“You wanta date, huh?” Nina asked. She was a thin girl and her age was not easy to judge—late teens, early twenties, Jim thought. He felt uneasy. The other girl sat at a card table doing a crossword puzzle. Kenny and his date had disappeared up a flight of bare plank stairs, the kind that lead to the upper levels of a lumber yard.
“Come on,” Nina said, putting her thin hot hand on his wrist. “Not much. Ten dollars. Screw lots of positions. You gonna hurt my feelings?”
Later, Jim could not understand why he had gone. It seemed an incredibly weak and foolish thing to have done. But Nina managed to make him feel sorry for her. “Where you from?” he asked, unable to think of anything else to say.
“San Antone,” she said. “I like it but I had to leave. Too many relatives. Might have lived it up with one of my own cousins.” She had a thin pretty face, but it was not her appeal that caught him. It was the situation, irrelevant, naked, disconnected; what it stirred in him was not exactly lust but a kind of dry excitement. A woman was there to be had. She didn’t attract him and everything about the place depressed him, but its very depressingness caused in him some lapse of will. He followed Nina upstairs without a word. Even in February her tiny room was hot. It was afterward, as she was squatting over a small basin, washing herself, that he noticed that her breasts were the breasts of an older woman, with lines under them. There was a scar down her abdomen. He was back downstairs, very depressed, listening to Johnny Cash, when Kenny finally appeared. Kenny was in a good humor, as was his date.
Jim didn’t bother to conceal how depressed he was. “Coming down here was the worst idea I’ve had in years,” he said.
Kenny was embarrassed; he had not meant to lead Jim into infidelity. “I should have made you stay in the car,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to resist them on their own domain.”
“I didn’t see a madam,” Jim said glumly.
“Cheer up. It’s just an act. Any two animals are apt to do it. In three weeks you’ll have forgotten it. In ten years you couldn’t remember it if you tried.”
Jim was not so sure. It was a week before he could get his mind off it for any length of time. Even though she was pregnant, Patsy was lovely, and the sight of her in bed made him even more confused about what he had done. He had not felt frustrated or lecherous, and Patsy was much lovelier than Nina. Apparently he had slept with Nina only because she was there.
He gradually pulled out of the depression and the incident began to fade, but it left him with a problem in regard to Patsy. He was not sure he wasn’t diseased. He looked up the books on veneral disease in the library and pored over the symptoms. Gonorrhea he ruled out, but syphilis was not so easy. Of course Kenny had been there often and seemed in fine health, but that was not definitive. The room had not even had running water. He resolved several times to see a doctor, but somehow never got around to it. Once the baby came he and Patsy got along so well that he simply let it slide. Several times he wanted her and he knew that sooner or later he would have to do something, but day after day went by and he didn’t see a doctor or tell Patsy or anything. Things were pleasant and he was going to the Panhandle for six weeks. He could see a doctor there.
But when Patsy challenged him and he watched her sit in the rocking chair crying he felt so wretched and treacherous that he couldn’t stand it. He told her with no elaboration, merely that he had taken Kenny to a whorehouse and without particularly meaning to or even wanting to had slept with a whore.
When he said it a silence fell between them. She didn’t look at him, nor he at her. And as the silence lengthened they both grew worried, then frantic. If it wasn’t broken soon it might never be broken. They might never speak to each other again. Patsy broke first.
“Okay, okay, okay,” she said. “You slept with a whore. Okay. I’m not going to scream.”
And she didn’t feel like screaming, or even crying. What she felt when she looked at him was polite. Polite and a little cold, and sorry for him. He was clearly suffering. But it was not the sort of suffering that made her want to draw him to her. It was his—real, but the pity she felt only made her the more chill, the more stiff.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was awful of me. I don’t have any idea why I did it. I haven’t known what to do ever since.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Patsy said. Her eyes were wide when she looked at him. “I don’t want any apology, really.”
“But I owe you one.”
