Hunger and Thirst (55 page)

* * * *

A period of growing coolness. Him knowing almost immediately that it was her companionship, her ego boosting that he missed. Her slowly beginning to accept the inevitable and working consciously at failing out of love with him.

Another Christmas approaching. Another cycle of emotions passing. He had lost contrition. The humility had drained back into whatever warped cubbyhole it had appeared from. He hadn’t called her in several weeks.

Then one day an acquaintance gave him a ticket for a formal holiday dance. In three years of school he had never gone to a formal. He thought it might be nice. He told himself it was the least he could for Sally. She was surprised when he called and asked her. “A formal!” she said, “A real honest to God formal! With you?” “Don’t drop your teeth kid.” “I’m so surprised.”

“I know you’re ashamed of me in public,” he said, “But it’ll be pretty dark in there and if anybody comes along that you know I can stick my head under my coat.”

“I don’t know what to say. Gosh dam.” “That’s pretty effective,” he said, “Well?” “It would be fun Erick.” “Sure?”

“Of course. I’d like to go.” They made arrangements.

* * * *

He was getting assembled in white shirt, bow tie and his dark suit. They called the dances formal but that was for the benefit of the girls. Most men, the bulk of them veterans, didn’t own a tuxedo or care much whether they did or not.

“You look good,” Lynn said.

“Gad, praise from those pinched lips,” Erick said.

Lynn was sitting at his desk, a thick volume of psychiatry in his lap.

“Did you get her a corsage?” Lynn asked.

“Yes.”

“What kind?” “Roses.” “The cheapest.” “Drop dead.”

He saw Lynn smile. Sometimes he didn’t understand Lynn. “Why didn’t you take Virginia to this thing?” he said. “I wouldn’t care to waste an entire evening with her.” “You’d rather get myopic on that book.”

“Quite correct,” Lynn said, “I have too little time to read during the school week. Besides I have to go over some manuscripts for the magazine.” “When are you going to take another of mine.”

“When you stop gadding around with that tit-heavy dancer and write something decent.”

“Oh, screw off.”

Lynn shrugged, “You asked me,” he said.

The night was cold and crisp. The earth and air seemed tight from the cold as if they were holding themselves back rigidly, waiting for Spring.

Riding out to Sally’s house, Erick got into a spell, which had been recurring periodically since December started. It was hard to decipher. Generally it was a sense of culmination. The realization that graduation was close at hand, that a rich segment of his life was about to end.

He reviewed the months, the years past. For some reason it seemed that the moments of happiness stood out. Whether that was from actual predominance of mental design he didn’t know.

Every once in a while, while in those moods, he would get an agonizing desire to turn the clock back. The future seemed cold and threatening, barren of promise. In a few months the trees would burst into renewed life, grass would reach its green fingers through the earth.

And he would be gone. Severing in a moment all the fabulously intricate webs of relationship that the years had woven. With the sharp upward sweep of graduation he would cut himself apart and return to a stale unwanted life. He would be back home with a doting mother, without a room of his own, subject to the frustrations and furies of being an unwanted boarder. And he would never see Sally again.

But at the moment that was the least of his worries. What was more important was the desire to move back, to recapture old pleasures, to retain indefinitely those days when he was young and could always turn for help to someone else. When life held only promise. When there were no great battles to be fought, when the too difficult thinking was done for him.

* * * *

She was wearing a form-fitting red gown held up by thin shoulder straps. A remnant of remaining tan gave her smooth shoulders and upper breasts a healthy color. Her thick brown hair was gathered together in back with a gold clasp. Under it, the flow of tresses cascaded over the back of her white neck. Her face was bright with color; red lips, pink cheeks, softly tinted brown eyes, the red roses nestling in her dark hair.

She pressed her cheek against his. “You smell pretty,” he told her. “Thank you. Thank you for the roses.” “They match your dress.” “Yes! Isn’t that nice?”

She stepped back and looked at him. She straightened his bow tie. “Mmm-hmm,” she said. They looked at each other and smiled. “Shall I call a cab?” he asked. “If you like.”

