by Frank Conroy
“Jack, you can’t,” Alison said quickly. “You got a C minus on the last quiz.” She came down on his lap and put her arms around him. “How am I going to make you into a beautiful silver-haired professor with a beautiful pipe in a beautiful book-lined library if you don’t cooperate?” She kissed him on the ear. “I’m your mentor, remember. You’ve put yourself in my capable hands.”
They started kissing some more, their jaws working, and after a while I got up and left, closing the door behind me.
It was the winter of my seventeenth birthday, presumably my last year of high school. I made a half-hearted attempt to pass my courses, knowing that in any event I’d have to go to summer school to make up for previous failures. I wanted the diploma that year. I wanted to get it over with so I could leave the country, go to Denmark and meet my grandparents, see Paris, but mostly just get away from home. I withdrew into myself and let the long months go by, spending my time reading, playing the piano, and watching television. Jean too had retreated into himself. He’d watch the screen silently for hours on end, wrapped up in a blanket Indian fashion, never moving his head. Night after night I’d lie in bed, with a glass of milk and a package of oatmeal cookies beside me, and read one paperback after another until two or three in the morning. I read everything, without selection, buying all the fiction on the racks of the local drugstore—D. H. Lawrence, Moravia, Stuart Engstrand, Aldous Huxley, Frank Yerby, Mailer, Twain, Gide, Dickens, Philip Wylie, Tolstoi, Hemingway, Zola, Dreiser, Vardis Fisher, Dostoievsky, G. B. Shaw, Thomas Wolfe, Theodore Pratt, Scott Fitzgerald, Joyce, Frederick Wakeman, Orwell, McCullers, Remarque, James T. Farrell, Steinbeck, de Maupassant, James Jones, John O’Hara, Kipling, Mann, Saki, Sinclair Lewis, Maugham, Dumas, and dozens more. I borrowed from the public library ten blocks away and from the rental library at Womrath’s on Madison Avenue. I read very fast, uncritically, and without retention, seeking only to escape from my own life through the imaginative plunge into another. Safe in my room with milk and cookies I disappeared into inner space. The real world dissolved and I was free to drift in fantasy, living a thousand lives, each one more powerful, more accessible, and more real than my own. It was around this time that I first thought of becoming a writer. In a cheap novel the hero was asked his profession at a cocktail party. “I’m a novelist,” he said, and I remember putting the book down and thinking, my God what a beautiful thing to be able to say.
The piano kept me occupied when I didn’t feel like books. Music had always affected me strongly. As a small boy I’d stand on the coffee table in the living room and conduct scratchy records of Grieg, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky with a pencil, watching myself in the mirror all the while. I memorized pieces well enough to anticipate tempo changes with exactitude. My baton technique was flamboyant and I moved around as much as the limited area of the coffee table allowed. More than once, carried away by the sweep and grandeur of it all, I fell off. But I always climbed back up.
There were violent scenes with my mother. I was beginning to realize I could outsmart her in arguments, and equally important, that I was too big for her to attempt the use of force. I adopted an attitude of haughty independence, as if I didn’t care what she said or how she felt, and loosed a storm of sarcasm and invective whenever she threatened to overpower me emotionally and destroy my pose. I remember actually laughing once when, speechless and spluttering, she threw a shoe at me. “You missed,” I said with tremendous outward calm, “why don’t you try again?” We groped through life in mutual misunderstanding, unable to help each other, unable to think of anything more intelligent to do than endure the war, hoping that somehow, mysteriously, it would end.
Summer school was ridiculously easy. I cut classes with impunity and showed up for the tests with no more preparation than a vague memory of what I’d learned at Stuyvesant. It was enough to get me through.
