“Ah, in New York there’s lots of places,” Max was saying softly. “Restaurants and dives, little hotels in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Long Island. Nobody would ever find you. Why, even in the middle of Times Square. Say, if we were on Times Square we could walk right into any of the.…” Max stopped abruptly and weighed the possibilities of the idea that had leaped into his mind. He leaned forward to the partition between the back seat and the cabby. He gave the cabby new directions.
Twenty minutes later, Max went to the small booth of the cheap, tired, out-at-the-elbow movie house and bought two tickets. Jeff stood in the dank outer lobby and pretended to look at the large posters. Then Max touched his arm. They went into the all-night movie house. The place smelled of strong disinfectant. Less than a third of the seats were filled. A Western was on the screen. There was shooting and yelling and horses’ hoofs. There was no reaction from the audience. Most of those in the theater were asleep. A few were eating a sandwich or crackers or munching loudly on candy bars. Max led Jeff to a seat on the side, in the last row.
“Sit here,” he said. “And for God’s sake, Jeff, please don’t leave this place. No matter what happens, don’t leave here. I’m going back to Keeley and tell him where you are. But don’t you leave. You got that?”
“Yes. Okay. I won’t leave.”
“You’ll be all right?”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Want me to get you some candy or something?”
“No. I’ll be all right.”
“Maybe it’ll be a good picture,” said Max.
“Maybe. Hurry up.”
“You won’t leave here, now?”
“No. Don’t let Keeley get drunk.”
“I won’t,” said Max, but he knew it was already too late for that. “You just sit tight, Jeff,” he said. “Everything’ll be all right.”
Max got up and left the movie house.
Jeff looked at the screen. A man on a horse rode up to another man on a horse and said: “Which way did they go?” The second man said: “Down to the Tonto Pass.” “Thanks, pard,” said the first man. The music got exciting as the first man rode off. The horse was a beautiful animal and the country through which he was galloping was beautiful and Jeff thought it was a beautiful story and he wished he could be somewhere riding a horse.… And then he remembered he had no horse and he couldn’t ride and he didn’t even know where the Tonto Pass was. And why did somebody have to go and kill Edwards and where was Mary and he didn’t want Keeley to get drunk. Tears filled his eyes.
CHAPTER XVII
At a few minutes after eleven o’clock Keeley had met her at the Union Station. She had arrived with several neat pieces of airplane luggage. Helen had looked like her suitcases, trim, neat, smooth, streamlined. They had kissed on the platform, and in that kiss she had tried to discover how much he loved her.
At eleven-thirty he had taken her down to the Stewart Hotel bar and they had started drinking. Scotch and soda. Then Scotch and ice. Then Scotch. From time to time Keeley had made phone calls and had received quick reports from soldiers he had sent out to search for Jeff. Jeff had not been found. Keeley had continued with the Scotch. Helen had begun to look more attractive.
At twelve o’clock the bar had closed. Keeley had fortified himself against this by buying a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of rum. They had gone up to their room. Helen had smiled and opened one of the sleek suitcases. She had brought out a bottle of bourbon and a partly-filled bottle of Scotch.
Now he poured drinks for both of them and brought her drink to her in the bathroom, where she was combing her straight black hair so that the one streak of gray would show. She was proud of that gray streak. It fitted her face, and her face fitted her personality. She was cool and dignified. Her body was also cool and dignified in its silk pajamas. He set the drink down on the washbasin. She lifted it and they touched glasses. They drank. Then she set down her drink and went back to combing her hair. She watched him in the mirror. He watched her in the mirror.
“Hello, darling Peter,” she said.
She had said the same thing when they had been married and the justice of the peace had just completed his quick reading for ten bucks with a taxi driver and the justice’s wife as witnesses. “Hello, darling Peter,” she had said then, as though they had just met instead of having just been married. “Tell me it’s forever, Peter,” she had said. “It’s forever,” he had said. She had kissed him, and then kissed her ring. The ring was inscribed: From Peter to Helen. Forever.
