by John Updike
Rabbit’s time has come. He is packed so solid with anger and fear he is seeing with his pores. He wades toward the boy deliciously and feels his fists vanish, one in the region of the belly, the other below the throat. He is scared of the head, whose glasses might shatter and slash. Skeeter curls up and drops to the floor dry as a scorpion and when Rabbit pries at him he has no opening, just abrasive angles shaking like a sandpaper machine. Rabbit’s hands start to hurt. He wants to pry this creature open because there is a soft spot where he can be split and killed; the curved back is too tough, though knuckles slammed at the hole of the ear do produce a garbled whimper.
Jill is screaming and with her whole weight pulling the tail of his shirt and in the ebb of his sweetness Rabbit discovers his hands and forearms somehow clawed. His enemy is cringing on the floor, the carpet that cost them eleven dollars a yard and was supposed to wear longer than the softer loop for fifteen that Janice wanted (she always said it reminded her of the stuff they use in miniature golf courses), cringing expertly, knees tucked under chin and hands over head and head tucked under the sofa as far as it will go. His Levis are rumpled up and it shocks Rabbit to see how skinny his calves and ankles are, iridescent dark spindles. Humans made of a new material. Last longer, wear more evenly. And Jill is sobbing, “Harry, no more, no more,” and the door chime is saying its three syllables over and over, a scale that can’t get anywhere, that can’t get over the top.
The door pops open. Nelson is there, in his spiffy new school clothes, fishbone-striped sport shirt and canary-yellow slacks. Billy Fosnacht is behind him, a hairy head taller. “Hey,” Skeeter says from the floor, “it’s Babychuck, right?”
“Is he a burglar, Dad?”
“We could hear the furniture being smashed and everything,” Billy says. “We didn’t know what to do.”
Nelson says, “We thought if we kept ringing the bell it would stop.”
Jill tells him, “Your father lost all control of himself.”
Rabbit asks, “Why should I always be the one to have control of myself?”
Getting up as if from a bin of dust, one careful limb at a time, Skeeter says, “That was to get us acquainted, Chuck. Next time I’ll have a gun.”
Rabbit taunts, “I thought at least I’d see some nice karate chops from basic training.”
“Afraid to use ’em. Break you in two, right?”
“Daddy, who is he?”
“He’s a friend of Jill’s called Skeeter. He’s going to stay here a couple days.”
“He is?”
Jill’s voice has asked.
Rabbit sifts himself for the reason. Small scraped places smart on his knuckles; over stimulation has left a residue of nausea; he notices through the haze that still softly rotates around him that the end table was upset and that the lamp whose base is driftwood lies on the carpet awry but not smashed. The patient fidelity of these things bewilders him. “Sure,” he says. “Why not?”
Skeeter studies him from the sofa, where he sits bent over, nursing the punch to his stomach. “Feeling guilty, huh Chuck? A little tokenism to wash your sins away, right?”
“Skeeter, he’s being generous,” Jill scolds.
“Get one thing straight, Chuck. No gratitude. Anything you do, do for selfish reasons.”
“Right. The kicks I get in pounding you around.” But in fact he is terrified at having taken this man in. He will have to sleep with him in the house. The tint of night, Skeeter will sneak to his side with a knife shining like the moon. He will get the gun as he has promised, FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE HOLDS FAMILY AT GUNPOINT. Mayor Vows, No Deals. Why has he invited this danger? To get Janice to rescue him. These thoughts flit by in a flash. Nelson has taken a step toward the black man. His eyes are sunk in their sockets with seriousness. Wait, wait. He is poison, he is murder, he is black.
“Hi,” Nelson says, and holds out his hand.
Skeeter puts his skinny fingers, four gray crayons, as thick at the tips as in the middle, in the child’s hand and says, “Hi there, Babychuck.” He nods over Nelson’s shoulder toward Billy Fosnacht. “Who’s your gruesome friend?”