The school library had twenty or thirty back issues of the London Illustrated News as well as a few copies of Punch. I spent hours looking through them, soaking up their strangeness, projecting myself across the sea. I wasn’t going to England, but it didn’t matter. The magazines were proof that another world existed, that many other worlds existed into which I might escape. I counted the days until my departure, frustrated by the slowness of time. Life around me was meaningless—my grades, the struggle at home, the fact that I probably wasn’t going to college, everything was eclipsed by the fact that soon, soon, in a matter of weeks, I would leave it behind. Finally, at last, I was going to get out.
A few students crossed the hall in the distance but no one was coming my way. I pulled open the door and entered the stairwell. A wire-mesh door closed off the up staircase. There was a foot and a half of space at the top. I climbed the door carefully, shoving the pointed toes of my shoes into the wire and pulling myself up with hooked fingers. On top, I slipped through sideways and fell to the steps on the other side. Instantly lightheaded and alert, as if waking from sleep, I climbed the stairs.
Three stories above the floors in which school was in session I wandered through deserted corridors, whistling, peering into empty classrooms, stopping every now and then to throw a few blackboard erasers into the ventilation cowls up near the ceiling. In the music room sunlight streamed through the huge windows. I sat on the sill and smoked a cigarette, watching the tenement rooftops far below. Flocks of pigeons circled in the air over the Lower East Side. Striding down the aisle to the grand piano I clapped my hands in imitation of an audience applauding the featured soloist. I opened the piano, took a short bow, and sat down at the keyboard. I played the blues in the key of C.
I paused in the aisle, unsure which of my two favorite techniques to use. I could sit in the row in front of her, drape my arm over the back of the seat next to me and attempt to contact her knee with my hand, or I could sit next to her, with one empty seat between us, and play footsie. The small balcony was almost empty. I entered her row and sat down. From the corner of my eye I could see her white raincoat going on and off in the reflected light from the screen below. I watched the movie for half an hour before making my move. Shifting around in my seat, I extended my legs in the darkness until my foot almost touched hers. After a while I raised my toe and applied a gentle pressure to the side of her foot. To my astonishment she answered immediately, giving me three firm, unmistakable taps. I moved into the seat next to her and she turned her head for the first time.
“It’s you!” I said. I’d picked her up in another theater a few weeks before.
“Didn’t you know?” Her accent was heavy. She was Belgian, nineteen, and she had a job looking after two children.
“No. Of course not.”
“I hoped I should see you again.”
I put my arm around her. “Me too.” Congratulating myself on my luck, I kissed her cheek. She turned and I kissed her mouth. She wasn’t very pretty, and there was an odd bloodless quality to her, almost as if she was undernourished, but she was a girl, the most cooperative girl I’d ever met. I slipped my free hand over her breast.
“The movie is bad,” she said.
Fifteen minutes later, my leg up on the seat in front to screen us off, I had my hand between her legs, slipping my finger in and out of her wet sex.
“There,” she whispered. “No, there. Yes. That’s right.”
She reached out and grabbed me through my trousers. Her fingers touched and pressed. She unzipped my fly. She pulled me out into the cool air and squeezed. I couldn’t believe what was happening. She struggled to get her hand all the way inside. “That’s what I want,” she said as her hand closed over me.
“Let’s go somewhere,” I said after a while.
“Where?”
“We’ll find someplace.” My mind was racing. If I could get her alone she would let me fuck her. Under the stairs in the service entrance to my house. In the alley. In the park. Anyplace dark. “Let’s go.”
“We better not.”
“Why?”
“You know why.�
�
“No, I don’t. It isn’t wrong.” I stared at her profile. Her mouth was set in a faint smile, barely perceptible. I pulled her shoulder gently. “Come on. It’s all right.”
She leaned forward, sitting on the edge of her seat, and stared out over my shoulder into the darkness. For a moment I thought she was going to leave me—simply walk out on her own and go home—but then she looked at me, nodded, and stood up. I followed her down the aisle, my eyes locked on her back.
As we emerged from the theater I turned toward the park. “This way.” The marquee lights threw our shadows on the sidewalk in front of us, long, thin shadows stretching away up the block, growing longer and fainter as we walked.
