“My god,” she said gently. “A beautiful spring day and everyone’s bawling. You’re big enough to play basketball. What’s the matter with you?”
“Oooh,” Emma said, not looking at her. She sniffed some more. Then her face cleared a little and she sighed and shut the book of short stories.
“A story I read reminded me of someone,” she said. The remote and inward look was still in her eyes; the tears had not really brought her back to the table. But she sniffed again and looked at her friend.
“My goodness,” Patsy said. “I shouldn’t have teased you. He’s not the sort of writer who usually brings on tears, though.”
“No,” Emma said. She looked wistful. “Something in a story made me think of Danny Deck,” she said.
“Oh. I wish I’d got to know that guy better.
“He didn’t write much like Updike,” she added.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Emma said. She looked sad and turned her eyes on Patsy solemnly, as if she knew a secret and was trying to decide whether to tell it. Patsy was surprised. She did not think of Emma as having secrets.
“What is it?” she asked, but Emma turned away for a moment.
“It’s just not fair that he’s dead,” she said. “It makes me sad, that’s all. Everybody else our age is still alive and Danny’s dead. I know he is. Sometimes I just miss him. I wish he were alive.”
Danny Deck had written one book, had one child, broken up with his wife, and disappeared. His car had been found in Del Rio, Texas, near a bridge that crossed the Rio Grande. Patsy didn’t know what to say. She had known before that Emma had had a soft spot for him, but from the look on her face she began to suspect that perhaps the soft spot was of a different nature from what she had supposed. Emma had told her that Flap had deflowered her, and Patsy had always supposed he had been her one and only. But the look on Emma’s face made her think differently.
“It was his wife’s fault,” Emma said. “I never liked her—she was never any good for him. If it hadn’t been for her he never would have run away. He loved her.”
“Maybe she was just a bitch like me,” Patsy said. “I guess poor Jim loved me. Maybe he still does. Was Danny sweet on you” She asked it lightly, for Emma’s face had loosened and she was talking more easily.
Emma looked shy and a little guilty. “We always liked one another,” she said jerkily. “Of course I loved Flap and he loved his wife but it always made Danny feel good to come around and drink with us when things were rough. It made me feel good too—we just liked one another a lot. Like you must have liked that clown you used to talk about.”
Patsy felt strange, for she had forgotten that there had been a time when she had talked to Emma about Pete Tatum. The thought of his last visit made her sad. Clearly Emma had no such bad feeling in regard to Danny Deck.
“You were a little in love, huh?” she asked.
“Oh,” Emma said, and was never more specific.
She sighed. “He spent the night with me once,” she said softly. “Flap was off fishing with his father and I was pregnant with Tommy. I guess I was jealous of Flap’s father in those days. Everything Flap did seemed to hurt me, some way. Danny’s wife was giving him an awful time too. I guess we were both so unhappy we thought it couldn’t hurt.”
“Well, it didn’t, did it?”
“No,” Emma said, a little surprised, forgetting even to wipe a sliding tear. “It didn’t, you know. I felt guilty for a long time but I really did like Danny and we were both just unhappy kids when it happened. I think what I felt the guiltiest about was never telling Flap. I just couldn’t. He was so hipped on being everything to me in those days. I think he was always a little suspicious of Danny, though they did like one another. I guess he just knew I sort of turned Danny on. I don’t know. I just couldn’t tell him. I knew it would never happen again—even if Danny had lived, it wouldn’t have. I wanted to keep Flap from ever knowing.”
“Quit worrying about it,” Patsy said. “Flap is unscathed. I don’t believe in all this automatic honesty. I think you have to be frank but maybe you don’t always have to be full. I’m glad you told me, though. It makes me feel you’re not too much better than I am.”
“It could never have been anything long, like you and Hank had,” Emma said thoughtfully.
They were silent for a bit, thinking of their men. Patsy bristled a little at mention of Hank. Lately she had felt hostile whenever she thought of him. He himself was nice enough but she didn’t like to be reminded of all that he reminded her of. He was part of a past she didn’t like. More and more she wanted to be totally free of that past, of Hank, of Jim, and of all the distressing memories that they called to mind. At her feet, Davey picked himself up. He decided that, grim though it was, life must go on. He went over and climbed gingerly into the sandbox. He was oddly cautious about the sandbox and put his feet into it slowly, as if he were getting into a wading pool.
“Actually, Danny spent most of the night telling me about his second book,” Emma said, smiling at her memories. “It was going to be called The Man Who Never Learned. It was about a guy who had terrible troubles with women—I think he had himself in mind. It was structured around a baby bed—his little girl’s baby bed—and the point of it was that everybody’s apt to sleep with everybody they know, sooner or later.”
“In a baby bed? Come on.”
“Oh, no,” Emma said, trying again to straighten her hair. “It was just that the baby bed got handed from couple to couple and while it was being handed along the couples all got involved with one another in complicated ways. An amazing number of couples were involved.”
“I wish he’d written it,” Patsy said. “Here comes Flap.”
