The Temple of Gold

  Anyway, that was the first time.

  After we’d said good-by at the front door, her patting me on the head, sort of crying, I ran over to Zock’s house and told him all about it. Not in a boasting way but mainly because I was confused and he, being older, knew more of such things than I did.

  He listened very carefully, pulling at his lower lip, a way he had when he was concentrating.

  “That’s it,” I finished up. “She was crying and we went downstairs to say good-by. What do you think?”

  “You bastard,” Zock said, laughing.

  “Come on,” I said. “Don’t kid around.”

  “A toast,” he shouted. “A toast is definitely called for,” and he took off, running to Old Crowe’s liquor cabinet, me in hot pursuit. I watched as he filled two glasses, handed me one, smiling.

  “And now we need a toast,” he said. “But to what?”

  “To Miss Twilly,” I suggested, raising my glass.

  “No,” he said. “No good. She’s over and done with. A thing of the past.” He pulled at his lip awhile. “Wait. How about this? How about: a toast to those to come.”

  Which sounded fine to me and we drank to it.

  So, at the age of sixteen, I had lost my virginity but had never been out with a girl. A state of affairs that I think might have continued for many years had it not been for Bunny Gustavson, whose real name was Eleanor.

  It was the summer before we were juniors, the summer when Fee lost his fight to Johnny Hunkley and left Athens singing to make his mark in San Francisco. Like all summers, this one was stifling, with a lot of rain and a lot of time hanging heavy on your hands. It was that way for me, at least. But not for Zock. He took to acting strange, sneaking off during the day, not telling me where he was going. I never asked him either, since it couldn’t really have been called my business.

  But one night after supper, I wandered over to his house looking for him. “Zachary is upstairs,” Mrs. Crowe said. Then she giggled for a while.

  “O.K.,” I said, starting to walk by.

  “He would prefer you didn’t, Raymond,” she told me, kind of blocking my way. “He said that he would see you tomorrow. So toodle-oo,” which was her way of saying good-by.

  I toodle-ooed back and went outside, thinking. And the more I thought, the more I didn’t know. So naturally, I snuck in the rear door and crept up the stairs to Zock’s room.

  He was standing in front of his mirror, practicing smiling, which was understandable, since I have already described how his smile twisted, with one side going up and the other, unfortunately, down. He didn’t see me until I said: “Toodle-oo. Zachary’s upstairs getting dressed.”

  He spun around, red as a beet. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Why did you come?”

  “A whim,” I answered, using one of his favorite expressions, flopping down on his sack. “Just call it that. A whim.”

  “Get out, Ripper,” he said. “Please.”

  “In due time, perhaps,” I said, imitating him. “But there’s something I’d like to know first. Zock, what the hell’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled.

  “In that case,” I told him. “I’ll just stick around.”

  “Please,” he said again.

  “Tell me. Then maybe I will.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said. “I like it here anyway.”

  Zock sighed. “All right, Ripper. I’m going to the movies.”

  I pointed to the necktie he was wearing. And to his hair, which was combed. “Continue,” I said.

  “I’m taking a girl,” he choked. “Now get out.”

  I fell back on the bed, laughing and kicking my heels, him watching me all the time, getting redder and redder. I laughed and roared and kicked and then I sat up like a shot.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Zock,” I pleaded. “You got to be kidding.”

  He shook his head and pointed to the door.

  “Who’s the girl, Zock? Do I know her? Is she from around here? Who’s the girl? You’re not really going. You’re kidding. Aren’t you, Zock? Who’s the girl? Naw. There’s no girl. You’re only kidding.”

  While I was going on he went to the closet and took out a sport jacket I didn’t know he owned. Then he walked past me to the doorway.

  “Bunny Gustavson,” he said. After which he ran.

