by James Jones
But nevertheless Bob turned to her now. “Shardine,” he said politely, “I wonder if you could let those things go for a while. I’d rather like to get my room straightened up, before I retire tonight.”
“Yas, sir,” Shardine said. “I’ll just turn the food off.” She kept her face averted away from Dave.
“Also,” Bob said politely, “please fix up a guest room upstairs. Mr Hirsh may be staying.”
“Yas, sir,” Shardine said, and left.
“I ain’t staying,” Dave said.
“Maybe you’ll change your mind,” Bob said. “Let’s have a drink, Dave.”
“I don’t care,” Dave said, dully; then he suddenly cried it out, loudly: “I don’t care if I have a drink or not! I don’t care!” But he followed Bob over to the countertop where he got out the mixing things.
“I think I’ll have a martini with you,” Bob said.
Dave hardly heard him. Pacing back and forth behind him while Bob mixed the drinks, suddenly transfixed with energy again, it all came spouting out of Dave in a regular torrent of words.
“Bob, you know we were in love with each other! I know she was in love with me! She even told me so once! And you know it, too! Now, don’t you?”
Bob hesitated a moment, then spoke without turning his head, “Yes, I know it,” he said. “I suppose there’s no harm in saying that much, now. Yes, I know she was in love with you, dear Dave. And still is, I expect. Yes, I’ve rather followed yours and Gwen’s love affair with considerable interest, Dave, right almost from its very inception.”
“And is that why you got her to go away from me?” Dave said.
“Dear Dave,” Bob said, almost crisply, for him, and stopped stirring the drinks. “Dear Dave, I had nothing whatever to do with Gwen’s going. She made her own decision. As a matter of fact, if I had any inclination at all toward any opinion, it would have been to have had her stay. But as I told you once, I feel very strongly that I must not interfere in any way in this matter between you and Gwen.” He had gone back to stirring. “But why!” Dave cried. “She loved me! Why!”
Bob poured the drinks out into two little round glasses and turned around with them. Offering one of them, he stared into Dave’s eyes, and then smiled, “Here, take one of these and let’s go sit down at the table, Dave.”
Dave took the glass and followed him limply to the big table.
“But why!” he cried, as soon as he was seated. “You’ve got to tell my why!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” Bob said. “In the first place, I’m not sure I know. Because I think it was a combination of a lot of things, not the least of which was Wally’s leaving. Then, too, I’ve come to suspect that there’s some element in all of this that I’m missing somehow. Anything else I know is in the strictest of confidence, and I cannot divulge confidences. And as I’ve told you so many times before, I feel very strongly that I must not interfere karmically in something that is solely between yourself and Gwen.”
“More of that damned Yogi stuff,” Dave snarled.
“Dear Dave,” Bob said gently, “don’t take out on me your grief over Gwen’s leaving. That won’t do anyone any good.”
Dave rubbed his hand over his face and took a swallow of his drink. “Of course,” he said. “You’re right. I apologize.”
“And it isn’t Yogi,” Bob smiled. “It’s yoga. Yoga is the system. Yogi is an individual practitioner of it.”
For a moment, Dave so far forgot his distress that he was able to grin. Old Bob! “I apologize,” he said solemnly. “Yoga.” But then it hit him again, a spine-riving, stomach-shuddering force, that he had no more control over than he did over his heart’s beating. He took another swallow of his drink, and discovered that the glass was now empty.
“If you want another, help yourself,” Bob smiled. “Better yet, I’ll fix it for you. But I’m going to nurse this one,” he said. “No; no thanks. Look, Bob,” Dave said, leaning forward. “Where did she go? Maybe I could write to her. Do you know where she went?”
Bob hesitated for a moment, as if he were going to say: No, he did not know. But then instead, he said: “Yes, I do know where she is. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, either, dear Dave.”
“But if I just knew where she was,” Dave said. “If I could just talk to her. Bob, you don’t know how much we— And do you know, Bob, we never—” He was just on the verge of telling him that they had never slept together; but then he could not—not because of his own pride, but because of his feeling for Gwen. “Well, what if I wrote a letter and left it here with you? to forward on?”
