When Sonny knew they were gone he quickly dressed, putting on some khakis and the satiny orange shirt with the sleeves that were too long—at last the baggy-sleeved shirt had a purpose; it would hide his bandage. He called Gunner at Marty’s, waking them both from their long night of lovemaking, telling Gunner that he had to meet him somewhere, quick, somewhere they could talk alone. Gunner said his mother had gone to church and was going to a picnic afterward, so they could go to the Meadowlark.
Gunner honked outside about ten minutes later. He hadn’t had time to shave and he looked gray and bleary. Sonny didn’t say anything and Gunner didn’t ask any questions. When they got to the apartment, Sonny said he needed a drink, and Gunner poured him a whiskey, straight.
“What is it, man?” Gunner asked gently. “What’s up?”
Sonny set his drink down on the coffee table, unbuttoned his left sleeve, and rolled it back, exposing the bandage. Gunner saw what it was, and he reached out and held Sonny’s hand, squeezing it hard. His eyes got that look of staring into an atom blast, and he started shaking his head and saying softly, “No, man, that’s not it, that’s not the way. It isn’t, man, it really isn’t. I tell you, no, it’s not.”
He stood up and started pacing back and forth, clutching his temple, saying, “We gotta do something, we gotta figure something out. We gotta get outa here.”
Sonny just sat and watched him, unable to speak or think.
Gunner suddenly stopped and made the pop of his fingers. “We’ll take off,” he said. “We’ll go on a trip. I gotta go to Chi sometime anyway, and we can stop at the lake. We’ll hit the road, get some fresh air, a little sun and water.”
“How?”
“I’ll get the car. I told Nina I had to borrow it sometime to go to Chi, and I’ll tell her I have to go now, the agency called me. We’ll get the hell out of here.”
“What’ll I tell my folks?” Sonny asked.
“Nothing. Anything. Leave a note. Say you’ll be back in a week, you went on a camping trip. They’re at church now, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
Gunner hustled Sonny back down to the car and roared off to the Burns’ house. No one was there. Sonny sat down in the den, feeling dizzy, not sure what he was doing.
“Listen,” he said, “no shit, Gunner, what’ll I do?”
Gunner popped his fingers and pointed one at Sonny like a gun, and then, making it an order, he just said one emphatic, clear, irrefutable word, said it so there wasn’t any question or confusion:
“Pack!”
PART THREE
1
Sonny sat in the shade with a can of beer, trying not to be noticed. The hot bright life of the lake was playing out all around him, in the yard of the Beemer’s cottage and on the old white-painted wood pier that pointed out into the water. Chris-Crafts buzzed and bounced farther out, racing and riding or towing water-skiers; a couple of little kids shrieked and cried as they played with their buckets and shovels on the short strip of yellow-gray sand, and Gunner and the Beemer boys and some others cavorted all over the place in a game of keep-away with a beach ball, sometimes spilling the action over into the yard, up the steps of the cottage, across the road, anywhere. The only other stationary person except Sonny was Old Man Beemer, who sat in a big wooden lawn chair, sipping at a can of beer and grinning, occasionally shouting taunts or encouragement to the keep-away players, surveying the whole scene like some old, benevolent king. In a way that’s what he was, and the scene was his creation, the family cottage and the pier and the boat, all bought by the sweat of his enterprise, his charm, his continual long hours for so many years building up the business, expanding it from a single hole-in-the-wall bakery in a little side street in Broad Ripple to a main plant with huge expensive ovens and branch stores all over the city supplied by the spanking white trucks that bore the blue slogan “Beemer’s Is Better!” At just about the point that Old Man Beemer had brought this to its peak, had set up a flourishing business ready for his sons to take over and carry on in the best Beemer tradition, ready himself to sit back and reap a little fruit of his labor in the form of leisure and gardening and fishing and the fine new home he had built out in the swanky new Millbank section, at about this time he had his heart attack. He could still enjoy things, but he had to be careful, of course, had to really watch others enjoy what he had built, but that was in fact true reward for him, that’s what it all was for anyway. The Boys. And Ruth, of course. But mainly the Boys. So he sat every day of summer at the lake, in that same chair, as if he had been placed there, an old king set on his throne, holding for a scepter the glistening can of cold beer.
