JR (50 page)

—I see. She held her glass out where he tipped the bottle over his own. —Did he know where he was going? in that shape?

—Yes Marian… Paused stooped there in the doorway he drank deliberately. —He was going to get laid.

—That's pretty.

—You asked me. She moved in with him down the hall there at Ninety-sixth Street a couple of months ago, one of these kids with bare feet and dirty hair but she can do more for him in bed than Gibbs and I can over a bottle. That's why he didn't want me to go with him, best sublimation there is for blowing out his brains.

—Pretty.

—How the hell would you know … he stood looking into his glass for a moment before he emptied it and reached for the bottle.

—Papa?

With the tug at his jacket he appeared to shrug. —I'm coming David.

—Papa has Mister Schramm only got one eye left now?

—We hope the doctors can make Mister Schramm's eye better David but if…

—But he could still live if he only has one can't he, because is that why you have two when you start and then if …

—That's enough David, get your book and maybe Papa will read to you before bed.

—But you said he'd play a game when Mister Schramm went.

—I played four games with you this afternoon David and…

—But when you play I always win, I want Papa to play.

—I'll play with you David. Go get it ready.

—I did.

—Did you pick up all those shoes in the hall?

—No.

—Go put them away and I'll be in in a minute. Marian?

—When do you want dinner, she said turned again to the window, the breadth of her shoulders gone in the rise of her weight to her arms spread embracing the sink from end to end.

—I'm not hungry. He raised his glass, and from a plate there lined with a ketchup spatter of beans selected as from an hors d'oeuvres tray hot dog in wrinkled remnant. —David finished his supper? He paused, found another. —That God damned Davidoff handed me an Oriental for lunch whose doctor has him on rare beef, tells me to take him out and tie one on, Christ. I thought I could pick up something on the expense sheet until I saw our bill at The Palm.

—If you want bread with dinner get some when you go down.

—Cigarettes, milk, bread. Butter?

—I don't know, you'll have to look.

—Marian I, why don't you ever make lists? And when you go shopping, milk, you know we'll need milk… He had the refrigerator open pushing things aside, looking, —And why are you keeping this gravy left from the veal, we …

—Well just look at it! She'd turned behind him for the ketchup spattered plate. —How much food can I stock in that refrigerator? How can I make lists and shop a week ahead with a refrigerator that size?

—All right, with the one in the new house you can shop for a month, he went on stooped, pushing things aside, looking, —don't see any butter.

—Get some when you go down then, she said scraping clots of bean over the scotch bottle upended in the trash.

—I didn't know there was more asparagus at dinner last night, I would have… what's this, lamb chops?

—I got them for dinner.

—Three ninety-six for three lamb chops?

—I can only eat one, I thought…

—But three ninety-six, what would…

—I thought they looked good, I was hungry when I went shopping and…

—If you go shopping when you're hungry you always spend…

—Well what should I do! Come up for rare beef at The Palm? instead of sharing David's chicken noodle soup and finishing his peanut butter sandwich?

—All right! Would you like to have been there today like I was? Making stupid conversation with a grinning Chinese who's chewing up slices of his nine dollar steak and blowing them out on his plate? tells me his doctor says he can't digest the meat but he needs its juices so he patiently chews the whole God damned thing bite by bite and blows every one of them out, now what the hell kind of a lunch do you think that was, the whole place staring at us and the waiter coming over to ask if anything is unsatisfactory. Do you think I wouldn't rather be right here? in my workroom with noodle soup and a peanut butter sandwich

trying to clear up the second act of that play?

—David's waiting for you, she said streaming away the ketchup smears under hot water, gazing down through the window. —How early will you leave in the morning.

—On a trip I may never take? if you don't go CIPAP you might as well stay home, paying a grown man a good salary to watch a Chinaman blow food across the room and fly three thousand miles to spoon feed a speech to another grown man so he won't say Plato rhymes with tomato?

