I sighted down the needle to a spot on his blue thigh and took a gingerly poke, which glanced off. But he never felt it, so I cocked back my arm and flicked my wrist like a dart thrower the way I'd seen doctors do it, and drove the needle in a bit too deep.
'Jesus, you got a muscle,' Merrill said, and not wanting to hurt him any longer than necessary, I snapped my thumb down on the plunger to get the stuff into him quick. But it resisted force, and the murky fluid seemed to move into him like a wad of dough. He appeared to swoon and attempted to sit down before I could pull the needle out, and the syringe separated from the needle, leaving the needle in him. He lay across the bed moaning while I found the needle and removed it. Then I looked him all over for frostbite while he looked at Biggie, actually seeing her for the first time; in German, forgetting she spoke it too, he said, 'You got her, Boggle. Good work, good work.'
But I just smiled at Biggie. 'She got me too, Merrill.'
'Congratulations to both of you,' he said, which made Biggie smile. He seemed so frozen and vulnerable that we stuffed him under the puff with us, letting the warm musky air trapped in there waft over him and pressing him between us as he shivered fiercely. We held him until he began to sweat and make obvious wriggling movements and suggest that he would feel better if he could be facing Biggie instead of me.
'I'm sure you would, Merrill,' I told him. 'But I believe you're better now.'
'His hands are all better,' Biggie said. 'I can tell you that.'
Later, his hands were occupied with the steering wheel. While Biggie and I fed him oranges from the back seat, Overturf drove the sputtering Zorn-Witwer, '54, through the crunching main street of Kaprun. No one else was about except a postman walking, for warmth, beside his mail sled, coaxing the furry horse, whose breath steamed like diesel exhaust. Higher up, the sun was thawing the crust on the glacier, but all the valley villages would stay frozen until midmorning, a layer of silver dust over everything, and the air sharp enough to breathe only in careful bits. Kaprun seemed seized in such a brittle cold that if we'd blown our horn a building would have cracked.
Outside the skiers' inn in Zell, Merrill and I waited for Biggie to finish her business, watching a growing number of the men's team forming on the steps of the hotel, looking us over. Which one is Bill? They all looked the same.
'You better get some air,' Merrill said.
'Why?'
'You smell,' said Merrill. Yes! Biggie's rich wild-honey scent was on me! 'The car smells,' Merrill complained. 'Jesus, everything smells like it just got laid.'
On the steps, the skiers looked at Merrill, thinking he was the one.
'If they attack us,' Merrill said, 'don't think I'm going to take the credit for something I didn't do.' But they just looked us over; some of the women's team came out on the steps and milled around too. Then a clean natty man, older than the others, came out and stared at the '54 Zorn-Witwer as if it were an empty tank.
'That's the coach,' I said as he came down the steps and walked around to Merrill's window, a plastic flap which snapped together like a baby's rubber pants. Merrill unflapped it and the coach poked his head inside the car.
Always of the opinion that no one spoke that language but himself, Merrill spoke German. 'Welcome to the vagina,' he said, but the coach appeared to have missed it.
'What kind of car is this?' he asked. He had a face like the football players on those old bubble-gum cards. They all wore their helmets, and their head-shapes were all alike, or maybe their heads were helmets. 'A Zorn-Witwer, 'fifty-four,' said Merrill.
The coach showed no recognition. 'You don't see many of them around any more,' he said.
'You didn't see so many around in 'fifty-four, either,' Merrill said.
Biggie was coming down the steps with an airline flight bag, a US Ski Team bag and an enormous duffel. A member of the men's team carried her skis. I got out to open the Zorn-Witwer's trunk. The bearer of her long skis: Was this Bill?
'This is Robert,' Biggie said.
'Hello, Robert.'
'What kind of car is this?' Robert asked.
The coach came over to the trunk. 'What a big trunk,' he said. 'They don't make them like that any more.'
'Nope.'
Robert was trying to figure out how to put Biggie's skis on the roof rack. 'I've never seen a ski rack like this before,' he said.
'It's not a ski rack, you idiot,' the coach told him, surprisingly loud.
Robert looked hurt and Biggie went up to the coach. 'Please don't worry, Bill,' she said. The coach was Bill.
