"My dad was real grouchy which is why Momma left him," Lolly said. "She took it for twenty years and then she couldn't take it no more."
Boog reappeared, still moody, in a bright green suit
"You girls is all wastin' your lives," he remarked as we left.
"Yeah, but so what?" B.J. said. She had an argumentative look about her.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked, as we headed for the Cover-Up.
"Shut up and drive," he said. "You ain't no psychoanalyst, why should I tell you?"
He looked blankly out the window as Arlington merged imperceptibly into Falls Church.
"I been thanking about goin' back to Winkler County," he said.
"What could you do there?"
"I could thank about my roots," Boog said.
I snorted. The notion of Boog brooding about his roots was ludicrous.
"Laugh all you want to," he said. "Yore young. You ain't ground to a halt in the pit of pointlessness yet."
"The pit of what?"
"Pointlessness. The point at which all that was at one time more has become less."
"The girls are right," I said. "You're having a midlife crisis."
"It's a rest-of-my-life crisis," Boog said. "Them girls is sweet but they barely got brains enough between them to focus a TV set.
"I just mostly wanta go home and sit on the porch," he said, a moment later. "Watch the sun come up and the sun go down. Coexist in harmony with the possums and the skunks. At night I could listen to the sound of the oil patch. Motors chuggin'. Might grow a tomato once in a while, or raise ocelots or something."
"You?" I said. I could hardly believe I was hearing this fantasy of the rural life from Boog Miller, one of the most compulsively urban people I had ever known.
Boog shrugged. "There is a great tendency to return unto the first place," he said. "The home of one's youth. The scene of the first humiliations. Winkler County, in other words.*'
"You wouldn't last a week," I said. "What would you do without massage parlors? Flea markets? Auctions? Politics?"
"I could read Spinoza," he said. "Might write my memoirs."
"You'd miss Boss a lot," I said. "Boss isn't going to Winkler County."
"No, she's got to stay here and teach that little Frenchman how to mow the grass," Boog said. "Boss and me been married thirty-two years. We couldn't miss one another if we tried."
It was strange to think that the Miller marriage was only one year younger than I was. When they had gone to the altar I had been tottling around the trailer house in Solino.
"She makes the best biscuits I ever tasted," Boog said. "I thank that's what kept us together. I appreciate good biscuits, a rare trait in modem man."
I parked at the Cover-Up, amid a few hundred Datsuns and Toyotas. Boog, who had been starving, didn't seem in any hurry to get out and go in.
"You want to go in the antique business with me?" I asked, thinking he might really like a change of profession, though at the moment the nature of his profession was rather vague. "We could still probably get one or two of the Smithsonian warehouses."
"Nope," Boog said. "Ain't interested. I thank I'd rather just go back to Winkler County and read Spinoza."
Chapter XV
The Cover-Up, as usual, was full of people with little plastic-sheathed security cards clipped to their lapels. Behind the counter, Freddy Fu was taking money and dispensing Princetonian suavity. There was no sign of Mrs. Lump. We had our usual order of goat and Tasmanian beer, and when we finished I asked Boog if he would make a reservation for two at the best restaurant in town.
"I'd like to meet this woman," he said.
"You might, someday."
"I doubt it," he said. "You're stingy with your women."
"I brought you Josie, didn't I?"
"Yeah, but she ain't yours," he said. "She's married to some little third-generation fuckup down in Henrietta. If it hadn't been for you, me an' Coffee would have been true sweethearts long ago."
"Coffee's got enough problems as it is," I said. "Do you know about the dope dealer?"
"Yeah, he's a midget Italian who wears bracelets," Boog said. "That girl ain't leading a wholesome life."
On the way out he stopped at a pay phone and spoke in French to someone. I was surprised.
"I didn't know you spoke French," I said.
"Some polish is gaint with one's mint, said she," he said. "That was your maitre d'. You got your reservation. Just try not to disgrace me by orderin' the wrong wine or something."
In the afternoon I felt like an auction. I needed something to get my adrenalin pumping, so I wouldn't get sleepy and take a nap.
Unfortunately the only auction scheduled in the D.C. area that day was a mixed auction of Oriental rugs and estate glassware, at a gallery I was unfamiliar with. I seldom handle rugs, for the simple reason that most of them won't fit in my car, and what's called "estate" glassware by two-bit auctioneers is usually just ornate junk.
But an auction is an auction. I got out my map and managed to locate the gallery, which was one of a row of cinderblock warehouses in a warehouse area not far from the Pentagon. To my surprise, the place was packed, mostly with depressed-looking men in cheap suits. At any auction where there is glassware there will usually be a lot of women, but in this case there were only a handful, three or four hard-bitten ladies with silver hair who were obviously dealers, and a couple of young mothers who had thought to relieve the boredom of young motherhood by bringing their babies out to an auction. The babies were strapped in strollers and had their own boredom to contend with. They dealt with it mainly by trying to wriggle out of the strollers.
The auctioneer, a thin, nervous little fellow, was trying to teach a couple of surly Cubans how to hook the rugs to a pulley arrangement so they could be hauled up briefly for display.
