Laurie wakens me. I know I've slept only a short time but my neck aches from the cramped couch. She is a trifle thinner and her freckles don't seem to show as much. She smells of tongue and pastrami.
—What are you doing here?
She speaks softly, her voice always sounded like a child's, a baby-oil voice.
—I was resting. I take her arm and move over so she can sit on the couch next to me.
—Did you get married? she asks.
—I just hitched in. Took me four days.
—Let me change my clothes. She walks over to a rickety wardrobe and takes out jeans and a sweater. I feel sleep coming on again but then her white uniform drops to the floor.
She stoops and picks it up. Oh my God.
—Why don't you come here a minute?
She turns and smiles and walks over to me in her panties and bra. How lovely her belly. She stretches out along my side and we kiss and don't stop kissing while I undo my belt and push down my trousers and her panties and take off her bra and rip my shirt off, my hands against her breasts. Then she sits up and grinds it in and smiles at me again and then leans down and we kiss until we are finished. I am overwhelmed with love for her. I've never felt distant after making love to her because I loved her. We talked pointlessly about what had gone wrong before. Me. I hated New York City and I slapped her one day. And I met her parents who hated me and wouldn't speak—I wasn't Jewish. I kissed her neck and she slid down my belly and aroused me a second time with her mouth. I kicked off my boots and trousers and entered a second time rocking slowly with her heels in my back and kissing again. Then I slept.
I sat on the sand bar and smoked an imaginary cigarette. It must be seventy-seven degrees and I stood and shed my clothes and did a little circular toe dance on the sand. Dum dum dum dum I'm a thirty-two-year-old Indian and nature herself sees my berserk bare ass and doesn't care. Enough of a breeze to keep the bugs away. I walked out into the cold water with an involuntary shudder. Like peeing outdoors on a cold day. A Cheyenne Indian at that because they had the finest country to live in, Montana for a few thousand years before it was Montana. I let go with a long Cheyenne shriek and dove into the water swimming under it with eyes open to the blurred bottom. I popped up and looked back to shore, not bad. When we were twelve we swam around our lake twice without parental knowledge or consent and it took nine hours. He said to her, “Do the backstroke.” Bad thing though to put the firecracker in the frog's mouth. Where did the frog go? Everywhere and in pieces.
I swam idly out into the middle of the lake and looked down at the black invisible bottom and wished there were a sea creature to struggle with. When I swam back to shore I got a cramp in my left calf and let the leg trail slackly. Lay back on the sand with my head on my clothes and massaged the muscle until the cramp disappeared. Peter will get sunburned a bit. I raised myself by skull and heels. Where's my squaw now that I may diddle her? Pocahontas and her splendid cartwheels. It's a matter of contention now who got fucked over the most, the blacks brought here as slaves or the Indians who were totally dispossessed. Sand Creek. Harper's Ferry. Like asking who in a war was murdered the “deadest.” Tell those who pass by I lie here, my skull's mouth open in perpetual curse. All coming true and without romance. Why can't they learn to be nice boys and girls? Blankets purposely infected with smallpox, rapine, marches, slaughter, greed, and a hundred million pelts shipped back east. Those Paiutes let me off then turned left onto a gravel road which went thirty miles into the desert where they lived in metal government surplus Quonset huts. Had a tendency to stay hot in summer and cold in winter. We passed a bottle, laughing at a song on the radio sung by a champagne lady. Car filthy and heated smell of exhaust fumes and raven black hair. I wrote my first name on my stomach with a handful of sand. A low-flying plane will read it and be alarmed. The dark orphaned prince is on the loose again. Lock up the women and children. Form a posse. Like Cleaver he is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. I rolled over in the sand then rolled like a log into the water and drank some. Delicious. A spring-fed lake. Wish my dad were here, bringing fly rods to see if there were trout. He would emerge from the woods in the hunting clothes he left in on that November morning. And my sister farther back in the woods could pick flowers and then some mushrooms to eat with the trout. Seven years ago. I wouldn't tell anyone they were still alive. Or that they could walk on the water and over the tops of trees in long floating strides. Or Dolly Parton, my favorite since Patsy Cline died with Cowboy Copas in the plane crash, sings, Daddy come and get me, it's not my mind that's broken it's my heart. The point is that she's love crazed and is in an asylum. Meaulnes never found the girl again and when Heathcliff dug up Cathy it was cold necromancy. Still chills me to think of it or when the mastiff bit her lovely leg. I paddled over to a patch of reeds and looked at their stalks and roots under the water.
When I wake up this time I'm trembling. Poisons in the body. Laurie comes into the room and hands me a cup of coffee. Then she walks over to a desk and intently rolls a joint tapping some crumbled hash in it, wasteful way to use hash but nice. She lights the joint and hands it to me.
—It's all yours. I had some while you were asleep.
