"Don't you ever do that?"
"I'm a parent," Jean said. "When you're a parent, there's no out. But then how would you understand that?"
"Well, I make an awful lot of mistakes," I said.
Jean laughed a rather harsh laugh.
"You sure do," she said, and hung up.
I felt very depressed. First Cindy had vanished from the radarscope and now I had witlessly and needlessly alienated Jean. All I had to show for a perfectly pointless three-thousand-mile drive was Josie Twine and a trunk full of boots, neither of which I had any notion what to do with. Besides that, I had entered into an agreement with Uncle Ike Spettle, who was going to show up in Washington in a month's time, expecting to become a national celebrity, as a reward for his century-long stewardship of a pair of boots. People had become celebrities for far less, but that didn't solve my problem.
Josie was looking at me curiously, in a kindly way.
"Shoot," she said. "You must know some picky women."
"Yep," I agreed.
"How many girl friends you got?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "Maybe none. Or maybe as many as five or six. It depends on how you define girl friend."
"That ain't very complicated," she said. "It's just somebody who'll sleep with you if you happen to be around.
"Much as you travel I can see why you'd need quite a few," she added, in a kind voice.
In my depression it seemed an amazingly humane and worldly judgment, coming from a young woman from Henrietta.
"You don't think it's wrong to have several?" I asked.
Josie shrugged. "It beats tryin' to learn to suck yourself off," she said. "I've been trying to get Little Joe to go to a psychiatrist, but he won't."
"Have you ever gone to one?"
"Aw, yeah," she said. "I went to one down in Dallas for nearly a year. He said I oughta leave Little Joe, only he didn't tell me how I was supposed to get energy enough to do it."
"Maybe you have left him," I suggested. "Maybe that's what this trip's about."
Josie scooted over enough that she could hug one of my arms.
"I hope so," she said. "I was getting so lonesome staying upstairs all the time I was about to go crazy. Shoot, I'd rather drive around and see the country."
Chapter VIII
We stopped for the night in Knoxville and woke up to a world so fogged in with Appalachian fog that neither of us wanted to get out of bed and deal with it. The white mist was so dense that it looked like it had been painted on the windows of the motel.
"Shoot, I don't see how people get around," Josie said, rubbing on the window as if by doing so she could rub a little hole in the fog. It didn't work so she came back to bed and snuggled against me.
"It'll go away when the sun comes up," I said.
"Yeah, but what happens on a cloudy day?" she wanted to know.
At certain levels of tension and uncertainty the least little things make a difference. Sunlight, for example. If I wake up in a borderline mood and see the sun shining it might lift my mood several notches. I might get up feeling optimistic and go out and buy something wonderful.
Total fog has just the opposite effect. I felt like never getting out of bed. In such a fog it would be difficult to find my car, much less a junk shop or an antique store. I had been to several flea markets that opened in the early morning, when the mist was still rising. The flea marketers moved through it like ghosts, setting up tables and putting out old bottles and other objects, oblivious to the fact that the customers couldn't see the tables, much less the objects. Certain well-equipped scouts carried big miner's lights for just such occasions. I had a miner's light myself, and had used it to good effect at several dawn flea markets. Once I had bought a marvelous Pennsylvania butter spreader by the light of my miner's light, in the days when I scouted obsessively.
Lying in bed in the fogged-in motel in Knoxville, with
Josie's arms locked tightly around me as she stared at the very un-Texas fog surrounding us, I began to feel nostalgic for the days when I had scouted obsessively. I had had a lot of discipline, once. In fact I had had a good bit of it right up until the moment I had met Cindy Sanders. Of course there had been lapses, when my passions for Coffee, Kate, and Tanya had been at their heights. But Coffee, Kate, and Tanya were fixed entities, each of them easily located and quite predictable once found. In my mind they had become so closely identified with their respective Texas cities that they could have been called Austin, Houston, and Dallas. Their qualities and the qualities of their three cities were very similar, their rhythms the rhythms of those places. To the extent that I understood the places, I understood the women, and vice versa.
