by James Jones
Ginnie’s mouth twisted up. “Nothin. He was married and had some kids and he worked at the Sternutol. The doctor and the judge and all kept his name quiet. And course, they never did find out about my stepfather.”
“Hell!” Dave said, wide awake now. “He was the guy something should have been done about.”
Ginnie nodded somberly. “If it hadn’t have been for him I wouldn’t never have got started in none of them things.”
“You’ve had it pretty rough, haven’t you?” he said.
“Well, I guess I have,” Ginnie said. She looked vaguely pleased. Suddenly, she got up from the chair, still holding her glass of whiskey, and went straight to the typewriter on the desk.
“You ought to have somebody to look after you,” Dave said from the bed.
“Yeah,” Ginnie said. “But who?”
“Well, someday you’ll find somebody,” he said vaguely.
“Is that that book you’re writin?” she said.
“Leave that alone!” he said, and jumped up off the bed. There was an unfinished page in the typewriter, and he snatched it out and put it in a folder.
“I never looked at it,” Ginnie protested. “Honest, I didn’t.”
It was obvious she was lying. But Dave decided he might as well overlook it. Actually, he didn’t care if she read it or not. It was just that it was so terrible he didn’t want anybody to see it. An automatic reaction.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just don’t like for people to read what I write until it’s done.”
Ginnie peered at him with her red eyeballs. “What’s it about?” she asked.
“Oh, people,” Dave said. “Just people.”
“Am I in it?”
“What? No. Oh no. See, it’s about the war.”
“I thought maybe you might want to put me in it,” Ginnie said, looking at him.
That was the reason she had been telling him this detailed story of her life, then, Dave decided. The same reason probably, why Dewey had asked him all about it. And probably the reason for ’Bama’s interest, too. The power of the pen.
“This is about the war,” he said, “and there’s no women in it.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you?” Ginnie said. But before he had a chance to answer, she had turned and put her arms—still holding the whiskey glass—around him and kissed him on the mouth.
That was the third time they went to bed together.
It was during this that Ginnie did something which startled him half to death. Staring wildly at the ceiling, she cried out to herself in a loud, penetrating voice: “Oh, Ginnie, Ginnie, Ginnie!”
It was not only startling, it was also disconcerting; almost, in fact, as if he were not even there. He was powerless to understand it, or what she meant by it. He did not mention it afterwards because it would have embarrassed him to. Ginnie did not mention it, either, and apparently did not even know she had done it.
The rest of her life story she continued with afterwards, still rattling along almost hurriedly, as though she were afraid she might not get finished before he went to sleep. After the year at the girls’ school she had come home a wiser and more educated person, she said.
She had hung around town for a year or two—until her stepfather died—and then gone to Indianapolis. The war was on then, and work was easy to get in the plants. It had been very unpleasant in Parkman after she got back. That son of a bitch Sherm Ruedy had watched her all the time and apparently took great pleasure in warning her about once a week that he would pick her up if she didn’t walk the chalk line.
He would have, too, Ginnie said, sent me back; if he could ever have catched me. He made life unpleasant enough as it was, that son of a bitch Sherm, and so when her stepfather died and her mother kicked her out, she had went to Indianapolis.
It was plain to see she was deathly afraid of Sherm Ruedy. Dave suddenly felt sorry for her. He got himself some more whiskey, and resolutely prepared himself to listen.
