by Della Martin
"Watch what the hell yer doin'!" Violet raged. The table and lamp were shoved aside. Rennie lumbered to her feet, breathless and flabby in extra-large men's size cotton shorts. She began, then, the game of retrieving her trousers from a playful pair who had converted them into a ball.
"Here, Lee... catch!"
"Get 'em, Lee!"
"Gimme my damn pants!"
"Watch it... watch it... atta girl, Fran!"
"Wheeee!"
A beer can was jostled from someone's hand, kicked aside by one of the gamesters. Someone grated the needle across the record and the trombonist made up for his lapse.
"Let's go somewhere," Lon said.
The bedroom, occupied until now, had been vacated; no one wanted to miss the parlor fun. Lon rose tremulously, tugging Mavis to her feet. They evaded the ballplayers, Lon floating on a cloud of raw whiskey and anticipation. She loves me, she wants me, she's coming with me now.
Halfway to the bedroom and Violet's hand clawed into Lon's arm in a grip of panic. "Jeez, kid... that's a truck! In the drive... oh, Jeez, look!"
"Crashers," Lon said.
"No, no, kid, it's a truck. Them lights... I know it's a truck!"
Through the angel-festooned lace of the door curtains, Lon verified the fact. "It's a truck, all right So what? It's not a police car, if that's what's worrying you."
"Joe's concession truck. Oh, my God, kid, that's how she gets home—this guy always brings her. It's my ma."
Outside, a deep male voice called, "I'll see ya, Millie." Lon watched a gaunt female figure pass before the glaring headlights. Then a woman's voice: "Yeah, Joe. Thanks fer the ride." And as the light receded from the drive, "Hope ya feel better, Millie."
Violet's grip tightened. She seemed frozen by fear. Behind them, the keepaway game added to its defensive team, the shrieks rose higher.
"Fairs don't end till Sunday nights. How could she come home?" Violet's whispered terror infected Lon. "Kid, what'll I do? She'll kill me."
Footsteps sounded on the wooden porch steps. "Hey, cut it out. Everybody. Get with it. Violet's mother!" Lon shouted unheard orders to the funmakers.
"Oh, my God! Oh, Jesus God... Holy Mary...!" Violet's curses were prayers. And she stiffened, like a rabbit in a flashlight beam, as the door opened.
The woman was thin and haggard. She held a drugstore suitcase in coarse red hands and a travel-rumpled blue house-dress fell across breasts at half-mast, mourning lost youth. Above her bony chest, the veined turtle neck and the sallow, hollowed-cheeked face were traced with tiny purple-red lines of ruptured veins. Her eyes were the faded blue of a workshirt laundered too often in strong soap. And the eyes drank in the revelry with horrified disbelief.
Time, Lon thought, had paused to catch its breath. Neither the woman nor the silent revelers near the door moved. Then, gradually, their ominous silence extended itself across the room until the crowd, sensing the judging eyes of an accuser, became the soundless accused. It was as though someone had poured melted wax over the scene and under those alien eyes the wax had hardened them all into guilty immobility.
Then came Violet's nervous plunge forward to hug the staring shape. "Ma! Jeez, what happened? These girlfriends a mine came over... Don't worry, I'll get the place fixed up. Didn' expect you home on a Saturday."
The woman's arms hung at her sides, one hand still dangling the peeling paper suitcase. She shook off Violet's hesitant embrace with a lunge of angular shoulders. "Joe was comin' anyhow to set up someplace East. I was so sick, I said, 'Joe, gimme a ride home or I'm gonna croak.' " The words sifted through incongruously white and perfect teeth; sounds hoarse and incredulous. Then, a sudden fierce light blazing in the pale eyes, "Why?" Violet's mother screamed, "For why? For this I should come in my own house?"
"Ma, it's okay. Jest some girls, friends a mine. We'll leave everything nice, Ma."
"Dobitek. Svine!" The suitcase swung from the bony arm and slammed Violet's knees.
"I didn' do nothin', Ma," Violet howled. "Oh, Jeez, Ma!"