Nothing like that applied to my relationship in the District of Columbia and its environs, where I understood nothing, neither the women nor the place. So far my every move had been wrong, womanwise. I felt like I was on a down escalator where women were concerned, though fortunately the small warm one with her arms wrapped around me didn’t think poorly of me yet.
"What kinds of people live here?'* Josie inquired.
"Just the usual kinds," I said. "It's not always this foggy."
"It seems like a long way, back to Henrietta," she said. "Do you think I could get a job, up in Washington?"
"I guess you could," I said. "But I thought you were just going to send for your pilot. It's not a long flight."
"It is if you don't really want to go back," she said.
"Don't worry, I ain't gonna be a burden," she added. "I know you got all them picky girl friends to think about."
"I wasn't thinking of you as a burden," I said.
"You wasn't thinking of me at all," Josie said quietly. "That's okay. I wasn't thinking of you, either. It's just an accident, ain't it?"
"What?"
"That you come by and that I run off with you," she said. "Just an accident. It ain't like we met one another in high school and fell in love."
"No," I said. "You're right. Did you meet Little Joe in high school?"
"Yeah," she said. "Everybody was trying to get him because he was so rich. Lucky me, I got him."
Relieved by the accidental nature of everything that was happening, we made love, had a big breakfast, and dashed out of Tennessee into Virginia. The fog burned off when we got to Bristol and we drove north through Virginia on a beautiful fall day. The leaves had turned in my absence— the slopes of the Blue Ridge were exhibiting their most brilliant fall foliage, a sight that Josie managed to take in stride.
"I was never much interested in leaves," she said. "Momma likes 'em, though."
Near Wytheville we stopped to see an elderly Virginia aristocrat I knew, named Mead Mead IV. Mead lived in what appeared to be perfect leisure in a beautiful old eighteenth-century manor house, attended by tactful servants, all black. The lifestyle of the Mead manor was so eighteenth century that there was no way of knowing whether Mead or any of the servants knew that the Civil War had occurred.
Both Mead and the servants were more than a little shocked by the sight of Josie, in her yellow shirt and tricolored hair, but fortunately their manners were adequate to the situation.
I had only stopped in order to sell Mead a nineteenth-century lightbulb. He was a passionate collector of nineteenth-century lightbulbs, his one concession to modem times. He had over four hundred and kept each one in an individual wooden case which one of his handymen made.
I had found a beautiful nineteenth-century lightbulb in South Dakota. It had been the living room lightbulb of a family who had only used the living room once or twice in the twentieth century. Consequently, the bulb still worked. I knew Mead would be delighted, since only about 10 of his 400 lightbulbs still worked. He had a nineteenth-century light fixture in his study, and when he screwed in the South Dakota lightbulb it shone with a pure if feeble light.
"Perfectly beautiful," Mead said. He loved the pure feeble light of nineteenth-century lightbulbs. A look of pleasure lingered on his features a
s he wrote the check and handed it to me. His thin silver hair was neatly combed and the effect of perfect elegance was marred only by a few traces of egg on his necktie.
As we were driving out of the manor's long driveway, Josie reached over and got the check out of my pocket.
"I just want to read it," she said. "You mean he paid you five hundred dollars for a lightbulb?"
I nodded.
"I never seen such a creepy house," she said, and the rest of the way to Washington she brooded about the elegant creepiness of manor houses in Virginia.
When we got to Washington I headed straight for Boog's, the one place in Washington I was fairly sure Josie wouldn't think was creepy.
I was right. Boog had just flown in from Kansas City, bringing some barbecued ribs. Micah had his little TV set on the table and was giggling helplessly at a Sanford and Son rerun.