In Indianapolis, she had worked for a while at the Allis-Chalmers plant, she said, and then at some other plants, and then she had quit factory work altogether and had took up singing. The town was wide open back then because of the war, and there was a lot of young soldiers from Camp Atterbury and Fort Benjamin Harrison coming in on the town with lots of money to spend. She rarely had to buy anything for herself, she said, and she made big tips into the bargain. She sang in several different bars out on West Washington and had done real well and everything was fine—until she got mixed up with that soldier boy from Camp Atterbury who was over the hill. He told her he was on furlough; but the truth was he had broke into the home of a poor old lady who worked out at the Base and who, as she had apparently told just about everyone on the base, kept all her money at home because she didn’t trust banks. Evidently, the boy had had to beat her up with a loose chair leg, and very nearly killed her, before she would tell him where the money was. It come to something over a thousand dollars. The poor old lady was still in the hospital, but beginning to recover, when the police picked him up at Ginnie’s little one-room apartment. Of course, she herself hadn’t known none of any of this at the time. He seemed like a nice sweet boy to her, and was always kind, and he spent money on her like water. Naturally, later on, she found out he was trying to get it all spent before they caught him. He damn near did, too. Well, after they had got him the police had turned her loose the very next day and said she was innocent of any crimes and knowledge. But, of course, it had made all the papers, and that was when she decided to come home to Parkman. When she got to Parkman, she found it had made the paper there, too, and it hadn’t helped her reputation none. That son of a bitch Sherm Ruedy had come around and told her he didn’t think she was innocent of all crimes and knowledge, and he better not ever catch her with more money than she was supposed to have or he would send her away again so quick it would make her head swim, and she better get herself a job right away if she wanted to stay in this town.
Well, she had went to work at the brassiere factory, which was hiring all the help it could get just then after getting part of a contract for the WACs. And she had been here ever since. She had got to running around with Mildred and Rosalie and Lois and Martha Garvey and the rest of that bunch. They were all fine girls and she liked them. Of course, sometimes they were a little . . .
Dave was very nearly asleep. He hadn’t meant to. But the dull, unchanging monotone of her voice had hypnotized him in spite of his interest. Her voice kept on fading in and out, and he let himself go.
The next thing he knew was when his heart leaped wildly in his chest, shutting off his air for a moment. Ginnie had begun to pummel him back awake with a sort of distraught playfulness, saying she wanted him to sleep with her.
“You went to sleep when I was talkin, didn’t you,” she said. “You bad boy.”
“No,” he said. “No, no. I was listening.”
“You bad boy!” Ginnie said, pressing herself against him. At close range, her fatigue- and liquor-reddened eyeballs looked even redder; but even the redness could not disguise the almost panicky distraction that peered out from behind them.
And so that was the fourth, and last time they went to bed.
Afterwards, with his head pounding as if someone had thrust it through a tympano playing Brahms’s First Symphony, he rolled away by himself, desperately seeking sleep and a diminution of heartbeats. The truth was, he felt he had had all the damned sex he would ever want in the rest of his whole life and if he never saw a woman again it would be too damned soon.
Ginnie, however, appeared to be reassured. “Don’t go to sleep,” she said. “I got lots more to tell you.”
“Okay,” he mumbled. “I won’t.”
“I might as well stay all night,” she said, “it’s so late?”
“Sure,” he said, “sure.” He couldn’t very well tell her not to.
“You know, I could really fall for you,” Ginnie said. The last thing he heard was Gin
nie’s voice, still rambling on about her life. He wished suddenly it was Gwen lying there talking like that. Or even Edith Barclay.
In that last lone second before sleep, he was suddenly seized by panic himself. Why the hell did men do it anyway? He was just as lonely as if he had stayed in all night by himself. His typewriter mocked him from the desk—how was he ever going to work tomorrow—and desperately he bored his way down through the agitated surface into quiet.
In the morning, Ginnie had gotten up and dressed herself to go to work almost before the December sun had come up. Dave peered at her from under the covers. She had had less than three hours’ sleep. He did not see how she could do it. When she looked back at him from out of that round, dull face with those bulging red eyeballs, he was suddenly made to think of a police car with two big red lights and wanted to laugh.
Ginnie, as she went about primping herself, smiled at him plaintively, and said something about having to be to work. She had to be careful about absences. And anyway, she wanted to get out before that son of a bitch Sherm Ruedy was up and about. She was sorry, she said, that she couldn’t stay long enough for a little morning “party.”
