Summer Crossing

  Leave me the hell alone, he told Ida when she came hunting him out at the parking lot, and Ida said: you’re a fine one, aren’t you? Hit your own mama, and there she is in bed with a broken heart, not to mention Becky, and she says her brother says he’ll kill you, so listen, I’m just warning you, that’s all. But he hadn’t hit his mama, Ida was only saying that to make it worse; or had he? He’d gone blind there a minute, seeing those tricksters in the hall, and oh how he’d fixed them: this is my wife, he’d said, and after the way they’d carried on by Jesus if he’d ever set foot in that house again. As if he didn’t know why they held on to him; sure, an extra paycheck was a good thing to have around: love, had they loved Anne? except he was sorry if he’d hit his mama, please God, he hoped he hadn’t hit his mama. All his boyhood he’d stolen Baby Ruths and taken them to her; and Milky Ways that they put in the icebox and cut into little slices: my Clyde is an angel, he buys his mama candy bars. My Clyde will be a famous lawyer. Did she think he liked working in a parking lot? That he was doing it just to spite her, when all the time he could be a famous lawyer, a famous anything? Things happen, Mama. And Grady McNeil was part of the things that happen. But what of Grady? She’d walked out the door, and that was the last time he’d seen her. Bubble said: lay off that phone, save your nickels, she’s just sore. Only she hadn’t been sore, so it didn’t make sense, unless it was because he hadn’t shown up that night: well, so he had gone to the bar where Bubble worked and had one helluva time: sometimes you got to be by yourself, right? And if she was going to stay married to him, then they’d have to find a new way of living. For one thing, he wanted her to get out of that apartment. He knew a house on Twenty-eighth Street where they could get a couple of rooms. Now where was she? Aw, sit still, said Bubble. Bubble was over thirty, he worked as a bartender in an out-of-the-way nightclub; he was a friend from army days, and he was like his name, round, bald, thin-skinned.

  One morning, it was the fourth day of the heat wave, Clyde woke up and felt an arm around him; he thought he was waking up with Grady, and his heart began to kick: honey, he said, snuggling deeper, gee baby, I missed you. Bubble let out a big snore, and Clyde pushed him away. He was living in Bubble’s place, a furnished room far uptown; there was a Chinese laundry downstairs, in the street summer-wilted children were always crying chink! chink! and some mornings there was an organ-grinder, he was there now, his penny tunes clinking like the coins housewives tossed to the pavement. He missed her, colored balloons, flower wagons reminded him of that, and he rolled to the far side of the bed; he lay there, nursing an image of her, and with a gliding hand he stroked his parts. Cut it out, said Bubble, leave a guy get his sleep, and Clyde moved his hand away, ashamed, but Grady remained, wavering, unfulfilled, and he remembered another girl, one he’d seen in Germany: it was a spring day, clear, cloudless, he was walking in the country and, crossing a bridge that spanned a narrow crystal river, he looked down and saw, as though they were riding below the surface, two white horses attached to a wagon, their reins twisted around the arms of a young girl, whose drowned broken face glimmered under the dancing water; he took off his clothes, thinking he would cut her loose, but he was afraid, and there she remained, wavering, unfulfilled, beyond him in death as Grady seemed in life.

  He gathered his clothes on tiptoe, then crept out the door; there was a pay-phone in the hall, he dialed her number, as usual no one answered. A swarm of kids buzzed around him on the stoop downstairs, hey, mister, give me a cigarette, and he barged through them, swinging his elbows, and one smart aleck, a skinny girl in a moth-eaten bathing suit, said hey, mister, button up your fly, and she ran after him, pointing. Jesus, he said, and grabbed her by the shoulders: her hair flared, floated, her face, pasty with terror, seemed to undulate, like the face of the girl in the river, to blur, as Grady’s did when he tried to see her hard, whole, as his own, and his hands went limp, he ran across the street, the kids hollering: pick on somebody your own size. And who would that be, somebody his own size, when he felt so small and mean?