He watched her now as she combed her hair, and the ring was still on her finger. She had once said: “I’ll never take this ring off my finger, come hell or high water.” He had gone to lunch once and met her with a group of friends. The ring was not on her finger. She had explained that married women made conversation lag at luncheon. But it still had been “Forever.”
The second year she had taken to not wearing the ring even when they were together. “I like people to think we’re not married. It makes everything spicier.”
Then she had taken to wearing it again. “I like people to think I’m married. It’s much less complicated.”
“How’ve you been, Helen?” he now said.
She stopped combing her hair but talked to him in the mirror. “For a man who hasn’t seen his wife in a month, you’re not very affectionate, darling.” She smiled. He merely looked at her reflection. She turned and faced him. “Wouldn’t you like to kiss your wife?”
He kissed her. He kept the drink in his hand and she kept the comb in her hand.
“Peter is very obedient, isn’t he?” she said.
“Peter is afraid of the wolf,” he said.
“Who is she?” she asked.
“Who is who?”
“The woman.”
“Oh, the woman,” he said. “Well, she’s a beautiful, buxom, idiotic lady who has only basic emotions. She eats, sleeps and loves to go to bed with me. Otherwise she has no concern about anything.”
“Not at all like Helen,” she said.
“Nothing like her.”
“But you don’t love her,” she said.
“Madly,” he said.
“Would you rather I had not come down to see you?”
“Much.”
“Shall I leave now?”
“Yes. But you won’t,” he said. He left the bathroom and went back to the bedroom. He poured more Scotch and sat down in a chair. He propped his feet up on the bed. After awhile she came into the bedroom and sat down on his lap. She put her arms around him and whispered: “I know there’s no other woman.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because I’m jealous. I don’t want there ever to be another woman. Just me. I want you to write and tell me that I’m the only woman in the world and that you’ll run away and risk dishonorable discharge just to be near me.”
“I would,” he said, “only I wouldn’t want to go to the trouble of kicking some other guy out of your bed.”
“Peter darling.…”
After a moment, he said, “Yes?”
“I love you very much.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the most wonderful man in the world.”
“It’s a little early to start that routine,” he said, “I’m not drunk enough yet.”
She kissed him then and knew he was right. He was not drunk enough. She asked who Jeff was and why he had made all those telephone calls. He told her the entire story. She didn’t like the story.
By one-thirty Keeley had finished the last of the Scotch and had drunk most of a bottle of bourbon. His legs had begun to feel numb. His jaws were numb. Moving was an effort. He was drunk.
Helen began unpacking her bags then. She had brought along a wardrobe, not for a week end, but for a month’s vacation. He had to admit she packed things beautifully. The insides of the bags were as neat as the glossy outsides. Everything in order. Each pair of sh
oes with trees, each dress pressed and on a hanger, each article of clothing in its place. Everything neat and orderly. Her life neat and orderly. All her men neat and orderly. All her men except him. He was the one exception in her life. He was the one thing she couldn’t pack away in her airplane-luggage mind.
At the bottom of the last bag she found and brought out a soft leather picture frame. The picture was an enlargement of Keeley and Helen on their wedding night. The original had been one of those ten-cent affairs taken in a booth. The glare of the floodlights made them look pale and scared. Their eyes were not looking in the same direction. They appeared propped up. Helen had had the picture enlarged and kept it in the leather frame. He had known all along she would bring it out. And now she had brought it out and put it on the dresser. And she was looking at it sentimentally. He was almost drunk enough.
“Ah,” he said, “we’re getting down to the finer points of the game, eh?”
“It doesn’t mean anything to you any more, does it?” she asked. She smiled at the picture sentimentally.
He tried to get up and look at the picture. His legs would not function. She noticed this but gave no indication. “Don’t get up, darling,” she said and brought the picture to him. He held it in his stiff fingers and glared at it.
