Handling Sin

by Malone, Michael

  Hayes took a deep breath. He was a quick-witted man, and it was clear to him by now that (a) his wife (rather than waiting for his call from the Ambrose Inn—which he realized he’d forgotten to make) had decided to pay him a surprise visit, (b) that Vera Sheffield had decided to play a similar surprise on Mingo, (c) that Aura assumed Mr. Vanderhost had told him that his wife had arrived, and that therefore (d) his insane blurting that she had to leave at once struck her as another instance of the madcap wit she’d found so amusing when he’d been forced to speak German gibberish back in the Wetherells’ slave cabin. But just to make certain, Raleigh wiped the rain from his glasses, cleared his throat, and said, “Let me get this straight, you and Vera drove down here hoping to surprise us? Ha ha.”

  “Did Holly and Caroline tell you? Those finks! I told them to say I was at a meeting.”

  “I didn’t speak to them at all.”

  “You didn’t? They promised me they were going to stay home. Dammit! I better call.” She leaned out for the phone. Had she given up pajamas?

  “Aura! You left our daughters at home alone?”

  “Honey, they’re sixteen! They could be married by now.”

  “By now, perhaps they are,” growled Hayes. “Where is Vera? Do you know Mingo and Gates are still in Midway?”

  “She’s in her room upstairs. Oh, she was so disappointed when Mr. Vanderhost said you’d told him Mingo wouldn’t be arriving till late tonight.”

  “Or tomorrow. Or never. Aura, honestly—”

  “Shhh. Go take off your clothes…Holly?” Aura waved away her husband as if her hand were a whisk broom. “Holly, are you okay?…No, I’m not checking up. I just want to know if you’re alive. Is Caroline okay?…Well, go look. Just because her record player’s blasting, doesn’t mean she isn’t dead.”

  “Oh, Aura!” Hayes muttered. “Stop worrying.” With a useful economy, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes had always taken turns at fearing the imminent demise of their daughters. Whenever one had been leaning all night over a crib with a finger held beneath a tiny nostril to feel any signs of breathing, or racing a sleepy child into a lukewarm tub to bring down a fever, or peering out the window at midnight for police lights in the driveway, the other would scoff at the absurdity of such alarm. By alternating in this way, they’d survived sixteen years of unrelieved anxiety. It was obviously Aura’s turn now, and so Raleigh left with his new pajamas and robe to take another shower, a hot one this time. When he came back, his wife was still on the phone.

  “Okay, sweetheart, Daddy sends his love. Bye-bye kiss kiss.” She hung up. “They’re fine,” she said. “Come on to bed. By the way, I love your new clothes. And,” she waved her hand around the room, “your whole new approach to life.”

  “Aura, I have to ask you a question.”

  She leaned an elbow in the down pillow and combed her hair with her fingers. “Fire away.”

  “I don’t want you going out with Dan Andrews.”

  “That’s not a question, honey.”

  “Well, I mean, how do you feel about him? You do know he’s pretty, well, immoral, and a womanizer, don’t you? I mean, you realize that?”

  “Raleigh Hayes, I think you’re pretty adorable.”

  Raleigh sighed as he took off his bathrobe. “Well, I’m just glad you’re aware of that. I mean, about Dan. How was your debate with poor Charlie Lukes?”

  “In the words of your daughter, Mr. Hayes, I wiped him up.”

  Raleigh laughed and crawled under the lace coverlet.

  “Oh, Raleigh, honey. Now aren’t you happy I came?”

  “Aura. Aura. If you only knew…”

  And it wasn’t too long before Raleigh and Aura were doing exactly what his father had so outrageously advised them to do in his note of only one week ago today.

  Had this Tuesday night ended here for our hero, it would have ended as pleasantly as any in his memory. Regrettably, he was awakened before dawn by violent crackles of thunder, gusts of wind, and banging shutters, and he found himself under the most urgent compulsion to use the facilities—a consequence of the inordinate quantity, and variety, of liquids he had imbibed during the evening. Slipping out of the room, he was surprised to see no light in the hall. Or indeed anywhere. A glance out a window showed not a single street lamp. The only light was what was bolting down from the black sky. Hayes, hearing sirens, concluded that the storm had knocked out a power line. He therefore felt his way in the dark to what he remembered to be the bathroom. The door was locked, and a female voice told him, “Just a moment, please.” The moment dragged on longer than he could wait. He was truly in an urgent situation. Using his hands as guides, he worked his way up a flight of steps, and down a hall of doors, reading with his fingers until he reached one with a sign and not a number on it. It was, thank God, indeed a toilet.