“I don’t know what you owe me—I don’t care what you owe me. If you had come home that day and apologized maybe I would have wanted it. But it’s been four months. Why apologize now?”
“Because it’s now that we’re talking about it.”
“That’s not my fault,” she said. “I don’t want an apology. I don’t want a big argument, either.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
She looked at him but her face and mind were blank. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I’ll just eat some Cheerios and go to bed.”
She went to the kitchen and ate the bowl of cereal slowly. She had only wanted to get out of sight of Jim’s suffering look. Then she sat at the kitchen table for a long time staring blankly at the pages of Frazer. Perhaps if she sat long enough he would drop off to sleep and she would not have to confront him until morning. She tried to picture him going to bed with a whore, but no picture appeared. She didn’t feel like crying. She just felt dry and tired and lonely. Four months ago—it had been just at the time when she had been in love with Hank. Or had thought herself in love with him, or had liked being with him, at least. What did she know about those things—about love? At least it had felt like it for a few days. Perhaps what Jim had done was her punishment, what she had to suffer for Hank’s kisses. But that made no sense. The two things were hardly equivalent, and anyway, it was Jim who was suffering. She didn’t feel guilty about Hank—not very. Whether she had loved him or not it had been good. She had at least loved what they did. In memory it seemed to her that they had been more intimate than they would have been if they had made love. At least it had been personal, and close. But poor Jim. His had been merely quick and sordid. No talk, no warmth, no kisses. A minute or two of jiggling on a bed and then weeks of guilt. If he were going to deceive her it was terrible that he had done it so pitifully, for such small gain. Better he had had afternoons with Clara Clark, learning wild California variations. Better Lee Duffin, who might have delighted him and made him pleased with himself. Better either than what he had had. Instead of pleasure and confidence he got no pleasure and came home with less confidence than he had ever had. He was even afraid to touch her. And just as Davey was about to be born—just as they might have drawn close, become really attuned to each other. Perhaps they would yet, since the secret was out. Perhaps it was not so bad, nothing tragic, just something silly and small. And yet her spirits were at zero. She sat at the table watching one last Cheerio float in an inch of milk, too empty of spirit even to walk to bed. Finally Jim appeared in the doorway looking no better than he had.
“Please come to bed,” he said. “I can’t sleep without you.”
“Strange,” she said. “I thought that was one thing you could always do.” But she didn’t want to argue; she took a look at Davey and got in bed. After a few minutes Jim hesitantly took her hand, and she let him hold it.
“What are we going to do?” he said. “I would never have believed I could do such a stupid thing. Live and learn, I guess.”
“Who’s learned what? I haven’t learned anything.
“Please don’t sound like a kicked dog,” she said later. “I haven’t kicked you. Don’t go making it tragic. I’m sure all men sleep with women other than their wives, sooner or later.”
“I wasn’t making it into a tragedy.”
“You would, given half a chance. Don’t ask me what to do. You’re the husband, you figure it out. I’ll be around.”
“Well, I’ll go to a doctor first. I guess I’ve b
een sort of paralyzed, or I would have already.”
But he could not get an appointment until two days before he was to fly to Amarillo, and the report giving him a clean bill of health did not come through until two days after he left. It was not a pleasant week for either of them, though no unpleasant words passed between them. The movie job suddenly seemed like a blessing to them both. They felt they needed some time apart in order to figure out how to get back together. Patsy’s spirits kindled when Davey woke at five-thirty, and as long as he was awake she was lively and natural and she and Jim were at ease. But when Davey was asleep, when the night lay ahead and they were alone with each other, a deep constraint lay upon them. They spoke, chatted, went to movies, all without really looking at each other. When Patsy drove him to the airport to send him away they chatted brightly, lightly, all the way, but without looking at each other. When they kissed at the flight gate it was a brief, awkward kiss. They were standing too far apart and had to stretch to reach each other. Even then their eyes didn’t meet. Only after Jim was outside, walking to the plane, and Patsy a level above him, watching through the glass, did they look at each other. Jim stopped a minute and waved. He looked very young, with his blond hair blowing and his camera bags hung over his shoulder. Patsy felt a stab of feeling at her breast and waved too; then she turned away crying. He had looked so boyish. She had shed no tears for a week. Through it all, until that moment, she had treated him as he had treated her in the months since Davey was born: with cool, extremely considerate, polite reserve. Going back, she almost had a wreck on the freeway from crying so hard—bitterly sorry that she had been such a cold unbending fool.