The washed-out eyes took in the smashed hors d'oeuvres on the rug, the broken table, the bulbless lamp. They caught the bedraggled salami slice under Rennie's bare foot and, then, Rennie herself—a puffy white mushroom in male underwear. Mrs. Polivka turned her gaze to one more shocking sight: Mavis, and the color of her skin. And this, Lon sensed, was the ultimate blow. The suitcase swung out in a frenzied arc as its owner crossed the room, the room in which the accumulated treasures of a hash-slinging lifetime were displayed. "Outsite. Outsite my house!" She spat her derision for all of them. "Ptui!" And the satchel slammed indiscriminately against someone's leg, someone's thigh, someone else's buttocks.
"You got the wrong idea, Ma. Ma...! Jeez, whatsa matter?" Violet clung vainly to the swinging arm.
"Go home! I should come so sick, and this should be in my house. Ptui!"
The kids shuffled toward the door, mute zombies, afraid to do more than exchange cautious glances. Breaking into faster movement as they neared exit. While Rennie retrieved her clothes and struggled to fasten recalcitrant buttons with shaking sausage fingers.
Lon guided Mavis through the door, red-faced with embarrassment for the streak-haired hostess. How could Violet face the kids after this? How could she return to bask in the friendly light of The 28%? No job, no Sassy, no place to flash the full round figure or call the kids her own.
Lon heard Violet crying. Crying first in shame: "It was on'y girls, Ma. What's wrong on'y girls?" And crying, next, for less subtle reasons.
"You sulumunbitch, I fix you. I fix you!"
"Don't Ma—Don't Oh, Jeez!"
Cars started up all around them. Headlights criss-crossed the crab-grass lawn. Inside the cars, the post-mortems would begin now and Violet's disgrace would be perpetuated through weaving drives home.
Lon held open the door of the Plymouth. "Gosh! Now where do we go?"
Mavis stepped into the tan jalopy, unperturbed, a princess of the night entering her carriage. "Can't go to hell, baby," she said. And, settling back into the seat, "Been there!"
CHAPTER 12
More than fifty-eight million square miles of land surface, and not one small, dim place on the earth has been set apart for unsanctioned lovers. Not one corner is allocated to the quiet whisperings, the repressed desires and their release. How zealously the private darknesses are watched. Long before dawn on this Sunday morning, there was no place for them to go with their awakening love. And so Lon Harris simply drove the deserted streets of the San Fernando Valley with Mavis beside her.
"I thought of the parking lot in front of The 28%," Lon suggested. She could speak openly now, for they were playing no waiting game. Her yearning, she was certain, was met and matched.
"Trouble with you, child, you don't know. This thing's a crime. Aren't you hip to the law, baby?"
"It's supposed to be a free country and you can't even park. I'm tired of driving around."
"Better drop me off at Sassy's."
"Not yet. We haven't even... I don't want to!"
"Be daylight, time we decide."
"I want to stop somewhere. I want to be with you, the way we would have been at Violet's."
"You dispossessed?"
"No, I've got my own room at home. But I... They don't expect me home until around noon."
"Expect you alone, too," Mavis added archly.
And Lon remembered that she had her own key. There would be explanations to invent later; why the pajama party had been interrupted, why she hadn't come home alone. She could manage this. And Mavis was a girl—Lon could gambit the same innocent argument Violet had offered to her mother. Had Mrs. Polivka known about aberrational love? Or had it been only the stained rug or the wrecked furniture that had fired her wrath? Lon decided it was the latter, wondering, then, if her own mother knew. Was it possible that her suspicions could be directed only at boys? It was incredible, yet Lon realized it must be true; love, sex and Mavis would not be linked together in her mot
her's mind. Then why not go home?
Lon thought of her bed, freshly made on Saturday mornings. Thought of Mavis cradled in her arms with long, secret hours of darkness still remaining. She closed the door on another recollection; the way Violet's mother had looked at Mavis. That unjust scorn might be relived in her own home. But not until daylight—and by that time it wouldn't matter.