  But as Hayes started on his return journey, he made a fatal error. He did not realize that there were, as in most large old houses, two flights of steps between the floors, and he descended a different staircase than the one he’d climbed. Back on his own floor, he proceeded carefully, counting the doors—but approaching from the wrong end of the hall. It was his misfortune that what he took to be the right side of the hall was the left, and what he took to be the raised number 7 was in fact the number 1.

  It was Raleigh’s further misfortune that he had failed to recognize the voice of the lady in the restroom as that of Mrs. Boyd Joyner, and that she, in her hurry to return to bed, had failed to lock the door to Room 1, the grandest room in the inn, and the most old-fashioned, for it was romantically equipped with candle wall-sconces, which Mrs. Joyner had lit on this, the Thermopylean adulterers first real night together. (For all their previous assignations had taken place either in cramped automobiles or the crowded warehouse of Jimson’s store.) These few precious nights, while Pierce was attending a furniture convention in Charleston, and while Lizzie was presumably visiting her mother in Columbia, these few nights, they had schemed for, and waited for, all winter long. They intended to make the most of them, as who knew what the future might bring. Certainly not the poor illicit lovers, for suddenly, and accompanied as if in the climax of an opera, by a clap of thunder so loud it rattled the French windows, their door inched open, and there stood, in his bathrobe, Raleigh W. Hayes.

  If Raleigh’s horror may be imagined as he saw, by candlelight, on the bed, not his wife Aura, and not even, as he next thought, two strangers, and not even simply Pierce Jimson and Lizzie Joyner, not even simply naked, but Pierce Jimson naked with Lizzie Joyner naked, and inverted, atop him, engaged in what Raleigh had often heard his porno-film-fan cousin Jimmy Clay refer to as “good ole sixty-nine.” If Raleigh’s horror may be imagined, it utterly paled, it was absolutely less than nothing, compared to the horror experienced by Pierce Jimson, once Lizzie, with a scream, lifted herself from his face so that he could raise it and therefore see Raleigh Hayes standing in his room.

  Having screamed once, Lizzie crawled completely under the pink satin comforter and burrowed her way to the foot of the bed, where she stayed, shaking. On his knees, Pierce, his magnificent voice paralyzed by shock, contorted every muscle in his face and throat without producing a single sound other than the repeated syllable “YOU!”

  Raleigh had managed to croak out only, “Oh my God, please, pardon, no idea…” before Jimson bounded from the bed, and, as it were, leading with his penis, ran at Hayes, hit him in the mouth, grabbed him by the neck, and began to bang him into the wall.

  It quickly occurred to Hayes, who couldn’t breathe, that the snorting, wild-eyed Jimson was very seriously attempting to kill him. And as Raleigh was larger, younger, and fitter than his thinshouldered, flabby, and at the moment vulnerably exposed assailant, Raleigh (for once not tempted to think things through) decided instantly not to allow himself to be choked to death. As he couldn’t pry the man’s fingers from his throat, he started hitting him in the stomach, and finally as a last resort even kicked him in the groin. At this low blow, Jims
on’s hands loosened. In fact, he sank groaning to the floor. Raleigh gasped enough air to pant, “Damn you. You almost killed me!” Then he looked down at the pale hairy body writhing at his feet. “Pierce, you were choking me!…Well, I’m sorry, but…Are you okay?”

  Jimson was gagging, but he nevertheless managed to splutter out some words. “You, vile, dirty, evil, bastard. You’ll rot in hell for the way you’re torturing us!”

  “For Pete’s sake, Pierce! I assure you I had no idea this was your room. And, frankly, don’t try to blame me for what you’re up to in here!”

  “Come on, what is it you’re after?” groaned Jimson. “Is it because of my dad and your grandfather? Revenge? You’re sick, Raleigh!”

  “I’m sick?” Hayes rubbed his throat. “You’re psychotic!” He pulled his robe closed, and glanced at the quivering lump under the satin coverlet. “Mrs. Joyner, I apologize for embarrassing you.”

  “YOU HEARTLESS FIEND!” squawked Jimson, crawling over and shoving Raleigh by the knees out the door, as another burst of thunder shook the house.