Dave merely grunted and rolled back over. Personally, he was glad she couldn’t, and only wished she would shut up and go away. He was sickened out on sex, and would be for some time he felt. And also he was tired out. He was not really as young at thirty-seven as he had previously thought he was, apparently.
“Well, I want to thank you for a nice time,” Ginnie said dully. She sounded like a properly mannerly, departing weekend guest. “I enjoyed it very much,” she said.
Dave made himself roll over again, and sat up a little.
“Well, that’s all right, Ginnie,” he said. “I had a nice time, too.”
Ginnie was putting on her shabby coat. “Well, I better be goin,” she said, smiling anxiously.
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said still leaning on his elbow. “Did you really mean what you said last night about you could really fall for me?”
Ginnie peered back at him. She appeared to be thinking. “Oh, did I say that?” she said coyly after a moment.
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess I did,” she said.
“Well, if you did,” he said, feeling very kindly, “I just wanted to warn you not to. Don’t get hurt.”
Ginnie looked a little startled. “Well,” she said, “okay. I won’t.”
“You see,” he said, “I’m in love with another woman.”
“Anybody I know?” Ginnie said.
“No, no. It’s nobody from here,” Dave said. “It’s a woman from far away.” Then, in order to make it sound more convincing, he added in a sad whisper: “A woman I knew in Germany. I’ll probably never see her again.”
“Well,” Ginnie said, “goodby, Dave. I’ll see you down at Smitty’s some time?
“As a matter of fact,” she added, “I got a boyfriend myself I’m in love with, too. It makes my life very unhappy. I guess that’s why I drink so much.”
She went with dignity to the door, and then turned back. “I’m sorry for your unhappiness, Dave,” she said. “I think I’ll go down the back way.”
“Goodby, Ginnie,” he said from the bed.
“Goodby, Dave,” she said.
Whew! he thought, was he glad that was over! and lay back down. But after she was gone a minute, he could not resist going to the window to watch her walk dumpily down the back street. His heart suddenly jumped with sympathy for her, as he watched her. She didn’t have very much, did she? and he felt he hadn’t done much for her.
She was really a nice gal, when you thought about it. Sort of sweet, and good-natured, and malleable. Even if she was not very bright. And ugly as a mud fence. At least there wasn’t any meanness in her.
What she really needed, he thought, was some guy to take care of her. Some dumb farmer from down in the country; or some oaf who worked at Sternutol: She’d make some guy like that a damned good wife.
Actually, there was probably a good deal of undeveloped intelligence in her, if somebody would just take the time to stimulate it. And he felt sorry for her because he was sure nobody ever would.
Well, at least he always knew where he could get a decent piece now, whenever he wanted it. It was a comfort to him to know this, even though he was still thoroughly sickened out on sex. Because he might not always be.
He went back and crawled back into bed, looking despairingly at his typewriter, which grinned back at him balefully, baring all its keys.
Well, by God, he thought spitefully, he was not going to go over to Gwen French’s for Christmas, anyway. Especially after they hadn’t asked him. No, by God; he’d get hold of Old ’Bama and they’d go off and get drunk together somewhere Christmas. At least, he had one real friend in this town.
Chapter 33
IN FRANK’S HOME, Christmastime was always one of the nicest times of the year, or so Frank always felt. Whatever arguments or rambunctious fights there were in the family at the time, they always seemed to dissipate themselves around the twenty-first until after New Year’s. If, on January 2, they all suddenly reappeared with a renewed vigor born of exhaustion, disillusion, and emotional letdown—this still did not change the fact that from the twenty-first to the first, there was this sort of no-man’s-land of happiness and truce.
For two weeks before, there was always much secretive spiriting in of presents, much clandestine shopping, many private trips to Terre Haute or Indianapolis, on the part of everybody. Pre-Christmas shopping time was one of the few times Agnes ever permitted Dawn to take the Ford out of town alone. Dawn did all her shopping and all her own package wrapping herself. Therefore, there were usually three or four evenings when after dinner she would demand the dining room table to wrap on; and sheaves of various colored wrapping paper and ribbon could be found strewn around her upstairs. Agnes had used to wrap all her own packages, too; but, what with her heavy schedule of clubwork and all, now had them wrapped for her in the stores’ wrapping departments. Frank had always had his wrapped for him at the stores; it was more expensive, but in the end it made a much prettier package.