Lon turned the Plymouth at the next corner. "We'll go to my house," she told Mavis. And pronounced the next words with a ferocity that startled her. "We've wasted enough time. I want you."
* * *
Oh, damn the neighbor's dog! And damn the key that stuck and had to be jiggled, clicking above the shrill, determined yelps from across the fence.
Mavis had followed Lon to the door with no apparent trepidation. Now she waited while Lon silently cursed the noises, magnified in the middle-of-the-night stillness.
"Christopher, that mutt'll wake my folks," Lon whispered. "Once we get inside, hang onto my arm until we get to my room. I don't want to put on any lights." Mavis said nothing, but Lon could hear her quickened breath. Of course she would be frightened. She might be remembering that scathing look from Violet's mother—might be remembering hundreds of looks exactly like it. A protective sense swept over Lon, an urgent desire to hold Mavis close, to reassure her, though Lon was finding it hard enough to bear the weight of her own uneasiness. She let go of the stuck key. "Hang on to me after we get to my room, too, Mavis." And it was so completely logical to pull Mavis into her arms then, to press lips against the dimly seen loveliness of the upturned face. Eyes shut tight, so that nothing could detract from the soft, singing wonder of their kiss. It was like the poignant ache of homecoming after distant travels—of knowing at last where it is that love lives.
Lon had to let go of the yielding body suddenly; let it go and hurry into that room where it would be reclaimed completely. And she regretted that impulsive pause in the next moment—regretted the impatience that had held them outside the door until the neighbor's terrier worked himself into a frenzy of warning, until every dog within earshot added to the din. Working her key in the obstinate lock, Lon caught, through windows, the flood of light inside the house. The bedroom light first, a second light in the living room. Then it went on: the searching light above the entrance door. She knew, in that instant, an empathy with Violet; understood Violet's shock now. Lon stared at her mother's face peering through the glass-topped door, the skin drawn upward by tightly coiled pincurls, the eyes filled with sleep and annoyance. The knob turned, the door opened. And the sleep vanished as her mother's quick darting glance over Lon's shoulder took in Mavis.
"What's going on?" Thinner, more nasal than ever, was the voice in its surprise. "Don't you realize it's nearly..."
"We were too crowded at Violet's," Lon interrupted. "Mother, this is ... a friend of mine. Mavis."
Her mother's hands fidgeted with the neckline of the seersucker wrap. Lips clamped, eyes avoiding Mavis now.
"We decided to sleep over here. Okay?"
"Lorraine, you know we aren't prepared for guests." The meaning was viciously clear, the expression too disapproving to be misunderstood.
"I'll have to drive Mavis home then," Lon said curtly.
"At this hour?"
"If we can't stay here. If you're sure we're not— prepared."
"You aren't going anywhere, Lorraine. I've had all I'm going to take from you, young lady. Now get into this house!"
"I brought home one of the young people you're always wanting to meet," Lon said. Anger boiling inside her, remembering that rousingly applauded lecture on brotherly love her mother had made to the youth group at church. Mrs. Harris was not rejecting a Lesbian; she was denying hospitality to a Negro. "I brought home a friend, Mother."
The cutting sarcasm was matched in her mother's reply. "Would your—uh—friend like to use the telephone? I'm sure there are taxis, even at three-twenty in the morning."
"She won't need to call a taxi," Lon said acidly. "I'll drive her home."
"You'll do no such thing."
"Let's go, Mavis." Lon turned, head lowered. Mavis looked at her hesitantly. "Let's go."
"You get into this house, Lorraine. Lorraine, did you hear what I said?"
But Lon was pounding toward the Plymouth at the curb, pulling along Mavis by the hand.
The other voice was shrill now, bordering on hysteria. "Lorraine, I said for you to come back here. If you go out at this hour, you need not come back. Do you hear me?"
They were in the car, Lon seething, hurriedly turning the ignition key. Shut up, shut up and let me go. From the doorway, the high-pitched cry stabbed at her ears. "Lorraine, don't you dare." It dissolved then in a loud wail—"Ed! Ed, get up and do something! Stop her!"
