Frolic of His Own (75 page)

What three famous men living or dead have had the first name Rudolph.

Hitler? —Good God! he muttered, backing off furtively from the solitary audience propped up before the screen there in a litter of crusts and
glossy wrappings —Good God! again, bursting into the kitchen, —can such stupidity really exist?

—You said you wanted somebody to talk to didn't you?

—I didn't mean him I meant, I mean him yes, plain as the nose on his face when Lee lost Jackson the whole cause was lost but he wouldn't face it, he kept the slaughter going for two more whole years, half starved boys without shoes in their first long pants blown to bits at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, that old fool in there with his fried hog rinds talking about the noble cause it was vanity, vanity that's all it was, look at Gettysburg. Lee might have taken Meade at Gettysburg but he couldn't get his act together, do you think Pickett would have led that insane charge if Jackson had been around taking his orders direct from the Almighty?

—I don't know Oscar, but we're out of bread.

—Have you looked? We can't be out of everything.

—There's this jar of olives.

—We'll starve him out, he muttered, coming down heavily on a wooden chair to seize the wine bottle there on the bare kitchen table and cling to it like a stanchion, —he wants some more Tater Skins when we go shopping how does he think we, will you hand me a glass? I never knew anyone could be so selfish even Christina, I can't even reach her. When I called there I got some awful woman who said she was Harry's sister I didn't know he had one, when I said where's Christina she said she didn't know or give a damn and hung up, what about your friend's car the one with red hair?

—He dumped her so she needed it back, all he wanted off her was what he got off of me but just wait! You can hire a cab can't you?

—To go shopping for Tater Skins? splashing wine on her hand where she set down the glass, —we can't even . . .

—We can starve him out Oscar but what about us, am I supposed to just sit here eating Cream of Wheat while you get the DT's drinking all this wine?

Bent unsteadily over the basin for a late afternoon shave the ultimate confusion of realms collided upstairs and down, reaching for a towel all unawares as he'd been of that excursion laid out erect beside her on a bed littered with cans of shoe polish that he was, as real as anything, this very instant walking naked into the junkyard of the mind here in the sunroom where sleep tempered the soft rise and fall of her belly and the descent of an intinerant hand idly scratching the warm crest mounting the vulvate den massed thick with hairs like some mortal Gorgon spread for the thrust of an impudent tongue in the shaving mirror turning to search a drawer for a clean shirt from the sticky doings in that marshy
venereal bog where Dionaea muscipula closed the spined hinges of pudendal lips summoning up the legendary vagina dentata as he zipped up his trousers on their oblivious tenant, a faint whimper and flick of her tongue the only avowal of his visit, licking her lips and her hand rising gently kneading her breast coming over on her side where time passed over her unbroken and unheard as his footsteps down the stairs, her face still buried in the pillow when his howl burst down the hall full upon her starting her up crying out —I'm coming! where he stood as though turned to stone staring wide with horror at the screen, fifty, a hundred of them writhing in a ball round eyes mirroring nothing in this mating frenzy of darting tongues' search for the scented female among them seizing him by a rigid arm stumbling down the hall beside her to the kitchen drawn up panting, both of them, recrimination prompting her abrupt recovery with —so there! didn't I tell you? That's what it will be like!

—But what, what are you talking about!

—On your nature program in there, only the next time you'll really be seeing them! as she thrust the wine bottle from reach, —and Oscar? now fully recovered, —I need some money.

—But, good God so do . . .

—I have to go down there Oscar. Because I've been thinking about poor Daddy all alone down there with only Mama and this big operation where you don't know what can happen if tragedy strikes and we'd never had this chance to get reconciled like you and your daddy I'd never forgive myself. You want some coffee?

—No. Yes! Of all the, if tragedy strikes it's a common operation happens all the time there's no reason you no, no the only reason you want to go it's just an excuse, it's just like Christina it's just an excuse to get out of here and leave me with this this, with him in there and . . .

—Well what am I doing here anyway? What am I even doing here! It's spooky. If I came to help you out back when you were alone and get away from Al I can get away from him down there can't I? Because what am I supposed to do, you have to go in there and talk to him and pack him up to go home if you want to wait till she gets back because you already got done what he came up here for about your daddy's will and everything didn't you? and there's my poor daddy down there I don't even know if he's got one, where it was always Bobbie everything was for Bobbie and all this insurance mess on that Porsche he bought him now he hasn't got Bobbie anymore with this big operation where the Lord might call him I have to be by his side don't I? I'm his daughter aren't I?

—You've waited this long, you can wait till she gets back can't you? and we get things straightened out here?

—I just told you Oscar, you can go in there and straighten him out
right now. You said you think she's out having a good time with Harry someplace why should she hurry back out to this madhouse she called it and I'll need some money, I'm going in and pack.

—No wait, wait! but she was gone, and he sat muttering over his coffee finally digging in pockets to rescue a Picayune from a crumpled packet up lighting it at the stove to puff at it without apparent pleasure till a distant fanfare invited him up the hall into a brand new confusion of realms superseding the revelations of the nature program where that mass of male red-sided garter snakes, writhing in a lusty tempest of confusion brought on by one witty fellow among them oozing a female scent to entice their frantic courtship enlivened its own chances to line itself up along the back of the real thing when she raised her tail and the curtain on the spicy story going the rounds down there putting Old Lardass out of the race, seemed some homo's showed up claiming they'd had sex together at five dollars a throw five or six times in the back seat of a green Chevy back when the Senator was soldiering over at Fort Bragg and there's Bilk all fussed up denying it but this homo has it all down chapter and verse, time place license number and all, called himself Daisy back then got up as a girl all perfumed up with a blonde wig and left lipstick all over Orney's drawers smelling like a rose, had to confess he recollected Daisy all right he'd bragged about her to his buddies never knew the difference till this homo's arrested dressed in those black skirts like a priest for those altar boys and shows up asking Old Lardass to get him off for old times' sake or he'll —Listen! I don't want to hear about it now, I have to talk to you! or he'll tell the whole world about —listen! What was that! and he was back down the hall where she stood in the kitchen trembling over the puddled breakage of the teapot smashed on the floor. —No it's all right, turn on some lights before you step on the, what are you doing!