I drew heavily and choked holding the sweet smoke as long as possible, exhaled and then drew again. Finally down to the nubbin and I chewed the bitter resinous roach. Now I am way up in the air but nicely this time. I get up and go into the toilet and wash my distant face and hands which don't belong to me and look at my red eyes in the mirror. And my chest—my tits could be mistaken for baboon eyes I think and my belly button goes through to the other side. When I come back the fat girl is talking to a young man with a stringy yellow beard which should be torn off immediately. Creep clergy out of Chaucer. They look at me, I'm naked, and disappear. I glance down at my worn-out cock and it appears to have been recently tied on. Laurie begins talking of the past year and I don't hear much of what she says. I drink coffee from the stained plastic cup and watch it run down the pipe into my stomach where it makes a small black lake.
—What have you been doing?
—What?
—What have you been doing?
—Nothing. The usual.
—Oh.
Then she began talking of an affair with a painter and that it took a few weeks to get used to the way someone else made love. And a man tried to attack her in the subway but when his pants dropped she pushed him over. Almost a nervous breakdown and now she carries a long hatpin to discourage such people. And remember how we used to carry the mattress up to the roof on Grove and roll a bomber and ball to the street sounds and soot settling on us if we stayed too long. I remember how the roof was coarse to my bare feet. I could feel it now like walking up a warm plank in bare feet or scratching a blackboard with my fingernails. She was sitting next to me now crying and sniffling and talking in a choked voice about how I should stay this time and it would be much better than before.
—You got anything to eat? I asked.
She was startled by the obtusity of my question and shook her head. I said I would go out and get some Chinese food and I dressed quickly putting on my boots without socks. Buttons gone on my shirt, three left.
—You'll be back?
—Of course, don't be stupid.
She followed me to the door and kissed me. I walked out without looking back and by the time I hit the street I knew I wouldn't return. I wandered around looking for an uptown train. On a corner three junior delinquents lean against a mailbox and nudge each other as I approach. My body seems to tighten though I'm still floating from the hash and I put my right hand in my pocket and cradle the knife. When I pass one of them spits and narrowly misses my boots. I walk on waiting for any footsteps. Be strange to catch three of them with one wide swipe. But then I might get it too and I could almost feel the stitch of pain in my side that a knife or zip gun would make.
Now up in the East Seventies where everything is sweet and safe. The first door was open but t
he second was locked. I look at the names. Number 24. I press the button. A walled city.
—Yes? from the speaker.
—It's me.
The door buzzes and clicks. The lobby is marbled and smells of precisely nothing. Two tricycles in a corner for fun. I press another button and hear the self-service elevator sliding down toward me and cables rattling. Near dawn now and not very many birds singing. Up in the pastel cage with a mirror in the corner to see if a rapist is crouched drooling. Go away bad man. Your dingle dangle is not wanted. Elevator stops. She's standing by her apartment door smoking a cigarette. Well. We embrace but my eyes are open and I watch her outstretched hand keeping the cigarette away from us. Then we break away and go into the apartment. She looks at me closely.
—You're stoned and you smell.
—Nice place you got here. Raise in the allowance?
—Yes but they don't want me back if I bring the baby.
—I want to see it.
I follow her through the bedroom into a smaller adjoining bedroom thinking the apartment must cost at least three hundred a month or perhaps more. My dad's house payments were only sixty-six dollars. There is a crib in the corner and other baby accouterments and that strange generalized sweet smell that a baby creates in what surrounds “it.” I hear breathing but I don't really see the child. Vague outline of a little head.
—Is it mine?
She lights another cigarette and we move quietly back into the living room. Her robe is a beautiful yellow pattern and the carpet is thick and very soft and I feel weightless. We sit down and look at each other.
—I guess I don't know. My parents think it is.
—How many possibilities are there?
—None of your business.
Her face becomes flushed and she looks at the ceiling. The room is at a dead stop.
—Can I have a drink?
She pours me some bourbon with an inch of water on top and no ice like I used to drink it. She begins talking about her problems getting help to clean and stay with the child and cook dinner. There's an extra bedroom but nobody will “live in.” I feel very concerned and attentive and drink the bourbon in a few swallows. More chemicals and my body is shredding itself in fatigue for beef jerky. She's still looking at the ceiling and now talking about how much she loves the baby and about her parents’ last visit and how she might move to San Francisco and find some sort of career. The robe is parted to her knee and despite the action with Laurie I'm beginning to warm up. I walk over to her and lean down and kiss her throat. Salt and perfume.
—You should sleep.
She stands up and leads me into the spare bedroom. I take off my clothes and she tells me to take a shower or I might permanently harm the room. In the shower I nearly fall asleep in the rain of steaming water. Back in the room she watches as I dry myself and get into bed where I fall instantly asleep.
