Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (2 page)

 
          
She
was my first. Wendy. Of course, I wasn't
her
first. Not even that night. But she was really nice.
Really
nice.

 
          
We
went to the same
school,
she was a year behind me. I
was sixteen, Wendy was fifteen,
she
went sometimes
with three, four guys in a car.
Her father's car.
I
heard about it, but I never thought she'd do it with
me.

 
          
Buddy
fixed it up, Buddy
Pal,
he set the whole thing up,
just the two of us and Wendy. And naturally, because he set it up with Wendy,
he went first.

 
          
I
rank William Pal, Jr., known as Buddy, smiled at Wendy and backed out of the
car. With the door open, the interior light had come on, and Wendy shielded her
eyes with a pudgy-fingered hand. Supine on the backseat, blue jeans and panties
in a snarl around her right ankle on the floor, sweater and bra bunched up to
her armpits, she was less pretty but more provocative than when seen in the
corridors at school, prancing along, eyes wise with knowing sidelong glances,
lips full and mouth pink when she laughed. Now she breathed in little gasps,
her pale belly contracting, and her voice was hoarse as she said, “Ow. Shut the
door, willya?”

 
          
'Til
send Jack over," Buddy told her, and shut the door, killing the light. It
was a soft and humid spring night, and the car windows were all steamed on the
inside, making them opaque in the darkness. Buddy, a skinny six-footer of
sixteen with nondescript brown hair, took the roll of paper towels he'd left on
the car roof, ripped off a few, and put the roll back on the roof. After using
the towels, he pulled his pants up, secured them, stepped into his loafers, and
walked away from the dark and silent Buick, down the dirt road among the pine
trees in the dark.

 
          
Jack
Pine stood nervously walking-and skipping and kicking at stones about a hundred
feet down the road. He too was skinny at sixteen, his brown hair less
controlled than Buddy's. They were similar in looks and build, enough so that
people sometimes thought they might be cousins, but they were merely best
friends. Their differences were not in their features, but what they did with
them: Buddy's expressions were confident, amused, aware, while Jack's face
mostly mirrored doubt and insecurity. Between the two, Buddy seemed the older,
the more mature. He came strolling down the dirt road, smiling, hands in
trouser pockets, and softly called, "Dad?
You
there?"

 
          
"Buddy?
Here I am!" Jack's voice, anxious, was too
loud, the words too jumbled together.

 
          
Buddy
found him in the dark, and squeezed his arm. "Take it easy, Dad."

 
          
"I'm
fine!" Jack told him, smiling maniacally though they could barely see each
other. "Is Wendy—?"

 
          
"All
softened up for you, Dad."

 
          
Jack
swallowed. "I just—I just go over there?"

 
          
"She's
waiting, Dad. You know what I mean?
Waiting”

 
          
"But—I
don't know how to . . ." Jack's hands fluttered in the night like moths.
"How to
act.
I don't know how to
act.”

           
"Act like me, Dad," Buddy
told him, grinning as he presented the gift. "Just go over there and be
me."

 
          
Jack's
eyes widened. He looked at his friend as though for the first time. "I
could," he whispered, awed by it.

 
          
"Sure,
you could, Dad. Go
on,
get over there before she cools
off."

 
          
Buddy
gave him a little push, and Jack stepped toward the unseen Buick, tripping but
recovering, moving on. In the dark, his movements were like Buddy's, gliding,
insinuating, certain. Then he stopped and looked back. Above, clouds shifted,
and the sheen of perspiration on Jack's face suddenly gleamed pale in
moonlight. His smile was one he'd never owned before. “Buddy?" he called,
transfixed, spotlit by the moon. “Thanks!" And he turned away, sliding
Buddy-like through the dark.

 
          
I
smile at the sky, remembering that incredible moment, that instant when I
opened the Buick's door and the light went on—like a movie starting, like a
curtain going up on a play—and there she was, like nothing I'd ever seen
before. And she held her arms out to me. . . .

