3 Day Terror (8 page)

“It’s nice to see you again,” the stranger had said.

He had startled her, coming out from behind the blackgums like that, offering flame for her cigarette. He knew he had — knew by the slight, involuntary jerk to her body as she turned suddenly and faced him; but the slow arch to her eyebrow, and the cool, steady surveillance she gave him with the glistening, jade-shaded, changing green eyes as her lips sucked in the fire and made smoke, belied her surprise; he admired the way she had immediately regained control, and all she had said was:

“Oh?”

“At the drugstore last night. I opened the door for you.” He pointed at the cigarette. “You’d just confessed you were a chain smoker.”

She had laughed then. She was the sort, he had surmised, who was always sure of herself, always at the reins, imperturbable.

“You have a good memory.”

“It’s my conceit,” he’d answered.

She had on some kind of shirt dress, silken and clinging, with the three buttons that began at the neck, undone; and standing above her he could look down and see that she wore no bra; and see the white swelling flesh of her there, and the nipples awake, and he thought of his lips fastening on to them — gently, he thought, but his good memory haunted him, and like some snag-toothed, lewd and giggling ghost, whispered words once scored in some old text:

He’d turned his eyes away, off to the warm sunshine, sifting through branches of sweet-gum and birch; and as though by some miraculous extrasensory perception she had heard his thoughts, she’d touched her long fingers to the lower button of the three, and looped it shut. And he could feel her action; wondered at the incredible shades of subtleties, unconscious complexities, and hidden human secrets sitting in the middle of the circle of:

“My name is Richard Buddy,” he said, looking back at her; at her face, at the dab of red on the tip of her cigarette, sick smoke coming in clouds; and she was beautiful.
She shall stand shelterless in the broad noon of public scorn;
why couldn’t he stop that from harping on his awareness?

And, casually — this is the way the circle starts its course — she said, “Hi. I’m Dee,” She’d smiled (leading where?). “Dee Benjamin. You’re a stranger.

“A visitor.”

“Anyone I know?”

But he didn’t want to tell her; he wanted to show her.

“It’s not easy to explain.

“Oh?”

“I’ll tell you what,” he’d said, “I’m going to speak at noon. Come and hear me. I’d rather explain that way.”

“Where?”

“At the courthouse.”

She’d jiggled an ash off the tip of the cigarette, cupping her eyes from the sun with her hand as she’d looked up at him. “I can’t promise.”

“Oh, well, then — ” He shrugged.

The same low chuckle — he was conscious of it now, measuring its importance to him — so soon? She wore no rings. “I mean, I don’t even know what you’re speaking about.”

“Come and see then.” “It might not be my cup of tea, ‘Mr. Buddy.”

He’d said, “Then again it might.”

“I still can’t promise.”

“I’m not asking you to,” he said.

• • •

In reflection, as he stood there by the log watching her go up beyond the bown hills, he admired his own agreeable manner; complimented himself on the fact that at no time had he pressed her, neither to come and hear him talk, nor to accept his ride back into Bastrop (“Thanks; but I feel like walking around this morning,” she’d said; he’d thought: “Why in hell? When we could get to know one another better?” Thought, Always I feel the pressure of time; always I am conscious that there is never enough for me; but merely nodded, “Of course,” suavely).

In reflection, as he started back across the field toward the road, he thought, I cannot afford to spend my energies in an affair. Involvements — those kind — have been my ruin. I cannot give myself to anything unless I give it all. Let her go; better she went.

Still, when his eyes fell to the sedge of grass under him, after he picked up the letter which had been dropped there and read the return address, a smile tipped the stranger’s lips.

B
ENNY
said, “I didn’t marry Maur, Chad. I’m back.” Said it again and again in all the misty early mornings of yesterday and their long wake-and-turn nights; and today said it: “I’m back. I didn’t marry Maur, Chad,” just after Cass left the bed and went into the bathroom, and Chad fell back for the second sleep, relieved that he no longer had to feign sleep beside his wife.

Benny walked into the drug store and came back to the booth where they were sitting and said it; and Chad asked her: “Benny, will you tell me now? Tell me —
why?
Why did you leave me?”

And Cass wasn’t there any more, only Benny and himself, and the way her fingers touched the nail of his thumb. “Listen, Chad. Can you hear me? Can you hear me, Chad? Chad?” coming then from the dream: “Chad, can you hear me?”

Cassie’s voice from the hallway. “Can you hear me, Chad? Telephone!”

“… probably nothing serious,” he had only half-listened to Jud Forsythe’s voice, cradling the arm of the phone in his neck, on the pillow, “but I thought you’d want to know.”

Half-listening and frustrated by the dreamer’s never answered question, sensing the disappointment in the ridiculously real way one does, saying, “Yes, I see,” mechanically — ”and certainly worth looking into,” vaguely; and finally, “Well, thanks, Jud,” letting the arm fall back.

