“Yeh, well, we are,” Gunner said.
“Two fellas and one girl ain’t my kind of date,” she said huffily.
“Sure, but you gotta friend, don’t you? A friend for George?”
She looked at Sonny and a pink bubble appeared on her mouth, expanded to the size of an egg, then burst. “Maybe,” she said.
“Well, let’s go get her,” Gunner said.
Terry wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, “I’d have to call and see.”
“O.K. Listen. We’ll go back to the Tropics and you can call.”
She blew another bubble, and Sonny started the car. They were having the last call for drinks at the Tropics, and Terry said she wanted a Singapore sling.
“O.K., we’ll order it for you,” Gunner promised. “You call your friend.”
Her friend said it was too late, but she would be happy to go some other time. Sonny and Gunner downed their last boilermaker and Terry chugged her Singapore sling and then gulped the fruit. When they got in the car, Gunner offered her a swig from the pint, but she wouldn’t take it. Gunner took one and passed it to Sonny.
“Hey,” Terry complained, “this ain’t no real date. You take me home.”
Gunner put his arm around her, and his hand dangled down onto her left tit.
“You’re lookin’ real great, Terry.”
“Don’t give me none of your bullshit, Ron.”
“Whatya mean, bullshit? I’m telling you, you look like a million.”
“Keep your hands to yourself, you North Side cocksucker. This ain’t a real date, and I’m goin’ home.”
Sonny started the motor. He drove real slow, and Gunner did his best to warm her up, but she wasn’t having any.
“O.K.,” he said when they got to her place, “I’ll give you a call, and you get your friend, right, and we’ll have a real date.”
“Yeh, and I mean a real date, like a movie and all. Not just fartin’ around in a car.”
“Sure, sure,” Gunner said, “that’s what I mean.”
She primped at her hair, straightened her blouse, and said, “O.K., when is it?”
“Huh?”
“The date?”
“Oh, well, real soon,” Gunner said. “Look, I’ll call in the next couple days.”
“Yeh, and my Aunt Minnie is the Queen of Spain.”
“No shit, I mean it,” Gunner said.
“Seein’s believin’.”
“You’ll see.”
“Lemme outa this heap.”
Gunner got out and Terry switched her tail up to the apartment, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. The door slammed, and she was gone, like they had only imagined her. She really was sexy-looking, though, and Sonny was perspiring as he thought of fucking her while she yelled a lot of dirty stuff at him. Gunner took a gulp from the pint and passed it to Sonny. He took one too, and it scorched his raw, churning stomach.
“Well, we can always take Terry and her friend,” Gunner said. “They put out, but you gotta treat ’em right first.”
“Yeh,” Sonny said, but it wasn’t much consolation for the moment. Even a sure thing for the future didn’t help the need right then, it was only a dream, bringing no immediate relief.
They finished off the pint and then went to the Toddle House for breakfast. It was glary and noisy, and Sonny’s head was throbbing. Gunner had a stack with sausage and Sonny had a piece of icebox chocolate pie and a Coke. Gunner was still hungry and he ordered a pecan waffle. In the middle of it, he put down his fork and clutched at his head. Sonny thought maybe he was sick. In a way he was, but not in the stomach.
“This isn’t it, man,” Gunner said. “Chasing tail and boozing ourselves blind. Shit, this just isn’t it.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean,” Gunner said emphatically, “there’s got to be more in life than pussy.”
“Yeh, I guess you’re right,” Sonny said.
Gunner finished off his waffle with a vengeance, like a man inspired and determined. Sonny felt better too, like maybe it was one of those points in life when things were going to change, going to begin. Finally. When they got outside, Gunner stretched and pointed at the pink streaks in the eastern sky.
“Fuckin dawn,” he said.
Sonny took it as an omen. “Right,” he said. “A new fuckin day.”