 
          
I
held my arms out, up, to the sky, the way I did when I played the Aztec prince.
Red.
There's blood on my hand, my right hand.
Dried, dark, dull.
I put my hand to my mouth, I lick the
blood away.
All gone.
No evidence left. No matter. I
forget all about it. "That was something," I say, living nothing but
that first moment so long ago. "It was so exciting.
My
very first time.
I just lost ... I just lost all control. It was like an
explosion
. That's when I really and
truly came to life."

 
          
From
the corner of my eye, I see the interviewer make a note. A sexual suggestion,
but just a hint, will get into his copy, past his editor. It's all good for my
image. Then he looks at me and says, "Buddy Pal was there even back then,
was he?"

 
 
          
"Oh,
yeah," I say. "Buddy Pal's not only my best friend in
all the
world, he's my
oldest
friend in all the world. We met in
nursery
school,
man. We ate
sand
together.
And on to college."

 
          
In
the college auditorium, in the evening, a production of
Hamlet
was being rehearsed. The director was a member of the school
faculty, but all the actors were students. Act V, scene i, was being run
through, in costume, but without scenery or sets.

 
          
The
two gravediggers shuffled onto the bare stage, dressed in rags, shovels over
their shoulders. The first gravedigger was a large and bulky boy of nineteen,
moving like a football player at the end of a hard game, his manner awkward but
willing. The second gravedigger, stepping slyly, hunch-shouldered, bowlegged,
completely comfortable, was Jack.

 
          
The
football player spoke first, in a flat monotone, like the telephone company
announcing the time: "'Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
wilfully seeks her own salvation?'" He gazed out over the dark auditorium
as he declaimed, over the heads of the other actors and their friends and the
jaundiced-looking director. He seemed unaware of the other person on stage, to
whom
he was allegedly speaking.

           
Jack shuffled around him, quick but
obscurely infirm. His voice was a triumphant cackle as he said, "‘1
tell
thee she is; and therefore make her grave
straight.'" He winked and leered at his partner, sharing the joke with
him, though the partner gave him nothing back. With mock solemnity, Jack
crossed himself and sardonically intoned, "'The crowner hath sate on her,
and finds it Christian burial."' An echo of brogue lilted his speech.

 
          
"'How
can that be,'" the football player said, one word thudding after another,
" 'unless
she drown'd herself in her own
defence?'"

 
          
Jack
capered slightly, an arthritic imitation of a jester. ‘"Why, 'tis found
so,'" he said, and winked.

 
          
The
football player massively shook his head; acting. "'It must be
say of ten-dough,”’
he announced.
"'It cannot be else. For here—'"

 
          
"Wait
a minute!" called the
director, rising from his front-row seat, hurrying up onto the stage. A
balding, potbellied man of fifty, he was famous in the school for long brooding
silences followed by excessive explosions followed by tortured apologies. While
everyone else in the seats watched with half smiles of anticipation, this man
crossed the stage to Jack and the football player, crying out, "
What
is this
’often-dough’?”

 
          
"I
dunno," the football player said, blinking and looking defensive.
"That's what it says in the book."

 
          
"It is
not,”
the
director assured him, and waved a paperback copy under the football player's
nose.
"The phrase is
'se
offendendo.’
Do you suppose you can say that?"

 
          
While
the football player made a stumbling attempt to repeat the phrase, Jack looked
toward the wings and saw Buddy there, just out of sight behind the side
curtain, gesturing to Jack to come over. As the director attempted to teach
se offendendo
to the football player,
with increasingly caustic asides, Jack crossed to the wings, walking with his
usual quick buoyance, the shovel now jauntily borne on his shoulder. "Hi,
Buddy," he said when he had cleared the stage.

           
Buddy spoke quietly,
conspiratorially. "Listen, Dad," he said, "you stuck here?"

 
          
Jack
smiled, like sunlight breaking through clouds. The hand not holding the shovel
moved in an expansive delighted gesture. "I
love
it, Buddy! I'm alive here!"

 
          
Buddy
nodded, without interest.
"Oh, yeah?"