20
THREE DAYS after Jim left, a short letter came from Roger Wagonner:
Dear Jim and Patsy,
Well, as usual things are drying up around here. I have been feeling poorly, maybe some Gulf breezes would do me good. Besides would like to see the little boy, have always liked to keep tabs on my kin. If no emergencies come up will be down Friday—will just take a room at a hotel. Can just stay one day, don’t fix nothing.
Your uncle,
Roger
Patsy was very pleased. She had not had time to get lonesome, indeed, had barely had time to loosen up and relax from the last tense week with Jim, but she could think of no one she would rather see for one day than Roger Wagonner. Friday at noon it rained for an hour and then the hot June sun broke through and turned the rain to steam. At three in the afternoon Patsy heard a knock on the door and Roger stood on the landing, literally soaked with sweat.
“My goodness,” she said. “You’re soaking wet. Come in here.”
He took off his hat and kissed her on the cheek. “This sweat’s from worrying,” he said. “My eyes ain’t the best and I couldn’t see them freeway signs in time to do nothing about ’em. It’s a wonder I ain’t in Mexico right now.”
She made him sit down and got him some icewater. Despite his joking, he was trembling with exhaustion. Davey was asleep. Roger drank the water slowly, not saying much. Patsy felt that his color was not good, and his face had grown thinner. Once in a while he glanced out at the city with clear dislike.
“One of the few good things about being old is knowing you’ll never need to go to a place like this again,” he said.
“You’re just not used to it.”
“I don’t ever intend to be.” He got up a little stiffly and walked over to look at Davey. “Don’t see how the little thing can sleep in all this racket,” he said. “Cars going by all day. Healthy-looking boy, though. Got your black hair. How’s it suit you, being a momma?”
“Oh, fine,” she said. “It suits me better than anything else I’ve hit on.”
“I sometimes think it was a good thing me and Mary never had no children,” he said. “Our arguing would have probably drove a child crazy. And then sometimes I think the other way.”
When Davey awoke she left him on his blanket on the bed, with Roger to watch him, and the old man and the baby looked at each other soberly and for the most part silently while she fixed dinner. She held Davey on her lap while they ate. Her chicken had turned out well, her potatoes fair. She had made an avocado salad that she was very proud of, but Roger regarded it with chilling suspicion and picked in it carefully, looking for edible bites.
“Really, that isn’t poison,” she said. “It’s just avocado.”
“Oh, is that all it is?” he said, taking a forkful with a pretense of reassurance. “I didn’t know but what it was a gourd, and I never eat gourds.”
After supper they went down and sat in the Whitneys’ lawn glider. Roger was a little distressed that Jim would go off and leave his wife and child in such a dangerous city, but Patsy pooh-poohed its dangers and pointed out that she was an experienced city girl. When it grew dark she moved over to a lawn chair and let Davey nurse, and Roger began telling her how his various animals were, calling them by name and giving little details of their daily lives as if they were people. It was only when he got up to go to his hotel and they walked with him to the street that she realized he had actually come in the old wired-together Chevrolet pickup.
“Why, of course,” he said. “Only automobile I own. Did you think I had a Cadillac parked in the barn?”
Patsy felt oddly touched. “Do you still have imaginary arguments with Rosemary?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, I’m getting battier all the time,” he said. His face brightened a little at the thought of his own craziness.
Early the next morning, so early that Davey had barely finished nursing, Roger came by again, on his way out. Patsy was astonished; she was in her gown and robe and made some coffee, to stall him. She could not believe he would drive so far for just one afternoon. He had been to breakfast, but he had some coffee, just to be polite.
