Maybe because not many guys made out as much, everyone talked about the ones who did. Everyone in the whole city seemed to know what happened to Gunner when the night before the opening round of the state basketball tournament his senior year he twisted his ankle jumping out of the second-story bedroom window of Alison MacAdoo, whose father had come home unexpectedly early from a concert of the Scottish Rite Chorus. When Gunner hobbled onto the floor the next afternoon, his ankle all taped, the whole fieldhouse let up a roar, and everyone cheered, “We Want Gunner,” even the kids from other schools. He was a hero even though he didn’t get to play. It was like that in college, too, and even though Sonny was down at I.U. and not even in a fraternity, he heard stories of Gunner’s exploits at DePauw, like the time he got caught naked with a Theta on the roof of the Sigma Chi house by Mother Simmons and lost his scholarship for a full semester. And Gunner himself said Japan was the best he ever had.
Buddie, of course, was glad to accept Sonny’s invitation to “a party over at Casselman’s place,” which is how he had described the evening to her. Sonny consoled himself that even though he’d rather have a sexy new babe to go with, it would be a relief to have a comfortable private place to make out. Usually he and Buddie, like most everyone else they knew, had to do it in cars and on golf courses and fields of deserted farmhouses, where you were always getting caught in barbed wire or rolling onto old cowshit or worrying about getting bushwhacked. It seemed like unless you were married and had your own place, you had to be a combination acrobat, woodsman, and stud to ever make out. Which is why some kids got married, so they could fuck when they wanted without getting thorns in their ass or find themselves putting on a show for a bunch of bushwhackers. Sonny used to go bushwhacking himself when he was in high school, driving around with a carload of guys and sneaking up on some poor couple making out and then flashing a goddam spotlight on them and hooting and jeering and yelling a lot of dirty stuff and running away after spoiling things. It was a favorite sport.
Sonny really was hot for the idea of having Gunner’s place to do it in, without being bothered, but the trouble was, when the evening of the “party” came, he wasn’t at all in the mood. He’d have much rather gone out boozing with Gunner, or developed some pictures, or even just stayed home and watched television. That was always happening to him. It seemed like the need for sex came in waves, and for some reason whenever the sex was available the need was at its lowest ebb. The times when he seemed to be drowning with desire there was never anything around. Now with this great setup he couldn’t have cared less. If it just was a date he had with Buddie, he’d have made some excuse and got out of it, but he wouldn’t dream of backing out and letting Gunner suspect he wasn’t a regular guy who took it whenever he could get it.
Gunner came by and honked for Sonny after supper, and they went to pick up DeeDee.
“Listen, ole buddy, would you mind coming in?” Gunner asked him when they got to the Armbrewsters’. “DeeDee’s old lady’ll talk my ear off. She’s one of these amateur patriots, ya know?”
Sonny was afraid he knew all right—his mother was friends with some of those ladies—but he was happy to make things easier for Gunner if he could by going along. It was like talking to religious people, you felt more comfortable if you had a buddy with you.
Mrs. Armbrewster was a large woman with combs in her graying hair and a pair of rimless glasses that hung on a velvet ribbon around her neck. Mr. Armbrewster wasn’t around, and Gunner said later he seldom was; he worked long hours at his office and bowled a great deal.
“DeeDee isn’t quite ready,” Mrs. Armbrewster said, “and I’m so glad to have a moment to talk with you young men. Veterans, I should say.”
Gunner had introduced Sonny as a friend who had also just got out of the service, which was the biggest kind of buildup you could give to Mrs. Armbrewster. She pinched her glasses onto her nose and asked the young men to step into her study for a moment if they would. As she turned to lead them, Gunner gave Sonny a nudge with his elbow and rolled his eyes up into his head.