  Seating himself at the counter of a White Castle, he ordered orange juice; it was too hot for anything else, not that he minded the heat, for in weather like this, New York, disowned by half its population, seemed to belong as much to him as to anyone else. While waiting for the orange juice, he rolled back his sleeve cuff and examined a stinging fresh tattoo that circled his wrist like a bracelet. It had happened the night before, banging around town with Gump; Gump and his damn reefers, let him smoke a stick or two and he always came up with some crazy idea, such as: I know a character will give us a swell tattoo for free. Gump knew some characters all right, this one lived in a coldwater flat in Paradise Alley, and he lived alone except for six Siamese and a stuffed python called Mabel: oh my dear boys, you should’ve known your old mother in those days, when Mabel was alive! What mad camps we were, so jolly, such fun, everyone adored us, several kings and all the queens ha ha, yes, we played the world together, dancing, dancing, twelve weeks in London alone, Waldo and Sinistra, Sinistra, that was Mabel’s stage name, poor darling, she’d be alive this very minute if it wasn’t for those filthy airlines, it really is too sick-making; you see, they wouldn’t allow Mabel on the plane, this was in Tangier and we’d had an imperative call to Madrid, so I simply wrapped her around me and put on an overcoat; everything was fine until somewhere over Spain she began to squeeze, I know how she felt, poor smothering baby, but it was absolute agony, Mabel getting tighter and tighter until finally I simply fainted, whereupon they hacked her in half with a knife, said it was the only way they could get me loose, those butchers! Ah, well—a flag, a flower, your sweetheart’s name? This isn’t going to hurt a bit. But it had hurt; G-R-A-D-Y, the letters of her name, blue and red and linked with a line, were still afire, so he bought a bottle of baby oil, and sat on an open-top Fifth Avenue bus massaging it into his wrist. He got off the bus near the Frick museum; walking park-side and under the trees, he started downtown, his eyes darting over the diamond-squared stones, an old habit that meant he was searching for lost valuables, money: twice he’d found rings, once a twenty-dollar bill, and today he stooped to pick up a nickel; straightening, he looked across the street, and he was where he wanted to be, opposite the McNeils’ apartment house.

  Look at Mr. Fat Ass: the doorman, swallow-coated, cotton-gloved, who does the bastard think he is, puffing like a pigeon? Ah, no sir, Miss McNeil is not at home, ah, no sir, I’m afraid she left no message. But he could not face the doorman down; he could only spit behind the bastard’s back. He crossed the street again, and paced up and down under the trees, hitching his shoulders. Then he saw little Leslie, the elevator boy, a cherub with pink cheeks and a sugary mouth; he came darting under the trees: hey there, he said, love furtively filling his eyes, look, I know where she is, only don’t tell him I told you, and he said the doorman had been forwarding mail to Miss McNeil at her sister’s house in East Hampton. He seemed hurt when Clyde offered him a half-dollar. So what d’ya want me to do, kiss you? said Clyde, and little Leslie, retreating, said fiercely: who d’ya think you’re kidding?

  He’d thought he would go crazy, there alone on the glaring acre of scorched gravel, and the afternoon like a greasy bubble that would never burst; but Gump showed up with a handful of real Havana cigars and a bottle of gin. Gump was on vacation, and they sat in the parking-lot shack enjoying the treats he’d brought and playing two-handed stud. Clyde couldn’t keep his mind on the game, he lost twenty-two consecutive deals, so he threw down his cards and leaned in the doorway, sulking; late-day shadows surged, swayed, he saw night coming toward him, and he said, listen, you want to make a little trip with me? Because he was afraid to go alone.

