Honeymooners A Cautionary Tale (20 page)

What’s the matter? Alice Ann
said.

Nothing, Ralph
said.

Ralph stood up and peered
about. He could feel his heart racing. He sat down.

Is somebody coming? Alice
Ann said.

I don’t know. I heard
something. I don’t see anybody. Haven’t you had enough of that
water? You’ll look like a prune.

Alice Ann breaststroked back
to poolside near Ralph. Between the slight separation in her front
teeth Alice Ann spit a long, thin arc of water toward
Ralph.

Hey there, Ralph said, and
scooted his chair back. —You got my shoes all wet.

Oh, bullshit, Ralph, Alice
Ann said. —Come on in. The water’s ripe and right.

I have a headache coming on.
A migraine, Ralph said. Ralph turned the radio on and bent toward
it.

I still say it’s your diet,
sweetie, believe me, Alice Ann said. She jangled her glass at Ralph
and he bent to reach for it. He filled it with ice and whiskey and
handed it back to her. Alice Ann took a long drink, then crunched
an ice cube between her teeth.

I wish you’d go on that
karma-cleaning diet I learned about at the Zen Garage, Alice Ann
said. —You’d be a new man in no time.

I don’t want to be a new
man, Ralph said. —I just want to be the old me. The way I used to
be. Back then.

Back when, honey?

I don’t know. Back when I
was about two or three, I guess. Back before all of this, anyway,
Ralph said, and slowly waved his glass about him.

I think the worst is over,
sweetie, Alice Ann said. —We’ve suf-fered, sure. But we’re going to
start getting some good out of this incarnation, Ralph. Both of us.
I know it. And we’re going to be made stronger for all our
suffering in the long run. If not in this life, then in the next.
We have to work off our karmic debts, that’s all.

Alice Ann, would you just
answer me something? Ralph said. —And don’t fly off the handle,
okay, please. This is just a simple, honest question. What’s with
you and those zen-birds, anyway? Where do they get off, Alice Ann?
Just answer me that.

You never fail to amaze me,
Ralph.

I just don't understand
those birds, Ralph said. —I'll admit it. All right, so it's me
being plain old ignorant. Maybe that's it. I don’t know. But I
honestly think they’re all a bunch of nuts.

You are ignorant, Ralph,
Alice Ann said. —You’re right about that, anyway.

All right. All right. I’ve
admitted it. I’ve said it out loud. So set me straight. Explain
things to me. I’m willing to learn. Really. Okay, explain India to
me, for instance. You take India. Over in India people are
starving, right? Everybody knows that. It’s a known fact. Starving
people over in India. So, okay, explain cows over in India to me,
Alice Ann.

Cows, Ralph?

Cows, you bet, Ralph said.
—See, you don’t have an easy answer for that one, do you? You could
fill Texas twice over with all the cows they have roaming around
over there in India. Cows roaming the streets. Cows all over the
sidewalks. Cow poop everywhere. Cow pee. It’s just awful. And you
know why, Alice Ann? You want me to explain those cows to
you?

I've tried everything to get
you to expand your horizons, Ralph. There is a spiritual dimension
to this world. You simply won't let yourself open up to new
possibilities. You live in a closed system, Ralph.

Those people over there in
India are starving, as we've estab-lished, but do you think they'd
have the good sense to barbecue up some grade-A beef? Not on your
life. Because they believe one of those bovines might be their dead
daddy returned to life on the hoof. Amazing. My dad has been dead
for years. I bet I’ve put away ten thousand hamburgers since my dad
passed, and I’ll tell you something, Alice Ann. I’m not one bit
worried. You’ll never in a million years convince me I ever took a
bite out of Dad.

The final thing about you,
Ralph, is you don’t want to probe new possibilities. You don’t have
the imagination for it. And your stories suffer for it,
too.

Leave my stories out of
this, Ralph said. —My stories don’t have a thing to do with this
business.

Your stories are out of it,
Ralph, Alice Ann said. —And this is the reason why. You don’t have
the . . . No, you won’t let your imagination probe deeply enough.
You won’t let your imagina¬tion seek the deeper mysteries in this
world of veils. That’s why your stories are about colorless people
going about the business of their mundane, colorless lives. There
is no spiritual dimension to your stories, Ralph. And more’s the
pity.

That’s crazy, Alice Ann,
Ralph said.—Just utter nonsense.

It’s true. It is.
Malignancies, Ralph. Malignancies make up your stories. And bad
karma. And that is one reason I pity you.

You pity me? Ralph said.
—Now there’s a laugh. What about those Zen looneybirds over there
in India who walk around with nails in their dicks? Don’t deny it,
Alice Ann! It’s a true feet. That’s just what some of your Zen pals
do, Alice Ann. They pound nails through their dicks, then roam
around the countryside carrying these begging bowls. You’d never
catch me giving a guy with a nail in his dick anything. I see a guy
with a nail in his dick and I’m gone in the opposite direction. You
call that spiritual? Are those the kinds of nuts you think I should
write about? That’s what is pa¬thetic. You’ll never convince me in
a million years that pounding a nail through your dick is any way
to worship God.

Well, Ralph, I’ll bet it
keeps them out of trouble, anyway, don’t you agree? Alice Ann
said.

There! Ralph said. —There it
is! I knew it. I knew all day you were just waiting to drag up
dirt. That nice picnic didn’t fool me a minute, Alice Ann. All that
fried chicken, done to a turn. That tasty potato salad. I knew all
along you were just waiting to catch me off guard and nail me
good.

That’s not true, Ralph. I
mean it.

That’s a likely story. We
weren’t going to bring up old business, I thought. We agreed, I
thought. That business was dead and buried, I thought.