The study was a dim, secretive little room with a desk, a large metal office file, a silk American flag on a gold tripod stand, and a Statue of Liberty lamp with a lightbulb in its hand instead of a torch. On the walls were a framed Preamble to the Constitution, a certificate of membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, an aerial view of Mt. Vernon, a bearded Jesus kneeling under a heavenly spotlight, a photo of General MacArthur smoking his corncob pipe, and a homemade sampler that said “The Price of Liberty Is Eternal Vigilance.” Catherine Millbank Armbrewster had committed herself to that vigilance, clipping items every day from newspapers and magazines on the latest Red activities and maintaining her own private file (though private, it was always at the disposal of the proper authorities, as she had written in a confidential letter to J. Edgar Hoover himself) of state and local communist subversion, ranging all the way from the teaching of the Robin Hood story in public schools (with the help of Mrs. Armbrewster and other patriots, this Marxist text with its message of rob-the-rich-and-give-to-the-poor was successfully banned from the Indiana state school system), to the brazen attempt by the local branch of the pinko American Civil Liberties Union to secure the hallowed halls of the Indianapolis War Memorial for a speech by the left-leaning industrialist Paul Hoffman. With the American Legion leading the way, this plot was also nipped in the bud, rasing howls of protest from what Mrs. Armbrewster thought of as the International-Jew editorial writers of the Eastern Commie Inner Circle rag, The New York Times.
Mrs. Armbrewster pulled out a drawer of her file, and Gunner and Sonny sat down on a little two-seater couch, trying not to look at each other.
“You men have served,” she said. She took Gunner’s hand and said, “You fought. You bled.”
Gunner squirmed. “I caught a little shrapnel,” he admitted, omitting the location of the wound.
“And your friend?” she asked, turning her gaze on Sonny.
“I was stationed in Kansas City,” he said. “Public Information.”
She patted his hand. “Someone has to do the paper work,” she consoled him.
“Absolutely!” Gunner chimed in.
“And now what?” Mrs. Armbrewster asked. Her eyes glimmered meaningfully behind the spectacles.
Sonny looked to Gunner.
“Now?” asked Gunner.
“It isn’t over,” Mrs. Armbrewster darkly announced. She picked a book off her desk and handed it to Gunner, saying, “You were there. You must read this.”
Gunner gingerly took the book in his hands. It was called From the Danube to the Yalu, by General Mark Clark.
“The Yalu River,” Gunner said, by way of a comment.
“Turn to the opening,” Mrs. Armbrewster instructed.
Gunner flipped a few pages and came to an underlined part that said:
In carrying out the instructions of my government, I gained the unenviable distinction of being the first U.S. Army commander in history to sign an armistice without victory.
But when I signed the armistice, I knew, of course, that it was not over—that the struggle against Communism would not be over in my lifetime. The Korean war was a skirmish, a bloody, costly skirmish, fought on the perimeter of the Free World.
Gunner coughed and said, “Well, it was bloody all right.”
“You go on reading that—you were there, you deserve to know the real meaning of it,” Mrs. Armbrewster said.
“And you”—she nodded to Sonny—“you were in Information here at home. We need more information like this—”
She handed him a copy of the new Saturday Evening Post, folded to the editorial page, which she had marked in red:
All over the country nowadays the Communists are busy in a vast and silent infiltration, moving skillfully into a wide variety of local, regional, and national groups. No pro-Moscow orations bubble from their plausible lips. They appear to be sincere, hard-working liberals, eager for the success
of the organizations in which they have become active, including unions, parent-teacher organizations, Democratic clubs, and in a few cases even Republican clubs.
There was no one you could trust, Sonny figured. The editorial went on to say:
And yet this insidious operation is a part of the Communist Party’s effort to re-establish the popular front.…
“Oh, Mother.”
Sonny looked up and saw DeeDee Armbrewster standing at the door of the study. She had her hands in fists on her hips, looking as if she’d caught her mother showing her personal diaries to the guys or baby pictures of her in the nude. DeeDee wasn’t too political, herself.
“Hi, Deeds,” Gunner said, standing up and going toward her.
“Gunner.” She smiled.
He kissed her the way you kiss a girl in front of her mother, and said, “You remember Sonny Burns, don’t you?”
“Oh—of course,” she said, looking at him blankly.
“I must talk with you young men again soon,” Mrs. Armbrewster said as they started edging from the room. “Every day counts.”
“Right!” Gunner affirmed with great gusto, taking DeeDee’s arm.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sonny said.