Sun flooded the room; and Chad kicked back the pear-shaded summer blanket, saw that it was eight-thirty by the clock; and could hear Johnny-Bob’s voice from the bathroom where Cass was probably bathing him. The smell of bacon frying permeated the house, and Chad heard Ginny Lee’s voice drift up from the kitchen:

He thought of the difference between her and Doris Towers, and he thought of Crabb Suggs knocking Doris down on Love Lucy that night he lied about, and thought (sic!) that Suggs had actually gotten away with it — here in Bastrop — a thing like that happening; and he thought of what Cass had tried to tell him last night in the drugstore; thought, God-Lord, she’s probably right; thought of the way this morning when he woke and knew she was, he couldn’t just reach and fit her into him and tell her; why? And then thought of what he’d been circling around since he started his walking thoughts: Benny’s back.

Remembered the dream, tantalizing:
Benny, will you tell me now? Tell me — why? Why did you leave me?
And as though in this unreal way he could learn the real answer:
Listen, Chad …

But all he could hear was her voice telling him that morning in June, years back, over the telephone: “Chad, listen carefully — ” While a copy boy behind him was tapping his shoulder, “Mr. Chadwick! Listen, Mr. Chadwick!”

“What, Benny? Can you call me back, honey? I’m in the midst — ”

“No, you’ve got to listen now, Chad. Chad, listen, Maur is here.”

“Who?” handing the copy boy a piece of paper and a pencil, saying, “Write it down, for Christ’s sake!”

Benny had said, “Maur Granger.”

“That’s nice. Ask him if he wants to have dinner with us.”

“Chad, I’ve got to tell you something.”

The copy boy pushed the paper at him.

“What, Benny? Can I call you right back? Look, I promise …”.

“I’m going to marry Maur, Chad. I can’t explain it, but I’m going to marry Maur. I’ll try and write you a letter. I — ” and then the phone’s rude click, cutting them off; Chad sitting shock-swollen, his breath stopped, dizzy-headed and incredulous, his eyes looking at the copy boy’s message without seeing the words, without caring. The message said: Republic Korea invaded by Reds; and when he tried to call Benny back, Flo Benjamin’s sobs said: “G-gone, Jack, my little g-girl,” over and over, until the judge’s voice interceded.

“You know as much as we do, Jack. They left here about half an hour ago. They must have called you from an outside phone.” And then: “Who is he, Jack? This Maur?”

• • •

Chad could still vaguely remember that day in front of Jesse Hall, at the University of Missouri. He had been sitting in a group on the steps before the promenade, waiting for Benny to come from her 3:30 the way he always did, before they went across to the Shack for some beers with the crowd.

There was someone with her when she came out of Jesse. He was not very tall, just slightly taller than Jack Chadwick himself, and he seemed shy — even from a distance, he was one of those types whose expression and carriage and manner told you instantly that he would be pleasant and polite and eager to please. Chad remembered that he was wearing a sports coat and a shirt and tie, with a pair of neatly pressed brown slacks, cut to a taper, and there was a shine to his loafers — he remembered because few of the men on campus were so carefully attired — and at first Jack thought he might be a visitor. He had black hair combed straight and parted well on the side, a short straight nose, soft, curving lips and olive coloring, with handsome dark eyes that seemed never to look directly at another’s; dark heavy brows, and good white teeth that flashed in a wide smile when Benny said: “Chad, this is Maury Granger. We have Russian History together.”

Benny suggested that the three of them go to Gabe’s, a cafeteria, for coffee, instead of joining the crowd at the Shack, because Maury didn’t drink; and Maury insisted three times that he could order coke, and refused in a rather not-taking-any-notice way, to relinquish Benny’s books to Chad’s care.

In Gabe’s, Granger was pleasant, directing most of his conversation to Benny, who seemed absorbed by it; but he did not overstay his time, and when he left, Benny only said:

“He’s a nice fellow, don’t you think, Chad?” “I suppose,” Chad had agreed.

“I think he’s sort of — well, wholesome,” she had announced.

Shrugging the remark off, Chad had murmured, “Whatever that means.”

But Jack Chadwick should have known what that word meant, by Benny’s definition; should have remembered how many times Benny had said: “Let’s keep our relationship wholesome, Chad. I couldn’t bear it if it wasn’t. I couldn’t marry you.”

Because he himself had once said, “You sometimes talk as if the whole idea of sex was unwholesome, Benny. Just because someone says words over your head and you’re married doesn’t change it from unwholesome to wholesome.”

“Then, just let’s not let anything threaten our relationship,” she had said.

“If you want to be a virgin on the big night, it’s okay with me,” Chad had answered.

“I don’t want anything to happen between us before then,” Benny had said solemnly; and so of course, it had — the very next night after she said it, out in a wooded area called the Hinkson, on the outskirts of Columbia, Missouri, under a Harvest Moon, on an Army blanket, at a Hallowe’en Party, after a dozen or more drinks of a concoction called Purple Passion.