Sonny envied him in some weird way. At least it seemed like he was supposed to be there, was part of some pattern that made sense, had done things right and well and been paid off not just in money but in the two fine young boys who would carry on and do things right and well themselves and earn their own chair on the lawn someday. In one way it seemed kind of boring, like reading about the Life Cycle of the Hummingbird or something, but in another way it seemed safe and solid and secure and orderly in a way Sonny’s life was not at all. Mr. Beemer belonged in that chair, but what the hell was Sonny doing under that tree, on his lawn, trying to keep away from the sun and the happy sport of the lake? He had on his bathing suit because Gunner insisted. He said it was no use coming to the lake and sitting around in your street clothes, and Sonny argued that he couldn’t go around with his left wrist all bandaged up and no shirt sleeve to hide it (everyone knows what has happened if a person has his left wrist all bandaged up) and have to answer a lot of questions. But Gunner popped out the solution to that, running down to the general store and buying an ace bandage that he expertly wrapped and clamped securely on Sonny’s whole left forearm from wrist to just under the elbow, explaining that Sonny could say now he had a sprain. It was perfectly all right to have a sprain and an ace bandage—in fact, it was sort of a mark of honor, the sort of thing athletes were always having happen. It also gave him an excuse to not have to water-ski or anything too strenuous, or even go swimming, though he still could wade out from the sand where the kids played, edging into the water until it got up around his waist, holding his left arm up so the bandage wouldn’t get wet. He could also lie on the pier and “soak up some sun,” which Gunner, in fact, had made him do for several agonizing hours early that afternoon. He tried counting sheep, reciting to himself the Gettysburg Address, and going through his nursery rhymes, and that helped hold off the daymares but it also made his mind tired as hell.
It was better in the shade with a beer and a newspaper. He could memorize batting averages and standings, which was another way of keeping the bad shit from taking over your mind, and also he could watch the guys playing their games and horsing around, which was especially active and funny because there were always some good-looking girls around the Beemers and the guys got a charge out of showing off. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, Sonny would have done it himself if he knew how and wouldn’t just look silly instead of agile and tough and daring.
In the keep-away game it ended up that everyone was chasing Jocko Beemer with the beach ball and he took the damn thing up a tree and Gunner climbed after him and knocked the ball out of his hands and there was a big pile-up on the grass with everybody diving in, a mass of arms and legs and screams and friendly curses, healthy young guys in the open air having themselves a ball. Old Man Beemer and Sonny looked on and smiled.
After everyone untangled from the pile-up, dirty and grass-stained and breathing hard and laughing, Kings Kingley let go a big belch and said it was beer time. Kings was five years or so older than the rest of the guys and he already had quite a gut on him, but he still wore his bathing trunks low, so the gut slopped over the elastic waist. He still hung out with the guys just like he was still fresh out of college himself, fresh from winning his varsity letter in football at Wabash. It seemed stranger because he looked even older than he was; he was one of those guys wh
o get the very thinning hair and the big gut early in life. He had married a Theta from DePauw who hailed from somewhere in Illinois, but he was always leaving her and the kid and running up to the lake, hoping to find a big bash, maybe even some action. At night he wore his old white sweater with a block W, but he wore it backward, the W on the back instead of front, as if to show it didn’t mean a damn thing to him it was just a sweater to wear, that’s all.
