“See!” Mrs. Burns cried. “He’s turning you against me, he’s making you take his side!”
“Jesus Hannah Christ,” said Sonny. He was too tired to scream or even to argue. He went to his room and slammed the door, flopped on his bunk, and tried to shut his mind off.
Help me, God, God help me. I hate your ass, but help me if you can. Help me lie down beside the still waters.
8
Shaving the beard off seemed to make Gunner look older—maybe just having the damn thing had aged him, what with all the crap he had to take about it. His cheeks looked hollower and whiter than before he had the beard, and his skin was a little raw, making him appear as if he’d just recovered from an illness. A couple days after the Great Mother Meeting, he picked up Sonny and they got a six-pack of Bud and went up to Crown Hill Cemetery, picking a high, shady spot where you could look out over the city and no one was likely to bother you. They just sat and sipped for a while without saying anything, and then Gunner started talking about how Marty’s mother was hounding her about seeing so much of a shaygetz—that was the Jewish word for a guy who wasn’t what Marty called “O.O.T.T.,” One of the Tribe—just as Gunner’s mother was on his back about dating a Jewish girl.
“We’re getting it from both ends,” Gunner said. “What a lot of shit.”
“Are you really serious about Marty?”
“‘Serious about?’ What does that mean? How the hell do I know? I like to fuck her and I like to talk to her—that’s a pretty rare combination, you know?”
“Hell, yes.”
“But we both have things to do. She doesn’t want to get locked into a picket fence, like DeeDee’s so hot to do. She’s got her own stuff to do, her art. And I don’t even know yet what the hell I’ve got to do. Except try to find out what it is.”
“Are you still going up to see the ad agency? In Chicago?”
“Yeh, I figure I owe ’em that. And myself, too. I really think I’ll get on the GI Bill train, but I at least could tell ’em that, maybe they’d like the idea of a guy doing that before he settles into a regular job.”
“Yeh, right. Might as well keep it open.”
“The pay ain’t hay, I’ll tell you that. They were talking seven thousand as a starting salary.”
Sonny whistled and said, “Shit, that’s as much as Biff Barkely makes over at the Star right now, and he’s been with ’em—Jesus, maybe fifteen years.”
“You talked to him, huh? About a job there?”
“Yeh, but I don’t know. He’s kind of bitter, it seems like. He kind of encouraged me to go to New York or something, try the big guys.”
“Why not? You can always come back here, you might as well see what it’s like in the big city. Hell, you could get the bill and do some work on the side.”
“Maybe. I guess maybe I ought to go talk to the guys at the V.A. About getting the bill.”
“Yeh, I was down there once, but I have to go back and get the forms and shit. I think I’m going to try to get into Columbia. I was talking to Marty about it.”
“Man, that’d be great. Having a girl there, right there in New York.”
“Yeh. New York.”
New York City.
Just hearing the name or saying it to himself gave Sonny a kind of tingly feeling, exciting and scary at the same time. The flat, familiar town stretched out below seemed tamer but also safer. He just didn’t know if he had what it took to survive in a real big city, much less the biggest and toughest of them all. Of course, if he had a friend there, a friend like Gunner, who’d make out anywhere in the world, it might be easier, might even be some fun.
“I’ve had it with Naptown, anyway,” Gunner said. “I know that much.”
“Maybe so,” said Sonny, who didn’t really know.
They left the cemetery at dusk, the long straight rows of streetlights started coming on, laid out orderly and predictably, the way the city was. There was something dull but reassuring about it.
On the way home Gunner mentioned casually that Marty had a girl friend from college coming in for the weekend, and wondered if Sonny’d like to be fixed up with her. Marty said the girl was pretty sexy-looking and wasn’t short on brains, either. Sonny said sure, very casual, just as if such opportunities came along all the time. Gunner said the date would be for Saturday night, and then if Sonny liked the girl, they could all do something on Sunday, too. If he liked the girl. Sonny could only think about whether the girl would like him. He didn’t even know her but he was already worried.