The roar of the motor smothered whatever else was shouted and Lon glanced back to see the cotton-robed figure run outside the door, then disappear into the house. And the canine chorus barked a frantic farewell to the old car churning away from the curb.
* * *
"Still say it. Hadn't ought to have talked to your mama that way," Mavis was commenting tonelessly. "Nobody ought to talk mean to his mama."
Exhaustion, desire and the need to plan: they had stopped for these. Lon had parked the car at the foot of the hill up which a black-topped road wound to the Gregg home. Crickets chirped in the brush around them. A scrub oak rose from the foothills, indefinitely silhouetted against the gently rising earth. In a few hours, the hills would be touched with pale light. Now they kept the Plymouth's windows rolled up against the moist night chill and Lon groped for Mavis in the darkness.
"Don't talk about her. I haven't been waiting all night to talk about her."
"You remember that, now, baby. Keep in mind what I tell you about your mama."
Impatient now, Lon directed the old anger against Mavis. "She wouldn't let you into the house!"
"It was late, baby. You see, it was late."
"That wasn't it and you know it I hate her for that. Christopher, I wish she wasn't my mother."
"Oh, now, don't go Uncle Tom on me, baby. I'm not my preachin' daddy's girl. Man, I don't expect thing number one from people."
"You're my girl," Lon said huskily. "That's all I've been thinking, all night. No matter what happens, you're my girl."
"Begins to shape up that way," Mavis said. And it was, Lon knew, the closest Mavis could come to saying "I love you."
Lon's arms circled the night-hidden loveliness beside her. Her hands found the softness under the shapeless dress, caressing the velvety body and pressing forward to kiss the cool lips with something akin to reverence. A gentleness fell over Lon's spirit, yet never in the most sensual exchange of kisses with Violet had she been stabbed with this implacable longing to have, to own, to possess. She fumbled to gain more access from the loosely draped fabric, fingers trembling. And a sudden, unfounded belligerence burned through her mind. God help anyone who tries to stop me now. Irritably, she said, "I want to see you. I want to touch you—all over.'' Tugging at the sack's neckline. "How do you get out of this dumb thing?"
"Too dark to see me," Mavis muttered.
"I'll be able to. I can't kiss you this way—enough of you." Shaking then, palsied with the truth of her statement. "I'm crazy, Mavis. Every time I think about you, I go crazy."
"Crazy little butch kid. Won't buy no for an answer." The quick, deprecating laughter darted upward and withered there. Mavis began a solemn ritual then, her movements slow and graceful yet efficient, until the limp dress and whatever she had worn beneath it were carefully laid across the back seat of the car.
Lon's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness now, so that she could wonder at the beauty of the exquisite breasts. Her hands followed her own fascinated gaze, cautiously tracing the delicate curve, moving shyly to become inflamed by the incredible smoothness of the thighs. "Do you want me to, Mavis? Do you really?"
Mavis slid downward on the seat until her head rested against the door—h
er legs curled, cramped against Lon's knees. "Nobody ask me what I want. Nobody could ever dig what I want, baby—never." Still, a sudden exultation caught Lon, hearing the subtle acceleration of Mavis's breath. It was an almost imperceptible change, expected in anyone else, but something of a miracle in the girl who would not, could not, let herself care. This was Mavis, who had steeled herself against emotion, had said love was slow death. "Mavis!" Lon cried out the name and buried her face between breasts cooled by the night air, realizing a dream that had crowded even the Island into hidden recesses of her mind. I love you, love you... Love me, too. Burrowing into the unresisting flesh, her lips said it in a hundred inarticulate ways. And knew from the tremor of the lithe brown body, knew from the wordless sounds that broke the stillness, that she had touched upon a buried ember that was Mavis. An ember that had slept so long under the sand, now breathed upon and ignited, so that its dormant fire might leap high and consume them both.
* * *
"You don't have to come up hill with me," Mavis told her a long while later. "I've walked from here before."