You’re right, Ralph, Alice
Ann said. —Would you believe me if I told you I was
sorry?

What? Ralph said.
—What?

Would you believe me if I
told you I was sorry?

I don’t understand this,
Ralph said.

Would you believe me if I
told you I have never been unfaithful to you?

What? Ralph said. —What is
this, one of your trick questions?

No, Alice Ann said. She
drained her drink and placed the glass at poolside. She pushed off
backward and floated to the center of the pool, where she treaded
water.

You’ve got me all worked up
now, Ralph said. He turned up the radio and poured more whiskey
into his glass.

So what’s the score? Alice
Ann said. She breaststroked back to poolside.

I don’t have the first
idea.

Freshen my drink, too, Alice
Ann said. She handed her glass to Ralph, and when he returned it,
she drank deeply. —I may as well tell you something,
Ralph.

Tell me something? Ralph
said. —What? Tell me what?

You’re not going to be very
happy about this, Ralph.

Jesus, don’t tell me, then.
No, yes, tell me. Go ahead. Jesus, Alice Ann.

You’d find out sooner or
later, anyway, Ralph. In fact, you may already know about it. God
knows. But in case not, you may as well hear it from my
lips.

Oh Christ, Alice Ann! You
have me all worked up now. Just tell me and get it over with. Just
do it!

Ralph, I wrote your
girlfriend a letter.

What was that? Ralph said.
He turned off the radio.

You heard me,
Ralph.

Jesus Christ, Alice Ann!
Jesus, what possessed you? That old business is dead and
buried.

It is now, Alice Ann said.
She took another long drink.

What in the world did you
say? Alice Ann, I don’t understand. What did you write her, Alice
Ann?

Nothing but the truth, Alice
Ann said, and smiled sweetly. —The truth about us,
Ralph.

Alice Ann swam backward
across the pool, then returned breaststroking. Ralph turned the
radio back on, loud.

When she reached poolside,
Alice Ann said, Why don’t you go get into your swimsuit, sweetie?
You need the exercise.

I didn’t bring any swimsuit.
I don’t even own a swimsuit.

Well, we always have our
birthday suits, sweetie, Alice Ann said. She undid her halter top
and tossed it toward Ralph.

Are you going crazy, Alice
Ann! Ralph said, and jumped up. He waved his hands at her. —Stop
this, Alice Ann! Stop this!

Alice Ann bent beneath the
water and tugged off her bikini bottoms. She swung them around over
her head and threw them toward the nearest peacock among the
flowering bushes. Ralph ran to them. He ran holding the bikini
bottoms before him to the pool’s edge. —Here, Alice Ann! Here!
Ralph gasped, and shook them violently before her face. —Do you
want to go to jail?

We’re an old married couple,
Ralph. We’ve seen each other naked a million times over the long
years, Alice Ann said. She pushed off backward again from the
poolside and floated to the center. Her nipples looked black in the
vegetal light. Ralph watched the smooth muscles of her stomach and
thighs flex. At some point in the last few weeks Alice Ann had,
with no explana¬tion, begun shaving her pubic hair.

There’s somebody coming,
Ralph said. He glanced about behind him. —Really, Alice Ann. It’s
probably the manager, Alice Ann. Jesus Christ, Alice Ann, this has
got to stop somewhere. This is crazy, Alice Ann. Crazy.

Alice Ann arched backward
into a dive and disappeared beneath the water. Ralph threw the
bikini bottoms into the water after her. He kicked the halter top
in, too. He turned away and then turned back and kicked her glass
into the pool. Ralph stumbled to his chair and sat down heavily. He
pressed his finger¬tips against his temples and shut his eyes.
Somehow he would call Lindsay and try to tell her his side of
things again. Give the lie to Alice Ann’s letter, and to those
horrible half-truths that asshole Jim Stark had told her. Tonight.
Somehow.

Ralph stood up suddenly and
hurried to the edge of the pool. He stared down into the pale red
water. He knelt down at the poolside. Ralph braced himself as best
he could, and he bent as far out over the water as he
dared.

Alice Ann had been sound
asleep when loud voices from the hallway stirred her. After a
moment she remembered where she was, but she lay still with her
eyes shut. She felt small and safe in this enormous bed, which
continued to vibrate from the fist¬ful of quarters they had stuffed
into the slot on its headboard earlier in the evening for hours of
healthful, fingertip toning touch.

Alice Ann and Ralph had paid
an arm and a leg for this suite, and why not? What did it matter,
she had asked Ralph. Even bankrupts deserve a bone. She had
borrowed the money from a friend at the community college where she
taught English and drama, so the debt was hers and hers alone. For
the price of this suite a complimentary Continental breakfast was
included, so tomorrow morning Alice Ann planned to put that one
o'clock courtroom business out of her mind and pig out, while Ralph
would suck one of his screwdrivers.

Alice Ann stretched and felt
around for Ralph. The sheets on his side of the bed were still damp
with champagne. Alice Ann had given Ralph a champagne-and-tongue
bath, had licked champagne from his belly button. Alice Ann opened
one of her eyes and peeked about. Across the darkened bedroom the
huge color television screen was a silent red, white, and blue
rippling American flag. The bathroom was dark. Alice Ann got out of
bed and put on her robe. She heard her name called from the
hallway.

Unhand my husband! Alice Ann
screamed at the burly uniformed guard who had Ralph in a headlock
in the hallway. Ralph, naked as the day he was born, was squirming
and wiggling in the big man's clutches and trying to call out for
her, but his voice was mostly muffled in a coat sleeve. —Alice Ann,
help! Ralph gasped.

Remove your fucking hands
from my husband this instant! Alice Ann screamed at the
guard.

Listen, lady, the guard
grunted, as he wrestled around with Ralph, falling against a
wall.