PART TWO
1
As part of Gunner’s plan to find more in life than pussy, he announced to Sonny they were going down to the Herron Art Museum and look at the art. Sonny had never been to the Herron before—never been inside, anyway, even though he had passed it thousands of times driving home from downtown. It was a gray, square building that reminded Sonny of a mausoleum, maybe because it looked like one or maybe that was secretly how he felt about museums. Housing for the dead. It had never occurred to him to go inside the place, nor had he imagined that anyone except art students who studied at the Herron school had any reason for going inside.
“Are you sure they’ll let us in?” he asked Gunner on the way down.
“Sure they will, it’s a museum, for God sake.”
“I thought maybe you had to be a student at Herron or something. To get in.”
“It’s for the public,” Gunner explained. “All you have to be is one of the public.”
“Oh.”
Gunner was right. You just walked in and moseyed around, going from one room to another, looking at the paintings and pieces of sculpture they had. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. For Sonny, at least. There was a certain technique for standing and looking, for tilting your head in just the right way, for shifting around to get another angle on the thing, moving in closer and then farther back, squinting a little bit, and knowing the right time for leaving one painting and going on to the next. Gunner, of course, got the hang of it right off, as if it were a new kind of sport and he picked up the moves with his natural ability. Sonny felt awkward as hell and was sure that anyone could tell he didn’t know a damn thing about art and was just pretending. One of the hardest parts for him was sticking with one picture for the right length of time. After he had looked at the damn thing for five or ten seconds, he figured he had seen it, and yet he knew that if you moved on that quickly it meant you weren’t serious. You had to hang around and keep ogling the damn thing.
Gunner even knew how to make the whispered comments. Rubbing reflectively at his chin, he would squint at a picture and say something like “Interesting, yeh, I think he’s on to something,” or “I’m not sure he got what he wanted there.” Sonny just nodded agreement to everything.
Some of the paintings were by native Indiana artists who showed pictures of hills and trees and brooks and the usual crap in pretty places like Brown County. Then there were others by people from New York that didn’t have anything you could make out exactly, but consisted of lines and splotches and bursts of color, without any actual thing you could identify like a house or a cow.
It was in the room of some of these paintings without any actual pictures in them that both guys found something of genuine interest to view. It was an art object all right, but a living one, dressed in hip-hugging tomato-colored toreadors and a tight silk blouse, contemplating the paintings with absorbed intensity. Of course, in a case like this, when there was something you would really like to clap your eyeballs on for a long time, from all different angles and distances, you had to pretend not to really be looking at it—or her—at all. She carried a pair of big sunglasses and gnawed at the stems as she stared at the paintings, making Sonny want to gnaw on something himself. Every so often her tongue would come out and move speculatively over her lips in a slow, lolling sort of way. She wore no lipstick, and somehow that seemed even sexier. There are certain kinds of girls who can get themselves up in a way that is opposite from what is supposed to be sexy and come out looking even sexier. Maybe it’s because they weren’t supposed to do it that way but obviously didn’t give a damn, or maybe because there was something off
beat about it, Sonny wasn’t sure. The girl wasn’t what you’d call pretty; her nose was long and had a kind of bump in the bridge of it, her lips were very thin, and her eyes were set a little too close together, but the whole effect was somehow attractive, exceedingly sexy. Maybe it was the aura about her, the stuck-up air that she didn’t give a damn what anyone thought, she knew she was pretty hot stuff.
Sonny saw the girl catch Gunner giving her the onceover, and she shot him a glance that would have staggered a charging bull. Then she strolled out, sliding on her sunglasses, her tight little ass twitching sassily.
Talk about Art.
Gunner was watching her with the studied appreciation of a connoisseur, and as she went out of sight, he started moving after her, as naturally and unhesitatingly as if he already had a date to meet her. Sonny drifted along behind, digging his fingernails into his palms. It not only terrified him to try to pick up a girl himself, it even made him nervous to see another guy try. If the other guy failed, it somehow seemed to Sonny like a slap in the face of all men, himself included, and he cringed to see it.