And everybody, everybody laughs, even Billy, even Skeeter contributes a cackle, at this unexpected illumination, that Billy is gruesome, with his father’s skinny neck and big ears and a hint of his mother’s mooncalf eyes and the livid festerings of adolescence speckling his cheeks and chin. Their laughter makes a second wave to reassure him they are not laughing at him, they are laughing in relief at the gift of truth, they are rejoicing in brotherhood, at having shared this moment, giggling and cackling; the house is an egg cracking because they are all hatching together.
But in bed, the house dark and Billy gone home, Skeeter breathing exhausted on the sofa downstairs, Rabbit repeats his question to Jill: “Why have you done this to me?”
Jill snuffles, turns over. She is so much lighter than he, she irresistibly rolls down to his side. Often in the morning he wakes to find himself nearly pushed from the bed by this inequality, her sharp little elbows denting his flesh. “He was so pathetic,” she explains. “He talks tough but he really has nothing, he really does want to become the black Jesus.”
“Is that why you let him screw you this afternoon? Or didn’t you?”
“I didn’t really.”
“He lied?”
Silence. She slides an inch deeper into his side of the bed. “I don’t think it counts when you just let somebody do it to you and don’t do anything back.”
“You don’t.”
“No, it just happens on the surface, a million miles away.”
“And how about with me? Is it the same way, you don’t feel anything, it’s so far away. So you’re really a virgin, aren’t you?”
“Shh. Whisper. No, I do feel things with you.”
“What?”
She nudges closer and her arm encircles his thick waist. “I feel you’re a funny big teddy bear my Daddy has given me. He used to bring home these extravagant Steiff toys from F.A.O. Schwarz’s in New York, giraffes six feet high that cost five hundred dollars, you couldn’t do anything with them, they’d just stand around taking up space. Mother hated them.”
“Thanks a lot.” Sluggishly he rolls over to face her.
“Other times, when you’re over me, I feel you’re an angel. Piercing me with a sword. I feel you’re about to announce something, the end of the world, and you say nothing, just pierce me. It’s beautiful.”
“Do you love me?”
“Please, Harry. Since that God thing I went through I just can’t focus that way on anybody.”
“Is Skeeter out of focus for you too?”
“He’s horrible. He really is. He feels all scaly, he’s so bitter.”
“Then why in holy hell –?”
She kisses him to stop his voice. “Shh. He’ll hear.” Sounds travel freely down the stairs, through the house of thin partitions. The rooms are quadrants of one rustling heart. “Because I must, Harry. Because whatever men ask of me, I must give, I’m not interested in holding anything for myself. It all melts together anyway, you see.”
“I don’t see.”
“I think you do. Otherwise why did you let him stay? You had him beaten. You were killing him.”
“Yeah, that was nice. I thought I was out of shape worse than I am.”
“Yet now he’s here.” She flattens her body against his; it feels transparent. He can see through her to the blue window beyond, moonlit, giving onto the garage roof, composition shingling manufactured with a strange shadow-line, to give an illusion of thickness. She confesses, in such a whisper it may be only a thought he overhears, “He frightens me.”
“Me too.”
“Half of me wanted you to kick him out. More than half.”
“Well,” and he smiles unseen, “if he is the next Jesus, we got to keep on His good side.” Her body broadens as if smiling. It has grown plain that the betrayals and excitements of the day must resolve into their making love now.
He encloses her skull in his hands, caressing the spinelike ridges behind the seashell curve of her ears, palming the broad curve of the whole, this cup, sealed upon a spirit. Knowing her love is coming, he sees very clearly, as we see in the etched hour before snow. He amends, “Also, Janice has been doing some things out of the way, so I have to do things out of the way.”
“To pay her back.”
“To keep up with her.”
The item was narrow-measure:
Sentenced for
Possession
Eight local men and one woman were given six-month sentences for possession of marijuana Thursday.
The defendants appearing before Judge Milton F. Schoffer had been apprehended in a police raid on Jimbo’s Lounge, Weiser Street, early in the morning of August 24.
The female among them, Miss Beatrice Greene, a well-known local entertainer under her nom de plume of “Babe,” had her sentence suspended, with one year’s probation, as were four of the men. Two minors were remanded to juvenile court.
