by James Jones
“Hello, Raymond. How are you.”
“You looking for a chair?” Raymond shouted.
“Yes.”
“Here, take this one!” Raymond shouted. His two friends, who had looked up, had already looked back down. “We don’t need it. There’s only three of us.”
“Well, I’ve already got one spotted over here,” Dave said, feeling uneasy. He had meant to get one from the table nearest the booth of Edith Barclay.
“No. Now, by God, you take this one,” Raymond insisted. “We won’t never miss it. You take it, I say!”
“Well, all right,” Dave said, feeling it was best to humor him, and came over to get it. In spite of his unease with Raymond, he looked across at Edith Barclay who was watching him, and grinned arrogantly.
“Hello, Edith,” he grinned. “How are you?” It sounded snotty and unpleasant, the way he said it, even to him. He did not know why she always affected him like that. He wasn’t really that bad, really.
“Hello, Dave,” she said back, levelly. “How are you.”
“Oh,” Raymond said in a lowered voice. “Gee. I didn’t mess you up, did I? With the girl?”
“Who? What?” Dave said bending down.
“Oh, hell no. I don’t even hardly know that girl.”
“Are you sure?” Raymond said, eyeing him. “You’re not just saying that.”
“Positive.”
“Well. Glad to be friendly, glad to be friendly,” Raymond said, apparently appeased. “Take it away.”
“Thanks,” Dave said.
He hoisted the chair and started off with it, relieved to get far away from Raymond, but still aware of Edith watching him, and because of this, feeling powerful and tough and very dominating in a pleasing male way. To hell with these respectable women, he thought. He’d take the barflies anytime, even Old Rosalie. Go ahead and watch me, Edith, he thought.
Edith, in her booth, was going on watching him. Both her face and her emotions were tightly closed against inspection. But she wasn’t thinking about Dave. He was, she had concluded, just about the biggest, ridiculously ludicrous, thoroughly distasteful single chunk of male vanity she had ever seen in her life. What she was thinking was something else. Like a startling revelation, she had just realized why he fascinated her. It was because—although there was nothing alike in their characters at all—he looked so much like his brother. Edith had just realized she was in love with Frank.
With that sort of heartstopping mental shock in which everything seems to stand utterly still, Edith wondered how it could have happened? She certainly hadn’t known anything about it, had she? It must have been going on for quite some time. In fact, now that she could see it, she could see where it had been. Apparently, at some unnamed point in the near two years she had worked for him, she had stopped loving her job and started loving her boss, without knowing it.
It was obvious why she loved him. She loved him because he had all those fine and gentle traits of character which his brother Dave obviously lacked. She loved him because he was shy, and pathetic, and lonely, and because he needed someone to cling to; in short, all the things his brother Dave was not. But all this was hardly the point.
The point was that the whole thing was ridiculous, and startling. It was not only startling, it was totally foreign. It almost wasn’t even her, she felt. Falling in love with a married man was not included in the list of probabilities, or even possibilities, that she had worked out for her life. It was not in her code of ethics, either. This was something that was going to require considerable thought and mental adjustment—in private. Certainly, she couldn’t do it here.
A married man almost old enough to be her father! Why, it wasn’t even believable! A short, fat, plaintive little German man who ran a jewelry store, and worried. And who was so unstalwart, and unstrong-willed, he couldn’t even handle his own affairs adequately, let alone somebody else’s. Who couldn’t even keep his own wife from dominating him. And yet all those things were the very same things which wrenched her heart whenever she thought about him.
With carefully unreadable eyes, Edith turned back to Harold Alberson and smiled and hunted for something to make conversation. What she wanted was to be taken home immediately, so she could think, but she knew better than to let that out. Harold would connect it with the way she had stared at Dave. And probably draw the wrong conclusions! she added crisply.
For a moment, Edith looked up at Janie in her corner booth with her two old geezers. Whatever Janie’s trouble—love, illness, depression, or fatigue—she was beginning to get over it now apparently and for the first time in her life Edith was actually glad to see her out with her decrepit boyfriends and not embarrassed by it. Was that why Janie had kept on running Frank Hirsh down to her all this time? Had Janie foreseen that this was going to happen? and been trying to protect her? Oh, if she could only get home, and be alone, and think!
