Nine Stories (15 page)

"Yeah.
I know. I know. I don't know, though."

"Certainly
you do. Use your imagination. The two of 'em probably dragged Joanie
bodily--"

"Listen.
Nobody ever has to drag Joanie anywhere. Don't gimme any of that
dragging stuff."

"Nobody's
giving you any dragging stuff, Arthur," the gray-haired man said
quietly.

"I
know, I know! Excuse me. Christ, I'm losing my mind. Honest to God,
you sure I didn't wake you?"

"I'd
tell you if you had, Arthur," the gray-haired man said.
Absently, he took his left hand out from between the girl's upper arm
and chest wall. "Look, Arthur. You want my advice?" he
said. He took the telephone cord between his fingers, just under the
transmitter. "I mean this, now. You want some advice?"

"Yeah.
I don't know. Christ, I'm keeping you up. Why don't I just go cut
my--"

"Listen
to me a minute," the gray-haired man said. "First--I mean
this, now--get in bed and relax. Make yourself a nice, big nightcap,
and get under the--"

"Nightcap!
Are you kidding? Christ, I've killed about a quart in the last two
goddam hours. Nightcap! I'm so plastered now I can hardly--"

"All
right. All right. Get in bed, then," the grayhaired man said.
"And relax--ya hear me? Tell the truth. Is it going to do any
good to sit around and stew?"

"Yeah,
I know. I wouldn't even worry, for Chrissake, but you can't trust
her! I swear to God. I swear to God you can't. You can trust her
about as far as you can throw a--I don't know what. Aaah, what's the
use? I'm losing my goddam mind."

"All
right. Forget it, now. Forget it, now. Will ya do me a favor and try
to put the whole thing out of your mind?" the gray-haired man
said. "For all you know, you're making--I honestly think you're
making a mountain--"

"You
know what I do? You know what I do? I'm ashameda tell ya, but you
know what I very nearly goddam do every night? When I get home? You
want to know?"

"Arthur,
listen, this isn't---"

"Wait
a second--I'll tell ya, God damn it. I practically have to keep
myself from opening every goddam closet door in the apartment--I
swear to God. Every night I come home, I half expect to find a bunch
of bastards hiding all over the place. Elevator boys. Delivery boys.
Cops--"

"All
right. All right. Let's try to take it a little easy, Arthur,"
the gray-haired man said. He glanced abruptly to his right, where a
cigarette, lighted some time earlier in the evening, was balanced on
an ashtray. It obviously had gone out, though, and he didn't pick it
up. "In the first place," he said into the phone, "I've
told you many, many times, Arthur, that's exactly where you make your
biggest mistake. You know what you do? Would you like me to tell you
what you do? You go out of your way--I mean this, now--you actually
go out of your way to torture yourself. As a matter of fact, you
actually inspire Joanie-" He broke off. "You're bloody
lucky she's a wonderful kid. I mean it. You give that kid absolutely
no credit for having any good taste--or brains, for Chrissake, for
that matter--"

"Brains!
Are you kidding? She hasn't got any goddam brains! She's an animal!"

The
gray-haired man, his nostrils dilating, appeared to take a fairly
deep breath. "We're all animals," he said. "Basically,
we're all animals."

"Like
hell we are. I'm no goddam animal. I may be a stupid, fouled-up
twentieth-century son of a bitch, but I'm no animal. Don't gimme
that. I'm no animal."

"Look,
Arthur. This isn't getting us--"

"Brains.
Jesus, if you knew how funny that was. She thinks she's a goddam
intellectual. That's the funny part, that's the hilarious part. She
reads the theatrical page, and she watches television till she's
practically blind--so she's an intellectual. You know who I'm married
to? You want to know who I'm married to? I'm married to the greatest
living undeveloped, undiscovered actress, novelist, psychoanalyst,
and all-around goddam unappreciated celebrity-genius in New York. You
didn't know that, didja? Christ, it's so funny I could cut my throat.
Madame Bovary at Columbia Extension School. Madame--"

"Who?"
asked the gray-haired man, sounding annoyed.