Slowly, Bob shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said sadly, but his eyes were steady. “You see,” he said, “she left instructions that she did not want to hear from anyone, Dave. Anyone. I’m not even writing her myself, in fact.”
Bitterness rose up in Dave. “Well, tell me this: Has she got another man with her?”
Bob did not like this, at all, and his eyes grew cold; but he did not recriminate. All he said was, gently: “No, she has no other lover. I think I can assure you of that.”
“I’m sorry,” Dave said. “I shouldn’t have said that, Bob.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Bob said.
“But you don’t know how much I love her!” Dave said.
“Dear Dave,” Bob said gently, suddenly looking like a scholarly elder advising the young, “I have found that love between two persons very rarely varies in intensity—only in articulation. Even the lowest brute of a man can suffer consummate agonies when he feels love for his brute of a female.” He smiled. “You’re no exception, Dave. And, in fact, I rather think you’re playing just about par for the course.”
“Well, but what’s she going to do?” Dave said. “If she has no lovers, and if she has no writers around. So what’s she going to do?”
“Well, she said she intended to work on her book. And, in fact, I believes she intends to send it off to a publisher before ever coming home. If she does come home.”
Like a sudden dousing of cold water, Dave forgot himself momentarily, remembering Francine. “Listen, there’s something she should know about,” he said. “This isn’t any subterfuge, or anything like that. See— Well, do you know the structure of her book?”
Bob nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, see, my sister, Francine, was home for my niece Dawnie’s wedding; and she came to see me. Well, I inadvertently told her about Gwen’s book, and Francine figures pretty prominently in the book, you know. She was George Blanca’s lover. Well, she says if Gwen prints anything about her, she’ll sue. Gwen ought to know about this before she sends the book in.”
“Yes,” Bob said right away, “she should. And I’ll see that she gets the knowledge, Dave. And thank you. This is important enough she should know. She’s been rather worried about the possibility of suits over the book for some time.”
“I always did tell her that it was a novel she had there,” Dave said, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears. He turned away. “I’ve got to go, Bob,” he said after a moment. “Thanks for inviting me, but I can’t stay. And, Bob, I don’t hold anything against you. I know you’re only doing what she asked you to. It’s just that— I really did— If I only knew why!” Again, he turned away.
Bob’s face was lit up with sorrowful pain, when Dave turned back to him. “Dear Dave,” he said; “I know very little about life. Its purpose, or its reason. But in my life, I have learned just one thing, and it’s the most painful thing I’ve ever learned:
“Every man must find his own salvation. It’s not to be found in another person. Not in friendship; but most particularly not in love. That’s where our American culture—our whole Western culture—has fallen down. It’s tried to teach us that salvation can be found there: in love. Listen to a love song on the radio and see how it affects you, emotionally, even while your mind may be laughing at it.”
“I know,” Dave said.
�
�The simple avoidance of loneliness is not enough. The simple avoidance of pain, of discomfort, is not enough. That way we stagnate. That’s regression. We depend too much on creature comforts, in our culture; and love is one of the main ones of these. Did you ever notice how disgusting, how really idiotic, requited lovers are? Only when their love finally wears out do they really become human again, suffer again.
“It was the most painful lesson I ever had to learn,” Bob said sadly.
“Your philosophy does me very little good,” Dave said wryly, and then an old quote from the Bible came into his mind: “I asked for bread and you gave me a stone,” he said.
“It’s all I have to give, Dave,” Bob said.
“Well, I must go,” Dave said, and got up.
“What are you going to do about your book?” Bob said, getting up with him.
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll finish it. Maybe I won’t. What difference does it make?”
“Well, that is something only you can decide for yourself,” Bob said.
“Hell, I only started writing the damned thing because I wanted to make Gwen love me,” Dave said. “I’ll read your manuscript, if you’d like to leave it,” Bob offered again.