  I went home, puttering around the rest of the night, not doing much but just thinking about Bunny Gustavson. Who was the smartest girl in our class and also probably the ugliest. She was uglier than Zock, I thought then, but later, when I got to know her well, I judged them as being about the same. She was a fine girl, Bunny was, as fine as any I’ve ever known, bright and lots of fun. She had an awful figure though, completely without shape, and very bad eyes and skin. But she always looked clean. That was probably her most attractive feature; you had the feeling you could eat right off her, she was so clean.

  The next morning I went over and woke Zock. “How was it?” I asked.

  “How was what?” he mumbled.

  I shook him. “Cut that,” I said. “How was it?”

  “It was all right, I suppose.”

  “You going to take her out again?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  I started pulling him out of bed. “Did you really ask her out last night, Zock? Really? Honest to God?”

  “Of course I did,” he snapped back, landing on the floor.

  Which was a lie, as I later found. She asked him out that first time. And for the next ones too, until he got the hang of it. She had set her cap for Zock, as Mrs. Crowe put it, and had begun following him around. Which was where they were during those days, walking around town, Zock first, Bunny right behind, gradually closing the gap as the days went by. I think she was in love with him from the start. And I know he never took out any other girl, for when he went to Harvard, she chose Wellesley, which is close by, so they could be together. Just when Zock fell in love with her I don’t exactly know, but he was on the night that he died.

  And, that summer, it got so he was with her practically every evening. After the first few times I went along and I don’t believe anybody minded much, for Bunny and I hit it off well from the start. We’d go to the movies together, then have a soda, then walk her home. Where they would neck awhile on the porch, with me waiting out by the street for them to finish.

  Sometimes, though, I used to turn around and watch. They’d both take off their glasses and put them carefully somewhere, a slow process, for without them they were blind. Then, eyes open, they’d grope for each other, their hands moving slowly until they made contact. And to this day I have yet to see anything more tender than that, the two of them blind as bats, reaching softly for each other in the dark.

  But naturally, such an arrangement couldn’t go on forever. It was me who first brought the subject up.

  “Something has got to be done,” I said.

  “What,” asked Zock, “did you have in mind?”

  “Well,” I told him. “I don’t know.”

  “Sally Farmer’s back from camp,” Bunny said. “How would you like to go out with Sally Farmer?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I answered. “That is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

  It wasn’t, actually, and after a little, they talked me into it. Bunny went over to Sally’s house to ask her for me, they being best friends, while Zock and I waited on his front porch. I just sat there, sweating, not saying a word until, finally, Bunny came back.

  “Well?” I said.

  Bunny closed her eyes and began reciting. “Sally says: ‘The answer is absolutely no. If he wants to take me out let him ask me himself. Besides, he has the worst reputation in the whole school.’ ” She opened her eyes. “Verbatim.”

  “Well,” Zock said. “I guess you’ll just have to call her up, Euripides.”

  “Ho, ho, ho,” I said. “
I’m not going to do it.”

  “Suit yourself,” Zock told me.

  “What would I say to her, Zock? I could never think of anything to say to her.”

  “Try it now,” Zock said.

  I took a deep breath. “Hello, Sally,” I tried. “This here is Ray Trevitt. What the hell are you doing on Saturday?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not quite it,” Bunny said.

  “A trifle blunt,” Zock agreed, shaking his head.

  “Well. It’s the best I can do.”

  “Women have to be coaxed, Ripper. They’re funny about that. But you have to play by their rules or they’ll pick up their baseball and go home.”

  “Zock,” I said. “Help me.”

  “All right.” He nodded. “It’s the least I can do. We’ll call her this afternoon. At five o’clock.”

  “What if she’s not home?”

  “Bunny will pay her a visit at half past four. Right?” Bunny nodded. “So she’ll be there.” And with that they both disappeared into his house, leaving me alone.

  I didn’t see him again until late that afternoon. He came in grinning, waving some sheets of paper.

  “I’ve got it right here,” he said.

  “You’ve got what right where?”

