Then he subjected himself to a long, hard, and entirely frigid shower. Having scantily escaped a heart attack there, he instantly courted another by jogging in his new tasseled loafers all the way around the Battery’s White Park Gardens. After this, he hurried into the first restaurant he saw, ate two bowls of hot greasy soup, drank two glasses of thick warm tomato juice, rushed into the bathroom, threw up, sat back down, and swallowed three cups of scalding coffee. At the end of this ordeal, while he felt wretched, he did not seem to be as frighteningly remote from himself as he had felt a few hours earlier. He did not feel hopelessly drunk, and therefore he continued to believe those old wives’ tales about sobering up.
One might think that poor Raleigh had endured enough for the day (particularly as he could not blame Mingo, Gates, or Weeper Berg for the spending spree, the insults of Jubal Rogers, the shock of Pierce Jimson, or the enticements of Rusty’s bar); one might think Fortune had exhausted even her capacity for derision, but obviously not, for she flew into a sudden ill temper as Raleigh was walking back to the inn, and began to pelt him not just with rain but with the very leaves and branches ripped from trees by squalling winds.
This time, sopping wet, he ran through the foyer and up the stairs before having to endure again Mr. Vanderhost’s understanding face. He could hear the man calling, “Pardon me, Mr. Hayes? Did you know…” but, cowardly, he ran even faster up the stairs, into his room, and flung himself down on the bed. He then reached out in the dark for the lamp he remembered seeing somewhere on a chintz-covered side table. The next assault on his heart came silently and suddenly. A soft, a warm, a naked, a female arm wound around his neck.
Oh Christ Almighty, thought Hayes in a flash, Rusty! She knew where he was staying, and while he was out, she’d told Vanderhost God knows what, and…“Listen,” he burst out in a desperate whisper, “this is a terrible misunderstanding. You’ll have to leave. I’m sorry, but I’m a happily married man.”
Raleigh heard a carol of laughter. It was the laugh he knew best in the world.
“AURA!” he yelled, and leaped from the bed.
The lamp clicked on, and there indeed lay, hair tousled, rosy warm and apparently unclothed, Raleigh’s wife, Aura Godwin Hayes. “You,” she laughed, “have certainly turned into some joker! You’ll have to leave, I’m a happily married man! Oh, Raleigh! Guten Nichtski!”
“Aura, what the hell are you doing in my room?”
She laughed again, burying her head in the pillow, peeked out, looked at him, and laughed some more. “Raleigh, I am so glad to see you! And, honey,” giggles swept over her again, “you haven’t changed a bit! The last time I saw you, you came home soaking wet! Have you been jogging? Or drinking?…Oh, God!” She stuck her head back under the pillow to muffle a new outburst.
“Of course not,” said Hayes, entirely forgetting that he had in fact been both jogging and drinking only a short while ago.
“It’s pouring down rain.”
“I know! That’s why I just fell in the bed. What a trip!” Aura sat up, tucking the laced sheet around her breasts. “Vera and I were driving blind as bats the last fifty miles. I thought we’d never get here. And you know Vera, she’s so terrified of lightning, we had to pull over every ten minutes. Sweetheart, please get out of those wet clothes. And where’d you get them? Très chic, I must say. Well, were you surprised?”
Handling Sin Page 39