Sonny tried to work himself into a casual mood as he got dressed for the date on Saturday night. In the shower he sang “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” at the top of his voice, and after he got out and dried he slapped Old Spice After Shave Lotion all over himself with stinky abandon. Casual him. Devil may care. But beneath the loud, jaunty singing and the smell of Old Spice, he was terrified by the thought that his date might really be a great sexy girl and he would ruin everything. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that she wouldn’t really be smart or sexy at all and there wouldn’t be anything to be nervous about. But it wasn’t usual for a girl to describe another girl as “sexy-looking” to a guy she was fixing her up with. Marty, of course, was sophisticated, and there was the possibility she really meant it and the girl was really sexy-looking. There was always that possibility. You knew there was no possibility at all when a girl tried to fix you up with a friend and described her by saying she had “real personality” or, even worse, was “loads of fun.” If there was one thing Sonny couldn’t stand, it was a girl who was “loads of fun.” That meant she was homely and plain and hated sex and tried to make up for it by talking a blue streak and faking a lot of laughs and suggesting “fun” things to do like why don’t we all go to the zoo and feed peanuts to the polar bears. Girls who were loads of fun always loved to go to the zoo. You couldn’t lay a hand on them in the fucking zoo.
The deal for the evening was that they all were going to have dinner at the Italian Village Restaurant, and then go dancing out at Westlake. That was a very sexy plan if you had a good date; it showed you could have a real sophisticated evening in Indianapolis. Sonny put on a new sport coat his mother had bought him at Medallion Men’s Wear—a plaid number—and a pair of white-linen slacks that were tight in the waist but looked debonair as hell, a sharp, thin black knit tie, and his old white bucks. He looked himself over in the mirror and judged the whole outfit to be pretty damned sharp, but goddam if he didn’t have a pimple on the end of his nose. It seemed like whenever anything important was going to happen he sprouted a big ugly pimple on the end of his nose. He squeezed it, but instead of breaking, it just became redder and more clownish-looking. He put some of his mother’s pancake makeup on it, and that helped a little. It wasn’t so red then, it just looked flaky and cruddy.
The pimple really depressed Sonny, because that was one thing he thought would stop happening when his real life began—getting a goddam pimple on the end of his nose at a crucial time. But there it was again, blooming right on the end of his nose, even though he was a college graduate and a veteran of the U.S. Army. He guessed he would probably have a fucking pimple on the end of his nose the day he died, and they would have to spread pancake makeup over it when they fixed him up for the casket display. People would pass by and say, “My, he looks natural—he even has a pimple on the end of his nose.” Sonny suspected he’d be able to hear them say it, too, even though he wouldn’t be able to talk back. They probably had it rigged up that way for you in hell, so you could hear the last shitty comments and not be able to reply.
Sonny was getting himself in a terrible state, and he was thankful that Gunner picked him up early so they had time to stop at the Key for a drink. Sonny had two seven-and-sevens while Gunner drank a beer, and he wished he had even more when Gunner told him the unexpected good news.
“We got the house to ourselves,” Gunner revealed. “Marty’s folks are gone for the weekend.”
Sonny had
to take his hand off the drink to keep the glass from rattling. “Terrific,” he said.
“Here’s the plan. When we get back from Westlake, we’ll hit the den and shoot the shit there for a while. Then Marty ’n I’ll slip upstairs to the bedroom. You and the babe’ll have the den. You know—I mean, if you want to make out with her.”
Gunner said it as if it would be Sonny’s decision to make, according to his own whim. He said it so matter-of-factly that Sonny actually felt a little cocky, like he was a regular make-out artist.
“Great,” he said, nodding at Gunner. “That couch in the den looks real nice and cushiony.”
Gunner slapped him on the back and said, “I recommend it highly, ole buddy,” and both of them broke up laughing, just like a couple of cocksmen planning to knock off their piece for the night. The movie in Sonny’s mind showed a couple of hooded, desert marauders riding down on the tents of the frightened, waiting women. He even forgot about the pimple on the end of his nose.