She turned back to Harold, smiling warmly, and began to talk about how her grandmother embarrassed her running around with all these old guys like she did.
And to hell with her, Dave thought. There was plenty of other fish in the sea. The three women in that booth next to Dewey’s all had men with them, he noted; but that still left Mildred Pierce apparently unattached, before he had to fall back on Rosalie. He set the chair down at the end of the crowded booth.
“Now!” he said, sitting in it. “Tell you what? My voluminous knowledge is at your command.”
“Hey!” Hubie said. “Now you quit that swearin in front of these ladies here.”
Dave was looking at Dewey, but Dewey only made a shy grimace for an answer. Beside him Lois looked sullen.
“Wall, it’s like this, see?” Hubie drawled, answering for him. “Me and Dewey is seriously considerin reenlistin in the Army. Right now, they want men bad, and we could both git back in with our old ratings instead of having to go back in as privates, see? And we want to get your professional VFW opinion of whether we ought to or not to.”
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” Dewey grinned, his handsome face beaming mischievously. “We both gettin sick of this damned town. Nothing ever happens around here exciting or romantic.”
“Damn you, Dewey,” Lois said. “I want a home for my two kids. You know I do.”
Dewey’s happy face suddenly expressed a deep mock sympathy, everywhere except in his eyes which snapped with good humor. “Well, honey, my advice to you is to find some nice fella that wants to get married and marry him,” he said.
“You go to hell, Dewey,” Lois said.
“Well, now, honey,” Dewey protested; “honestly, you can’t expect me to marry you and take care of them kids just because your first old man got killed in the war, can you? They ain’t my kids. It ain’t my fault he got killed by the damn Japs.” He winked at Dave. “By rights, them kids are the government’s responsibility. If they was my kids, it’d be different.”
Hubie laughed and looked at Dave. It was plain that if the last time Dave had seen them all here the girls had had the upper hand, the tables were now turned. Hubie’s girl Martha, who rarely seemed to say anything, sat looking down glumly at her half-empty beer glass. “Now, honestly,” Dewey grinned, “can you?”
“Aw, you go to hell, Dewey,” Lois said. “No. No, it wasn’t your fault any. You’re an awful stinker Dewey, you know it?”
“He sure is,” Rosalie said brassily.
“Now, look at that!” Dewey protested. “Ain’t that just like a bunch of women? You tell them the truth, and they call you a stinker.”
“What about it, Perfesser?” Hubie said in his nasal drawl. “What do you think?”
“Well, they do want men,” Dave grinned, playing along. “And if you had pretty good ratings, it’d be a good way to get them back, right now. In another year, they may change the ruling.”
“Why the hell don’t you keep out of this, fat boy?” Rosalie said.
“Now you just shut up, fullback,” Dewey said. “Or I’ll tackle y
ou.”
Rosalie glowered at him, but subsided. Looking at her Dave got the impression that had it been anybody else but Dewey she might have offered to take him on. The fact that he had once been out with her did not titilate him at all now. He looked over at Mildred Pierce, who had so far not said anything, and remembered how he had wanted to try her out even back then, when he had heard her and ’Bama going to town in the next room. He guessed he was putting on a little weight, he thought; after all, two months sitting at a desk in that damned taxi office wasn’t exactly a waist-slimming operation.
“Sure,” Dewey had just said to him; “that’s what I say. Hubie was a buck sergeant and I was a staff. lt’d be silly to throw away ratings like that, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, it’s a lot of money,” Dave grinned.
Dewey nodded. “More’n we’d ever make in this jerkwater town.”
“What about Germany, Perfesser?” Hubie drawled. “We never got to Europe. Is it as nice for a soldier to be in as Australia?”
“Well, it’s a mighty nice place to be stationed,” Dave said, shaking his head and peering slyly at Rosalie. “That’s all I’ll say; in front of the girls. Germany’s a mighty nice place to serve in.”
“What about all them German fräuleins over there?” Hubie said.
“You go to hell, too,” Martha said in a low voice, without looking up. She sounded as though the swear words perhaps did not come as naturally to her as to the other girls.