He knew he couldn’t ask her to go to a formal in a bus. He went into the hall and dialed. She passed him and went to her room for her coat. He could smell the trailing essence of her perfume as she passed him in the darkness.

When she came into the living room he was standing stiffly by the window. Something cold gripped him as he turned and looked at her. He wondered for an instant if there were ghosts of moments the way there were ghosts of people.

The room seemed to shrink. She stood in front of him. He felt nervous and restless. No words seemed to fit the moment. “What have you been doing,” she asked. “Oh. Nothing.”
Wishing time would stand still
. “Nothing?” “School. Studying.” “What’s the matter, Erick?”

“I don’t know. Just thinking … how fast time goes.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It always does.” “I suppose.”

“But this life,” she said, “It’s artificial anyway.” “What do you mean?” “College,” she answered, “It’s contrived.” “Yes. I suppose it is. I like it though. It’s … free.” She smiled slightly and he saw pain there. “Free,” she said, “That’s your world.”

The honk of the cab’s horn split their reverie. He helped her on with her coat and put on his own. Then they went out and got in the cab. He gave the driver the address. On the way he hardly spoke.

“I’ll probably fracture your toes,” he said once.

“I hope not,” she said.

“Is Leo going to be there?” he asked.

“No, she’s out of town for the weekend.”

“Oh.”

He yearned to confide in her, tell her what he felt. How lost and afraid he was becoming as all the old things fell away. But the thought of telling her didn’t appeal to him. Something had left their relationship. The spring before, even the early fall before he’d met Melissa, he could have spoken to her. He could have put his head in her warm lap and told her everything without holding back, pouring the words from his heart because he knew she would understand and comfort him. But the closeness had faded. He tried not to pretend any more that he wasn’t the one who had destroyed it.

It was about nine thirty as they walked up the sidewalk to the gym.

“Ever been to a dance here?” he asked.

“A few times,” she said.

They went in. Erick handed his ticket to one of the men standing at the door. The sound of the band entered their ears, mixed up with the swish of dancing feet, like far-off breakers.

“Shall we check our coats?” he asked.

“We’d better,” she said.

“Okay.”

They went down the side hall into the field house. Sally said hello to a young man crouching behind a counter made of a wooden plank balanced on two barrels. The young man was jamming coke bottles into a dishpan of cracked ice.

“Hi, Sally,” he said, “How’s my favorite dancer tonight?”

“Fine,” she said.

Erick helped her off with her coat at the checking table. The men looked her over and whistled.

“Look who’s here,” said one of them.

“Danged if it ain’t that shapely fizz-ed teacher.”

“Oh you kid.”

“Twenty three skiddoo.”

“Wow wow!”

“Don’t tell me they finally put you boys to work?” Sally said.

“You know us,” said one of them.

“That’s why I asked.” Sally said.

They made noises of mock protest. Erick dropped the coats irritably on the table. One of the men looked at him briefly, and scraped two checks across the counter. Then he beamed at Sally again.

“Look at that gown! Man, is she showing us a thing or two.”

Whistles in unison. Sally laughing. Erick glowering, endless nasty remarks filling his head.

“What are you doing here?” one of the men asked her.

What the hell do you think she came here for, idiot! Erick’s mind snapped, to play basketball? He stood there, invisible.

Then he stepped away from the counter, turning his back on her. He felt like walking out of there and going home. He was sorry he’d come, sorry he’d asked her. All the longing and the quiet reverie had been washed away. He wanted to be alone, to get away from all this.

Finally, her hand on his arm.

“I’m sorry Erick, one of the boys was telling me about his new baby.”

“Legitimate?”

She looked at him and one side of her mouth twitched in the beginning of a smile. They walked down the hall wordlessly. Another member of the football team said hello to her as they passed him.

They entered the gym.

It was dimly lit, looking deceptively large. Long curled streamers of red and green were stretched from the beams to the walls and fluttered brightly in the smoky yellow light from the overhead fixtures. Glowing paper discs of every color hung down from the streamers. A giant cotton snowball was suspended from the center of the ceiling. Colored balloons undulated gently around it.