"Hi, like your hairdo," were the first words out of Boog's mouth, when he spotted Josie. In two minutes she was eating ribs like one of the family and helping Micah watch Sanford and Son. Micah liked her almost as instantly as Boog had, since she was the first person to come along in months who knew reruns as well as he did.
Boss seemed to be in a somber mood. She was not unfriendly to Josie, or to anyone, but she didn't say much.
I had meant to ask if Josie could stay at the Millers' for a night or two, until we got our bearings, but before I could even mention it Boog invited her to stay as long as she wanted to.
"Oh great," Micah said. "I hope you like Bob Newhart."
Half an hour later they all went off to Georgetown to see a double-feature Bogart rerun. Josie went with them, looking younger and happier than I had ever seen her.
Boss didn't go. She sat at the table, idly fingering her long black hair.
"I didn't mean for her just to move in," I said, thinking Boss might be annoyed that I had brought a young woman into their lives.
"I don't care if she moves in," Boss said, "She seems like a nice kid. Why didn't you go see Coffee when you were in Texas?"
"I meant to," I said. "I know I should have."
"Coffee depends on you," Boss said. "She's also about the only woman who gives a flip about you. You ought to be a little more loyal."
Boss's hair was extremely beautiful. She stood up and began to clear the table. I helped her.
"I'm glad you showed up," she said. "I've got some papers for you to sign. I sold the horse farm today. Spud bought it."
"Spud?" I said, shocked. "I thought he was in Miami."
"When's the last time you heard from Cindy?" Boss asked.
"A couple of days ago," I said.
"Spud just left his wife and moved in with her," she said. "Naturally her engagement to Harris is off. They need the horse farm for a weekend place, since Betsy will get Spud's weekend place, if they divorce."
"My gosh," I said. "Cindy and Spud are planning to marry?"
"Yep," Boss said. "Spud's like Boog. He's been good at his job too long. He's just at the right age to leave his wife for someone half as good."
I was so stunned I couldn't think of a thing to say.
Boss went about cleaning up, perfectly self-assured.
"I guess I ought to go," I said.
"You're welcome to stay," Boss said. "Plenty of beds. But then a bed's not what you want, is it?"
I shrugged. I had no idea what I wanted. The fact that my life lacked purpose had never been more obvious.
"I think I'll just hit a motel," I said. "I'm getting where I can't sleep, in a house."
She seemed at least slightly sympathetic, but not sympathetic enough that I dared approach her. I stopped as I was going out the door, looking back to see if Boss had anything else to say.
Chapter IX
I drove to Georgetown and cruised past Cindy's house. Sure enough, a light was on in her bedroom window. I felt like dumping the fifty pairs of boots on her doorstep, but if I did that someone would just steal them. I wasn't despairing enough to want to lose fifty pairs of boots.
Despair or not, I had difficulty accepting what had happened. Once Cindy's confidence had collapsed, our relationship had begun to seem almost real. Women were often accusing me of only choosing weak, insecure, dependent women. It was the weak, insecure, and dependent women I chose who flung the accusation at me most often. A good percentage of the women I chose spent most of our time together explaining why it was wrong for me to have chosen them. Cindy had even done that, although she did it in a rather oblique way, by explaining to me constantly why I wasn't successful enough for her.
Now that she had the most famous editor in America maybe she could relax, on that score.
I drove to Alexandria and sat in the parking lot of a motel for twenty minutes but I didn't go in and get a room. While I was sitting there I called Coffee, but her dope dealer answered so I hung up.
The next time I killed the motor I was in front of Jean's house. The downstairs was dark but a light was on in her bedroom. I have a theory that women love surprise arrivals, and now I had an excellent opportunity to test it. Despite this theory, I didn't jump right out of the car and run over and ring the doorbell. I sat in the car almost as long as I had sat in the motel parking lot.
On the other hand I knew I had to act. It was getting late. The light in Jean's bedroom could go off any second, in which case it would seem ten times more difficult to go up and knock on her door. A woman who had just gone to bed might destroy my theory. She might not welcome a surprise arrival from someone she was mad at anyway.
