The Girl Next Door (11 page)
I could see Meg’s face begin to tremble, and I knew she was trying not to cry. But unexpected as all this was I was trying not to laugh. Donny too. The whole thing was weird and maybe it was partly the tension, but what Ruth had said about the artwork was
funny.
funny.
Her arm tightened around Meg’s shoulders.
“And if you give them what they want, then you’re nothing but a slut, honey. You know what a slut is? Do you, Susan? Of course you don’t. You’re too young. Well, a slut’s somebody who’ll spread her legs for a man, it’s that simple. So they can weasel their way inside. Woofer, you quit your goddamn grinning.
“Anybody who’s a slut deserves a thrashing. Anybody in this town would agree with me. So I just warn you, honey, any slutting around this house will mean your ass is grass and Ruth’s the lawn mower.”
She released Meg and walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door.
“Now,” she said. “Who wants a beer?”
She gestured toward the painting.
“Kind of pale-looking thing, anyway,” she said, “doncha think?” and reached for the six-pack.
Chapter Fourteen
Two beers was all it took me in those days and I went home lazy and high, with the usual promise not to breathe a word to my parents, which wasn’t necessary. I’d sooner have chopped off a finger.
Once Ruth finished her lecture, the rest of the evening had been pretty uneventful. Meg went into the bathroom for a while and when she came out again it was as though nothing had happened. Her eyes were dry. Her face an unreadable blank. We watched
Danny Thomas
and drank our beers and then at one point during a commercial I made plans , to go bowling Saturday with Willie and Donny. I tried to catch Meg’s eye but she wouldn’t look at me. When the beers were done I went home.
Danny Thomas
and drank our beers and then at one point during a commercial I made plans , to go bowling Saturday with Willie and Donny. I tried to catch Meg’s eye but she wouldn’t look at me. When the beers were done I went home.
I hung the painting next to the mirror in my room.
But there was a feeling of strangeness that wouldn’t leave me. I’d never heard anyone use the word
slut
before but I knew what it meant. I’d known since cribbing
Peyton Place
from my mother. I wondered if Eddie’s sister Denise was still too young to qualify. I remembered her naked, bound to a tree, her thick smooth tender nipples. Crying, laughing—sometimes both together. I remembered the folded flesh between her legs.
slut
before but I knew what it meant. I’d known since cribbing
Peyton Place
from my mother. I wondered if Eddie’s sister Denise was still too young to qualify. I remembered her naked, bound to a tree, her thick smooth tender nipples. Crying, laughing—sometimes both together. I remembered the folded flesh between her legs.
I thought about Meg.
I lay in bed and thought how easy it was to hurt a person. It didn’t have to be physical. All you had to do was take a good hard kick at something they cared about.
I could too if I wanted.
People were vulnerable.
I thought about my parents and what they were doing and how they kept kicking at each other. So regularly now that, being in the middle as I was, I had contrived not to care about either of them.
Little things, mostly, but they added up.
I couldn’t sleep. My parents were in the next room, my father snoring. I got up and went into the kitchen for a Coke. Then I went into the living room and sat on the couch. I didn’t turn the lights on.
It was well after midnight.
The night was warm. There was no breeze. As usual my parents had left the windows open.
Through the screen I could see directly into the Chandlers’ living room. Their lights were still burning. Their windows were open too and I heard voices. I couldn’t make out much of what was being said but I knew who was speaking. Willie. Ruth. Then Meg. Then Donny. Even Woofer was still up—you could hear his voice high and shrill as a girl’s, laughing.
The others were all yelling about something.
“... for a
boy!”
I heard Ruth say. Then she faded out again into a mixed jumble of sounds and voices all together.
boy!”
I heard Ruth say. Then she faded out again into a mixed jumble of sounds and voices all together.
I saw Meg move back into the frame of the living-room window. She was pointing, yelling, her whole body rigid and shaking with anger.
“You will
not!”
I heard her say.
not!”
I heard her say.
Then Ruth said something low and out of my hearing range but it came out like a growl, you could get that much, and you could see Meg sort of collapse all of a sudden, you could watch her fold. And then she was crying.
And a hand shot out and slapped her.
It slapped her so hard she fell back out of frame and I couldn’t see her anymore.
Willie moved forward.
He started to follow her. Slowly.
Like he was stalking her.
“That’s it!” I heard Ruth say. Meaning, I think, that Willie should let her alone.
There was a moment where I guess nobody moved.
Then bodies came and went for a while, drifting by the window, everybody looking sullen and angry, Willie and Woofer and Donny and Ruth and Meg picking up things from the floor or rearranging the chairs or whatever and slowly moving away. I heard no more voices, no talking. The only one I didn’t see was Susan.
I sat watching.
The lights went off. You could see a dim glow from the bedrooms and that was all. Then even that was gone and the house was black as ours was.
Chapter Fifteen
That Saturday at the alleys Kenny Robertson missed his seven pin for an easy spare in the tenth frame, finishing with a 107. Kenny was skinny and had a tendency to throw every pound he had into the ball and throw it wild. He came back mopping his brow with his father’s lucky handkerchief, which hadn’t been too lucky for him at all that day.
He sat between me and Willie behind the score-card. We watched Donny line up on his usual spot to the left of the second arrow.
“You think any more about it?” he asked Willie. “About getting Meg into The Game?”
Willie smiled. I guess he was feeling good. He was probably going to break 150 and that didn’t happen often. He shook his head.
“We got our own Game now,” he said.
Chapter Sixteen
Those nights I’d sleep at the Chandlers’, once we got tired of fooling around and Woofer was asleep, we’d talk.