'I'm not worried at all,' he said, and he started back to the hotel. 'You have a copy of the Summer Exercise Manual?' he asked her.
'Of course.'
'I should write to your parents,' he said.
'I can do that,' Biggie said.
Bill stopped and turned back to us. 'I didn't know there were two of them,' he said. 'Which one is him?'
Biggie pointed to me, 'Hello,' I said.
'Goodbye,' said Coach Bill.
Biggie and I got into the car. 'I've got to stop at the Hotel Forellen,' she said, 'where the French team is staying.'
'Au revoir?' said Merrill.
'There's a girl on the French team I was going to stay with,' she said. 'In France, you know - she was going to take me home with her for a visit.'
'And what a marvelous opportunity to learn the language,' Merrill bubbled. 'Culture shock ...'
'Shut up, Merrill,' I said.
Biggie looked sad. 'It's all right,' she said. 'I didn't really like the girl anyway. I think it would have been awful.'
So we waited outside the Forellen for Biggie, and observed the similar milling habits of the French men's team. They all kissed Biggie when she went into the hotel, and now they scrutinized the Zorn-Witwer.
'How do you say "What kind of car is this?" in French?' Merrill asked me, but none of them approached us, and when Biggie came out of the hotel, they all kissed her again.
When we were under way, Merrill asked Biggie, 'How about the Italian team? Let's go say goodbye to them. I've always liked Italians.' But Biggie was glum and I kicked the back of Merrill's seat. He was quiet, then, through Salzburg and out on the Autobahn to Vienna, the old Zorn-Witwer skittering along like a spider over glass.
Biggie let me take her hand, but she whispered to me, 'You smell funny.'
'That's you,' I whispered.
'I know,' she said. But we hadn't whispered soft enough.
'Well, I think it's disgusting,' Merrill said. 'Expecting an old car like this to endure such an odor.' When we didn't respond raucously to this, he was silent until Amstetten. 'Well,' he said, 'I hope to see you guys around in Vienna. Maybe we can make the Opera one night, if you have the time ...'
I caught his face in the rear-view mirror, just enough of a glance to see that he was serious. 'Don't be absurd, Merrill. Of course you'll see us around. Every day.' But he looked sullen and unconvinced.
Seeing him in a slump, Biggie came out of hers. She was always good that way. 'If you ever wet your bed again, Merrill,' she said, 'you can always come get warm with us.'
'Speaking of smells,' I said.
'Sure,' said Merrill, driving on.
'When you freeze in your pee, we'll thaw you out, Merrill,' I said.
I saw him catch Biggie's eyes in the mirror, 'If I thought that,' he said, 'I'd wet my bed every night.'
'Do you two live together?' Biggie asked us.
'We used to,' Merrill said. 'But it's a small place, so I'll go out every night and leave you two alone.'
'We don't want to be that alone,' said Biggie, leaning forward touching his shoulder. And she looked back at me, a little frightened, as if she meant this. We should only go out in crowds; being alone was too serious.
'You're not any fun to be with,' Merrill told me. 'You're in love, you know,' he said. 'And that's no fun at all ...'
'No, he's not in love,' said Biggie. 'We're not in love at all.' She looked at me for rea
ssurance, as if to say, We're not, are we?
'Certainly not,' I said, but I was nervous.
'You certainly are,' said Merrill, 'you poor stupid bastard ...' Biggie looked at him, shocked. 'Jesus, you too,' he told her. 'You're both in love. I don't want anything to do with either of you.'
And he had sweet little to do with either of us, by God; we hardly ever saw him in Vienna. We were too vulnerable to his humor; he made us aware how our casualness was faked. Then he drove the Witwer down to Italy for an early spring and sent us each a postcard. 'Have an affair,' the cards said. 'Both of you. With someone else.' But Biggie was already pregnant then.
'I thought you had a fucking intrauterine device,' I said. 'An IUD, right?'
'IUD' she said. 'IBM, NBC, CBS ...'
'NCAA,' I said.
'USA,' she said. 'Well, sure, I had one, dammit. But it was just a device, like any other ...'
'Did it fall out?' I asked. 'They can't break, can they?'
'I don't even know how they work,' she said.
'Obviously they don't work.'
'Well, it used to.'
'Maybe it fell in,' I said.
'God ...'
'The baby's probably got it in his teeth,' I said.