The men in the cheap suits all looked pallid, as if, collectively, they had been raised under artificial light. The warehouse was dusty and the free coffee which was being served tasted like it had been brewed the week before. There was not one single piece of glassware that was even decent. One Chinese lacquer-ware dish might have been described as half-decent. The rugs were no better than the glass. The old ones were ragged and much repaired, and there were only a few of them. Most of the rugs had been manufactured since 1940.
Though there was no point at all in staying, I stayed, sitting in a hard little bridge chair and watching the terrible auctioneer auction the worthless rugs and terrible glass. The two Cubans were totally without interest in the proceedings and half the rugs slipped loose from the pulleys and flopped on the floor. Once a large one fell on the auctioneer, who was having a terrible day. He tried to laugh it off", but the rug that fell on him was big and dusty and from then on he was prone to fits of coughing. Every wretched little Canton plate he held up he described as being a "real early piece," his phrase for anything between the dawn of time and 1975. One of the young mothers worked up her nerve and bought a set of glasses which the auctioneer described as "real early crystal," when in fact they had been made in Minnesota within the decade.
It was such a disgracefully amateurish auction that I spent most of my time wondering why I wasn't leaving. I tried to tell myself it was discipline: After all, the principle that anything can be anywhere still held true.
Back there somewhere could be a rug that Genghis Khan had sat on, as he trekked eastward in his years of conquest It could happen. The odds were scarcely longer than the odds on a great Sung vase turning up in De Queen, Arkansas.
At the same time, I knew it wasn't going to happen. For one thing, apart from two silver-haired ladies who undoubtedly had an antique store somewhere nearby, I was the only professional there. Blink Schedel wasn't there, nor were any of Brisling Bowker's many runners. Of course, none of them had been in De Queen, either, but De Queen was out of their territory and south Arlington wasn't. If there had been something great in the auction one of them would have sniffed it out and been there.
I had bought nothing, and what was worse, no adrenalin had pumped, as it would have at a good auction. I left feeling as flat as I had felt when I entered, went to the nearest phone booth, and called my banker in Houston, to see if twenty thousand dollars had materialized in my account.
It hadn’t John C. V. Ponsonby was losing his chance at the Luddite truncheon. Or maybe he wasn't. Perhaps a well trained agent had already been dispatched, to deal with me. He might follow me to a swap-meet and steal the truncheon out of my car. He could slip a tranquilizing drug into my hotdog or something. Most swap-meets have a hot-dog stand nearby, a perfect cover for a well-trained agent.
I felt a little nervous, but since there was no way to anticipate the agent's moves I drove to Wheaton, checked into a motel, and lay in a bathtub until it was time to pick up Jean.
Soaking in water was more refreshing than taking a useless nap.
While I soaked I thought of women. My moods were flickering, like a radio with a loose wire. At moments it would occur to me that if I just continued to be a scout I could lead a consistent and interesting life. I didn’t really have to have women. They were not a necessity of nature. In fact, they were a lot of trouble, disrupters of the peace, almost all of them.
For moments, as I lay in the tub, I thought how nice it would be just to drive around America buying things, not having one’s own peace disrupted. America itself was very beautiful, very various. There was plenty to see. The skies over the west were so lovely that they alone should have been enough to sustain me.
When I looked at it that way I felt light for a few seconds—I felt like an escapee—from tantrums, confusion, fucking, and a million needs, stated and unstated.
Then, only a few seconds later, I would remember that I liked fucking, and was interested in needs, stated and unstated. Even America could get boring. I wouldn't really escape women. As soon as I got over one, another one would pop up. Things would repeat themselves, some of them nice things, some of them not. After all I had a date with a very appealing woman. We had even made love once, although so briefly that I couldn't really remember it. When I tried to remember it I got an erection, and soon after went to sleep in the bathtub.
At Jean's, Beverly let me in, edging out Belinda by a step.
"Mom's getting ready," she said.
"I was gonna get it," Belinda said, annoyed to have been edged out. Her hair was impossibly curly. The girls were both looking fresh and mischievous.
I sat on the couch and Belinda climbed into my lap.
"I thought you said you were bringing some presents," she said. She felt in my shirt pocket, to make sure no small presents were hidden there.
Then Jean came downstairs, looking a little discontent. She looked lovely, but she was not elaborately dressed. Often, in dressing up, a woman will make herself into a person that doesn't look like the self you know, but Jean hadn't succeeded in doing this at all.
"I failed," she said, anticipating my comment. At that moment the doorbell rang, and both girls flew to get it. Since Belinda was in my lap she was in a poor takeoff position. She tripped over my boot and fell sprawling. Once again, Beverly got to get the door. Belinda burst into tears at this double defeat. The babysitter was a thin teenage girl with lots of braces.
"He tripped me," Belinda said, sitting on the floor with a tear-streaked face.
"So?" Jean said. "Who told you to run?" She introduced the babysitter, whose name was Debbie.
"Nobody cares," Belinda remarked, still crying.
"That's right," Jean said. "You've exhausted all sympathies. You're going to have to go the whole rest of your life without any, because you're so greedy."
"What's sympathy?" Belinda asked.