Marty’s college girl friend was Gail Thayer, from Cincinnati. To Sonny’s astonishment and terror, she was a goddam dream. Maybe not everybody’s dream, but Sonny’s. She was tiny and dark, with glossy black hair and big greenish-gray eyes and perfect white teeth circled by a lush little mouth with lipstick that was deep dark red. She had on a plain gold sleeveless dress with an emerald pin that looked like a bug, crawling up her tit. She wore white heels and sleek, seamless nylons. Sonny loved to see women in stockings, but it depressed the hell out of him when they had the seams crooked or were loose and all wrinkled up around the ankles. That ruined everything. But Gail’s were just right, glistening tight against her legs, like a shiny second skin that could be peeled off.
Marty proposed they all have a drink before taking off for dinner, and Sonny silently blessed her. The carefree, cocksman feeling he had worked up before over drinks with Gunner had completely crumpled when he got a load of Gail. His date. Oh, God, his date. Holy shit. He couldn’t speak or think, but luckily Gunner had sparked a nice casual conversation as he mixed a batch of martinis. Sonny was only vaguely aware of Gunner smiling and handing him a glass, but after a couple of deep slugs he was able to tune in to the story his buddy was telling. Evidently when Gunner heard Gail was from Cincy he had launched into a hilarious account of how Shortley had played Withers High of Cincinnati in his junior year and got their ass racked.
“We were undefeated going into that ball game,” Gunner was explaining. “But we knew Withers had been the state champs of Ohio the year before and had fourteen returning lettermen. We were scared shitless, but tried not to let on. The coach could tell we were shaking in our goddam cleats, though, and he gave us this fiery pep talk, you know, like in the movie of the Big Game. Our coach was this guy Herman E. ‘Nails’ Nedrick, and he talked like Pat O’Brien playing Knute Rockne, you know, and he finished up the talk saying ‘Men—’” Gunner stood up and pointed a menacing finger, imitating Herman E. “Nails” Nedrick, making his voice deep and bellowing just like “Nails” used to do it, and said, ‘Men, you may have heard a lot about how tough these Withers guys are, but Men, I’ll tell you something right now and I want you to remember it.…’
“Well,” Gunner said in his regular voice, “we’re all holding our breath and waiting for the big scoop, and ‘Nails’ says”—now Gunner made the deep imitation voice again—“‘Those Withers guys put their pants on the same as you do—one leg at a time!’”
Everybody broke up, Gunner included, and he sat back down, holding his stomach. He was great at telling those old high-school stories and making them sound funny as hell, like they were funny kid stuff that everyone had grown out of years ago, so everyone liked to laugh not just because Gunner told it funny but because it made you feel more mature and sophisticated to see how funny all that kid stuff had been. The girls laughed beautifully, throwing their heads back, and Gail asked in a tinkly, light voice, “What happened? What happened then?”
“We got slaughtered,” Gunner said, smiling, “fifty-two to nothing.”
Everyone laughed again, and Marty rubbed her hand on the back of Gunner’s neck, scruffing up his hair a little.
“My hero,” she said, making a fake sigh of awe. She was sort of pulling Gunner down to her, but he straightened up, pointed to Sonny, and said with great interest, “Hey, man, did you go to that one, the Withers game?”
“Not that one,” Sonny said.
“Sonny was our ace photographer,” Gunner said, turning to Gail, making it sound like a very big deal.
“Oh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows and looking fascinated as hell.
“Hell, yes, he shot all the action stuff of the games. Great stuff.”
“Well, I made some trips,” Sonny said modestly, “with the team.” Catching Gunner’s conversational lead, tossed like a perfectly pinpointed pass, Sonny grinned and said, “Hey, Gunner, you remember the trip to South Bend, senior year, to play South Bend Central, when the bus broke down and Herman E. ‘Nails’ Nedrick had everybody change into their uniforms on the bus and gave his pep talk about how ‘The Game Must Go On,’ and guys were getting their gear all mixed up and climbing all over each other like a Laurel and Hardy movie?”
Gunner gave a great guffaw and said, “Hey, that was fabulous, but I can’t remember it all. You tell it.”
“What happened?” asked Gail, as if she were totally enthralled.
Sonny told the story, making it as good as he could and throwing in some stuff that didn’t even happen to make it funnier. Everybody laughed—led by Gunner—at the right places, and when Sonny finished telling it, he felt like a million. He wasn’t clutched up at all, even with that sexy little babe fixing her misty, greenish-gray eyes on him like he was someone terrific. He hadn’t even got tongue-tied or showed he was nervous, and it gave him the light, floating sensation that maybe now, maybe at last, his real life was actually beginning. The way it was supposed to be.