  He shook the papers in my face. “Here. Here in my hands at this very moment is a copy of the conversation you are going to have with Sally Farmer. All you have to do is read it.”

  I grabbed the papers. It was just what he had said, a conversation, written like a play with two parts, marked Sally and Euripides.

  “Better run through it first,” Zock said.

  “Well, I don’t know,” I answered.

  “You’ve nothing to lose,” he told me. “So begin at the top.”

  I sighed, took a deep breath, and started reading. “Hello,” I read. “Is this Sally Farmer?”

  “Yes,” Zock replied, his voice very high. “This is she.”

  “Well, this is Ray Trevitt.”

  “Oh, hello, Ray,” Zock said. “I’m so glad you called.”

  “How the hell do you know she’s going to say that?” I asked Zock.

  “It’s only polite,” he answered. “And Sally’s a very polite girl. Bunny says so. She helped me write this.”

  “O.K.,” I said and went on reading. “I heard you were back from camp and I thought I’d just ring up to say hello.”

  “That was awfully considerate of you, Ray,” Zock said.

  “You have a good time at camp this year? I understand you were a junior counselor.”

  “That’s right,” Zock said. “I had four seven-year-olds in my cabin.”

  “Gee,” I read. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “Oh, it was,” Zock said. “I loved every minute of it.”

  “Jesus Christ, Zock,” I said, putting down the paper, “this is terrible. She’s going to think I’m a moron.”

  “All right,” Zock said, throwing up his hands. “If you don’t like it, don’t use it. It’s no skin off my nose. I don’t care. The fact that Bunny and I spent hours writing it shouldn’t enter in. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. For all I care, you can contact her by semaphore.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Please. I’ll use it. I’m proud to use it. I’m honored. I just hope it gets better later on.”

  It did. We went all the way through it, and Zock had actually written a fifteen-minute conversation for the two of us, it took that long to read. And toward the end it got very clever, especially the asking-out part, which was put in such a way that she couldn’t possibly refuse.

  “Zocker,” I said when we were done, “you’re a genius.”

  “Naturally.” He looked at his watch. “It’s five o’clock. Make the call.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, and I dialed the number. When the receiver got picked up, I put my finger under the first speech and started reading. “Hello,” I said. “Is this Sally Farmer?”

  “No,” came the answer. “This here is Ingebord.”

  “Who’s Ingebord?” I whispered to Zock. It beat him. “Well,” I ad-libbed. “Is Sally there?”

  “I’ll see,” was the reply.

  “What if she’s not there?” I said to Zock. “For chrissakes...”

  “Hello,” came a voice on the other end.

  I grabbed up the papers. “Hello,” I said, reading away. “Is this Sally Farmer?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Well,” I read.” This is Ray Trevitt.”

  “Who?” she asked me.

  I panicked. “Zock,” I whispered. “She says ‘who?’ What do I say?”

  “Well,” I said again. “This is Ray Trevitt.”

  “I don’t know any Ray Trevitt,” she said. “You must have the wrong number.”

  “Cut the crap, Sally Farmer,” I yelled into the phone. Zock smacked his forehead and fell on the floor.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “This here is Ray Trevitt,” I answered, trying to get calm. “You know. Ray Trevitt.”

  “Oh yes,” she said, sounding very haughty. “Perhaps I remember.”

  “You must have the mind of a minnow,” I told her. “Seeing as I sat behind you all last year in geometry.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That Ray Trevitt.”

  “The same,” I said, starting to read again. “I heard you were back from camp and I thought I’d just ring up to say hello.”

  “How did you know I was at camp?”

  “You have a good time at camp this year? I under—”

  “That’s really none of your business,” she told me.

  I went right on reading, mainly because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. “I understand you were a junior counselor. Gee. That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking,” I screamed into the phone, “about your seven lousy four-year-olds. I mean your four lousy seven-year-olds. Sally Farmer,” I said, throwing the papers away, “do you know what you can do? You can take—”

  “If you called to ask me out,” she interrupted. “The answer is no.”