“Is it true? what the guys say?” Hubie grinned. “I hear them fräuleins over there will do everything for you. Move right in with you and wash your clothes for you and cook and turn their pay right over to you, and you don’t even have to marry them at all.”
“That’s right,” Dave nodded. “They will if they like you. But then those European women are different from our women over here. Over there, the man’s the lord and master.”
Hubie nodded. “That’s just what I heard.” He turned to Dewey. “That’s what we ought to do, Dewey. Enlist for Germany. With out ratings back, and all that money—”
“You go to hell,” Martha said again, still staring at her beer.
“There! How do you like that?” Hubie said. “Is that fair or not? Her old man,” he moved his head at Martha, “Old Man Garvey—he runs a big old fillin station out in West End. He don’t want his daughter runnin around with no town bum and marryin him. He wants her to marry a nice boy who’ll run his fillin station. And then just because I—”
“I said I’d marry you,” Martha said, “except that Daddy and Momma wouldn’t let me.”
“There? You see?” Hubie said to Dave. “And yet she’s of age, she can do whatever she wants, can’t she? No, sir,” he drawled, “she just don’t want to marry Old Hubie, that’s all. And then just because I want to go back in the Army and try a little of that German stuff . . .” He rattled on.
Dave had been looking at Martha while Hubie talked, and so had seen the one brief look that she had turned upward at him—at Hubie. It was a look full of several things, and it filled him with a strange male exultation. It was a look full of frustrated possession, for one thing, the hunger for ownership; it was a look full of passionate desire, for another, the pure physical desire to feel sexually; and then in addition, larding it all over, was this indrawn expression of guilt because she did feel these things, coupled with an embarrassed look of shame because other people could obviously so easily see—if only by her very actions in being here—just exactly what she did feel. It was a short quick look, it didn’t last long; he had just happened to see it. But it made Dave want to shout out loud with triumph. It was the kind of look he would like to make that damned Edith Barclay feel, or Missy Gwen French.
Then however, suddenly, a new and deeper realism dropped down over Dave’s sense of triumph, smothering it.
It was like a sudden spiritual revelation to him, a warning almost; one of those sudden deeper penetrations into things that go deeper than you want to go. And that consequently you have to be alert for because they only knock once, and lightly: This was what all men wanted from all women. To make them like sex and make them admit they liked it. To make them feel so good in sex they would come back and ask for more. That was what men wanted. But the very idea presupposed a woman who in the beginning didn’t like it, a “respectable” woman; otherwise it would be impossible. That was what intrigued him so about Edith Barclay, and about Gwen. Why her? a nympho? and yet he did include her. But with a “respectable” woman, it was impossible anyway: Even if you managed to make her like it, and admit she liked it, the guilt and the hate for you for making her go against her “principles”—which you would not have her without, and were the very thing which attracted you!—would always be there. And so he saw, didn’t he, the Revelation said to him, that it was all impossible, a vague nonexistent dream of an illusion, and a snare and a delusion: and that was where the warning part came in.
But my God, the next thought came, what was left? What hope was there? for love? complete love? The answer was obvious, wasn’t it, the Revelation said. None. Hastily, Dave picked up the full glass of beer from the bottle Dewey had ordered for him and drained it, staring straight ahead at the wall. Then he poured another and drank it, and shut the door on the cold draft of the Revelation which said it was impossible and that everything else was lies. It had changed his entire mood. Obviously, the only thing to do was not to think about it. I need love.
“. . . and so there you are!” Hubie finished up. “I ask you. Is that fair or not?” He looked down at Martha unctuously. Dave had not heard a single word he’d said.
“It sure is,” he answered nevertheless, grinning. “It’s not fair at all. But then, who ever expected anything to be fair?”
Martha continued to look down glumly into her half-empty beer glass. Then, almost absentmindedly, she picked it up and drank what was in it and set it back down and continued to stare at it, empty now. Yes, sir, Dave thought happily, yes, sir, for once the Males sure had the Females going tonight. And it was seldom enough, he thought.
“Yes, sir! I think that’s what we ord to do, Dewey,” Hubie drawled. “Enlist for Germany. I’ve always wanted to see Europe anyways.