Benny had cried afterward, “Oh, my Gawd, Hallowe’en is fatal to me, seems like. I got the curse the first time on Hallowe’en too.”

“I’m sorry, Benny,” Chad tried.

“… didn’t want it to happen at all, Gawd — ” she cried, with her face in her handkerchief.

“Benny, will you ever forgive me?”

“And you promised you wouldn’t spoil our relationship.”

“I haven’t, Benny. I’m not sorry because it happened between us — ”

She wailed, “I am. I didn’t come or anything and it was all awful, Chad, and you promised — ”

“Benny, listen, I’m not sorry. It didn’t spoil anything. Benny, listen, I’m glad it was me the first time. And Benny, listen,” holding her in the cold October night, “listen, women don’t the first time, see? Women — ”

“I did with Jud,” she said. “That’s why I hated going with him.”

Chad was in shock.

She said, “And it was Hallowe’en that time too. It’s just spooky!”

“Jesus! Jesus, God, gone-dog,” Jack Chadwick said finally, “It sure enough is.”

• • •

Who is he, Jack? This Maur?

“My confidant,” Benny had called him — long after the day out in front of Jesse Hall, after the night on the Hinkson. “I can talk to Maur.”

“You can talk to me too, can’t you?’“

“Chad, it’s different. Remember, I could never talk about Jud and me, to you. Took me ages to confess that.”

“I took it all right. Under the circumstances I — ”

“But that’s just it,” she protested. “There aren’t any circumstances like that between Maur and me.”

Chad said, “Sometimes I wonder.”

“You see?” Benny responded. “You’re never going to let me forget that thing with Jud. Not really. It’s all right that you and Cass Beggsom had a thing, but it’s all wrong because Jud and I had a thing. Now you’ll accuse me of having things with every man I know.”

“Stop calling sex a thing.”

“Well, it is a thing! A
thing,
and if you think Maur would let anything happen between us, well, then, you’re really dirty-minded, Jack Chadwick, because he’s too fine.”

“Why don’t you marry him, then?” he had snapped.

“Why did you, Benny?”

Chad rolled over on his side and shut his eyes. She had never sent that letter she had promised over the phone, the one explaining. After the click in his ear that morning, Benny had never communicated with him again; and no matter how he strained to remember everything he could about Maur Granger, no matter how earnestly and desperately he searched his memory, he could not find the missing pieces that would fit the puzzle together and provide an answer. After all, she had only met Maur in the last semester of their Senior year; and while they had a few brief, mild arguments over the fact she went to Gabe’s with him for coffee a lot, studied Russian History with him out by the Columns, and let him walk her from a class on Red Campus to one on White — and maybe, rarely, went to a movie at the Uptown with him when Chad was cramming, Maur never really seemed to be authentic competition. When Chad and Benny were graduated, after they came back to Basrop, Chad couldn’t even remember her mentioning Granger’s name — until that day she announced she was going to marry him.

It isn’t that I love her any more, God knows, Chad thought, but I wish I knew
why,
wish I knew how I failed her. That’s the ghost; not Benny, but the reason Benny left me that way.

“Sleeping, Jack?”

He turned over on his back and looked up at his wife. She was wearing the yellow terry-cloth robe that matched her hair, which was long at her shoulders now, not yet tied back behind her head in the pony-tail; and her face was not made up yet. She had a young, pretty face — Jack used to tease her that she looked just like the movie actress, June Allison — and her expression was tender, and questioning.

He reached out a hand for her and pulled her down on the bed, his face nestling in the crease of her bosom, in an opening in the robe.

“I’m sorry, Cass.”

“It’s all right,” she said. Softly her fingers pressed his temples and moved along the nerve back of his ears, down into his neck.

“That feels good … You sure?” he said, “Sure it’s all right?”

“I understand; It was a shock. For both of us.”

“It’s been a bitchy summer all the way around, for you, Cass. I’ve been pretty hard to live with. I know that. Then last night — well, what I’m trying to tell you, honey is — Listen, Benny doesn’t mean anything to me. Do you believe that? She used to, but she doesn’t now.”

“It’s all right, Jack. I understand.”

“But I want you to believe me,” he said, “and I want you to know you were right about the editorials. It was the wrong tack. I’m not going to run Monday’s, Cass.”

“All right,” she said, “all right, darling … What did Jud want this early in the morning?”

“Some screwball gave him a ride this morning,” Jack Chad wick said. “Jud says he sounds like he’s going to stir up trouble about integration. Says he’s from up North, and came all the way down to start trouble in Bastrop.”

“Why would anybody bother coming all that distance?”

“There are a lot of nuts loose,” Chadwick yawned. “He won’t get far. Anyway,” he said. “I’m staying out of it.” He pulled her back with him on the bed. “How’s Mrs. M.?”

“Much better now, thanks,” she whispered.

From below Ginny Lee sang:

The Jack Chadwicks laughed.

“Sometimes I think she believes that,” he said.

“Much, much better,” she answered. “Darling — ”