“How you like that?” he said. “Looks like a couple of dopes went and got married, eh? Just look at ’em. Know what the boy is saying? He’s saying, ‘Look, I’m married, and boy am I gonna be happy!’ And know what the girl is saying? Huh? Know what she’s saying? She’s got glycerine in her eyes and Forhan’s in her teeth and she’s saying: ‘Oh, baby, I just got me another curio. Hot damn. I own something else.’ That’s what she’s saying.”
“Please don’t tear the picture, darling,” she said. “I’ll only have to make another enlargement.”
“Who said I’m going to tear it, eh?”
“It’s just that you always do, darling.”
“Who? Me? That’s right. Best little picture tearer you ever saw.”
“We were so happy then, Peter. Let’s be again.”
“Who was happy then?”
“I was.”
“You’re a liar. Yes, ma’am. A liar. I was happy. Not you. Just me.”
“What made you unhappy?” she asked, and poured more bourbon into his glass.
“You,” he said.
“And I never made you happy?”
“Sure. Sure. One hour of happiness for every week of misery.”
“Bottoms up,” she said, and raised her glass to his.
“Can’t wait, can you?” he grinned. “I’m pretty cockeyed already,” he teased. “Want to know something funny? Very funny?”
“No.”
“Atta boy. Love a girl without a sense of humor. Well, the funny thing is, you old bitch, the funny thing is that I’m going to get very stinko and I’m not going to blubber over you. How you like that?”
“You’re very tight, Peter.”
“That’s what I said. Very tight.” He chuckled to himself and drank from his glass. “Four years you saying all the time gonna get a divorce. Saying it all the time. But not getting it. And why? ’Cause you can’t give up something you never had, see? Just can’t do something like that. Not Helen Yarbrough. No Yarbrough ever gives up anything. They just collect things. Houses. Boats. Gigolos. Jewelry. Paintings. Husbands. You’re junk dealers! And little old Helen got married and found she didn’t own a husband. So? So, she can’t give him up. So here’s the very funny joke. Husband gonna give up wife. How you like that, eh? Terrific funny one. Junk gives up owner. Revolt of the junk. Little old Pete’s gonna divorce little old Helen. Hmm?”
She became frightened. She was certain he was drunk. But as yet there had been no tears. No weeping. No clamoring for her. Maybe he was right. Maybe this time it would be different.
“You’ve got no grounds for divorce,” she said fearfully, the fear making her voice sound prim.
“No? Oh, no. That’s what you think. Got plenty grounds. Got friends. Took pictures up in your snooty bedroom with gigolos. That’s grounds, eh? Little Pete steps up in little old courtroom and says, ‘Hear ye, hear ye, this woman ye all see here fornicating with the crew haircut from ye olde Yale is little old Helen.’ Divorce granted.”
“You son of a bitch,” she said thin-lipped. “You and your evil mind.”
“No evil mind,” he said. “Just evil deeds. Mr. Deeds goes to Evil. Adam and Evil.”
“It’s you who are jealous,” she spat.
“Me? Me jealous? Nah. Not me. Why should I be jealous of Yale or Harvard or Princeton or anybody, huh? You don’t love ’em. Don’t love ’em ’cause you can have ’em. Don’t love anything you can have. See? Helen and the court of snivelers. But not little old Pete. Not him. You got his body, his name, his everything. But not his self-respect. No ma’am. I got that. All mine. Own it myself. See?”
She had failed. Drink hadn’t helped. This time it was going to be different. She had always beaten him before. Beaten him when he was drunk. Then he had begged. Now she was defeated, and therefore frightened and lost. And miserable. And furious.