Jean helped her up, wiped her face, kissed them both, grabbed a coat, and went to the door.
"Let's go," she said. "All this is Debbie's problem now."
"Have a good time, Mom," Beverly said.
"Oh, Beverly, you're so generous," Jean said.
Belinda gave us both a cool look and marched out of the room.
"She hates being omitted from the honors list," Jean said.
"You look awfully nice," I said.
"I hate talking about how I look," she said. "I hate thinking about it. I hate trying to change it. I spent all afternoon trying, but it didn't work. This is how I look."
"Why shouldn't it be?" I said. "You look fine."
"I meant to at least look sophisticated," she said. "But I can't. I'm too ordinary. I just have to come to terms with that fact."
When she said it she looked so appealing that I leaned over and tried to kiss her. She jerked back against the car door.
"I may get out," she said, "if you're gonna do that."
"Okay, okay," I said.
"Why'd you try to kiss me?" she asked, as we drove off. "You're supposed to take me out to dinner."
"You just looked kissable," I said. "One kiss wouldn't have limited your ability to eat."
"Yes it would," she said. "I'm scared of you and I can't eat a bit when I'm scared. Now you've already made me miss my one chance to enjoy a meal at the best restaurant in town."
"Don't be silly," I said. "You don't have to be scared of me.
"I told you I'm out of practice at dates," she said.
To complicate things, we were stuck in a traffic jam, four blocks from her house.
"I wasn't meant to eat in fancy restaurants," Jean said. "That's why this traffic jam is here. We'll never get there."
Just as she said it the traffic jam began to break up. I took a shortcut I had noticed and circumvented what was left of it.
"It's interesting you figured out that shortcut," Jean said.
"Anyone could figure it out," I said.
"I live here and I never did," Jean said. "I'm a very passive driver. I just endure whatever traffic I encounter, and I encounter a lot."
She had a lovely voice. Instead of rising when she was depressed or nervous, it sank and became more throaty.
Jean sat way over against the door. Although the door was locked, that made me nervous. I had a fantasy of having a car wreck in which she popped out and was killed. Though ridiculous, it was a powerful fantasy.
"I wish you wouldn't sit so close to the door," I said.
"Leave me alone," she said. "I'm having a lot of regrets about this date as it is."
We were silent all the way to the restaurant, which was very fancy. I had put on a tie, but still neither Jean nor I looked anything like the other people eating at the restaurant. They all looked more elegant than us, and more at home in fancy restaurants.
Jean was brooding over the menu. It was such a huge menu that it made her seem smaller than it was. Also, it was very elaborate and required a lot of thought. She was frowning as she gave it the thought.
"Why are you frowning?" I asked.
"Are you going to ask me why I frown every time I frown?" she inquired, peeping around the menu.
I shut up.
"It's because it makes me realize what a limited life Fve led," she said, answering the question she had just objected to.
"We eat pizza, cheeseburgers, or carry-out Chinese," she said. "That's stupid, isn't it? But they're all in the neighborhood and I don't have the energy to change my habits. My girls won't know what to do in a restaurant like this because they'll never see one. I haven't seen one in years myself."
"Don't your folks ever take you out?" I asked.
"My folks don't eat out," she said. "They're worse than me. W
hat are you gonna eat?"
I ate veal nioise, and Jean ate a flounder stuffed with crabmeat. Then she had an endive salad. For dessert I had profiteroles, after having failed to persuade her to have some, too. They came in a rich chocolate sauce.
"I'd gain a lot of pounds if I ate that," she said.
"Well, you're small," I said. "A few pounds wouldn't hurt you."
"You don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I get lumpy very easily. Two or three extra pounds makes me lumpy. Then I feel even more discontent than I usually feel."
Then she stole several bites of my profiteroles anyway.
I had an irrational urge to propose to her, but managed to choke it down. It's an urge that strikes me often, whenever I'm truly charmed by a woman. I was charmed by Jean, although I knew I hadn't known her long enough to have made contact with her true character; however, lack of contact with her true character didn't keep me from being charmed enough to want to marry her.
"What arc you thinking?" she said shrewdly. Her cheeks were glowing, probably from the wine.
"I was thinking it would be nice if we got married," I said.
"Probably would be," Jean said, wiping a speck of chocolate sauce off her chin. "I guess this sauce overcame my resistance. I could eat chocolate sauce all day if I let myself. Since I wasn't responsible for ordering it, anything it does to me is your fault."
"It won't do anything to you."
"Well, it might give me a pimple," she said. "Good chocolate sometimes has that effect. I’m glad we came to this restaurant. It's working. I'm beginning to feel slightly sophisticated. That's a treat for a full-time mom."
"Let's have some brandy," I said. "It might make you look even more sophisticated."
We had some brandy. Jean was looking quite happy.
"I guess you think it's utterly ridiculous, that I said that about marriage," I said.
"I hope you aren't going to start apologizing for yourself," she said.
"No," I said.
"You would have, given time," she said. "You should learn to stick to your guns. I don't see anything wrong with your wanting to marry me. I'm a good prospect. I know how to do marriage. It says a lot for your judgement that you said that."
Cadillac Jack Page 36