 
          
"Acting!"
Jack beamed at the stage, where director
and football player moved even further from understanding. "This is it for
me," he said.

 
          
"Yeah,
well, I got a date with that Linda from seventeenth-century lit."

 
          
Happy
for his friend, Jack said, "Yeah?
Great.
She's
okay!"

 
          
"Only
I need a couple bucks, Dad," Buddy said. "Five?"

 
          
"Oh,
sure, Buddy!"

 
          
Putting
down the shovel, Jack searched his rags for his wallet, found it, and handed Buddy
a bill. Buddy took it without comment, stowed it away in a pocket, and said,
"Maybe she's got a pal for you, if you ever get outa here." Grinning,
teasing with a little conspiratorial wink, he added, "And
if
you behave yourself."

 
          
Suddenly
sheepish, Jack fiddled with the shovel, moving it from hand to hand."/
know how to handle girls," he said.

 
          
With
an ironic laugh, Buddy said,
“Yes,
you do."

 
          
From
the stage, the director, with a thin, high-nettled whine in his voice, called,
"Mister
Pine, could you manage to
rejoin us, do you suppose?"

 
          
"Oh, sure!"
Shouldering his shovel, Jack grinned
at Buddy, said, "Luck with Linda," and hurried back to the middle of
the stage, facing the exasperated director with his sunniest and most amiable
smile. "Sorry," he said. "Here I am."

 
          
"So
I see. We're going to try reversing the roles. You know the lines?"

 
          
"Oh,
sure I do," Jack said. "They're all my cues."

 
          
"I
don't," said the football player. He was now reduced to smoldering
resentment.

 
          
"You'll
read," the director told him, pushing the paperback into the football
player's midsection. The football player took it like a handoff. The director
gave them both an arch look, said, "From the top," and returned to
his seat in the auditorium.

 
          
Jack
and the football player left the stage; Buddy was already gone. After a moment
they re-entered, this time Jack in front. The football player was stiffer than
before, sullen anger visible in his expression and posture. This time, Jack was
primmer, fussier. He kept smoothing and tidying the rags he wore. There was a
hint of pursed- lipped pickiness in his expression and manner, and he sounded
aggrieved when he said, “‘Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully
seeks her own salvation?"'

 
          
“I
tell thee she is,'" the football
player read, one word
at a time, ‘"and therefore make
her grave straight. The crowner
hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial.’"

 
          
‘"How
can that be,'" Jack demanded, taking personal affront,
“
‘unless
she drown'd herself in her own defence?'"

 
          
‘"Why,
'tis found so,'" read the football player.

 
          
Jack
was baffled by this. He took the shovel from his shoulder and stood it on the
floor, then leaned on it, thinking the situation over. Shaking his head, he
said,
“ ‘It
must be
se offendendo;
it cannot be else.'" He turned so that the
shovel stood between
himself
and the football player,
then treated the shovel as though it were a lectern and he the lecturer.
‘"For here
lies
the point,'" he told the
unlistening football player. ‘"If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an
act; and an act hath three branches—it is, to act, to do, and to perform;
argal, she drown’d herself wittingly.'" Having proved the point to his
satisfaction, he released the shovel and spread both hands in accomplishment.
The shovel stood poised, then began to topple, then was caught by Jack with a
flowing movement that picked it up and placed it back on his shoulder.

 
          
The
football player read, ‘"Nay, but hear you— '"

 
          
‘‘Hold
it!" cried the director from the auditorium. He was on his feet again,
coming now to the edge of the stage, looking up at his actors, saying,
‘‘That's
it, we’ll keep it that way. You," he said,
gesturing at Jack, ‘‘come here."

 
          
Jack
went over to the edge of the stage, carrying the shovel on his shoulder. He went
down on one knee, looking down at the director, saying, “Yes, sir?"

 
          
Quietly,
but smiling, the director said, “You'll have to carry him, you know."

 
          
“Oh,
he'll be fine," Jack said.

 
          
“Uh-huh.
I wish I could have you play both parts,'' the director said.