Already he's mellow enough to let that one roll. "Oh, you called up?" he says, a blithe and blase martini-drinker like Mr. Postmodern Collage Man on the Tanqueray posters. Mr. Something.
"Yes. I called up."
He'll ignore her tone too. Superciliously, he sips again.
"They want to stay overnight."
"And you told them?" he says.
"I told them fine. I thought under the circumstances it was just as well."
"The circumstances?" Dear me, whatever can the woman mean?
"Oh, stop," she says. "Just stop. Tell me something, have you lost your mind? It was just so loutish. A box of rubbers, for God's sake."
"Hey, I am a lout. That's my big aspiration anymore. To be a fucking lout."
"Well, you're succeeding," she says.
"Well, good, great," he says. "You know who I want to be? Fucking John Madden." It's the example that leaps to mind.
"I'm sorry, this is all too deep for me," she says. "I'd appreciate it if after we get our food we could get out of here as quickly as possible."
"We haven't even ordered, for Christ's sake."
"Yes, I know that, thank you." Then she looks up and says, without moving her lips, "Oh, great."
Tina sits down. "Oh, I feel so much better. What happened to my one and only?"
"Went to the men's," Willis says.
"This place is so happening." Tina's looking at another suit of armor, in a wall niche. "Do you think these are actually real?"
"Not unless they were for midgets," says Willis.
Jean has gone behind her menu.
"But weren't people smaller in the old days?" Tina says.
"/was," says Willis. "You should've seen me in 1954."
Tina does a batting-at-him gesture. "No, I mean—like wasn't Napoleon five two or something?"
"Hey," says Champ, sitting down and rubbing his nose. ''Heya heya heya heya."
"Champ?" says Tina. "Wasn't Napoleon like five two?"
"Could be," says Champ. "Napoleon? Could very very well be. I do know they pickled his dick and put it in the Smithsonian."
"Oh-oh," says Tina. "What's this vibe I'm getting? You weren't being a bad boy in there?"
"Unbelievable," says Champ. "Guy takes an innocent whiz. You want to pat me down?"
"Could be hot." Tina narrows her eyes. "Hmm. I don't know about you."
"I think we should order," Jean says.
"Ah yes, I'll have the, ah, pickled dick}'' says Champ. "Served with a light cream sauce?"
"Sweetheart," says Tina.
"Oopsy."
"Honey lamb," says Tina.
PRESTON FALLS
"Ah yes, I'll have the, ah, honey lamby
As the rest of them eat. Champ combs his pasta into patterns with his fork and explains that "Maurice Bishop" had been seen with Oswald before the assassination, and that if you looked at the sketch of "Maurice Bishop" and then at the photograph of David Attlee Phillips, it's just unmistakable, even though the guy who saw them together backed off from explicitly making the identification because he was scared shitless of the CIA.
"So the whole thing came out of Langley," says Willis. "What else is new."
"Langley?" says Champ. "You don't seriously believe headquarters is at fucking Langley, do you? Langley is the fucking cover.''
"Okay, so where's the real place?"
"Orlando. They got this whole like underground city underneath Disney World, right? Fifty thousand million people with their kids and shit walking around overhead, fat, dumb and happy," He teases out a strand of pasta, regards it, then drapes it over a piece of broccoli. "Nah, shit, how would / know? I don't want to fucking know. That kind of information could be very very dangerous to have." He whistles the little four-note Twilight Zone thing.
"You live with him," Willis says to Tina. "Does he really believe this stuff?"
"Hey, talk about me like I'm not here," says Champ.
"He gets off on it, I know that" she says.
Willis is pretty well hammered after his three martinis (officially two) plus wine with dinner, so he lets Jean drive them back to Preston Falls while he rides shotgun and plays deejay. Hot Country really is unlistenable, so he settles on a classical station—it's that Hovhaness piece of garbage that everybody likes because they're getting old and right wing. The Magic Mountain or whatever. Willis is smashed enough to where he finds himself enjoying the heU out of it. As they pull into the dooryard, he sees stars in the black sky above his own hilltop, and that is just about fucking perfect. He gets out of the Cherokee and stands there staring in shit-faced reverence.