They all three piled in the front seat of the car, DeeDee in the middle. She had on a sleeveless summer dress and Sonny felt nervous, touching her brown bare arm. She was one of those cool, confident girls who always seemed to be beyond his reach. She wasn’t any great beauty, but she had a firm little body and a fine-boned face with perfect teeth and brown eyes that seemed to look right into you, not afraid of anything, and that rich kind of dark chestnut hair that was thick and clean and caught the sunlight just like the hair of girls in those advertisements for diamonds.
“Were you snowing my mother this time?” she asked Gunner. “Or was she snowing you?”
Gunner laughed and said, “Listen, I’m in like Flynn with your old lady now.”
“I bet. Big War Hero. God, if she only knew.”
“Whatya mean?”
“Nothing,” she said and leaned up and gave Gunner a little nip on the ear.
Buddie was wearing a peasant blouse and a full skirt and those black flat Capezios that always reminded Sonny of boats stuck on the feet. In Buddie’s case, he noted, pretty big boats, at that. She looked very homey, like one of those healthy Dutch girls carrying pails of milk. She reminded him of the sort of girl you’d like to have for a sister.
When they got to Gunner’s place, the girls went right to the bathroom to comb their hair and fix up, although they had presumably been doing just that before the guys picked them up. Gunner took Sonny to the kitchen, where he had made a whole big thermos of seabreezes. He poured one for Sonny to taste, and Sonny gulped about half the glass and pronounced it just right. It tasted almost like straight grapefruit juice; you hardly even noticed the gin. That was the beauty of the seabreeze. You could load a hell of a lot of gin into the grapefruit juice and still barely taste the gin, so a girl would drink it down easily and not feel like she was really boozing it up, and before she knew it she was happy. And friendly. It was a favorite drink for taking on picnics and blanket parties.
Gunner poured drinks for the girls when they came out, and put on a record of Chet Baker and Strings. The new cool jazz was very soothing, very relaxing. And yet it wasn’t too obvious, like putting on Frank Sinatra love songs right away. DeeDee said she wanted to hear all about Korea and Japan, and Gunner got out his photographs. DeeDee and Buddie and Sonny sat on the couch and Gunner sat cross-legged on the floor and passed up the photos, which went from hand to hand. Sonny kept sneaking glances at DeeDee’s pointy boobs. The left one had her diamond Theta pin right on the tip of it. Buddie had a pretty nice pair, but you couldn’t see them through the baggy folds of her peasant blouse. Sonny poured another seabreeze and let his mind float off with the music. “Love Walked In.” “What a Difference a Day Made.” That soft, sexy trumpet. Cool to make you hot.
Gunner was telling the girls about Zen and pouring more drinks. These weren’t the kind of girls you could just take into an apartment and lock the door and turn the lights off, even if you’d been screwing them for years. They were Nice Girls. You worked them up to it, got them in the mood, so they could be sort of surprised when it happened, let it seem like they didn’t have any idea what was coming at all.
For all of Sonny’s problems he at least was thankful he wasn’t a girl. Some of them really got the short end of the stick, if you really thought about it. The ones who made out with guys and weren’t in the right clubs and came from big, poor families usually got the reputation of being sluts. But you take a girl like DeeDee, she was always in the in group, and in the top clubs and sororities, and she wouldn’t do it with a guy unless she was going steady or pinned or chained to him, and that made it all right, that wasn’t being whorish or anything, even though if you counted up, she had gone steady and been pinned and chained to a hell of a lot of guys, ever since she’d been a freshman in high school. But getting laid by all those guys didn’t count against her. Also, it didn’t count against her to do it with a guy she used to go steady with or be pinned or chained to; after all, if you were once in love, who could know when the old spark might not be rekindled? All in all, if you figured it out, DeeDee Armbrewster had probably fucked a pretty fair number of guys between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, but there wasn’t a guy or girl in town who would have thought her promiscuous. She wasn’t a slut; she was a Theta.