Finally I got out and walked up her steps. For perhaps a minute I just stood there, looking at the door. Then it occurred to me someone might see me and mistake me for a burglar, so I knocked.
The knock rang loudly in the quiet neighborhood. At least it seemed loud to me, but nothing happened. Jean didn't come downstairs.
I knocked again, more loudly still. That got results. Lights began to go on in the house. An upstairs light came on, illuminating the stairs. Then I saw Jean scamper downstairs, in a bathrobe, but she didn't head for the front door. She headed for the kitchen. A light came on in the dining room. Then she peeped into the living room and switched that light on too.
Only then did she approach the door, crossing the living room cautiously.
“Who is it?" she asked, without opening the door.
"Me," I said.
"Jack?" she said. "Is that you?"
"Yep," I said.
She opened the door a crack and looked out at me, her eyes very large. When she saw it was me she heaved an enormous sigh.
"Jesus, you scared the piss out of me," she said.
"Fm sorry," I said. "I should have called."
It only occurred to me then that I could have called from across the street. In my anxiety I had forgotten my own telephone.
"Why did you turn on so many lights?" I asked.
"So I could see who I was being murdered by," Jean said. "Why do you think? Nobody's knocked at my door this time of night in several years. I get scared, you know."
She opened the door a little bit more, but just to get a better look at me rather than to let me in. It was not a friendly appraisal, exactly. As her fear subsided, anger took its place. It came to her suddenly that she was very mad at me.
"What are you doing here anyway?" she asked. "Who told you you could come and knock on my door in the middle of the night?"
"It's not that late," I said, although it was.
Jean opened the door and came out on the porch, brushing against me as she did but not looking at me again. She stood on her top step and looked at my car, which was sitting innocently in the street.
"Why are you looking at my car?" I asked. She really looked angry.
"It's parked in my street," she said. "I'll look at it if I want to."
"There's no point in hating a car," I said.
"How stupid do you think I am?" she said.
"I don't think you're stupid."
"You have no right to s
how up here," she said. "It's my house, I like to invite the people that show up here."
"I know," I said.
"You don't, you don't!" she said emphatically. "You don't know how it scares me when people I'm not expecting show up at my door. I hate it. I get totally scared."
"You shouldn't be living alone if you're so scared," I said.
Jean looked at me contemptuously,
"I'm sorry I said that," I said.
"Go on," she said, after a moment. "Tell me you make a lot of mistakes."
Then she sat down on her top step. She was barefoot and it was a cold night. I sat down, too, but not too close to her. I was worried about her feet.
"Aren't your feet cold?" I asked. "Don't you have some house shoes?"
"My feet are none of your business," she said.
"Don't be so mad," I said. "I won't lie to you anymore."
"Yes you will," she said. "Can't you even be honest about the fact that you lie?"
Actually, it wasn't easy to be honest. Despite almost constant lying, I think of myself as pretty honest. There seems to be some paradox, pitting truth against literal statement, that I have never understood. My view was that I only lied in the hope of achieving a better truth, but that was never the view of the people I lied to when they discovered the he.
It seemed to me a complex subject, but it didn't seem so to Jean, or to most of the women I knew. To them a lie was a lie, invariably bad. I have never been able to persuade a single woman that certain lies were the route to a happier truth.
"It was a minor lie," I said, deciding not to try and argue ethical theory with a woman whose feet were freezing on the cold steps.
"All the more reason it was disgusting,” Jean said. "A major lie, such as concealing that you have a wife or something, I could understand. You might conceal that you had a wife in order to get to fuck me, which is as least an understandable motive. Why tell me some stupid little lie about Miami?"
I didn't answer. I didn't want to try and re-create the grounds of that lie.
"You better say something," she said. "I'm not going to sit out here freezing if you won't even talk to me."
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