Champ and Tina call good night. Yeah, yeah, good night.
Jean touches his arm. She came right out of nowhere. "I'm going up to bed."
"Good," he says. "That's good." And now Rathbone is here too, tail
wagging, Rathbone! Forgot he even existed! Rathbone races off and lifts his leg against the spooky white birch tree.
"This probably isn't the best time," Jean says. "But do you think you could give me a clue as to what's going on?"
"In what sense?" he says.
She goes Oh as if somebody knocked the wind out of her.
This tells Willis he'd better try and be lucid for a second.
"Look," he says. "We've been over this. It's like I've been in the wrong life."
"Well, do you have any conception of what your life properly is? I mean, is it really up here, driving a truck?''
"That's what I hope to figure out," he says. "In my big two months." But hey, Rathbone's back! Willis gets to his knees, roughs up Rathbone's neck and teUs him That's my boy.
"Something else you might want to figure out," says Jean. "What role, if any, do your children have in this real life of yours? Not to mention your wife. Have you given thought to any of that?"
"To my shame, no," he says.
"I'm not that interested in your shame," she says. "I know you find it fascinating."
"Hey, give the little lady a brass ring," he says. "The low blow award." He strokes Rathbone's silky side and stands up again. Reelin' and a-rockin', but basically okay.
"Oh, I'm sure you took it to heart," she says. "You've fixed it so nobody's even in the same universe with you. I don't know, I just truly worry about you. As someone who knows you."
"You know me very well."
"Oh, please," she says. And goes inside.
He sits down on the stepstone; Rathbone comes over, circles, then lies at Willis's feet sniffing the night air. There's the good old Big Dipper up there, the only constellation Willis knows. Or gives a rat's ass about. Light from the upstairs window makes a night-baseball-green parallelogram on the wet grass. Lawn needs mowing. Tomorrow, without fail.
Jean gets her nightgown from the closet, shoving aside old shirts of Willis's that he's put on hangers even though they're dirty. He'll wear them when he's working, sweat them through, then hang them back up.
PRESTON FALLS
Unbelievable. No wonder it smells in here. She makes space on both sides of her cotton dress with the cerise flowers, the one halfway decent thing she keeps in Preston Falls. Willis bought it for her three birthdays ago at—where else?—Laura Ashley, and it's actually not that dreadful, though she had to exchange the six he'd gotten for an eight. So obviously he should have married Laura Ashley, some willowy honey-haired size-eight hippie princess with a fetching little English accent and Pre-Raphaelite pallor and breasts that get magically gigundo once she takes off her chaste Laura Ashley dress. Jean puts her underwear in the laundry bag, gets the nightgown on and goes downstairs to the bathroom. Through the screen door she sees Willis sitting out on the stepstone with his back to her. Feeling lonely and misunderstood. Or sensing his own insignificance in the vastness of the universe. Or planning how he's going to dump her. Or wondering whether to buy a motorcycle or another guitar. Really, at this point, how would anybody know?
She pees, puts in a new Tampax, washes, brushes her teeth and pops two Advils. The cramps have
pretty much passed, but Advil might help her sleep. In addition to everything else, she's worried about the kids. Though it's crazy to suspect Arthur Bjork is a pedophile just because he's overweight and because he and Katherine have marriage trouble. After all, don't she and Willis have marriage trouble? Isn't that what this is?
When the upstairs light goes out, Willis gets to his feet and goes inside, holding the door for Rathbone, who comes clicking in, leaving wet footprints on the kitchen floor. The footprints make Willis think the seat of his pants must be wet too, but damned if he can feel it. He reaches around: yep. He gets down that bottle of Dewar's and pours himself some. Pours himself really quite a bit, actually. He brings his glass into the living room, stretches out on the couch—Rathbone lies down on the floor by his side—and starts looking through Dombey and Son for just any scene with Old Joe Bagstock, old Joseph, Joey B., Sir. Funny as shit. When he's polished off the whole glass he rests the open book on his chest and closes his eyes. Then the room starts to spin. Oh shit. Shit shit shit. He tries to pretend this is actually desirable and he can just merrily spin away into dreamy dreamland. No good. He opens his eyes, sits up a little and tries to read, but now that's no good. He eases back down and the room goes so crazy he wonders if he's having a stroke on top of being drunk. He gets to his feet and moonwalks into the bathroom.
closes the door behind him, drops to his knees and flips up the toilet seat. The sight of a pubic hair on the rim does the trick: he sticks out his tongue and out it pours, vanity after vanity, this whole evening's stupid history. He wipes his mouth with toilet paper and lies sweating on the floor, thinking At least that's over with. Knowing God damn well it's not.