“You’re going too fast,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” As we passed my house I gave up the idea of the alley or the service stairs. We continued toward the park in silence. I was conscious only of movement, of the girl beside me, and of the blood roaring in my head.
At the corner of Madison Avenue she said, “I’m scared.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer.
“What is there to be scared of?” I helped her over the curb. She shook her head, watching the sidewalk moving under us. Suddenly I understood. “You mean you’re scared of having a baby.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of that.” It flashed through my mind that I could buy a prophylactic at the drugstore on the corner. Then I remembered I’d spent the last of my money for the theater ticket.
We went into the park through the same entrance I had used as a child. After a few steps I led her off the path into the darkness. There was a place I remembered from years ago—a little hollow between the footpath and the sunken roadway to the West Side. Leading her by the hand, I found it quickly.
“Let’s put your coat on the ground,” I said.
She took it off slowly and gave it to me. I spread it over the rough grass and went down on my knees. We remained motionless as someone walked along the path on the other side of the bushes. Light from a distant lamp post filtered through the trees and played over her shoulders and neck. When the footsteps died away she came down into the darkness and lay beside me.
She lifted her hips as I raised her skirt, and again as I pulled her panties to her ankles. Opening my clothes I looked down at her white belly glowing in the shadows.
“Do it,” she said. “Before someone comes.”
I got on top of her and, after a moment of blind fumbling, drove myself into her. She cried out in pain and threw her head to one side.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, pausing, but she didn’t answer and I began to move again. I found myself thrusting hard once more, and when she didn’t flinch I got up on my elbows and quickened the pace. She lay motionless, her head averted.
As I fucked her, a certain moment arrived when I realized her body had changed. Her sex was no longer simply the entrance way one penetrated in search of deeper, more intangible mysteries. It had become, all at once, slippery—a lush blossom beyond which there was no need to go.
Afterward, I lay still, dazzled. Coming out of her was a shock. I seemed to be floating weightless in space. On my hands and knees I paused to feel the earth and orient myself. A noisy bus went past in the sunken roadway. I looked up and she was on her feet, waiting.
“Hurry,” she said. “I am so late.”
We walked to the subway without talking. At the top of the stairs she turned to me. “Goodbye.”
“I’ll look for you,” I said, aware of how feeble it sounded, knowing we would never meet again. “We’ll see each other.”
She started down.
“Goodbye,” I said.
She turned, holding the rail. “What is your name?”
“Frank.” I said quickly. “Frank Conroy.”
She turned again and went down the stairs into the roar of an arriving train.
17
Going to Sea
THE SHIP began to move, slipping away from the pier without warning. I lifted my arm from the wide rail and waved. Down below, shielding their eyes from the sun, my mother and Jessica waved back. The air shivered from a tremendous blast of the ship’s horn. Across the widening water their figures shrank. The deck trembled under my feet and a faint breeze sprang up. I looked forward for an instant, into the wind, and when I turned back I couldn’t find them in the crowd. I waved anyway. The pier, suddenly very small—a knot of people gathered under a black roof—slipped smoothly around the back of the ship and out of sight. I stared down at the brown water for a moment, watching the wavelets, hearing the excited voices of people moving behind me. When I turned from the rail it seemed to me that every move I made was significant, as if I had never walked before, or paused in a doorway to let a lady go first, or met another person’s eye. I stood in the elevator and descended to C deck, conscious of the newness of my clothes. Everything I wore, from shoes to necktie, was brand new. I lighted a cigarette and stepped out into the corridor.
My cabin, built to accommodate four, was occupied by only two, myself and an old man whom no one had come to see off. There was some champagne left from a bottle my mother had brought and I poured two glasses and held one out to him. He paused in his unpacking and accepted it.
“Danke.”
“Skol.” I raised my glass and we drank. “Nicht sprechen Deutsch,” I said.