  In the shuffle, Raleigh’s feet had slid completely out of their new bedroom slippers. Finding himself barefoot in the hall, he banged with his shoulder against the door, determined to retrieve property which was not only new, but of which he could have little expectation of any voluntary return. His forcible reentry, for this blow flung the door aside and Jimson with it, so incensed the adulterous merchant that without regard to shame or modesty, he shoved and butted Hayes right out into the hall, and then down it a good ten yards as if they opposed each other on a line of scrimmage, until, with a final push, he knocked his opponent into the now-open bathroom, slammed the door, and wedged a hall chair under the knob. Then, suddenly realizing he was naked in a public (albeit dark) hallway, Jimson squatted and scurried like a crab back to Lizzie.

  As for our hero, he was truly in a maddening dilemma, or as his fellow Thermopyleans would say, a real pickle. Here he was, the sane party, locked up in a black cage of a toilet, by the insane party, who was still at large. The door would not budge. Of course, he could have called for help, but the circumspect habits of a lifetime made him incapable of such an outcry. Or he could have waited until dawn (which had to be coming), or at least until the next incontinent insomniac arrived to use the facilities. But, as we know, the virtue of patience was in our hero often confused with the vice of sloth. Therefore, after a moment lost to futile muscular gyrations accompanied by curses that in no way alleviated his feelings, Hayes stood on the toilet lid, where he discovered, as he’d suspected, that the piazza which ran the width of the second floor extended to the bathroom. He shoved up the window, hoisted himself onto its sill, and by the most agonizing contortions of back and legs managed to shimmy his way through the opening—suffering in the process a raw scrape on the stomach, a charley horse in the calf, and the loss of his drawstring pajama bottoms, which caught on the window latch, came untied, and fell to the floor while the rest of Hayes, hanging outside head over heels, was in no position to retrieve them.

  Finally on his feet on the balcony, he fought to gather together the robe that violent winds and rains had blown above his head. Then with a dignity even his enemies should admire, he walked, or splashed, around the corner, climbed the lattice ironwork that separated each room’s private terrace, twisted open the French doors through whose gauze curtains he could see the naked gesturing silhouettes of Pierce Jimson and Mrs. Joyner, and walked (rather, was blown, his robe flying up) back into their room. “You can bet I won’t forget this,” he announced in a hushed, ominous voice, then strode straight for his slippers, still lying by the door.

  Too far from the bed to dive for the covers again, Lizzie threw herself behind her lover, who nevertheless abandoned her in order to take a different courtly action. He snatched up the umbrella hooked over the closet doorknob, and, a champion without armor, charged at his lady’s persecutor.

  As Raleigh, his back to Jimson, was now bent over in the process of picking up his slippers, he might have been done a serious injury by this weapon, had not, fortunately, the umbrella been of the automatic sort, for when Jimson’s fierce grip squeezed a button on its handle, it flew up, both retarding and blinding the charger, so that he narrowly missed his target, and, unable to stop his run, slammed into the wall beside it. Hayes wasted no time on his foe, now caught in the spokes of a black umbrella, but, without a word, unlocked the door, returned to the hall, stomped to the bathroom, and pulled on his pajama bottoms.

  Traumatized, he stumbled back down the hall, now realizing how he’d gone to the wrong end. He felt the number 7 twice before opening the door. Nevertheless, he was immediately greeted by a scream of “Oh my Jesus! Who’s that?”

  “Dammit!” he said, then added in a polite whisper. “Sorry. Wrong room.”

  “Raleigh? Did you hear all that noise? What’s going on?”

  “Aura?…Aura?”

  Hayes reached out for the bed, but the body he felt did not belong to his wife. It screamed again.

  “Raleigh! What are you doing?” The voice was his wife’s. “You’re scaring Vera. It’s Raleigh, Vera. Raleigh, you’re soaking wet again!”

  “Oh Raleigh, it’s you. You scared me.” This voice was Vera Sheffield’s.

  They were all whispering.

  “Aura, what is Vera…Vera, what are you doing in here?”

  “She was nervous,” Aura explained, and Vera confirmed it. “I was nervous. Listen to that storm, I can’t stand lightning. Mingo hasn’t come yet, and what did you do with him, Raleigh? Eeeeeck!” Another bang of thunder had startled her into a long shriek. “Vera!” Aura whispered, “Stick your head under the pillow if you have to scream.”