Buddie was a nice girl too. She and Sonny had gone steady for a while in college. They couldn’t get pinned because Sonny didn’t have a pin, and while some of her Sisters in Tri Delt frowned on that (they were always trying to fix her up with Greeks), she was such a swell kid that it didn’t really hurt her reputation, her standing as a Nice Girl who it was O.K. for anyone to marry.
Sonny noticed that DeeDee was laughing a lot, louder than normal, and he realized everybody must have had four or five seabreezes. Gunner turned out the big overhead light and put on a record of Frank Sinatra songs for lonely lovers. They were songs by the new “mature” Sinatra, but as far as Sonny could tell, the main difference was that the old, immature Sinatra songs were good for getting teen-agers hot, while the new “mature” ones were good for getting people hot who were already out of college. That was O.K. with him.
Gunner pulled DeeDee up to dance with him, and she slipped off her shoes and put both arms around his neck, so she was kind of hanging on him, pressed tight against him, and they barely swayed. You could just see their hips moving, against each other. Sonny took Buddie’s hand, and she stood up and cuddled right into him. They did the same swaying thing, and she pressed her box against his dick, but he didn’t have any kind of hard-on. By the time the record was over, Gunner had danced DeeDee into the bedroom. Sonny turned the record over, poured himself another drink, and led Buddie to the couch. He knew he had to get a little more stoned to get sexed up.
He drank down the new drink very fast, almost in two gulps, and then pulled Buddie down on the couch and started kissing her fiercely, almost frantically, hoping to get himself worked up.
“Isn’t anyone home?” Buddie whispered.
“Whatya mean? Gunner’s here, and DeeDee.”
“I mean his mother.”
“No. She’s in Louisville, at the races.”
“Oh.”
Buddie started tugging at her blouse, and she sat up and pulled it over her head, and then shucked off the big, ballooning skirt. He liked her a lot better in her underwear, even though it was white and sort of wholesome looking. Buddie never wore the black, lacy kind that really sexed him up. But even the wholesome white kind was still underwear, and that was a lot sexier than the healthy sort of Dutch-girl dresses and skirts and blouses she wore. She started unbuttoning his shirt and giving him little kisses on the chest as she went. When she got to his stomach, he held his breath, so it wouldn’t be so fat. He stood up and took off his slacks, but left his shorts on. H
e didn’t like to take off his shorts till he had a real good hard-on. It was embarrassing, having a girl see his dong when it was limp. He started kissing her and reached around for the hooks on the back of her bra. No matter how many times he undid those damn things, he could never do it smoothly.
“Let me,” she whispered, sitting up and with one quick motion releasing the mechanics of it, then sort of slumping her shoulders forward so it slid down. Sonny pulled it off the rest of the way. She really did have nice tits, and when he first saw them a long time ago, touched them, kissed them, he got tremendously excited, but now they didn’t affect him much more than seeing her elbows. And yet they were the same tits. He lay down beside her and started kissing them, trying to get himself aroused. She pulled one of his hands down to her panties and slipped it inside. He felt along the fuzz and probed with one finger for the slit. It was already wet. He put the finger in and worked it around and she started to moan, that pleasurable moan. With one hand she was fondling his cock, and it was responding. She slipped off her panties, and Sonny propped himself up on one elbow, to deal with the damned inevitable problem.
“Is it a good time?” he asked.
That was the code.
“Yes,” she said. “I ought to be getting it this week.”
Her period, she meant. That meant he didn’t have to fumble and fight with the hateful rubber. Sure, it was taking a chance, but it had worked for him so far. If you weren’t too sure, you could always pull out. That wasn’t really safe either, but most guys preferred it to using the damn rubber. He heard that some girls who went East to school got diaphragms, but mostly the girls in town didn’t get those until they got married, if even then. It was like an admission of guilt, or something. And besides, you couldn’t very well go and ask the family doctor unless you were getting married could you? A doctor Sonny knew in the Army said someday there’d just be a pill the girl could take and she wouldn’t get knocked up! That’d be the day. Imagine fucking and not having to worry about pulling out or putting a damn rubber on or what time of the month it was. Sonny figured they’d probably invent it after he was too old to do it anyway.
Going All the Way Page 9