On the left side, as they entered, the band platform was set up. The members, in grey slacks and red corduroy jackets sat slumped in their chairs between sets. Their faces glowed whitely, spectrelike from the standlights. The band leader was leaning over speaking to the girl vocalist who sat, white arms crossed over her breasts.

Around the edge of the sawdust sprinkled floor, almost a hundred couples sat on folding chairs, stood arms folded or leaned against the yellow firebrick walls. The broken chatter of their conversations filled the air. Smoke ghosts swirled up lazily over their heads.

“Pretty,” said Sally.

“Yeah.”

She took his hand and they walked over to a large decorated Christmas tree standing between the doors. A sprinkle of colored lights shimmered in the dark branches. The air around it was heavy with the pungent odor of pine.

“Isn’t it pretty?” she said.

“Mmm.”

“I love Christmas.”

“I used to.”

“You mean you don’t anymore?”

He sighed. “It’s like anything else. You get out of the habit.”

“Get
in
the habit.”

“I can’t very well in my room.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You mean you’re not going home?” she said.

He shook his head.

“Oh Erick!” she said, her face filled with sympathy, “How come?”

He said nothing as they walked over under the shadow of the track.

“Why, Erick?”

“Oh, mostly finances. But there’s nothing to go home to anyway.”

“Oh.”

“I could dig up the money I suppose. My mother said she’d send it to me. But I don’t want to go.”

She squeezed his hand then and smiled tenderly. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be,” he said, “I have no home life.”

“But your mother?”

He stared at the floor. “I suppose she’ll miss me,” he said, “I don’t know.”

“I do,” she said.

“I’ll be home for good in June anyway,” he said bitterly.

She was quiet and he looked at her. The band lights reflected in her eyes. Her face was blank.

“You’ll be home,” she repeated quietly. “For good.” Her eyes seemed haunted.

Then she threw off the feeling and looked around the dance floor.

“A lot of people.”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“For being nice,” he said, “For being sorry about my having to stay here.”

“I
am
sorry,” she said, “I think Christmas is beautiful. But not alone.”

He put his arm around her and they stood watching the people. He smelled the quaint combination of odors in the air; stale sweet and perfume. Roses and old socks. He smiled at it.

Then the saxophones began to moan suddenly as if with an attack of stomach trouble. The beat of the moment died in their groaning. Drums introduced an orderly beat. All complexity departed in a methodical four-four rhythm.

He turned and extended his arms and they moved out onto the floor. Couples slipped out of the shadows. The broad floor was soon filled with them. The music gasped brassily over their heads as their feet glided over the smooth, saw-dusted floor.

Erick closed his eyes and they danced. He felt the hypnosis of swaying in darkness. He pulled her closer and their cheeks pressed together. He wondered why he didn’t bump into anyone. Usually they crashed periodically into other couples. Usually he made girls gasp as he dug heels across theirs. That night he seemed to weave in and out among the dancers like a radar-driven bat in a black cavern.

“Are you leading me?” he asked once.

“No,” she said but he was half convinced she was.

When a rumba started he said that was where he got off.

“Can’t you rumba?”

“After these years, you ask that?”

“I don’t remember ever trying with you.”

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

“All right but God help your tootsies.”

They started. He kept glancing at his feet.

“Don’t look so grim,” she said.

“I can’t help it,” he said, stumbling. He stopped. Started again. He lost the rhythm.

“Relax,” she said.

“I can’t.”

“Sure you—oh!”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “We better quit.” He stumbled again, shook his head. “It’s no use.”

She shrugged slightly as they left the floor and stood by the wall. A tall boy in a tuxedo gangled over.

“Have this dance Sally?” he asked.

“No, thank you.”

He looked startled. “Huh? Oh.
Oh!
H-how you been?”

“Fine, thank you,” she said.

He goggled. He smiled. He glared at Erick momentarily. He turned on his heel and strode away rapidly.

“What’s this?” Erick asked, “Refusing?”