When they all piled into Gunner’s car to go to the Italian Village to eat, Gail sat sort of in the middle of the back seat so that when Sonny got in he was right next to her, and it made him feel tremendous. He really hated it when a girl hugged the door. The loads-of-fun girls always did it, and the sexy ones did it if they didn’t like you. It was a way of telling you without using words, “O.K., Buster, you stay on your side and I’ll stay on my side, just keep your distance.” When they did that it really depressed the shit out of Sonny. It made him feel like a fucking leper. But here was this great little sexy Gail, so close that her bare, sun-tanned shoulder was touching him, and he could smell the sharp tang of her perfume.
At the Italian Village, where they had red-checked tablecloths and drippy candles, Sonny drank a lot of wine and talked with great ease, but he only picked at his food. Whenever he was sexed up he didn’t feel hungry; it was like the two things didn’t go together. He just ate enough to make it look as if he were eating like a normal person, but he didn’t actually taste anything.
It was a fresh, starry night and the roof was rolled back at the Westlake dance pavilion, which made for a great make-out atmosphere. There was a roof that they could roll over the dance pavilion if the weather was bad, and there were imitation clouds and stars set up in the roof, but it wasn’t as good as the real job. Everyone ordered drinks, and the first time Sonny went out on the dance floor he put his right arm around Gail’s tiny waist and she melted right into him. None of that stiff, plenty-of-space-between business that the loads-of-fun girls gave you. This was the real thing, the thing that made it worthwhile for a guy to go through all the crap of taking a girl to a dance. There was a good band that played a lot of slow, sexy stuff, and they even had a vocalist, a guy named Harry Henneman who used to play a little ball at Shortley but never made the team at Butler University and dropped out of school to become a crooner. He would never replace Frank Sinatra, but he sang good, sexy ones like “My Foolish Heart.”
He threw in a lot of warbly effects and did the whispery numbers with
his eyes closed and his head bent back like he either was shooting his wad or had wrenched his spine. Sonny had a hell of a hard-on and Gail was moving her thighs against it so blatantly and beautifully that Sonny was afraid he might come right there on the dance floor, spoiling his debonair white-linen slacks. Once in high school that actually happened to him—his wad had blasted off right when he was dancing that way with Penny Sampleton, who was crawling all over him and secretly licking him in the ear. After the dance they parked and Penny cried and said she felt dirty for having such dirty feelings, and Sonny took her home. Later he heard she became a nurse and married a guy from Manual-Tech who drove stock cars and played the vibes.
Luckily the band broke into a mambo just when Sonny was afraid he was about to shoot it, and he said they’d better sit down. He confessed to not knowing the mambo and Gail said she didn’t mind, but while it was playing, she snapped her fingers and wiggled her head to the rhythm, like she really wanted to be doing it, and that got Sonny a little depressed, but he tried not to let on and ordered another drink. Gunner said he didn’t know the mambo either, but he and Marty got out on the dance floor and tilted around, looking to Sonny like a couple of experts. Around midnight Gunner said he thought they ought to shag the place, which was fine with Sonny, not only because he was tired of dancing but also because he’d about run through the last of the money his mother had given him buying seven-and-sevens for himself and Tom Collinses for Gail.
In the car going back Gail leaned her head against Sonny’s shoulder and he put his arm around her with firm manliness but didn’t try to kiss her. That was kid stuff, just kissing, when you had a house to go to where no one was home and there was plenty to drink. Sonny felt as confident as Roger the Lodger, the guy in the limerick who did it with the Old Lady from Cape Cod. By God.
Everyone went to the den when they got back to Marty’s, and Gunner made drinks while Marty put on one of those hot Spanish gypsy records—the kind where they’re all stamping their feet and it sounds like everybody’s getting their rocks off about every two minutes. Sonny figured maybe that’s why the Spanish were known as a “hot-blooded” people, the way they sang and danced like they all were shooting their wads.
Going All the Way Page 23