“Surely you can stay today,” she said. “We could go to the zoo.” It was the only thing she could think of that might appeal to him.
“Aw, no, honey,” he said. “I got to get on back. I’ve got too much to take care of.”
Other than the wind and a few animals she couldn’t think what, but she didn’t argue. Carrying Davey, and still in her gown and robe, she followed him down the driveway to his pickup. At the sidewalk he put his arm around her and hugged her against him and she smelled the starch in his shirt and the tobacco in his shirt pocket. For some reason she was on the verge of tears.
“Maybe old Jim will get tired of all them movie stars and come down and see me some weekend,” he said. “Hope so. Always enjoy talking to Jim.”
He got in the pickup and sat for a minute, as if girding himself for the ordeal of the freeways.
“I’m so glad you came,” Patsy said, blinking. Everything she said sounded inadequate, but not to Roger.
“Glad I did too, honey,” he said. “Sorry I missed Jim, but anyway I got to see you and old Davey. I like to check up on my folks once in a while. If you don’t hear from me I missed a sign and am off in Louisiana, in some bayou.”
She leaned in and kissed his cheek and he squeezed her hand and smiled. “Take care of the boy,” he said. “When he gets a little older bring him to see me and we’ll go riding.”
“He’s just four months now,” she said.
“Six months is a good age to start ’em riding,” he said, smiling again. Then he put the old pickup in gear and drove slowly, deliberately away, the old black pickup looking as incongruous and strange beneath the trees of South Boulevard as had Sonny’s white hearse.
Patsy turned to go back to the apartment, but before she got ten steps up the driveway she broke into such a shower of crying that she stopped, stood still for a moment, and then sat down on the Whitneys’ lawn. She put Davey on her lap, but the burst of tears surprised and shook her so that she put her hands to her face to catch them and Davey rolled off and to his surprise found himself on his stomach in the soft St. Augustine grass. He was puzzled for a moment and then delighted and fingered the grass while his mother sat crying. Things t
hat Roger did, such as the visit, went to her heart. She had begun to think her heart functioned only for Davey, but it wasn’t true, it had only seemed true. The emotion washed out of her in one hard burst of tears and then they were done and she sat wet-faced on the grass and picked up her son. She wiped a piece of grass out of his mouth and brushed off his belly.
“Don’t eat grass,” she said. “You’ve been fed today.” She took him up the steps and they sat on the landing a little while. It was early and still quiet, not even the sounds of lawn mowers in a part of town where lawn mowing began early. She felt sad but relieved, and whenever she thought of Roger, nervous on the freeways, tears ran out of her eyes. It was not every old man who would drive a thousand miles in a rattly pickup to see such curious folks as she and Davey, she was sure of that. Davey pawed at the neck of her nightgown and occasionally put his fist in his mouth, totally unperturbed.
When the sun struck the landing she went in, put Davey in his crib, and showered. She heard something and came quickly into the bedroom, drying herself with a large green towel, but what she had heard was merely Davey bashing a rattle against the side of the crib. “You peach,” she said and bent a moment so that the ends of her hair tickled his stomach. It was something he sometimes liked and sometimes didn’t. At the moment he was more interested in bashing his rattle. Patsy went to the dressing table, dried her legs, and uncapped some hand lotion. She was not quite sure what had caused her to cry so, but whatever the reason, she felt much better. It felt good to sit at the dressing table, good to walk across the room. Feeling whatever she felt had had the effect of giving her back her own body. During the days of coldness with Jim she had lost all sense of her own flesh. She might have been made of straw. But the sense had come back, and she felt it was a pity Jim was gone. In such a mood as she was in, they might have worked it out. But he was gone, and the only man there to take advantage of her was Davey, who had gone to sleep, his face pressed against the bars of the baby bed. She felt a little restless. She suddenly found herself with a surplus of energy, a surplus of self, and as soon as Juanita came she walked over to Emma’s and went with her to take the boys to their swimming lesson.