He wakes up on the sofa, mouth nasty, head throbbing. Still in his clothes. Turns his head, and the son of a bitch throbs worse. Yellowish daylight in the living room. Rathbone rises from the floor, stretches and sniffs Willis's face. Willis pats his head and tells him Good dog, then gets up to piss and take Advil. The house is silent. Before going into the bathroom he gives Rathbone fresh water and makes sure he's got food, hoping to placate whoever might be watching and judging all this shit from on high.
He's putting on water for coffee when he hears somebody coming downstairs. Jean? Please, no. Rathbone's tail gets going. But it's Champ, thank God.
"Hey, the hostess with the mostest," says Champ. "Didn't expect you to be up." He squats and tousles Rathbone's ears. "Yes, you're a good guy."
Willis spoons coffee into the filter paper. Then he turns and sees Champ's t-shirt and says, "Jesus H. Christ."
"What— this}'' Champ tugs out a Httle tent of fabric with thumb and forefinger. "Had a guy silk-screen it. He's got the image on file, if you want one."
"I'll pass," says Willis. "Listen. You just put this on to model it for me, right?"
"No, not—oh. I see what you're saying. Too punk for Preston FaUs."
"Well, not just that."
''Oh. Gotcha. Okay, that's cool. I got another thing I can put on."
"That's a real autopsy photo?" says Willis.
"Yep. Well, actually sort of yes and no. It's like it's reaUy him dead, but the CIA dicked around with the photo. Or they dicked around with the body. Like right here, see?" He cranes his neck to look down at his
chest, then puts a finger just above and behind JFK's ear. "When you look at the Z film, right? This area here should be completely blown to fuck. So something's fuckin' weird. I don't know. Shit, I like wearing it, you know? Tina has the same reaction you do, by the way."
"I'm past the point of having reactions," says Willis. "All I want now is an easy life." Champ plays an invisible violin at him as he gets down the JOE mug and the mug with the green band around the rim. "What got you started on this shit? You were like three years old."
"I don't know. I saw the movie and then I just started reading up on it."
"Yeah, but I mean why this?''
Champ puts palm to elbow and fist to forehead. "The Thinker is thinking," he says. He puts index finger to temple. "The sum of the hypotenuse is equal in angle to the square root of the sum of the remaining three sides."
"I should know better by now," says Willis.
"You're afraid I'm going to wind up like the old man. And lose my mi-yi-yind." Champ sticks his tongue out and twirls index fingers at his ears. "Speaking of which, you been in touch with the mom?"
"Talked to her a couple weeks ago. I probably should go visit sometime while I'm on leave."
"You're a hero," says Champ.
The water's boiling; Willis goes over to turn the burner off. "You are going to change out of that, right?" Jean could come down any minute.
"No worries, mite." A couple of years ago. Champ would keep up the Aussie-talk for a whole conversation. "Listen, you remember that time you drove me up to see the old man? I think I was like ten? You had this thing back then about him and me spending time together and shit?"
"Yeah, I remember I was on spring break. I had that black Ford Fairlane."
"Right," says Champ. "I remember that."
"I guess we picked a bad day."
"What you mean, we, Kemosabe? I remember he spent the whole time playing this, like, Dave Brubeck record—"
"Time Further Out," says Willis.
"Right, and we were supposed to count the number of measures in a beat or some shit? Which was this secret code that hooked up with people's Social Security numbers?"
PRESTON FALLS
"Something like that."
"You know, thinking back," Champ says, "it's bizarre that the mom let you take me."
"Yeah, well, it was all bizarre."
"Ah, but look at us now. Okay, listen, I'll be right back down." Willis hears him go clomping up the stairs. He doesn't return.