“Was?”
“Nicht sprechen Deutsch. I’m sorry.”
He waved his hand in the air. “I speak no English.”
We turned away from each other. I knew from the card on the door that his name was Drevitch. I took the upper bunk on my side of the cabin, unpacked a few clothes and some books, and lay down to read the leaflet explaining how the ship was run. There were, I discovered, movies every night, a library, several bars, dancing after dinner, a swimming pool, a gym, a ship’s newspaper, live music in the cocktail lounge, ping-pong, chess, bridge and mahjong contests, and a dozen other diversions. One had only to push the buzzer by the light switch—I looked up—to summon a steward who would bring food or whatever else one wanted. I placed the leaflet next to my books and left the cabin for a tour of the ship.
I’d asked for the second seating at dinner. At the door, I studied the plan—a large placard on an easel-like affair—and found my name and table. I crossed the dining room through the soft clatter of silverware and crockery and spotted my empty chair. Five young women were already seated at the table eating their soup. I sat down quickly and hid behind the menu. When I looked up, the girl on my left was smiling at me. She had black hair and very large blue eyes. “You must be Frank Conroy,” she said.
“Yes. Hello.”
“Well Frank, I’m Paula, and this is Judy, and Didi, and Carol and Betsy.” I nodded to each in turn. “And we’re certainly glad you’re here because with all these women and no man it would have been a very dull trip.” The girls laughed and I blushed.
“Are you all together?” I asked.
“We’re Army wives. Our husbands are stationed in Germany.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Where are you going?” Judy asked. She was a plump blonde.
“To Denmark. I’m going to school there. A sort of school, that is.”
“Here comes the waiter,” Paula said, touching my elbow. “You know you can have as much as you want of everything. Unlimited seconds.”
“Really?” I was surprised. “I don’t eat much, though.”
Judy buttered a roll. “Wish I could say that.”
I ordered a ground beefsteak and a chocolate parfait for dessert. When I handed the waiter the menu, Paula winked at me. Next to her, Didi lowered her spoon. “My goodness,” she said. “Will you look at that boy blush!”
I laughed, looked down at the table, and then, suddenly reckless, raised my head. “Well, what can I say? I’m a young, innocent boy on his own for the first time and you can tease me if you want. But if you do I’ll just be flustered all t
he time and won’t be able to tell all my jokes. I know about a thousand and I’m sure you’ll like them, but you have to promise not to take advantage of me.” Paula laughed and started a round of applause. After a moment the others joined in. “Thank you,” I said, blushing again.
“Whoops!” Didi said, but she looked away.
After dinner I went to the movies with Paula and Judy, sitting between them in a back row of the small theater. Every now and then I’d make a wisecrack and they giggled appreciatively.
“You see that dimple on Kirk Douglas’ chin? They say he can stick his finger in there, open his mouth, and wave hello from the inside.”
“Now stop that,” Paula said, shocked.
“Well, that’s what they say.”
When the movie ended and the lights came on we went to the lounge for a drink. In the hall I noticed, for the first time, a gentle roll to the ship.
“Oh-oh,” Judy said.
“Don’t pay any attention to it,” Paula said.
Judy reached for the rail, unnecessarily. “You don’t know the way I get seasick.”
“It’s all psychological,” I said. “Entirely in the mind.”
“That’s right.” Paula pushed open the glass doors to the lounge and we went inside. A steward came over immediately.
“I’ll have a rum and Coke,” I said quickly, nervous that he might refuse to serve me. “Ladies?”
“A whisky sour,” Paula said.
“Make it two.” Judy sank back into the couch as the steward left. Outside, through the heavy windows, it was completely dark—a special kind of blackness, as if the world ended there. Some children ran across the room, weaving in and out among the armchairs.
“I should have flown,” Judy said. “But then I’m scared of planes.”
Paula smoothed her skirt and crossed her legs. “You’ll be all right.”