It was mostly Donny and I. Willie never had much to say and what he did say was never too smart. But Donny was bright enough and, as I said, the closest I had to a best friend, so we’d talk—about school and girls, the kids on
American Band-stand,
the endless mysteries of sex, what the rock ‘n’ roll tunes we heard on the radio
really
meant and so on, until long into the night.
American Band-stand,
the endless mysteries of sex, what the rock ‘n’ roll tunes we heard on the radio
really
meant and so on, until long into the night.
We talked about wishes, hopes, even nightmares sometimes.
It was always Donny who initiated these talks and always I who finished them. At some point long past exhaustion I’d lean over the top of my bunk and say something like, see what I mean? and he’d be asleep, leaving me alone at the mercy of my thoughts, uncomfortable and unspent, sometimes till dawn. It took time for me to cut deep enough into whatever it was I felt and then once I did I couldn’t bear to give up the taste of it.
I’m still that way.
The dialogue is solo now. I don’t talk. No matter who’s in bed with me I never do. My thoughts slip off into nightmares sometimes but I don’t share them. I have become now what I only began to be then—completely self-protective.
It started, I suppose, with my mother coming into my room when I was seven. I was asleep. “I’m leaving your dad,” she said, waking me. “But I don’t want you to worry. I’ll take you with me. I won’t leave you. Not ever.” And I know that from seven to fourteen I waited, prepared myself,
became
myself who was separate from each of them.
became
myself who was separate from each of them.
That, I guess, was how it started.
But between seven and thirteen Ruth happened, and Meg and Susan happened. Without them that conversation with my mother might even have been good for me. It might only have saved me from shock and confusion once the time came. Because kids are resilient. They bounce back to confidence and sharing.
I wasn’t able to. And that’s due to what happened after, to what I did and didn’t do.
My first wife, Evelyn, calls me sometimes, wakes me up at night.
“Are the children all right?” she asks me. Her voice is terrified.
We had no kids together, Evelyn and I.
She’d been in and out of institutions a number of times, suffering bouts of acute depression and anxiety but still it’s uncanny, this fixation of hers.
Because I never told her. Not any of this, never.
So how could she know?
Do I talk in my sleep? Did I confess to her one night? Or is she simply sensing something hidden in me—about the only real reason we never did have children. About why I never allowed us to.
Her calls are like nightbirds flying screeching around my head. I keep waiting for them to return. When they do I’m taken by surprise.
It’s frightening.
Are the children all right?
I’ve long since learned not to ruffle her. Yes, Evelyn, I tell her. Sure. They’re fine. Go back to sleep now, I say.
But the children are not fine.
They will never be.
Chapter Seventeen
I knocked on the back screen door.
Nobody answered.
I opened it and walked inside.
I heard them laughing right away. It was coming from one of the bedrooms. Meg’s was a kind of high-pitched squealing sound, Woofer’s a hysterical giggle. Willie Jr’s. and Donny’s were lower, more masculine-sounding.
I wasn’t supposed to be there—I was being punished. I’d been working on a model of a B-52, a Christmas present from my father, and I couldn’t get one of the wheels on right. So I tried about three or four times and then hauled off and kicked it to pieces against the bedroom door. My mother came in and it was a whole big scene and I was grounded.
My mother was out shopping now. For a moment at least, I was free.
I headed for the bedrooms.
They had Meg up against the bedroom wall in a comer by the window.
Donny turned around.
“Hey, David! She’s
ticklisb!
Meg’s ticklish!”
ticklisb!
Meg’s ticklish!”
And then it was like there was this prearranged signal because they all went at her at once, going for her ribs while she twisted and tried to push them away and then doubled over, elbows down to cover her ribs, laughing, her long red ponytail swinging.
“Get her!”
“I got her!”
“Get
her, Willie!”
her, Willie!”
I looked over and there was Susan sitting on the bed, and she was laughing too.
“Owww!”
I heard a slap. I looked up.
Meg’s hand was covering her breast and Woofer had his own hand up to his face where the redness was spreading and you could see he was going to cry. Willie and Donny stood away.
“What the hell!”
Donny was mad. It was fine if he belted Woofer but he didn’t like it if anybody else did.
“You bitch!” said Willie.
He took an awkward open-handed swing at the top of her head. She moved easily out of its way. He didn’t try again.
“What’d you have to do that for?”
“You saw what he did!”
“He didn’t do nothin’.”
“He pinched me.”
“So what.”
Woofer was crying now. “I’m
telling!”
he howled.
telling!”
he howled.
“Go ahead,” said Meg.
“You won’t like it if I do,” said Woofer.
“I don’t care
what
you do. I don’t care what any of you do.” She pushed Willie aside and walked between them past me down the hall into the living room. I heard the front door slam.
what
you do. I don’t care what any of you do.” She pushed Willie aside and walked between them past me down the hall into the living room. I heard the front door slam.
“Little bitch,” said Willie. He turned to Susan. “Your sister’s a goddamn bitch.”
Susan said nothing. He moved toward her though and I saw her flinch.
“You see that?”
“I wasn’t looking,” I said.
Woofer was sniveling. There was snot running all down his chin.
“She
hit
me!” he yelled. Then he ran past me too.
hit
me!” he yelled. Then he ran past me too.
“I’m telling Ma,” said Willie.
“Yeah. Me too,” said Donny. “She can’t get away with that.”
“We were just foolin’ around, for chrissakes.”
Donny nodded.
“She really whacked him.”
“Well, Woofer touched her tit.”
“So what. He didn’t mean to.”
“You could get a shiner like that.”
“He could still get one.”
“Bitch.”
There was all this nervous energy in the room. Willie and Donny were pacing like pent-up bulls. Susan slid off the bed. Her braces made a sharp metallic clatter.
“Where you going?” said Donny.
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