Some girls from a couple cottages down wanted to go water-skiing, and so the Beemers and Chuck Berback and a couple of buddies of Jocko Beemer’s from the Phi Delt house at I.U. took their beers and went out to the Chris-Craft with the girls. On the back of the boat, in those gold letters formed in an arc, it said, “Beemer’s Better,” and you didn’t know whether it meant the bakery stuff or the boys or everything Beemer, but it probably was true. Jamie Beemer was the oldest brother, he was in Sonny and Gunner’s class. He was never a star but he played reserve ball and everyone admired his guts because he got right in there and mixed it up even though he was a skinny and fairly frail-looking guy, and he was in all the best clubs and everything. Jocko Beemer was two years younger, and he was a star all the way around, not so much because of his actual physical ability but because he was one of those natural-leader guys. He was fairly short, but he had this chin that sort of jutted out and very clear blue eyes, and you just had confidence in him. You saw him walk out in a field, and you said, “There’s my quarterback.” He was the kind of guy Sonny always wanted to be; maybe every guy does.
Gunner didn’t go out in the boat, even though he liked to water-ski and, of course, was damn good at it. He could do the trick where you shake off one ski while you’re actually skiing, and balance yourself so you keep standing up and riding on the other ski, even though the boat is going like hell and making turns so you have to go over the waves that are stirred up. Gunner stopped and asked Old Man Beemer if he wanted another can, and Mr. Beemer said no he was fine, thanks, and Gunner said, “Way to go!” and clapped a hand on the old guy’s shoulder. The guys all treated him like that, like one of the boys.
Gunner had brought out new beers for Sonny and himself and he sat down under the tree and said, “How goes it, man?”
“Fine, I’m fine,” Sonny said, feeling like shit.
“Nothin’ like a little fresh air and sun,” he said, pleased his remedy seemed to be working. “How long were you out today—in the sun?”
“Couple hours.”
“Tomorrow you can do three.”
“Great,” he said, like it was a real treat. He really appreciated how Gunner was trying to help, and didn’t want to act like it wasn’t doing any good. He had felt guilty about Gunner leaving town and leaving his girl behind just to try to help Sonny out, but Gunner had insisted he wanted to do it, that in fact it was a good thing for him to get away, too. He said Marty’s mother was making life miserable for her about spending all her time with a shaygetz, and they might as well take a break, try to let the old lady cool off a little. Besides, Gunner said the last letter from Artists Unlimited didn’t seem so worried about his wasting his talent as about collecting his dough. It had ended by saying, “You may hear a knock on your door anytime; our representatives will be dispatched immediately if you don’t honor the enclosed debt by return mail.” A knock on your fuckin door! It was the Mail Order Gestapo after his ass, Gunner said, and he was taking it on the lam.
Gunner popped him a cigarette and took one for himself.
“You gotta learn to enjoy things more,” Gunner said.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, you must think you’re a real prick or something. Shit, man, you got a lot on the ball.”
“Shee-it.”
“Shee-it me no shee-its, buddy. I mean it. You got your photography. You got a way of explaining it to other people, too. Like you did with me. You got guts, even though you’re no big jock. You stuck by me, even when you might have got clobbered a couple of times. And Marty thinks you’re an attractive guy. No shit. Christ, so maybe you’re not Joe Stud, you’re a good guy and you’ll find a good girl. There aren’t many Joe Studs anyway, mostly there’s a lot of guys with big mouths who think they’re Joe Stud. You got to be able to like yourself. Ya know?”
“Sort of,” Sonny said. He felt embarrassed and wondered if he could ever feel that good about himself.
There was suddenly a loud series of honks, the three longs and three shorts, that was sort of like a signal back at Shortley, among the Big Rods mainly but then copied by almost everyone—there wasn’t any law against honking that way, even if you weren’t in the big clubs or anything—and this old red Studebaker came charging right into the yard like it was plunging right into the lake. It stopped with a screech, just past Old Man Beemer’s throne-chair. On the side window of the car was a Budweiser sticker that said, “Y’all come—Bring Bud.”
Sonny was just as glad of the distraction; he hadn’t known what to say about Gunner’s advice.
Gunner cupped his hands and called, “Heeeey, Wheels baby!”