A tenth defendant, Hubert H. Farnsworth, failed to appear in court and forfieted bail. A war-court and forfeited bail. A warant has been issued for his arrest.
ant has been issued for his arrest.
The proprietor of Jimbo’s, Mr. Timothy Cartney of Penn
Rabbit’s ears can sense now when Pajasek is coming up behind him with a phone call. Something weary and menacing in his step, and then his breath has a sarcastic caress. “Angstrom, maybe we should move your Lino into my office. Or install a phone jack out here.”
“I’ll give her hell, Ed. This is the last time.”
“I don’t like a man’s private life to interfere with his work.”
“I don’t either. I tell you, I’ll tell her.”
“Do that, Harry. Do that for good old Verity. We have a team here, we’re in a highly competitive game, let’s keep up our end, what do you say?”
Behind the frosted walls he says into the phone, “Janice, this is the last time. I won’t come to the phone after this.”
“I won’t be calling you after this, Harry. After this all our communications will be through lawyers.”
“How come?”
“How come? How come!”
“How come. Come on. Just give me information. I got to get back to the machine.”
“Well, for one reason how come, you’ve let me sit over here without ever once calling me back, and for another you’ve taken a darkie into the house along with that hippie, you’re incredible, Harry, my mother always said it, ‘He means no harm, he just has less moral sense than a skunk,’ and she was right.”
“He’s just there a couple days, it’s a funny kind of emergency.”
“It must be funny. It must be hilarious. Does your mother know? So help me, I have a mind to call and tell her.”
“Who told you, anyway? He never goes out of the house.”
He hopes by his reasonable tone to bring hers down; she does unwind a notch. “Peggy Fosnacht. She said Billy came home absolutely bug-eyed. He said the man was on the living-room floor and the first thing he said was to insult Billy.”
“It wasn’t meant as an insult, it was meant to be pleasant.”
“Well I wish I could be pleasant. I wish it very much. I’ve seen a lawyer and we’re filing a writ for immediate custody of Nelson. The divorce will follow. As the guilty party you can’t remarry for two years. Absolutely, Harry. I’m sorry. I thought we were more mature than this, I hated the lawyer, the whole thing is too ugly.”
“Yeah, well, the law is. It serves a ruling elite. More power to the people.”
“I think you’ve lost your mind. I honestly do.”
“Hey, what did you mean, I let you sit over there? I thought that was what you wanted. Isn’t Stavros still doing the sitting with you?”
“You might at least have fought a little,” she cries, and gasps for breath between sobs. “You’re so weak, you’re so wishy-washy,” she manages to bring out, but then it becomes pure animal sound, a kind of cooing or wheezing, as if all the air is running out of her, so he says, “We’ll talk later, call me at home,” and hangs up to plug the leak.
Park, expressed shock and strong disapproval of drug use over the telephone to VAT inquiries.
Cartney was not in the building at the time of the arrests.
Rumors have prevailed for some time concerning the sale of this well-known nightspot and gathering place to a “black capitalist” syndicate.
During the coffee break Buchanan comes over. Rabbit touches his wallet, wondering if the touch will go up. Escalation. Foreign aid. Welfare. He’ll refuse if it does. If he asks more than twenty, let them riot in the streets. But Buchanan holds out two ten dollar bills, not the same two, but just as good. “Friend Harry,” he says, “never let it be said no black man pays his debts. I’m obliged to you a thousand and one times over, them two sawbucks turned the cards right around. Would you believe two natural full houses in a row? I couldn’t believe it myself, nobody could, those fools all stayed the second time like there was no tomorrow.” He wads the money into Rabbit’s hand, which is slow to close.
“Thanks, uh, Lester. I didn’t really –”
“Expect to get it back?”
“Not so soon.”
“Well, sometimes one man’s in need, sometimes another man is. Spread it around, isn’t that what the great ones teach us?”
“I guess they do. I haven’t talked to many great ones lately.”
Buchanan chuckles politely and rocks back and forth on his heels, estimating, rolling a toothpick in his lips, beneath the mustache no thicker than a toothpick. “I hear tell you’re so hard up over at your place you’re taking in boarders.”