“No. I think I’ll take it on back home with me.”
“Well, are you coming back over anymore? now that Gwen is gone?”
“I don’t know,” Dave said. He had reached the old cellar landing by the side door. “Yeah, I guess. But I don’t know.”
“That’s also something you must decide for yourself,” Bob said, smiling sadly.
“We’ll see,” Dave said. “I’ll probably be back over to see you sometime. So long,” he said.
“So long, Dave,” Bob said.
Outside in the little Plymouth, he dropped the manila folder in the seat and started the car up. He drove out through the gate of Bob French’s Last Retreat.
He felt empty. He didn’t care whether he ever worked on the damned book anymore or not. And as far as that went, maybe it might be a good thing. Maybe it would show her someday what she had done to him. Maybe that was what he ought to do, just put the damned thing away and forget it.
It was a long drive back to Parkman, that five miles. He shuttled himself into the seemingly never-ending stream of great trucks coming off the bridge, and then he sandwiched himself in between two of them and just stayed there. He was too empty to even try to pass one of them.
Harriet Bowman and Guinevere French. The two unrequited loves. It seemed to be his destiny. Maybe there was something in his basic character which caused it? Well, if it was, it was a hell of a poor kind of a basic character to be saddled with. He had thought that one was rough—out there in Hollywood: Harriet Bowman. Harriet Bowman! Who married a goddamned lawyer! But that one was nothing compared to this one. Nothing! This time she had really loved him. Harriet Bowman never had. But she had. How would he ever again get a woman to fall in love with him? The him he was today. Hell, even the thought was ridiculous. Fat and forty and broke and prospectless.
By the time he got back to Parkman, the emptiness in him had been replaced by sheer burning rage at Gwen for what she had done to him. Not even a word. Outrage at her because he still didn’t understand what could have made her, loving him as he knew she did, do what she had done. Well, he would get hold of old slobby Ginnie Moorehead and have a royal drunken romping party tonight, and to hell with her.
Maybe he would write the damned book anyway, just to show her what she had missed. But then when he looked down at the manilla folder, emptiness rose up all over him. He wasn’t even interested in it anymore. But, by God, maybe he’d write it anyway. Anyway, he would sure get hold of slobby old Ginnie tonight.
I have heen faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion. Yeah: What other fashion did they give you a choice of? At least slobby old Ginnie didn’t just up and take off from town without even leaving you a word.
But when he did get hold of slobby old Ginnie, he did the very same damned thing that he had warned Wally Dennis against doing when Wally insulted Rosalie back Easter night: He antagonized her; the hurt and outrage in him made him take it out on her; and then they had a fight, their second real fight, and Ginnie left in a huff and he did not even get to sleep with her.
It started in the car on the way home after he had picked her up at Smitty’s, when he jumped on her for picking her nose.
Ginnie looked hurt, and furtively wiped her finger on the tissue she had in her other hand. “Well, I seen you pick your nose an awful lot of times,” she said defensively.
“I don’t give a damn what you’ve seen,” Dave said. “Anyway, I don’t do it out in public.”
“We ain’t out in public.”
“All right then: Let’s say I don’t do it when I’m drivin home with somebody to go to bed with them,” Dave said. “It certainly don’t make you any more attractive.”
“Now you just lay off of me,” Ginnie said fiercely. “I ain’t done nothing to you. What’re you gettin on me for?”
“Because I don’t like to see you picking your goddamned nose when I’m getting ready to go to bed with you,” Dave said savagely. “I thought you wanted to learn to be a lady.”
“Now, damn it!” Ginnie said. “You can just lay off of me!
“Maybe I ain’t no lady,” she said. “But I notice whenever you want a party, you always come around to me.”
“Only because you’re so goddamned easy,” Dave said, not even knowing why he was doing it now.
“You ain’t got no right to talk to me like that,” Ginnie said. “Maybe I ain’t none of your high-toned ladies, but I ain’t been out with a single soul in the last three months but you. You can ask anybody. And you ain’t got no right to talk to me like that. I know you think I’m a dog. Well, I don’t care what you think.”