Helen catapulted herself off his lap. She strode to the closet and began to throw her clothes out. She was going to leave. Keeley watched her in high glee. He giggled to himself and drank from the bottle. He had won. His mind fumbled with delicious thoughts. She would offer to throw herself from the window. She would rush into the bathroom and swallow poison. She would crawl on the floor. She would hang herself from the doorjamb. She would throw herself in front of a train. The locomotive would bruise and shatter her cool, distant body. Her body. He looked at her body. He wanted it. He wanted suddenly to hold it. To caress it. To worship it.
He struggled out of the chair. His legs would not support him. She saw him rise and wondered. His distorted, anguished face told her what she needed to know. She had won after all.
His tongue was thick and seemed to fill his mouth. He wanted to keep on talking, talking himself away from her, but his tongue couldn’t wrap itself around the words. His head felt disconnected, and he imagined it was observing him sadly from another place in the room. He felt the whisky in his veins lapping up his strength. He remained on the floor beside the chair and called her name. “Helen.” Softly he said it again. “Helen.”
She debated how far she could go now. Just how much she could afford to enjoy seeing him beg for her, plead for her. It felt good to her. He was right. Oh, how right he was! How very right to say he was the one thing she wanted more than anything else. The one thing she did not have. His soul. His soul to hold in her two hands and know she had it, owned it, all of it, to do with as she liked.
“Helen, don’t leave me. Helen, stay, please. Please.”
The words were food to her starving ego, her hungry, wretched ego. Oh, how much she had wanted to hear him say that. How she had wanted for so long to come flying to him, and had been afraid that it was not yet time, that he would not yet need her, that he would be too strong for her. She fought her love for him constantly. For it was like the very breath beyond her lips, always necessary for the next moment’s life. But it wasn’t enough for her to love him, to be loved by him. She had to own him, own the one thing in him that could never be owned as long as he was sober—his self-respect. It wasn’t enough to be loved, not even as Peter loved her, but to be needed by him, desperately, without strength to help himself, so that he called helplessly for her—that was the balm she had to have. For him she had never been able to do anything. If he spent her money, he never spoke about it afterwards and she knew he hated it, hated its source. He didn’t require her creature comforts or her house or her belongings or her wealth. For that she could forgive him, even admire him. But he also didn’t require her. He could do without her. That was the whip that lashed her soul and pricked her ego. Other men would threaten suicide at her displeasure. Let her not be at home to a man and he would send flowers, arrive in haste, write notes. Let her be cross with her
father and he would knock at her door and plead he had not meant to hurt her feelings and beg her to forgive him for something he had not done. But Peter … ah. Let her turn from him and he said good-by. But she had won, now. Again she was victor for a night, for a day, for a week end. Now he would need her until the drink wore off. There would be no price too high if she could have him thus sober, own him thus without drink. And then she would be freed of him. For, having him, she would no longer need him. She could then get the divorce she kept talking about. But always she knew that, on the morrow, he would become commander of himself again, and would smile at her, in his way and love her, without needing her.
So she went to him and sat down on the floor just out of his reach.
He was reaching, not for her now, but for his mind. His mind was far off someplace, severed from his body, and he had to have it.
“Tell me you love me, Peter.”
He nodded his head.
“Tell me, Peter.”
“I love you.”
“You’ll always need me, won’t you, Peter? Won’t you?”
“Yes, Helen. Yes. I’ll always need you,” he said and handed her his self-respect, and she took it and wore it on her face. She came closer to him and let him put his arms around her. He held her close, and she could feel him tremble and she knew his strength was gone, and it was she who had to hold him lest he slip away.
She wanted him to debase himself, to want her and say the things she had said a thousand times in her pillow about him. And she knew he would say those things, say them even as she had said them. And she was enjoying them already, even before he said them.
“You’re my life, Helen,” he said thickly. “Don’t ever go ’way. Without you I’m no good. Never leave me.”
Ah, now she could really get up and leave. Now she could go to bed again and sleep, knowing that he needed her, wanted her. She wiped the perspiration from his face and her hands were condescending. She was dusting a piece of her priceless bric-a-brac. It was expensive. It had cost her much.
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