  “Ho, ho, ho,” I said. “Who would want to ask you out anyway? Not me. Not under any conditions.”

  “In that case,” she said, “I accept.” Then she hung up.

  And so it was arranged.

  We double-dated, a term I hate but what else can you call it, on Saturday evening, the 29th of August. Zock drove and we headed out to the Palace in Crystal City to dance. Which Zock told me not to worry about, since Bunny had been giving us dancing lessons every day in her living-room, first taking one of us, then the other. But I was no Fred Astaire then, and even today the resemblance is slight.

  We drove out in absolute silence. Zock made a few stabs at conversation but they didn’t go over. I couldn’t think of a thing to say, and besides, I was pretty tired from just getting ready. All in all, it took me four hours to do same, what with having my hair cut, shaving, which I didn’t need to do but did anyway, managing to gash my chin good in the process, two showers, one bath, shining my shoes, plus all the rest. So I was not exactly calm, and Sally Farmer’s looking the way she did wasn’t much of a help.

  Sally Farmer was cute. She had short hair and a great smile but under no conditions could she be called anything but cute. There are a lot of girls that look just like her, and they all have short hair and great smiles, with never a pimple or blemish of any kind. They all look healthy, as if from the day they were born they have eaten nothing but yogurt.

  We got to the Palace and right away Zock went dancing off with Bunny, a terrible thing to do. And there we were.

  “I don’t suppose you dance,” Sally Farmer said.

  “You suppose wrong,” I came right back, and we started. Conversation while dancing is a gift, one I never received, so we stumbled around in silence for a while.

  “You certainly don’t dance very well,” she said.

 
“I was about to say the same of you,” I replied. Which was a lie, for she danced as well as anyone I ever knew. Beautifully, in fact. We stopped there, in the middle of the floor.

  “I don’t know why I came,” she said. “Pity, I suppose.”

  “Listen,” I began, trying to pull out a cigarette. I had practiced smoking in my room at night and although I was still gagging some, I figured she wouldn’t know the difference. But right then I was all thumbs, and the pack dropped out of my hands. I started swearing.

  “Maybe I ought to go home,” Sally Farmer said.

  I stood up. “Listen, Miss High-and-Mighty,” I told her. “I have screwed many a woman in my time, so you are nothing special to me.”

  At which she ran away.

  I don’t know why I said it, seeing as it was an exaggeration. But I had to say something and that was what came out. Sally Farmer tore over to Bunny and they talked. Then Zock came walking up to me.

  “What did you do, Euripides?”

  “I should have hit her, but I didn’t.”

  “You did pretty well without that,” he said. “She wants to go home.”

  But they calmed her down, and all that happened was we changed partners, so that I was dancing with Bunny. Who was very mad at me, seeing as Sally was her best friend. In spite of that, though, I liked dancing with her, for she knew everything I did wrong before I did it, and therefore not once did I step on her feet.

  About half an hour later she excused herself to go to the ladies’-room, and Sally did too. When Bunny came out, she said to me: “Sally is outside and would like to speak to you.”

  Which she was. Standing alone at the edge of a grove of trees that ran along one side of the Palace. “Bunny says you want to speak to me,” I said. But that is not at all what Bunny meant. What Bunny meant was: “Get out there and apologize for being such a booby,” booby being one of her favorite words. And I would have, if only she’d told me. At that time, though, I was not too strong on what Mrs. Crowe calls the social graces.

  “That’s a lie,” Sally Farmer said, turning, walking deeper into the trees, me following. “I bet everything you say is a lie.”

  “Not on your tin-type, sister,” I answered, but blushing anyway, for I knew what she meant and also that I had stretched the truth considerable. But I had to keep going. “Yes sir,” I said. “I have screwed so many women as almost to lose count.”