Gunner was halfway to the sidewalk, pursuing his prey, but Sonny stopped as soon as he got outside. He leaned back against the door, looking down at his feet and trying to blank out his mind. In moments like that he was tempted to pray, but since he had lost his belief he resorted to repeating scraps of nursery rhymes, which was almost as good. If you didn’s really think about the words they sounded a little like prayers, their rhythm supplying the comfort of incantation.
Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Mumbledy-mumble pie …
Stuck in a thumb
Pulled out a plum
Blackberry juice in the eye.
Taking a deep breath he sneaked a glance toward the sidwalk and saw Gunner casually standing with the girl, talking, as if it was the natural thing. He motioned to Sonny, impatiently, as if Sonny should have known all along it would be all right. Feeling his heart accelerate to high, Sonny walked up to them, not looking directly at the girl. Gunner introduced Sonny and said he had just asked Marty—that was the girl, Marty Pilcher—to have a cup of coffee with them over at the drugstore across the street. Sonny fell in on the other side of the girl, but a little behind her and Gunner, like a kid who was tagging along.
The drugstore was one of the old-fashioned kind that had big wooden booths and was sort of dark and musty inside, with an odor of camphor and cough syrup. There was a tall electric fan that buzzed complacently but didn’t affect the temperature. It was hot as blazes, and Sonny didn’t feel like drinking any coffee, but he knew that was what to order. You didn’t invite a sophisticated girl to go have an icecream soda with you. Coffee sounded more mature and worldly.
Marty scooched into one side of the booth, next to the wall, and Gunner moved in opposite from her. Sonny sat down next to Gunner, sort of on the edge of things. It really was discouraging being so nervous when it wasn’t even him who was trying to operate with the girl.
“I thought you looked familiar,” Gunner said to the girl and explained to Sonny, “She went to Shortley, too. Couple years behind us.”
“Oh,” Sonny said, adding his sparkling bit to the conversation.
“I don’t think we actually met,” the girl said pointedly to Gunner, “but then we wouldn’t have. You were a Big Rod.”
She blew a stream of smoke from her nostrils and with a mocking sort of smile said, “Isn’t that what they called you Golden Boys?”
Gunner shifted uncomfortably and stared into his coffee. “That was high school,” he said, like it didn’t really mean anything.
“And college, too,” the girl said in the same mocking tone. “DePauw, wasn’t it? Football star. Big Man on Campus.”
Gunner winced, and scratched at the back of his head.
“B.M.O.C.” the girl said with a grin.
“Come on,” Gunner said, sounding like a kid who was being picked on. Marty just smiled and delicately picked a little fleck of tobacco off her bottom lip.
It really was something. There was Gunner having to be embarrassed about all the stuff that had made him a hero, a star, a rod. But it was obvious that those things were the opposite ones to anything that would impress this particular girl. She was playing it cool and a little bit mean. Sonny thought how great it would be to fuck her, and he suddenly felt dizzy and weak.
“Weren’t you in the Annual Varieties at Shortley?” Gunner asked, desperately trying to throw some prestige thing back at her. The Annual Varieties, an elaborate, original show put on by the students, was pretty big stuff at Shortley. It was said that you never could tell when scouts from Broadway or Hollywood might be in the audience.
“Sure I was in the Varieties,” Marty admitted; then added, “Jews were allowed.”
“Hey!” Gunner said, like he’d caught her in a foul. “Don’t give me any discrimination stuff. Jews were in everything at Shortley, even the best clubs, even in—well, the Big Rod cliques. In every class, all the time I was there, anyway. In my year there was Sue Ann Glick, and Sammy Katzman.”
“Sure.” Marty smiled. “And in my year there was Roberta Tallon and Norm Siedenbaum.”
“So?”
“So, in every year, in every class, one male and one female Jew are taken in at the top. That’s what the quota allows.”
“What quota?” Gunner demanded.
Marty sighed and then said, as if she were only repeating the obvious, “The quota that allows two Jews, one of each gender, to be among the top social caste at Shortley in each new class.”