“Don’t you hit me, Rosalie!” he squealed suddenly, as the big Amazon turned to glare down at him. “You leave me alone, now! Or I’ll sick Dewey on you!”
“I want a home for my kids!” Lois burst out. She had begun to cry.
“You don’t want a home,” Dave said, with unexpected fury. “You got one. You ain’t out in the street, are you?”
“I live with my folks.”
“Well, you see? All you want is some damned man to marry you. And take care of you and be a damned father to them kids.”
Lois looked up at him reproachfully, tears still still dribbling from her eyes. “He would want to,” she said, “if he loved me.” Her face seemed to be asking what he was doing trying to break up her love life?
Dave suddenly felt ashamed of himself.
But the debonair Dewey had just set down his glass with savoir faire. “Yes, sir, it sure is rough,” he said. “People just shouldn’t get married and have kids in this day and age, that’s all. A person just can’t tell what’s liable to happen, anymore.”
“Yes, by God, that’s right!” Mildred Pierce suddenly said, her eyes swinging around the table as fiercely as some hawk’s. “And that’s about the only damn true thing that’s been said here tonight!” It was the first word she had spoken since Dave had come in. Beside her, the sacklike dumpy Ginnie had so far not said anything. She had been occupying herself, he had noticed, by exchanging hopefully flirtatious glances with one of the various men at the bar, after which every so often, beneath those vague washed-out eyes she would smile coyly.
“Mildred, Mildred,” Dewey murmured. “I didn’t mean to go getting you all upset or nothing.”
“Mildred,” Dave said, suddenly, aware of Rosalie beside him— “Mildred, how would you like to go out
with me tonight?” Beside him, Rosalie seemed to stiffen.
Mildred turned to look at him, her eyes relaxing back into their normal calmness. “Be all right. I wouldn’t mind,” she said, shaking her head slowly; “but I’m just too tired. I’ve been out the last two nights straight. And I’ve just got to get a good night’s sleep.”
Dave felt his prospects plummet, and carry his optimism with them. He had staked it all on Mildred’s usual willingness to go on a party. He had not considered a possible need for sleep. And beside him, little ripples of triumph seemed to emanate from Rosalie’s heroic physique, as she settled herself to wait for him to ask her next.
“As a matter of fact, I think I’ll go right now,” Mildred said. “Before I wind up sitting here another hour. Let me out, you two,” she said to Lois and Dewey. “Maybe some other time, Dave,” she said after they had let her out, and patted him on the neck, and then went to looking for her coat among the loaded hooks on the upright post at the end of the booth.
Well, Dave thought, that was that. And he watched her pert little bottom under that tight skirt with a feeling very like a man who watches a bass which has thrown his hook swim slowly down out of sight in the water. And beside him, the sanguinary Rosalie still waited. When Mildred finally found her coat, she put it on and turned back to the table.
“Well,” she said, “how much do I owe on my share?” She seemed to be talking to Lois more than anyone else.
“I’ll get it,” Dave said before anyone else could answer. “Just forget it. I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay,” Mildred said. “Thanks.” She patted him once more on his shoulder and left.
Dave sighed. “Well,” he said, “what do you say we have another beer?”
“Well now, I think that’s the best idea yet,” Ginnie said in her toneless voice, smiling at him dully. It was the first she had spoken.
Dave studied her, seeing her for the first time, really—as an individual—since he had come in. Nobody else paid the slightest attention to her.
She was, Dave reflected sadly, just about the poorest excuse for a human being that he had ever had occasion to witness. And yet: ’Bama had told him she was not only the best but also the least troublesome one of the bunch for a one-night stand, hadn’t he? He toyed with an idea. Well, why not? He looked at her again. Ginnie was just about as shapeless as a human body could get, and still be recognizable as such. Where there was any definite shape to her at all, it was always the wrong shape, and in the wrong place. Like that hump of fat on the back of her neck that aging and poorly postured women acquired. And yet she wasn’t an awful lot older than Wally Dennis: She had been in the sixth grade with him, he’d said. Twenty-three or -four? My God, it was unbelievable! And yet, after all, like they said in the Army, if you turned the lights out.