"Madame
Bovary takes a course in Television Appreciation. God, if you knew
how--"

"All
right, all right. You realize this isn't getting us anyplace,"
the gray-haired man said. He turned and gave the girl a sign, with
two fingers near his mouth, that he wanted a cigarette. "In the
first place," he said, into the phone, "for a helluvan
intelligent guy, you're about as tactless as it's humanly possible to
be." He straightened his back so that the girl could reach
behind him for the cigarettes. "I mean that. It shows up in your
private life, it shows up in your--"

"Brains.
Oh, God, that kills me! Christ almightyl Did you ever hear her
describe anybody--some man, I mean? Sometime when you haven't
anything to do, do me a favor and get her to describe some man for
you. She describes every man she sees as `terribly attractive.' It
can be the oldest, crummiest, greasiest--

"All
right, Arthur," the gray-haired man said sharply. "This is
getting us nowhere. But nowhere." He took a lighted cigarette
from the girl. She had lit two. "Just incidentally," he
said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils, "how'd you make out
today?"

"What?"

"How'd
you make out today?" the gray-haired man repeated. "How'd
the case go?"

"Oh,
Christ! I don't know. Lousy. About two minutes before I'm all set to
start my summation, the attorney for the plaintiff, Lissberg, trots
in this crazy chambermaid with a bunch of bedsheets as
evidence--bedbug stains all over them. Christ!"

"So
what happened? You lose?" asked the grayhaired man, taking
another drag on his cigarette.

"You
know who was on the bench? Mother Vittorio. What the hell that guy
has against me, I'll never know. I can't even open my mouth and he
jumps all over me. You can't reason with a guy like that. It's
impossible."

The
gray-haired man turned his head to see what the girl was doing. She
had picked up the ashtray and was putting it between them. "You
lose, then, or what?" he said into the phone.

"What?"

"I
said, Did you lose?"

"Yeah.
I was gonna tell you about it. I didn't get a chance at the party,
with all the ruckus. You think Junior'll hit the ceiling? Not that I
give a good goddam, but what do you think? Think he will?"

With
his left hand, the gray-haired man shaped the ash of his cigarette on
the rim of the ashtray. "I don't think he'll necessarily hit the
ceiling, Arthur," he said quietly. "Chances are very much
in favor, though, that he's not going to be overjoyed about it. You
know how long we've handled those three bloody hotels? Old man
Shanley himself started the whole--"

"I
know, I know. Junior's told me about it at least fifty times. It's
one of the most beautiful stories I ever heard in my life. All right,
so I lost the goddam case. In the first place, it wasn't my fault.
First, this lunatic Vittorio baits me all through the trial. Then
this moron chambermaid starts passing out sheets full of bedbug--"

"Nobody's
saying it's your fault, Arthur," the grayhaired man said. "You
asked me if I thought Junior would hit the ceiling. I simply gave you
an honest--"

"I
know--I know that.... I don't know. What the hell. I may go back in
the Army anyway. I tell you about that?"

The
gray-haired man turned his head again toward the girl, perhaps to
show her how forbearing, even stoic, his countenance was. But the
girl missed seeing it. She had just overturned the ashtray with her
knee and was rapidly, with her fingers, brushing the spilled ashes
into a little pick-up pile; her eyes looked up at him a second too
late. "No, you didn't, Arthur," he said into the phone.

"Yeah.
I may. I don't know yet. I'm not crazy about the idea, naturally, and
I won't go if I can possibly avoid it. But I may have to. I don't
know. At least, it's oblivion. If they gimme back my little helmet
and my big, fat desk and my nice, big mosquito net it might not--"

"I'd
like to beat some sense into that head of yours, boy, that's what I'd
like to do," the gray-haired man said. "For a helluvan--For
a supposedly intelligent guy, you talk like an absolute child. And I
say that in all sincerity. You let a bunch of minor little things
snowball to an extent that they get so bloody paramount in your mind
that you're absolutely unfit for any--"

"I
shoulda left her. You know that? I should've gone through with it
last summer, when I really had the ball rolling--you know that? You
know why I didn't? You want to know why I didn't?"

"Arthur.
For Chrissake. This is getting us exactly nowhere."

"Wait
a second. Lemme tellya why! You want to know why I didn't? I can
tellya exactly why. Because I felt sorry for her. That's the whole
simple truth. I felt sorry for her."