She got up and went to take a small stick away from Davey. Some kids were playing freeze tag near the sand-pile and a little boy named James, whose parents Patsy knew slightly, had just been tagged. He froze with one foot off ground. “Hi, James,” Patsy said. He had brown hair and large brown eyes. James was straining to keep his balance, and he only grinned. Patsy decided Davey had had enough sand and carried him back and plopped him on the top of the concrete table. Flap walked up, his coat over his shoulder, and smooched Emma behind the ear. He spread his arms to Patsy, inviting her to be hugged, but Patsy made a face at him. It was not a very unpleasant face. Flap seemed to be entering his prime, and it was hard not to be a little delighted by his general high spirits. He had his dissertation all but finished and even had a small article finished. It was on insect lore in Shelley and everyone but Emma kidded him about it. Emma held her peace. Flap was overjoyed with everything. He was glad his wife was pregnant, glad graduate school was over, glad to be leaving Houston. The world was his oyster, at least temporarily. He was wearing old corduroy pants and a green tie that Emma had been wanting to throw away for years. Also he had grown a bushy brown mustache and it suited him. He had washed his hair that morning and it was very unruly.
“You didn’t bring me any books,” Emma said.
“I was too lazy to check them out. It’s too pretty a day to be lugging books around. God, it’s a nice afternoon. You’ve got a book, anyway.”
“I’m nearly finished with it,” Emma said. “I won’t have anything to read tonight.”
“Come by and I’ll loan you something,” Patsy said. “Here comes the gang.”
Sure enough, the drugstore crowd was returning. Tom and Teddy were far in the lead; Miri and Eric were strolling very slowly, holding hands. From a distance her pregnancy was more noticeable. It showed in her manner of walking.
“Ever decide what you’re going to name it?” Flap asked.
“Not really,” Patsy said. “It’s not my problem. I named mine, let her name hers.”
Tommy dashed up, full of news of a mini-dragon set he had seen in the toy section of the drugstore. His eyes were wide and he talked rapidly of the many wonderful mini-dragons that could be made with it. Emma listened with half an ear but smiled at him.
“As
k your pop,’ she said. “He’s the one who seems to think we’re rich these days.”
Flap was sitting on one end of the table poking Davey in the stomach with a finger. Davey enjoyed Flap and tried to grab the finger as it came near and poked him and withdrew. “Hey, guess what.” Flap said. “They’ve abolished all censorship in Denmark.”
“So?” Emma said.
“So anything goes in Denmark,” Flap said. “I was just passing on a tiny bit of cultural news.”
“I wonder what the kids will be doing?” Patsy said.
“Oh, fucking,” Flap said. “What else?” He grinned merrily, partly at the idea of the youngsters of Denmark going at it, partly at the sight of Patsy, always one of his favorite sights.
“Watch that,” Patsy said. “That’s my son you’re talking to. I’m sure he’ll get around to it but I’d just as soon it didn’t turn out to be his first word. His grandmother wouldn’t approve.”
But words had no effect on Flap when he was in a good humor. Teddy straggled slowly up wearing a mustache of chocolate ice cream. “Oh, wipe his mouth,” Emma said, but instead Flap swooped Teddy up and dangled him briefly over one shoulder. In a minute Eric and Miri walked up looking very satisfied with each other. They said hello to Flap and walked on, homeward bound. The Hortons’ car was at Patsy’s house and they all got up and left the park together, following Eric and Miri.
Patsy carried Davey as far as the sidewalk and then set him down and offered him a finger, thinking they might walk along together. But Davey had not forgotten the humiliation of the basketball court. He was not pleased with his mother and didn’t want to walk with her. He slapped at her finger and looked petulant. Then he sat down. He did not intend to walk at all, and especially not with Patsy. He seemed to feel that what had happened on the basketball court was entirely her fault. He was not about to forgive her for the fact that he was small. His look showed clearly enough that he considered her responsible for the whole business.
Patsy squatted down and looked him in the eye, grinning, but Davey looked her back in the eye most unfondly. “I think he’s sick of women,” Flap said. “Carry my coat and I’ll carry him.”
Patsy took the coat and Flap, with great fatherly authority, swooped Davey up and sat him on his shoulder. Teddy had been dragging along looking tired, but the sight of a little boy on his fathers shoulder stirred his competitive spirit. He livened up and strolled along in the space between Flap and Patsy, weaving from one side of the sidewalk to the other and singing loudly. Singing was his latest accomplishment. He had a varied repertoire of songs and among his favorites was “The Rock Island Line,” which he had learned from a Johnny Cash record. His favorite part was near the end, when the train was safely across the bridge, picking up speed, and the engineer says:
I fooled you, I fooled you,
I got pig iron, I got pig iron, I got
Allllll pig iron . . .
What Teddy especially liked was the “Allllll,” which he liked to hold as long as possible. So he walked along, sometimes stepping on Patsy’s heels, singing, “Pig iron, pig iron, I got allllll . . .” and he sucked in his breath and held the word as long as possible and then sucked in his breath again and on the next go-round held it even longer. He held it so long he had to stop, red in the face, still holding his word. Everyone looked at him and watched him grow red.