Usually, every year, they set their tree up on the twentieth. This was Frank’s job. Usually, what he did was to go over to Terre Haute even earlier (around the twelfth or fifteenth) to the park where there were always trees set up on the grass, and contract for one of the best trees before they got picked over. He always tried to get the biggest one around for the height the living room ceiling would allow. It would be cold, and by the time he got over there after work, it would be dark. He would shiver in his topcoat, watching the frosty steam of his breath in the dim light, and go around with the head treeman inspecting the trees. Then he would pay for the best tree, make sure they tagged it as sold, and see it was put aside somewhere so it would not get bruised or bedraggled. The heater in the Buick was always luxurious on his stone-cold feet when he got back in the car, and on the drive home a tremendous feeling of accomplishment, coupled with an indescribable joy would always rise up in him and almost bring tears to Frank’s eyes: Christmas! On the twentieth, he would take off at noon and go over again and bring the tree home in the pickup from the store, and set it up in the living room, and they would decorate it. Agnes would serve them a buffet supper to eat while they decorated, or they would go out to the Country Club for dinner afterwards, leaving the house after a last lingering look at their tree. It was at such times that Frank would think about the son he had always wanted but that Agnes had never been able to have—not that he would have wanted him in place of Dawn!—and toy with the idea he had never broached to her of adopting one.
Somehow, after the tree was all set up and the strings of red and blue and green lights turned on for the first time, everything would change and the Holiday Truce would come subtly into effect. It was almost as if the colored lights in some way caused this. Strung out over the tree, reflecting from the masses of tinsel icicles and casting their merging colo
red light on the walls and floor, they seemed to guarantee in a sober stately way, he would think sentimentally, that Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men actually did exist in the world.
Since Dawn had gotten over Santa Claus, they had ceased getting up early Christmas morning and now opened their presents on Christmas Eve. They would start early, and after would get each one’s presents arranged in its own display pile so they could be seen tomorrow, and then go out to the Country Club for dinner and the annual Christmas Eve Dance. On Christmas Day, Agnes always held open house and served eggnog and breakfast or later on sandwiches, and one of them would always stay home to host for their friends who came around to view the presents. Usually, Frank and Dawn would go around with the presents for the various people who worked for them such as Edith Barclay and her grandmother, and Al and Geneve Lowe; and Agnes would stay home. Then Frank would relieve her, while she and Dawn went around to their various mutual friends such as Marg Dennis and Wally, and the Frenches’ over at Israel. Then Dawn would take over for a while while Frank and Agnes drove around to the homes of their own friends from the Elks or Country Club and drink some of their eggnog. Usually, by noon, the eggnog everywhere had given out but that made no difference as almost everybody was by then drinking manhattans, old-fashioneds, or whiskey and water.
But in spite of the Good Fellowship, and the other numerous joys of Christmastime notwithstanding, it was always—for Frank—the buying of the presents for his family which gave him his greatest fulfillment. To buy for them gave him the same tremendous choked-up happiness that he got when he went to buy the tree for the twentieth—only about a hundred times stronger. He never liked or appreciated himself quite so well, or found himself quite so easy to associate with, as when he was buying presents—especially Christmas presents—for Agnes and Dawn.
Frank never gave them presents out of his own store. He had made this an ironbound rule. He felt it was cheap; and anyway, it would almost certainly turn out to be something they had seen there, and consequently would be disappointed in. No, sir; he bought their presents at Marshall Field or Pogue’s or Famous-Barr or someplace like that; and he paid the full retail price. Always away a good deal on last-minute buying trips anyway, around Christmastime, he was able to search long and diligently to find exactly what he wanted.