"Well,
I don't know. I mean that's out of my jurisdiction," the
gray-haired man said. "It seems to me, though, that the one
thing you seem to forget is that Joanie's a grown woman. I don't
know, but it seems to me--"

"Grown
woman! You crazy? She's a grown child, for Chrissake! Listen, I'll be
shaving--listen to this--I'll be shaving, and all of a sudden she'll
call me from way the hell the other end of the apartment. I'll go see
what's the matter--right in the middle of shaving, lather all over my
goddam face. You know what she'll want? She'll want to ask me if I
think she has a good mind. I swear to God. She's pathetic, I tellya.
I watch her when she's asleep, and I know what I'm talkin' about.
Believe me."

"Well,
that's something you know better than--I mean that's out of my
jurisdiction," the gray-haired man said. "The point is, God
damn it, you don't do anything at all constructive to--"

"We're
mismated, that's all. That's the whole simple story. We're just
mismated as hell. You know what she needs? She needs some big silent
bastard to just walk over once in a while and knock her out
cold--then go back and finish reading his paper. That's what she
needs. I'm too goddam weak for her. I knew it when we got married--I
swear to God I did. I mean you're a smart bastard, you've never been
married, but every now and then, before anybody gets married, they
get these flashes of what it's going to be like after they're
married. I ignored 'em. I ignored all my goddam flashes. I'm weak.
That's the whole thing in a nutshell."

"You're
not weak. You just don't use your head," the gray-haired man
said, accepting a freshly lighted cigarette from the girl.

"Certainly
I'm weak! Certainly I'm weak! God damn it, I know whether I'm weak or
not! If I weren't weak, you don't think I'd've let everything get
all--Aah, what's the usea talking? Certainly I'm weak ... God, I'm
keeping you awake all night. Why don't you hang the hell up on me? I
mean it. Hang up on me."

"I'm
not going to hang up on you, Arthur. I'd like to help you, if it's
humanly possible," the gray-haired man said. "Actually,
you're your own worst--"

"She
doesn't respect me. She doesn't even love me, for God's sake.
Basically--in the last analysis--I don't love her any more, either. I
don't know. I do and I don't. It varies. It fluctuates. Christ! Every
time I get all set to put my foot down, we have dinner out, for some
reason, and I meet her somewhere and she comes in with these goddam
white gloves on or something. I don't know. Or I start thinking about
the first time we drove up to New Haven for the Princeton game. We
had a flat right after we got off the Parkway, and it was cold as
hell, and she held the flashlight while I fixed the goddam thing--You
know what I mean. I don't know. Or I start thinking about--Christ,
it's embarrassing--I start thinking about this goddam poem I sent her
when we first started goin' around together. `Rose my color is. and
white, Pretty mouth and green my eyes.' Christ, it's embarrassing--it
used to remind me of her. She doesn't have green eyes--she has eyes
like goddam sea shells, for Chrissake--but it reminded me anyway ...
I don't know. What's the usea talking? I'm losing my mind. Hang up on
me, why don't you? I mean it."

The
gray-haired man cleared his throat and said, "I have no
intention of hanging up on you, Arthur. There's just one--"

"She
bought me a suit once. With her own money. I tell you about that?"

"No,
I--"

"She
just went into I think Tripler's and bought it. I didn't even go with
her. I mean she has some goddam nice traits. The funny thing was it
wasn't a bad fit. I just had to have it taken in a little bit around
the seat--the pants--and the length. I mean she has some goddam nice
traits."

The
gray-haired man listened another moment.

Then,
abruptly, he turned toward the girl. The look he gave her, though
only glancing, fully informed her what was suddenly going on at the
other end of the phone. "Now, Arthur. Listen. That isn't going
to do any good," he said into the phone. "That isn't going
to do any good. I mean it. Now, listen. I say this in all sincerity.
Willya get undressed and get in bed, like a good guy? And relax?
Joanie'll probably be there in about two minutes. You don't want her
to see you like that, do ya? The bloody Ellenbogens'll probably barge
in with her. You don't want the whole bunch of 'em to see you like
that, do ya?" He listened. "Arthur? You hear me?"