'It's probably in my lungs,' she said.
But later she said, 'It couldn't hurt the baby, could it?'
'I don't know.'
'Maybe it's inside the baby,' she said. And we tried to imagine it: a plastic, unfunctioning organ next to a tiny heart. Biggie started to cry.
'Well, maybe the baby won't get pregnant,' I coaxed. 'Maybe the damn thing will work for the baby.' But she was not amused; she was furious with me. 'I'm just trying to cheer you up,' I said. 'It's just something Merrill would say.'
'It's got nothing to do with Merrill now,' she said. 'It's us, in fucking love, and a baby.' Then she looked at me. 'OK,' she said. 'It's me in love, anyway. And a baby ...'
'Of course I love you.'
'Don't say that,' she said. 'You just don't know yet.'
Which was true enough. Though at the time, her long body was a blotter of my pain. And though we left before Merrill got back from Italy - if that's really where he was - we did not escape his influence. His example - maybe all examples - of surviving your own self-abuse. That impressed us, and we convinced ourselves that we wanted the baby.
'What will we call it?' Biggie asked.
'Aerial Bombardment?' I said, the shock of it settling upon me. 'Or something simpler? Like Megaton? Or Shrapnel?' But Biggie frowned. 'Flak?' I said.
But after my father disinherited me, I thought of another name, a family name. My father's brother, Uncle Colm, had been the only Trumper to take pride in being a Scot; he put the 'Mac' back in front of his name. If he came for Thanksgiving, he wore a kilt. Wild Colm MacTrumper. He farted proudly after dinner and suggested that grave psychological insecurities had compelled my father to specialize in urology. He always asked my mother if there were any advantages in sleeping with such a specialist, and then always answered his own question: No.
My father's first name was Edmund, but Uncle Colm called him Mac. My father hated Uncle Colm. By the time my son was born, I couldn't think of a better name.
Biggie liked the name too. 'It's like a sound you'd want to make in bed,' she said.
'Colm?' I said, smiling.
'Mmmmmm,' she said.
At that time I was assuming that someday we would be seeing a lot more of Merrill Overturf. If I'd known otherwise, I'd have called our baby Merrill.
16
Fathers & Sons (Two Kinds), Unwanted Daughters-in-Law & Fatherless Friends 918 Iowa Ave.
Iowa City, Iowa
Nov. 1, 1969
Dr Edmund Trumper
2 Beach Lane
Great Boar's Head, New Hampshire
Dearest Dad & Doctor:
I have noticed in myself lately all the forbidding symptoms of terminal Weltschmerz, and I wonder would you send me some penicillin? I still have some of the old penicillin you gave me, although I understand that it increases its strength with age and requires refrigeration, and would by now be unsafe to use.
Do you remember when you gave it to me?
When Couth and Fred were fifteen, Elsbeth Malkas went to Europe and brought back the world in her crotch. Their older, former playmate had outgrown them; it was their first notion that summers at Great Boar's Head were changing. They looked forward to starting prep school in the fall, while Elsbeth prepared for college.
Couth and Fred were not prepared for the way Elsbeth's crinkly black hair affected their toes; it made them curl. Occasionally, they'd notice too that the pads of their fingertips tapped on their palms. It was enough to convince them of evolution, this surely being a primate sort of instinct - derived, they guessed, from the stage when monkeys curled their parts to grip the boughs of trees. It was an instinct concerning balance, and whenever they saw Elsbeth Malkas, they felt they were going to fall out of a tree.
Elsbeth brought new and strange habits home from Europe. No tanning on the beach during the day, no dates at the casino by night. She spent the day in the hot garret of her parents' beach cottage, writing. Poems about Europe, she said. And painting. Couth and Fred could see her garret window from the waterfront; usually, they were throwing a football in the surf. In her window, Elsbeth stood motionless, a long brush in one hand.
'I'll bet she just paints the walls of that dumb room,' Fred said.
Couth heaved the football out to sea and plunged through the waves after it, calling back, 'I bet not!' Fred saw Elsbeth at her window, looking out. Is she watching Couth or me?