  • • •

  All this would go on, these waves, these sea roses shedding sun-dried petals on the sand; if I die, all this will go on: and she resented that it should. She raised up among the dunes and drew a scarf across her thighs, then let it slide down again, for there was no one to see that she was
naked. It was a coarse, unprofessional beach, crudely vast and scattered with old bones of driftwood. Grand people, preferring the club’s beach, never used it, though some, like Apple and her husband, had built houses along the line. Every morning after breakfast Grady packed a box lunch and stayed hiding among the dunes until the sun kneeled sea-level and the sand grew cold. Sometimes she stood by the water, letting foam rinse around her ankles. She’d not ever distrusted water, but now each time she wanted to plunge out between the waves, she imagined them concealing teeth, tentacles. Just as she could not advance into the water, so she could not cross the threshold of a crowded room: Apple had given up asking her to meet anyone; twice they’d quarreled over this, once especially when Grady got all dressed for a dance at the Maidstone Club, then changed her mind and refused to go: and Apple said, I just think you’d better see a doctor, don’t you? Grady could have answered that she had: Dr. Angus Bell, a cousin of Peter’s who practiced in Southampton. Afterwards, she felt she’d known the truth longer than was possible—considering that she was not quite six weeks pregnant. In the house she’d found a medical book, and at night, locking the guest room door, she studied the portraits of lurid, fist-tight embryos, the lace-like veins, veil-like skin and coagulating eyes, which, curled as in sleep, hung to the roots of her heart. When? at what moment? the afternoon it rained? she was sure it had happened then, it had been so much the best: lying there, safe from the cool shadowy rain, and Clyde kicking back the covers to join her with a gentleness more gentle than the closing of an eyelid. If I died (in Greenwich she’d heard so often about Liza Ash, the much loved Liza who knew the words of every song: and Liza Ash had bled to death in a subway toilet) all this will go on. Shells in the tide, ships far off and going farther.

  Or drawing nearer. According to a letter just received by Apple, her mother and your poor father were sailing from Cherbourg the sixteenth of September, which meant they would be home in less than a month: Tell Grady please to have Mrs. Ferry come in from the country as she is sure to have made a mess—God knows I should have left Mrs. Ferry in charge—as we are not up to another mess having just seen what those Germans left of the house in Cannes simply unbelievable and another thing tell Grady her dress has turned out more marvelous than a dream simply unbelievable.

  At last there arrives a time when one asks, what have I done? and for her it had come that morning at breakfast when Apple, reading the letter aloud, reached this mention of the dress; forgetting she’d not wanted it, and knowing only that now she never would wear it, she fled down the stairs of a new and mysterious grief: what have I done? The sea asked the same, keen gulls repeated the sea. Most of life is so dull it is not worth discussing, and it is dull at all ages. When we change our brand of cigarette, move to a new neighborhood, subscribe to a different newspaper, fall in and out of love, we are protesting in ways both frivolous and deep against the not to be diluted dullness of day-to-day living. Unfortunately, one mirror is as treacherous as another, reflecting at some point in every adventure the same vain unsatisfied face, and so when she asks what have I done? she means really what am I doing? as one usually does.

  The sun was weakening, and she remembered that Apple’s little boy was having a birthday party for which oh god she’d promised to organize games. She slipped on her bathing suit and was about to step onto the open beach when she saw two horses cantering through the shallow surf. Astride the horses were a young man and a handsome girl with black streaming hair; Grady knew them, she’d played tennis with them the summer before, but now she couldn’t recall their name, P-something and part of the younger manic set: rather charming, especially the wife. Up the beach they rode, their voices uniting in thrilled hoopla, and back they stormed, the drenched horses glistening like glass. Dismounting not far from where she lay hidden, and leaving their horses to cavort, they clambered over the dunes and fell with lovely laughter into a cove of high grass; it was quiet then, gulls glided soundless, sea breeze shivered the grass, and Grady thought of them curled there together, protected by a world that wished them well. Malice prompted her to show herself. Rising, she walked directly past them, and her shadow, skimming over them like a wing, was meant to shatter their pleasure. In this it failed, for the P-somethings, made innocent by the world’s goodwill, could not feel a shadow. She ran down the beach, inspired by their victory, for through them she felt she’d seen the future as it bearably could be, and as she climbed the stairs leading from beach to house she unexpectedly found herself looking forward to children and a birthday.

  At the top of the stairs she met Apple, who it appeared had been on the point of descending. The encounter surprised them, and they stepped far apart, regarding each other rudely. Grady said, “How’s the party going? Sorry if I’m late.” But Apple, rescrewing an earring with a petty precision that seemed to suggest their meeting had jarred it loose, looked at her as if she could not place her, as if, in fact, they needed to be introduced. It had the double effect of putting Grady on guard and off. “Really, I’m sorry if I’m late. Just let me run up and slip on a dress.”

  Apple stalled her, saying, “You haven’t seen Toadie on the beach?” Toadie: an excruciating nickname for her husband, George. “He went out looking for you.”