“Oh. That. It’s just temporary, it wasn’t my idea.”
“I believe that.”
“Uh – I’d rather it didn’t get around.”
“That’s just what I’d rather.”
Change the subject, somehow. “How’s Babe now? Back in business?”
“What kind of business you think she’s in?”
“You know, singing. I meant after the bust and court sentence. I just set the news item.”
“I know what you meant. I know exactly. Come on down to Jimbo’s, any night of the week, get better acquainted. Babe’s estimation of you has shot way up, I tell you that. Not that she didn’t take a shine in the first place.”
“Yeah, O.K., great. Maybe I’ll get down sometime. If I can get a babysitter.” The idea of ever going into Jimbo’s again frightens him, as does the idea of leaving Nelson, Jill, and Skeeter alone in the house. He is sinking into an underworld he used to see only from a bus. Buchanan squeezes his arm.
“We’ll set something up,” the Negro promises. “Oh, yeass.” The hand squeezes tighter, as if pressing fingerprints through the screen of Harry’s blue workshirt. “Jer-ome asked me to express an especial gratitude.”
Jerome?
The yellow-faced clock ticks, the end-of-break buzzer rasps. The last to return to his machine, Farnsworth passes between the brightly lit makeup tables, a man so black he twinkles. He bobs his shaved head, wipes the whisky from his lips, and throws Harry a dazzling grin. Brothers in paternity.
He gets off the bus early, on the other side of the bridge, and walks along the river through the old brick neighborhoods burdened with great green highway signs. Peggy Fosnacht’s buzzer buzzes back and when he gets off the elevator she is at the door in a shapeless blue bathrobe. “Oh, you,” she says. “I thought it would be Billy having lost his key again.”
“You alone?”
“Yes, but Harry, he’ll be back from school any minute.”
“I only need a minute.” She leads him in, pulling her bathrobe tighter about her body. He tries to wrap his errand in a little courtesy. “How’ve you been?”
“I’m managing. How have you been?”
“Managing. Just.”
“Would you like a drink?”
“This early in the da
y?”
“I’m having one.”
“No, Peggy, thanks. I can only stay a minute. I got to see what’s cooking back at the ranch.”
“Quite a lot, I hear.”
“That’s what I wanted to say something about.”
“Please sit down. I’m getting a crick in my neck.” Peggy takes a sparkling glass of beaded fluid from the sill of the window that overlooks Brewer, a swamp of brick sunk at the foot of its mountain basking westward in the sun. She sips, and her eyes slide by on either side of his head. “You’re offended by my drinking. I just got out of the bathtub. That’s often how I spend my afternoons, after spending the morning with the lawyers or walking the streets looking for a job. Everybody wants younger secretaries. They must wonder why I keep my sunglasses on. I come back and take off all my clothes and get into the tub and ever so slowly put a drink inside me and watch the steam melt the ice cubes.”
“It sounds nice. What I wanted to say –”
She is standing by the window with one hip pushed out; the belt of her bathrobe is loose and, though she is a shadow against the bright colorless sky, he can feel with his eyes as if with his tongue the hollow between her breasts that would still be dewy from her bath.
She prompts, “What you wanted to say –”
“Was to ask you a favor: could you kind of keep it quiet about the Negro staying with us that Billy saw? Janice called me today and I guess you’ve already told her, that’s O.K. if you could stop it there, I don’t want everybody to know. Don’t tell Ollie, if you haven’t already, I mean. There’s a legal angle or I wouldn’t bother.” He lifts his hands helplessly; it wasn’t worth saying, now that he’s said it.
Peggy steps toward him, stabbingly, too much liquor or trying to keep the hip out seductively or just the way she sees, two of everything, and tells him, “She must be an awfully good lay, to get you to do this for her.”
“The girl? No, actually, she and I aren’t usually on the same wavelength.”
She brushes back her hair with an approximate flicking motion that lifts the bathrobe lapel and exposes one breast; she is drunk. “Try another wavelength.”