“Jesus, but you’re gettin awful high-minded lately,” Dave said.
“Well, if you want to sleep with me, you can at least treat me decent like a human bein,” Ginnie said. “I ain’t slept with another soul but you for three months; I was tryin to show you how much I cared for you. It ain’t like I didn’t have chances.”
“What kind of chances?” Dave said. “Some of them whiskery old bastards that use to go out with Old Janie Staley?”
“You just go to hell!” Ginnie rejoined. “There was a guy today, who tried to pick me up. A one-armed Marine he was, from out of town. And a nice boy. I was in Ciro’s after work, and he was there. And all I did was have a beer or two with him and talk with him awhile. And when he propositioned me, I turned him down. You got no right to talk to me like I’m one of your Terre Haute dogs. I’m a human bein. And I got some rights.”
And so they were back off on her “I got some rights” kick again. And in his soul, Dave knew she was right, and he felt guilty about it. But he could not stop it. He kept on deriding her the rest of the way home.
“Say now? Just what’s eatin you?” Ginnie demanded finally, after he had pulled up in the drive. “I don’t like this a little bit.”
“You really want to know?” Dave said viciously. “I’ll tell you. She’s left me, that’s what. Gwen French left town and I don’t even know where she is. Didn’t even wait to finish out the school year. And I’m in love with her.”
“Oh?” Ginnie said. “Well, that’s too bad, ain’t it? But that don’t give you no right to take it out on me. Evidently, she ain’t so much in love with you, though, is she?” she said.
“Oh? and what would you know about love?” he said. “You fat whore, you.”
“Dave, you can’t talk to me like that,” Ginnie said warningly. “Just because some broad you’ve been sleepin with takes off and leaves you in the lurch, don’t mean you can take it out on me.”
Rage, misery, hate—everything that had been seething in him all evening, suddenly came boiling up out of him. That she would have the gall to call Gwen French a “broad”! Suddenly, he began beating his fists softly on the steering wheel. “Whore,” he s
aid. “Whore, whore, whore. Fat pig of a whore.”
“All right sir,” Ginnie said stiffly. “I’ll show ya, damn ya. I’ll go back downtown and get the feller. I’ll just show ya, boy. I been in love with you, and what do you care? And I been true to you. And then you treat me like some kind of old dog. Well, I got some rights. I’ll just show ya.” She got out of the car and started walking stiff-backed right back toward town the way they’d come.
“Go ahead!” Dave called after her; “see if I give a damn!”
“And I ain’t comin back till you apologize to me,” Ginnie said from the walk. “Not never.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Dave said. “Oh, go to hell.” And he turned and went on in the house, and proceeded to get stinking, slobbering drunk and remained so for three days. And true to her word, he saw no more of Ginnie. He did not even see her at Ciro’s or at Smitty’s, when he ambled dully into those places for a drink. Later on, he found out the entire story about why he didn’t see her. But that was not for some little time. And when he did find out, he didn’t care. The listless, leaden stupor and apathy of constant three-quarters-drunkenness kept him from caring about anything.
’Bama was not home that night, probably down at the farm, when he came in after running Ginnie off, and he sat down with a bottle of gin and drank himself to sleep. And when he did get up the next day, finally, he got another bottle and started right in again. He did manage to rouse himself sufficiently to clean up enough to go to Old Jane’s funeral, but that was all he did. When ’Bama did come back, they sat and got drunk together. Night after night. Sometimes, nearly dead-drunk, they would go out and play poker somewhere and lose. But the rest of the time, they merely sat in the house and got drunk, and talked. And then ’Bama would go away to the farm and then he would get drunk by himself. Sometimes Dewey and Hubie appeared, drank awhile, and then disappeared. And that was the way it went that six weeks between Old Jane’s funeral and his Old Man’s funeral, later, which he did not even know about until after it was over. And it went on longer than that, on into July.