  By God, thought Hayes, what in the world did the Sheffields do during lightning storms at home? Hide in a closet with all their guns? How miraculous that they had never before now raced next door and flung themselves into bed with Aura and him. “What did I do with Mingo? Well, Vera, I left him hungover in a tuxedo at a Texas millionaire’s. Before that he was designing costumes for French movies.”

  “Dammit, Raleigh, don’t tease her, can’t you see she’s really worried?”

  “No, I can’t see a damn thing! Mingo’s fine, Vera. He wanted to ride the bus here from Midway. He’s there helping my brother.”

  “Oh, if something’s happened to him…He’s the sweetest man in the world, isn’t he?”

  Raleigh was spared an answer by a modest rap at the door. “Don’t answer it,” he hissed. “It’s Pierce Jimson! He’s trying to kill me!”

  Aura whispered, “Raleigh, your thing about Pierce is really getting a little too weird.”

  Vera whispered, “Maybe it’s Mingo.”

  But a polite voice called, “Mr. Hayes, pardon me?” It was that cursedly considerate Vanderhost.

  “Just a moment.” Raleigh cracked open the door and blinked into two glass kerosene lamps, behind them, the owner of the Ambrose Inn in a green brocade bathrobe and a yellow ascot.

  “I’m so sorry to be bothering you all but I thought I heard a…noise…sounded a little bit like…screams. I’m afraid our power’s off.”

  “Yes, I realize that.” Hayes nonchalantly brushed back his hair.

  “Pardon me, is everything all right?”

  “Absolutely. My, ah, wife, is just a little nervous about the lightning.”

  “Oh, tell her not to worry. We’ve been here a long long time. Your mouth seems to be…bleeding, sir.”

  “Yes, I realize that.” Hayes licked at it. Dammit, it was bleeding. “I took a little stumble trying to find the bathroom.”

  “Oh dear me. I’m sorry. Can I get you some salve and a Band-Aid?”

  “No, thank you, I carry them with me.”

  “I see. Well, why don’t you keep this lamp here in case—”

  “Yes, thank you, very kind, good night.” Raleigh pushed the door shut on the man. He turned to see his wife (now in a pink nightgown) comfortably settled into be
d beside Vera Sheffield (in a mass of red ruffled chiffon that was no doubt a sample piece of merchandise from her new mail-order business). “Ladies,” sighed Hayes, “it’s four thirty-eight in the morning.”

  “He loves to tell the time,” Aura giggled and Vera giggled back. They were clearly trying to recapture the old girlish pleasures of the slumber party. Thunder shook the room. Vera screamed. Aura clamped the pillow over her head, and then they both burst out laughing.

  “Raleigh, would you mind terribly being a sweetheart and sleeping in the Sheffields’ room? Vera is truly uncomfortable being in there by herself in this storm.”

  “Would you, Raleigh?” Mrs. Sheffield lifted the pillow from her glossy black curls. “Oh, that’s so sweet of you.”

  Raleigh did not feel he could admit that he did mind terribly being a sweetheart; he minded returning to those halls more than anyone was ever going to have the slightest notion. But Vera actually had her creamy plump hands raised to him in prayer, and Aura was blowing him a kiss of farewell.

  “Vera, where is your room? Exactly where?”

  Chapter 24

  In Which Are Continued the Misfortunes That Befell Our Hero at the Ambrose Inn WEDNESDAY’S OPENING was so like Tuesday’s finale that the unwilling actor Raleigh Hayes at first insisted he was still asleep and refused to open his eyes. This ploy, however, did not stop the curtain from going up, for he could not avoid hearing a voice with which he was all too familiar.

  “Oh no, oh gollee, oh please, oh no, don’t say it’s true after all, after all! Oh please, oh Raleigh, no, I believed you! We were all such good friends! VERA!”

  Hayes was obliged to lift one eyelid open. Not seeing Mingo, he was obliged to lean over the edge of the bed, where he glimpsed the mammoth madras buttocks wriggling. The rest of Sheffield was presumably searching for his wife under the blue-violets bed skirt. As Hayes now saw, this entire room was papered, hung, draped, painted, and upholstered with blue violets, which made it somewhat difficult for Mingo, upset as he was, to find the closet doors and the armoire and the hope chest in which Vera might be hiding. Raleigh watched him, with one eye.