At night, they watched her. They lay in the sand, halfway between her house and the waterfront, to be ready when she'd come out all white and heated from the garret, wearing a paint-blobbed blue denim workshirt that hung to mid-thigh; until she bent over to snatch up a stone to throw, you didn't know there was nothing underneath. At the water's edge she'd throw the shirt off and plunge in; her great black hair floating behind her had as much of a life of its own as the tangled kelp abob in the surf. When she slipped the workshirt back on it would cling to her; she never bothered to button it as she walked back to the house.
'You still can't really see it very good,' Couth would complain.
'A flashlight!' said Fred. 'We could shine it on her up close.'
'She'd just cover herself with the shirt,' Couth said.
'Yeah, the damn shirt,' Fred said. 'Shit.'
So one night they took the shirt. They ran down to the wet sand and snatched it up while she was out in the surf, but they were back-lit by the cottage lights and she saw that they'd run behind the hedges near the porch, so she just walked right up to them. Rather than look at her, they attempted to conceal themselves under the shirt.
'Freddy Trumper and Cuthbert Bennett,' she said. 'You horny little bastards.' She walked right past them on to her porch, and they heard the screen door slam. Then she called out to them, 'You're going to be in a lot of trouble if you don't bring my shirt in here quick!' Imagining her naked in the living room, where her parents sat reading, Couth and Fred clumped up the porch and peered in the screen door. She was naked, but alone, and when they gave her the shirt back, she didn't even put it on. They didn't dare look at her.
'It was just a joke, Elsbeth,' Fred said.
'Look!' she said, making a pirouette in front of them. 'You wanted to look, so look!' They looked, then looked away.
'Actually,' Couth said, 'we wanted to see what you were painting.' When Elsbeth laughed, they both laughed with her and stepped inside. Fred promptly bumped into a standing lamp, knocking off the shade and stepping on it when he tried to pick it up. Which made Couth hysterical. But Elsbeth tossed her shirt lightly over her shoulder and took Couth's hand and pulled him upstairs.
'Well, you must come and see the paintings, Cuthbert,' she said, and when Fred started up after them, she said, 'You wait down here, please, Fred.' Couth looked back over his shoulder, fri
ghtened and clowning and stumbling upstairs after her.
When Couth returned, Fred had completely ruined the lampshade with his reshaping efforts and was cramming it in a wastebasket under the desk.
'Here, let me fix it,' Couth said, and pawed the mangled shade out of the wastebasket. Fred stood watching him, but Couth nervously shoved him upstairs. 'Jesus, go on,' he said. 'I'll wait for you.'
So Fred climbed to the garret, unknotting the drawstring of his bathing suit as he went, critically sniffing his armpits and smelling his breath hugged into his cupped palms. But Elsbeth Malkas didn't seem to care about any of that. In a cot in her garret, she stripped his bathing suit off and told him that when she used to baby-sit for him, he would peek when she used the bathroom. Did he remember that? No.
'Well, please remember not to tell,' she said, and then laid him so fast he scarcely noticed that every canvas in her room was white, all white; that any stroke or color put upon those canvases had been painted over white. The walls were white too. And when he joined Couth down in the living-room, he noticed that the lampshade had been stuck back on the lamp all scrunched up and crushed, so that the light bulb was burning brown a part of the shade which touched it; the whole crazy lamp looked like a man whose head had been driven down between his shoulders, and in an effort to tug up the head, his glowing brain had been exposed.
Out on the blowy beach, Couth asked, 'Did she tell you the bit about peeking at her in the bathroom when she used to baby-sit for me?'
'She used to baby-sit for me,' Fred said, 'but she's wrong; I never did that.'
'Well, I did it,' Couth said. 'Boy, did I ever ...'
'Where were her parents?' Fred asked.
'Well, they weren't home,' Couth said, and they walked down to the sea and swam naked, then walked along the wet sand until they were opposite Couth's cottage.
Tiptoeing into Couth's hall, they were surprised to hear the murmurs of a lot of people in the kitchen, and Couth's mother crying. Peeking, they saw Elsbeth's parents and Fred's mother consoling Couth's weeping mother, and Dr Trumper, Fred's father, seeming to be waiting for them at the door. Their sin already discovered! She had told them, said she was raped or pregnant! She would marry them both!
But Fred's father pulled him quietly aside and whispered, 'Couth's father died, a stroke ...' Then he stepped quickly after Couth, intercepting him before he got to his mother.