When I got out of the water I could see by the shadows the sun cast that I was well behind my schedule, the intended circle only half completed. If I began jogging now I would be lucky to reach my camp before dark. Then I ate the rest of my raisins and thought how totally unimportant the problem was; true wilderness might destroy me within a month if I committed such fuckups. The only points in my favor were nonchalance and reasonably good health but I had none of the constant wariness owned by all good woodsmen. A case here where God doesn't love fools and drunks. Or care if they make feed and fertilizer for the beasts. At the far end of the lake I saw a flash of a black animal. Harmless black bear that didn't catch my scent until he reached the lake's edge. I simply didn't have the functional intelligence of the explorer, the voyager and had only met a few people who were unilaterally stable in the wilderness. You have to know a great deal about food and shelter and the stalking of game and many of the aspects of this knowledge come only through astute, almost instinctive openness to your surroundings. In Montana I nearly walked off a cliff dreaming of the peculiar flat shape of a whore's ass. Too much muscle like a ballerina. Next time I go back I'll pick a different one and then before my feet a thousand-foot gorge of nothing. What roots do I eat? What does my body live on after I use up the twenty pounds of fat around my belly? Spare tire as they say. I imagined myself crawling around in hunger and in a snarling rage attacking a sick old opossum and losing the fight. Paws and face badly bitten by it. I cast out my sinker and line hoping that my swimming hadn't driven all of the fish to the other end of the lake. Then I went back into the swamp and began to gather as much firewood as possible for what I knew would be a long uncomfortable night.
Barbara woke me up with tomato juice and coffee and two aspirin which she felt with accuracy that I might need. Late afternoon and a rusty spike driven into each temple.
—Bring me a drink.
—No. Eat something first.
—No. The water.
She brought me a glass of ice water and sat down on the edge of the bed. I put my pillow over my face and started moaning. I needed chemicals.
—Shut up. The maid's still here.
An old Negro woman poked her head in the door and said the baby was asleep and that she was leaving. Barbara left and I turned over and listened to my brain cry and rub and creak. My stomach was bilious and I could still taste a mixture of hash and bourbon in my throat. I got up and brushed my teeth and noticed that my skin had a yellowish cast. Back in bed I wanted the bed to be my own and I peeked out beneath the pillow to make sure again where I was. O God I'll never put anything in my mouth again except food and water. In painful dark. Squeeze the eyes and see stars and red dots and little filaments free-float in vitreous humor. Blind eye sees more interesting things when closed tight or can turn around and paint on the back of the skull. I heard the door open again and lifted the pillow. She handed me an eggnog.
—I'll buy you a plane ticket.
—Oh fuck off.
—I don't want you to stay here. I can't stand it.
—I'm not. Cramp your gentlemen to have me sneaking around.
—Shut up.
—You already said that today.
She looked like she was going to cry so I turned over andasked her to rub my back. She went into the bathroom and got some lotion and began a long slow massage of my lower back and shoulders. We used to massage each other and pretend we had no sexual intentions until a moment would arrive and we could no longer bear to wait.
—You can sit on my head if you want.
—No.
—Why?
—I don't know. I don't feel like it.
—Please.
—Why should I?
—Because you like to be licked.
—You have a filthy mouth.
—Then blow me.
—Can't you be nice?
—It would be nice of you to blow me. My head hurts.
She got up from the edge of the bed and went to the windows and drew the shades. I could hear the rush hour, the cross-town traffic. Home for dinner in scab city after a day of boredom and paper burns. Bob lick these envelopes and fill the water cooler with ink. Yes sir. She knelt beside the bed and drew back the sheet. My toes are going to curl and do at the first wet heat and nudge of tongue and teeth. Farther please and I like the warm noise. A finger where it ought to be and thumb twitching. Please get up on the bed and I'll do you. Muffled no. Say Patrice Lumumba or Robert Ruark like the old joke. Wordless. I watch then as best I can in the dim light but can't hold it long. Vision makes me explode. She goes into the bathroom and I hear water running, my hangover considerably diminished, and the pillow back over my face in perfect, soft darkness. Barbara comes back into the room, turns on the light and smiles. I feel the ache I often felt the year before. She's lovely, winsome, demure, and her brain is a shabby, torpid mess; enough money goes to her analyst per week to support someone handsomely. And her diffidence about who she gave her body to not so much that it hurt her but that it abraded my vaguely Calvinist center. She said she would stop if we married but that many of them we
re merely old friends from Atlanta. And she couldn't deny them because they were so sweet and had been her friends so long. She came to the bed and asked me what I wanted for dinner. I couldn't think about food or going home or anything else. I took her wrist and drew her down toward me; she resisted.
—No.
—Why?
I forced her onto the bed. I thought that I only wanted to see her body one last time but I knew it was a lie—I wanted revenge for being cuckolded, for the sheer exhausting hours of jealousy.
—Will you take them off?
She stood and quickly took off her skirt and sweater then walked toward the lamp in her undergarments. The panties were a pale blue.
—No. Don't turn it off.
She stopped with her hands on her hips and then turned and walked back to the bed with her head down. I knew she was beginning to cry. I got up and took off her bra very deliberately and then kneeled and pulled down her panties. She was standing very stiffly and wouldn't move her feet so I tore the panties in half while I was kneeling there. I kissed her with my hands on her hips—her sex tasted deliciously of the violet bath salts she always used. Then I kissed and licked her in every position I could think of for I don't know how long. She finally relaxed but said nothing. She acted like the ballerina I had seen in the movie of Tales of Hoffmann. I put her on her hands and knees and kissed then entered her with force watching myself, her smooth buttocks and my hands against their whiteness, and her lovely back. I withdrew and slowly entered her anally which I knew she despised. She was crying and I began to lose heart. I sat back on my heels and she collapsed onto her side. We looked at each other for several moments and then she held out her arms to me.