—That! and a dinner plate smashed at his feet, —and that! but he'd caught her hand and the teacup with it —oh I told you, didn't I tell you?

—But who? and he got her to a chair, an arm round her quivering shoulders, elbows plunged on the table and a dishcloth stifling her sobs —what happened?

—It's Daddy!

—But, but wait, wait just try to, there's nothing you could have done just try to let yourself . . .

—I called Mama to say I was coming down there and and, and . . .

—No just try to, try to relax there's nothing you could have done is there? his hand tightening on her shoulder standing over her there, pressing her close —you knew it was going to be a serious operation and . . .

—I should have gone down there! I should have gone while there was
still time I told you didn't I? where I still could have talked them out of it and got reconciliated before it was too late?

—Well you couldn't have, listen. When the doctors say an operation's necessary you can't talk them out of it and, and you shouldn't because, you can't blame yourself you shouldn't even try because they, because that's what it was for, to save his life that's what the operation was for and if he died while they . . .

—If who died.

—But, your father, you . . .

—I just talked to him.

—Yes I, I know, I know and, and I'm sure he heard you aren't you? a hand dubiously stroking her temple, —I'm sure he . . .

—Jesus Christ Oscar what are you talking about! She wrenched away from him, wiping her tears and staring at him —who said he was dead! I said I just talked to him didn't I?

—But, but I thought . . .

—And he God damn well heard me too so did she, so did Mama! I told her I'm calling to tell her how worried I am about Daddy and I'm coming right down there so she puts Daddy on the phone too and I'm telling them both how I miss them and how I finally realize how selfish I've been and I'm coming down there so we can be together and reconcile everything like we used to be because I'm their only daughter without Bobbie there with them in their hour of need so they get all weepy about how happy they are the Lord has let me see the light about being selfish and ungrateful after all they've done for me and, and up in the cupboard there get me some whisky, it's up there in the cupboard will you?

—Yes just, yes but . . .

—Just get it! So how happy they are for me that I've seen the light and don't have to come down there and shouldn't worry because Bobbie's there with them in spirit on the right hand of the Lord where he's waiting for them to join him and how happy it will make me to know they just wrote this new will giving everything to Reverend Bobby Joe's church so they know they'll be with Bobbie on the other side and no, don't put water in it! Just give it to me, and would I please talk to Reverend Bobby Joe who's right there all the while giving them this spiritual comfort from the Lord's merciful bounty and the sneaky slimeball wants to give me some too, I could kill him! She drank it off and banged the glass down on the table. —I could kill him.

—No but listen, your daddy's not, he's still alive isn't he? back to smoothing her hair with his hand —once he's had this operation, it's a pretty routine procedure they can still change their minds when he gets over the . . .

—Leave me alone! she caught his wrist with a strength that almost brought him down —change their minds they haven't got any minds left, do you think they'd be buying tickets to join Bobbie on the other side if they did? I'd like to just tell Bobbie what I, where is he. Where is he Oscar, your little man in the black suit you can go back to that hospital and give him a message to take over there and tell Bobbie what I think of this whole mess!

—No relax, try to relax, he didn't take the messages anyhow he was just looking for terminal cases who'd take them for you, do you want some coffee? I just saw some spaghetti in the cupboard, I'd better go in there and see whether the old . . .

—Let him take it then! Let him take the message he's on his way over anyway isn't he? He can take one for Mama and Daddy too when they show up telling me they won't need money over there when I need it right here on this side unless he's already there, you better feel his pulse first with that black sock in his lap in there watching snakes on the television and bringing us those ashes he's the messenger, isn't he? I'm going in and lay down.

He sat there staring at the bottle his gaze as empty as the glass she'd left behind with her fevered phantasmagoria he suddenly struck through reaching for it to pour a drink swallowed at a gulp and another, rising more hazily on the smoke of a Picayune stealthily up the hall past the dark cavity of the library into the chill beyond where nothing moved but the durable fugitive from halitosis still harvesting dead leaves with a bamboo rake made in a Chinese prison giving way, by the time he'd grasped the vacancy of the armchair there and filled it, to the refreshing carnage of the evening news, each respite for relief from acid stomach, aching back, bad breath and bleeding gums prompting another foray to the kitchen, another car chase, another siege of gunfire as fact blurred into fiction until at last he roused himself and lumbered unsteadily down the hall to where she lay lips parted as though ravished, an arm flung out and her still breasts undefended coming down to pull off his shoes and his trousers and sprawl beside her, his heavy breathing broken by a cough and hers an answering moan subsiding to a silence as unbroken as the long slow pace of night wrapping the house so that, when it came, the streak of light out there seemed rather to confirm than breach the darkness as the dull throb of the car's engine closing in left a stillness the more intense when it abruptly stopped. —What's that! he came up on an elbow, —listen! he caught her shoulder, sinking back, until the clatter of a door brought him full upright —someone's out there!

One after another the lights were coming on up the hall, and from the cavernous dark behind him —Oscar? Who is it.

—It's just Christina he called back, watching her sit down loosening her coat, simply looking at him across the room as over a great distance, clutching a worn book in her hands, all she'd brought.

—It's chilly in here, she said finally.

—Well of course it's chilly Christina it's the middle of the night, what did you ex . . .