Gunner snorted. “That’s crazy,” he said and turned to Sonny, looking for help. “Tell her, will ya? You’re an objective observer. Was there a ‘quota,’ did you ever hear of any ‘quota’ like that?”
Sonny chewed at his lip. “Not that I ever heard of,” he said.
That was true, but the funny thing was when he started thinking back, it seemed like Marty was right. In every class there turned out to be a dozen or so boys and a matching number of girls who were really the top, the real rods and roddesses, and in each group there was just one boy and one girl Jew. Sonny had never really noticed it before, but when he thought about it, damned if it didn’t seem to be the case.
“Well?” Marty asked.
“It seems like that’s what happened,” Sonny said.
Gunner slapped a hand on his forehead and looked from Marty to Sonny. “But how?” he insistently questioned them. “How did it happen?”
Marty blew a neat little smoke ring at him. “Natural selection,” she cooed.
Gunner’s hand tightened on his forehead, pressing the brow.
“No, but really. How did each top group in each class always have two, no more and no less? Always one boy and one girl who were—” his voice trailed off—“Jewish.”
“To show that all men are created equal,” Marty said brightly, “regardless of race, creed, or color.”
“But listen,” Gunner pleaded, “nobody ever said that. I mean, I was on the inside of that stuff, and I swear to God, nobody ever sat down and said, ‘O.K., who’ll be the two Jewish kids to make it this year?’ You don’t believe that happened. Do you?”
Marty shrugged. “Probably not. That would have been embarrassing.”
Gunner looked to Sonny, but he wasn’t any help. “Son of a bitch,” Gunner said softly. He kept holding his hand pressed to his forehead, as if he was keeping his brains from falling out. Finally he let out a long breath and said, almost like he was talking to himself, “Wow. The stuff people do. And don’t even know they’re doing it.”
Marty reached over and touched his hand, not so much with affection, but rather, consolation, as if she were comforting a little kid.
“We did it too,” she said. “The Jews had their own vicious social thing going, their own clubs and in groups and nasty little hierarchies.”
“Besides,” Sonny found himself saying aloud, “you didn’t have to be Jewish to be on the
outside.”
Marty gave him a sympathetic smile that made him look away and wished he hadn’t said it. It would have sounded even more like asking for sympathy if he added the thing he so often thought about, the feeling he had that it might in a way be lucky to be a Jew or something so you’d have a real reason for being shut out of things and it wouldn’t really be your fault, the fault of the actual person you were. It seemed to Sonny to be even more humiliating to be a regular WASP and still be left out, because then the only reason for not being accepted was yourself, the way you were. You got to wondering whether you had B.O. or something, like in the ads where even your best friends wouldn’t tell you.
“I was a snob,” Marty said, “in my own circle. I was in Hadassah Debs. That was very big for the Jews.”
“Hadassah Debs,” Gunner said. “Yeh, I remember that. Did you join a Jewish sorority? In college?”
“I went to Wellesley. At least the cliques there didn’t have badges.”
“You went East, huh?” Gunner said with that certain edge of awe that the fact commanded from those who got their higher education nearer home.
Marty nodded and mashed out her cigarette with a determined jab. “I’m going back, too.”
“When?” Gunner’s question had a note of urgency about it.
“When I serve my time here. Daddy’d let me go now, but Mother thinks if I stay a year I’ll meet a nice boy at the country club and grow up to be just like her. So I’m taking courses at Herron and painting, and if I stay a year I get my freedom. This time next year, I’ll be gone.”
“Where?” Gunner asked, leaning forward a little.
Marty looked puzzled, as if he ought to know. “New York, of course.”
“Oh, right.”
“Is there any place else?”
Gunner shrugged. “I might end up there myself,” he said casually. “I’ve got the GI Bill coming. I could use it anywhere. Columbia, maybe.”
“Oh? What would you study?”
Gunner shifted uneasily in his seat. “I dunno, exactly. Philosophy, maybe. Maybe something in art. Something to do with art.”
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