  “He must’ve gone a different way. But isn’t it a little silly, his going to look for me? I promised I’d be back to help with the party.”

  Apple said, “You needn’t bother about the party,” and a disturbing tremor twitched the corners of her mouth. “I’ve sent the children home; Johnny-baby’s crying his heart out.”

  “That can’t very well be my fault,” Grady said, uncertain, waiting. “I mean: why are you frightening me?”

  “Am I? I should’ve thought it the other way round, which is to say: why are you frightening me?”

  “Oh?”

  Then Apple made herself clear; she said: “Who is Clyde Manzer?”

  A flag lily, pulled from a stalk next to the path, tore apart in Grady’s hands, its colored scraps scattering like discarded theater stubs. It was such a long time before she said, “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because not more than twenty minutes ago I was told that he was your husband.”

  “Who told you that?”

  She merely said, “He did,” but her pretty little face had gone suddenly wretched. “He came out from town in a taxicab; there was another boy with him, and Nettie let them in, I suppose she thought they had something to do with the party—”

  “And you saw him,” said Grady softly.

  “He asked for you, the short one, and I said, are you a friend of my sister’s? because actually it didn’t seem to me that you could know him; and then he said, no, we’re not friends, but I’m her husband.” There was an intermission, a sound of waves rocked the silence, and then, while both avoided the other’s eyes by gazing at the pieces of broken flag lily, she asked if this were true.

  “That we’re not friends? I suppose so.”

  “Please, dear, I’m not angry, really I’m not, but you must tell me: what have you done?”

  What have you done what have I done, like an echo in a cave that reduces all to nonsense. She would so much rather someone had a tantrum, it was the sort of thing she’d prepared for. “But you are an idiot,” she said, summoning an amazingly natural laugh. “This is one of Peter’s tasteless jokes; Clyde Manzer is a friend of his from college.”

  “I would be an idiot if I believed you,” said Apple, sounding like her mother. “Do you think I would ruin Johnny-baby’s birthday over a joke? Of course that boy is no college friend of Peter’s.”

  Lighting a cigarette, Grady sat down on a rock. “Of course he isn’t. As a matter of fact, Peter’s never seen him. He works in a parking lot, and I met him there last April; we were married not quite two months ago.”

  Apple moved a little up the path. She seemed not to have heard, though presently she said, “No one knows this, do they?” She watched Grady shake her head. “Then there isn’
t any reason why anyone should. Naturally it can’t be legal, you aren’t eighteen, twenty-one, whatever it is. I’m sure George will agree that it isn’t legal; the thing to do is keep our heads, he’ll know perfectly what can be done.” Her husband waved at them from the beach, and she hurried to the stairs, calling his name.

  Beyond him Grady saw the horses: dashing their hooves in the surf, splendid as horses in a circus; and remembering the promises they signified she caught Apple’s wrist: “Don’t tell him! Only that it’s a joke of Peter’s. Oh listen to me, I’ve got to have these next weeks, please, Apple, give them to me.” They held to each other, balancing, and Apple whispered, “Stop it,” as if her voice were lost. “Take your hand off me.” But when Grady tried to release her, she discovered that really it was Apple holding on to her, and she twisted in this embrace, smothering with a sense of the scene gathering in upon her: the horses charged forward, George was on the stairs, Clyde she felt not far away. “Apple, I promise you, three weeks.” Apple turned away from her, and went toward the house: “He’s waiting for you at the Windmill,” she said, not looking back. A mist had risen on the water, and the horses, scarcely seen, streaked by like birds.

  A waitress, her apron appliquéd with chintz windmills, put two beers on the table and lighted a lamp. “You gentlemen staying for dinner?” Gump, who sat cutting his nails with a pocketknife, spit a piece of nail toward her: “So what have you got?”

  “To start with, we have got Cape Cod oysters or shrimp New Orleans style or New England clam chowder—”

  “Bring us the chowder,” said Clyde, just to shut her up. It was fine for Gump, he’d had a good time thumbing comic books and fooling with girls on the sluggardly Long Island local that had brought them out; but Clyde had sat the whole way as though he were riding a roller coaster. Once when the train stopped a butterfly had lazied through the open window; he’d caught it in a peppermint sack, and the sack sat before him on the table: it was a present for Grady.