She put down the plate, motionless. —If you do go will you leave me some cash?

He put down his glass. —Forty? he dug deep in a pocket and opened a roll of bills behind her, twenty upon twenty, tens, tens, —I'll only be gone a few days.

—Those suits you have at the cleaners will be more than ten, I don't have…

—Well just ask, he said, pulling another ten. —Here.

—Just put it down, she said without turning. —I always have to ask.

And he had the ice tray again, scooping cubes into his glass and staring at them there, swirling them around and simply staring at them. —Davidoff had a woman in this morning, a gal he calls her,

bringing her in to help jazz up our PR operation as project director with her topflight track record in curriculum management, as he calls it.

Then he got me aside and… He gazed at the swirling cubes a moment longer and then reached for the bottle, —he asked me how I'd like working for a woman. And I told him.

She turned with her own emptied glass for the ice tray, and took the bottle where he put it down. —Why don't you just quit then, instead of, instead of all this, your book's being published again and when you get this award…

—And how long could we live on that? Just David's nursery school, and the moving, the house up there, splitting a five percent royalty with those stupid God damned, that won't even pay for David's nursery school and that award, it wouldn't even be just giving up the salary, these companies are so damned paternalistic with their deferred stock options retirement plans insurance medical benefits they finally have you tied hand and foot, just stop and remember when David was born and we could hardly…

—You know what I stop and remember Tom? She'd turned abruptly, resting elbows back on the sink's edge, facing him. —I remember Doctor Brill telling us David needed his operation for double hernia when you first went to work there and you put it off, and put it off.

There was that baby and we didn't know what was going to happen but you kept putting it off till your company medical benefits took effect, so you wouldn't have to …

—Marian you… you have a real instinct don't you Marian, a real God damn instinct…

—And you didn't want him. Did you, you didn't want him in the first place.

—What, Marian what the hell do you think you're saying?

—David. You didn't want him in the first place.

—Marian you, you've said some rotten things but you, that's the rottenest thing you could say isn't it, so completely… dishonest and rotten.

—Well it's…

—I wanted to wait to have children, didn't I, I wanted to wait till we got on our feet, that wasn't David I didn't want, there was no David and if you ever dare to, you know God damn well that when he was born when he was David you know God damn well he's everything I… he stopped and got breath. —You've got a real instinct for the jugular haven't you Marian.

—Well it's true she said, elbows back on the sink's edge, facing him.

—You're like a, sometimes you're like an illness Marian, you're like a God damned long illness I picked up somewhere…

—You're your own God damned illness Tom, she said coming past him with her glass for the hall and there, over a shoulder, —what are you going to do with these newspapers.

—I haven't been through them yet, he came after her empty-handed

—haven't had the…

—You've got papers and clippings piled everywhere, I can't even find a place to …

—All right Marian, I'll…

—Take them into your workroom or, somewhere, you said you were going to store them uptown.

—All right! He got past her in the hall carrying them, got the door opened at the end of it and the light switch with his elbow. —What are all these curtain rods doing here?

—I had to put them someplace, she said past the door and he stood there turned one way, the other, finally put the newspapers on the chair drawn up to the typewriter, leaning toward it to move the curtain rods and turn the unfinished lines up on the roller.

And there, coming over the foot of that rise, three cock pheasants burst up from the ground with the terrible slowness of things in a dream. They wheeled, I fired, and they were gone. But there on the ground with a broken wing one of them struggled across the stones, I fired again, and it kept on, struggling till it reached a wall where it fought its head in amongst the stones…

—Papa? Which do you want to be, Piglet or Pooh.

—Yes I'm coming David … he snapped off the light and pulled the door closed, and came up the hall slowly. —Wait David, we can't play there, here get your feet out of the laundry.

—I'm being Rabbit, I beat Mama four times being Rabbit.

—Here let's, wait, there's never any place to sit down.

—Mama was Piglet, do you want to be him or Pooh Papa.