When Jean comes downstairs, Willis is lying on the sofa drinking coffee and looking through Dombey and Son for more Joe Bagstock shit.
"Morning," he says.
"Good morning."
"Coffee's all ready," he says, swinging his feet off the sofa and getting up. Makes his head throb, but he deliberately keeps his eyes open to make the wince less obvious. "I get you some?"
"No, thank you." She goes into the kitchen.
He salutes her backside and sits down again. Then lies down. He hears her go into the bathroom. Sometime later the toilet flushes. Then drawers opening and shutting in the kitchen, utensils chinging. He closes his eyes.
The next thing he's aware of is Champ saying "Hey, bro," and the smell of bacon. "You missed a happening breakfast, man. Jean said let you sleep."
Willis sits up. Classical music coming from the kitchen, Mozart-sounding shit that might even be Mozart. So some kind soul brought the boombox inside, and the rain didn't fuck it up—at least not the radio part. "Time is it?" he says.
"I don't know, ten-thirty?" says Champ. "Listen, man, we're going to head out."
"Wait. What? This is Sunday, right? I thought you were going back tomorrow." Willis sees Tina, sleepy-eyed, fucked-looking, sitting in the armchair, one leg draped over the arm. Back in her same biker shorts.
"Well, see, we were sort of talking it over upstairs," Champ says, "and we were feeling like—I don't know if I told you, but we've been doing this thing Sunday nights where we watch Tina's sister's kid? You know, so she can go to her meeting."
"She's been doing really really well," says Tina.
"She's a puker," Champ says. "It's like AA, what she goes to, except it's all pukers and fatties."
"Sweetie pie."
"Yes, dear."
"It's really helped her incredibly," says Tina.
"Hell, I'd be a puker too if I had that little shit to deal with."
"Father material." Tina flips a thumb at Champ.
"Anyhow, we were thinking maybe we better get down there. Like what if the Higher Power blew off the weekend? She's sitting there stuffing down chocolate cream doughnuts and the finger's getting closer! Closer!" He moves a trembling index finger toward his mouth.
"Stop," says Tina."That is really cruel.''
"The other thing, I got to get the mighty turnpike cruiser in to like Rayco or someplace, see what the fuck's the matter with that top."
"On Labor Day weekend?" Willis says.
"Well, you know, plus Tina has shit she's got to do. And we just thought, you know, with the top and everything, better get in before it starts to cool off, 'cause we didn't bring any jackets or shit."
"We've got jackets," says Willis.
"Plus if we wait till tomorrow we're not going to find a place to park. Shit, we been thinking of moving out to New Jersey just to have a fuckin' driveway."
"We have not,'' Tina says.
"She doesn't want to."
"I'm too young to die," Tina says.
"Hey, Jersey is happening," says Champ. "They got towns with all these big-ass houses, the white people are moving out, and stuff's going for nothing. What the fuck, so you get a gun and a fuckin' security system. We got shit at the store—you know, put fuckin' razor wire. I want to have a big fuckin' sleaze palace, about ten bedrooms, you know? Mattresses on the floor? Great big speakers?"
"What Champ wants in his heart of hearts," says Tina, "is a free-sex commune."
"Yeah, well? That can still work too. You know, you test everybody once a week."
"He is so dear," says Tina.
"Tina has no ideals. So listen, bro, we better do it. Now where'd Jean get to?"
They find her out behind the house where the stream cuts through in springtime. Rathbone's strutting back and forth with a stick in his mouth. She gets up, knees of her jeans muddy, and brings Tina a plastic bag with green stuff in it.
PRESTON FALLS
"This is that mint," she says. Champ claps his hands and Rathbone trots over with the stick.
"Oh. Thank you." Tina clearly has forgotten whatever conversation they apparently had about mint.
Champ grabs for the stick and Rathbone dodges away.
"Hey, bro?" says Willis. "Show you something for a second?" He leads Champ over toward the woodshed. That God damn gutter's just hanging off the eaves; everywhere on this whole fucking place something needs to be done, urgently. "Listen, Fm sorry about how tense things are here."
Preston Falls : a novel Page 5