“Oh, quit,” Emma said. “You’ll pop.”
“Pound him on the back, someone,” Flap said, and Patsy turned around and gave Teddy a playful shaking, so that he finally stopped holding his word and collapsed on the grass, giggling at himself.
“Come on,” Patsy said. “Walk with me. Your daddy’s got my boy, I get to walk with you.”
Teddy got up and contentedly gave her his hand, and they walked along. Tommy, full of energy, was far in front of Eric and Miri, who had slowed and were having a conversation. Emma, still engrossed in a story, was reading as she walked. Teddy was also fond of “The Yellow Submarine.” Patsy hummed it as they walked along and Teddy sang a little and giggled and swung backward and forward from her hand, leaning as far as he could toward the grass and occasionally almost pulling Patsy off balance. Davey, from his perch on Flap’s shoulder, watched Teddy’s performance with interest, his good mood finally restored. Patsy turned once and made as if to grab him away, but Flap quickly stepped back and Davey giggled, one hand clutching Flap’s hair.
Flap himself could not have been happier, walking as he was behind his two favorite women. The soft spring sun that fell on Dunstan Street shone through Emma’s wispy blond hair like light through a cloud. But it was Patsy whom Flap was mostly thinking about; Emma he could admire at home when in an admiring mood. Patsy he never got enough of. He liked the looseness of her walk, the way her hips moved, the way her body bent to the left when Teddy pulled on her hand. Her black hair had begun to grow out again and was rough in the back and beautifully uneven; the sun touched it with lights when she turned to look down at Teddy. Flap imagined the movement of her waist beneath the old sweatshirt, saw in his greedy mind’s eye the nice juncture of her legs and body and the sway of the light breasts that he had never seen but had often imagined. The sight of Patsy almost always made him feel hopeful—as it almost always made him feel horny. Hopeful and horny, he followed her down the sidewalk. Who could say? Someday she might. He could not quite imagine why, could not envision very particularly the circumstances or the occasion that would make it possible; but still there was no telling, someday she might. She was a lovely woman, and there was almost nothing nicer to think about. So he thought about it, strolling along with her son on his shoulder, two steps behind his own beloved slow-walking wife, and was almost as happy as a man could be. For a few moments his pleasure was so keen that he felt himself wonderfully and exclusively privileged, as if it were given only to him to see the real beauty of things which were alive.
Patsy, for once, was unaware of the sexual onceover Flap was giving her. She was dragging Teddy and idly trying to decide whether to take her whole brood—the Dunstan Street Mafia, as they had taken to calling themselves—to the ranch when she went in two weeks. She could take them, or she could go alone and let Hank come. The trip would be such fun for Davey. He could ride in the pickup with Melvin and see the cows, and Eric and Miri could climb up in the loft and dangle their feet. Spring had come; it would have changed the land. It would be lovely, as it had been when she had first seen it that one early morning when she had watched Roger Wagonner walk through the mist to tend his animals. And if she went alone and let Hank come, the visit would undoubtedly go just as the last one had gone. Considered coldly and in the abstract, the prospect of a sexual spree was not quite so pleasing as the thought of Davey riding in a pickup and staring with amazement at the cows. But that was considering it coldly. There were pros and cons. Six of one, but how many of the other? She could not decide—purely could not decide.
“You better call your eldest,” she said to Emma. “He’s almost out of sight.”
“It’s all right,” Emma said, closing the Updike book and glancing ahead at Tommy. “He’s been almost out of sight since three days after he was born.”
Eric and Miri slowed down. They stopped a minute, then started again. Eric had turned to face Miri and was walking backward just in front of her. He put up his hands and she put her palms against his and pushed him backward lightly, moving from side to side a little as if they were doing a slow dance. Miri said something neither Patsy nor Emma could hear, but whatever it was gave Eric an enormous charge. His face lit up and he reddened with excitement and pleasure. “No kidding?” he said. “Really? No kidding?”
Patsy and Emma saw how it was; both smiled at the sight of him. Emma glanced back at her husband to see where his wandering eye was wandering—as if she hadn’t known. Teddy turned loose of Patsy’s hand and dashed ahead, both shoelaces flopping, his hair flopping too, suddenly intent upon catching up with his brother. Eric, still in his moment of excitement, w
as redder in the face than ever and was doing a little stiff-legged backward dance, and the look of delight he gave Miri was as clear and soft as the evening air, as fresh as the spring which touched the land. Miri turned for a second and looked around to see if anyone was watching them, but she didn’t really care, didn’t really notice anyone herself. Her far-off look never reached them, and her lightly rounded face was smug.
Well you might be, Patsy thought, noting the smugness. Eric, for a brief moment, made it all real again—all that was not real unless it was there, in the flesh. It would be nice—nice, indeed—to be there when such a beaut of a young man got around to bringing that blood back home, back to the place it nourished, the country that it fed.
“Look at him,” Patsy said to her friend. Emma looked. She smiled and nodded and glanced beyond Eric to see if her two sons were going to bother to stop before they crossed the street.
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