—I just haven't had time to sort it, she said holding her glass high, gathering the laundry to an end of the sofa with her free hand. —Did I tell you the Bartletts are separating?

—No. Here David just, here, just put the board on the floor. We'll play here on the floor, he said spreading the board between his feet, looking up. —Maybe he finally had enough of that grinning pear she's painted on everything they own. What about the children.

—I won Mama four times today Papa. I always win.

—You don't always win David. Nobody does.

—She said he's agreed to move out and get a room in town, he'll come up to see them weekends, she says she just can't live with someone she doesn't respect. He lost his job, you must have heard that.

—Better to go down dignified, watch your foot David. Provide, provide here, sit over here.

—I want to sit beside you.

—All right but don't climb. Now, shake the bag, really shake it.

—She said she just can't respect a man who doesn't respect himself… and she stood over them a moment longer swirling the cubes loose in her glass before she turned. —I'll start dinner, you can eat when you want to.

—Papa are you being Pooh?

—Yes. What did you get.

—I got blue. I go all the way here.

—You skipped one David.

—What?

—You skipped this blue back here. You're back here.

—Oh.

—And I got green. Here. Now really shake the bag.

—I did. I got red, Papa if you got black you'd go all the way there.

—That's why there are only two blacks in the whole bag.

—Why.

—To make it harder to get. And I have… green again.

—You only go here. Shall I move you?

—Yes now, wait, now wait David.

—I got yellow, I go all the way to …

—No, no you can't take two out of the bag and then decide which one you want and put the other one back.

—I didn't take two out. They just came out.

—All right, then put them both back in and shake the bag again, and when you reach in just take one.

—I got yellow anyway, see? I don't even have to close my eyes, do the rules say you have to close your eyes?

—Yes, so nobody will be able to …

—Who made the rules?

—The people who made the game. That's what a game is, if there weren't any rules there wouldn't be any game, now sit up.

—If you get yellow the next time you'll get in the Heffalump trap.

Papa do I have to close my eyes even if I hold the bag way over here and look over here?

—Yes now sit up David, it's my turn.

—Papa?

—What.

—Papa was Jesus a regular person?

—Well he, he was a person yes but, he …

—Did he grow up to be an Indian?

—Did he what?

—Did Jesus grow up to be an Indian?

—What makes you think that.

Twisted away from the bag at his arm's length, he faced the wall opposite where as art an ikon hung unapproachable behind a chair. — He has no shirt and he has those red marks on him.

—Those are blood David, you know that.

—Then why is he wearing that hat?

—That's not a hat, it's a crown of thorns, you know the, you must know the story about Jesus being crucified when they mocked him about being a king? and made him a crown out of thorns to …

—Then where did he get that blood on him.

—Well he, when he was crucified. You've seen the crucifix and the pictures of Jesus on the cross with the nails through his hands and feet, so his blood…

—Papa do those nails go right through his hands?

—They, yes, yes, they…

—I always thought he was holding on up there. Papa?

—Let's, sit up now, if you…

—Is it my turn?

—No it's my turn, David if you're not careful of your feet you're going to kick the pieces off the board and we won't know where we're supposed to be.

—I know, I'm here and you're way back here, if you'd get black you'd get way up there.

—Blue.

—You only go three. Red. I got red. Look. Look Papa look where I am now and look where you are.

—Yes all right let's… yellow.

—You got in the Heffalump's trap. Mama Papa got in the Heffalump trap. Mama?

—She can't hear you David. Don't shout.

—If I get red now I'll, yellow. I got yellow too look, I always win look, now look where I am and…

—David you don't always win, nobody…

—I won Mama four times today. Mama?

—Stop shouting David … He held the bag down, —And I … got …

—Black! You peeked. Papa you peeked!

—Peeked?

—You peeked in the bag Papa I saw you. You peeked.

—Come on David, you…

—You peeked in the bag, I saw you.