Wheels Conzelman had come to Shortley after getting kicked out of some military academy, and he didn’t know anyone and was too small to be a jock and not very coordinated, but his old man was an executive with some big national firm and had a lot of bucks and bought him that red Studey for his sixteenth birthday, with the hitch that if Wheels flunked out of Shortley or got kicked out or didn’t graduate, the car got taken away. Of course, he was known to his old man as Richard, which was his real name, but he got known around school for the car. At first the Big Rods made fun of him, but then he started letting them use the car and taking them places and also driving them on dates, which was very useful because not many guys had their own car and couldn’t get the folks’ car all the time and so they sort of took Wheels in even though some of them joked about his having a “four-wheel personality,” but Wheels didn’t give a shit, he even said it about himself, and he didn’t seem such a bad guy at all. Just like Sammy Katzman joked about being a Jew, Wheels joked about his four-wheel personality, and if you joked about something like that, people accepted you more. He did flunk out of college his freshman year, but that wasn’t part of the deal about the car, and besides right away he enlisted in the Marines and you could hardly take the car of a U.S. Marine away from him.
The Marines had shaved off Wheels’ curly blond hair, and even though he’d been out for almost a year, he still kept it shaved, just as he kept wearing his old Marine fatigues and T-shirts that said, “Camp Lejune,” the way some guys wore their old athletic gear even after they got out of college. There was another guy with Wheels, a guy who Sonny liked a lot, even though he hardly knew him, a guy called Sparky Mackenthorpe. They called him Sparky the way you would call a fat guy “Slim,” because he was the most relaxed, easygoing guy you could ever meet. He never went out for ball, but everyone liked him. He was the sort of guy people asked for advice and went to when they were in trouble. It was soothing just to be around him, his easygoingness calmed other people down. He was always dressed nicely, not sharp or fancy, but casually right, like his personality. He had on some plaid bermudas and loafers and a nice-looking blue T-shirt, one of the kind with an alligator on the tit.
The newcomers gave a big greeting and clapping on the shoulders to Old Man Beemer and then came over to Gunner and Sonny. Gunner gave the quick introduction-reminder he always did—the “You remember Sonny Burns,” said so the person would think he should remember the guy, and they always said, “Yeh, right, sure, man, wha-say.” Wheels and Sparky didn’t have any place lined up to stay, and Gunner told them to come on over to the Sargent with him and Sonny.
The Sargent was an old hotel that used to be hot stuff on the lake a long time ago, but it had gone to seed and the summer before they took all the beds and crap out and it was just standing there, so you could go over with a sleeping bag and pry open one of the windows and have a room at the lake, even though it was an empty dilapidated old room, dusty as
hell, decorated with spiderwebs and peeling paint. They said the owners were trying to sell it and in the meantime they evidently didn’t give a damn if people sacked out on the floors. Some of the windows were broken out, by guys who couldn’t pry them up and get in any other way. It wasn’t exactly vandalism, no one threw rocks to break the windows for the hell of it, they just couldn’t get into the room they wanted any other way.
They found an empty room and then Wheels went out to the car and brought in a couple of six-packs and a fifth of Echo Springs bourbon.
“Don’t you wanta go back to Beemers and hit the water?” Gunner asked. “Before the sun goes down.”
“It’ll be there tomorrow,” Wheels said and cracked open a can with a churchkey he had hanging from his belt on a little chain.
“Ole Wheels,” said Sparky with a little chuckle, “he puts first things first.”
Everyone got beers and Wheels opened the Echo Springs and offered it to anyone who wanted to take some jolts from the bottle, but he was the only one who felt like it, at least yet. He would take a little gulp and then chase it with some beer.
“So what’s up with you, Wheels?” Gunner asked. “You been out long?”
“Almost a year. Already lost three jobs.”
“No shit?” said Gunner.
Sparky clapped Wheels on the back, affectionate like, and said, “You’ll be O.K., buddy. You’ll do ’er.”
“Fuckin Sparky.” Wheels grinned. “He believes in anybody.”
“What is it?” asked Gunner. “Getting back to civilian life?”
Wheels took a gulp of the bourbon and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Fuckin Marine Corps,” he said. “They ruin ya for anything, except for them. They only teach ya one thing, and then, goddam it, you can’t forget it.”
Going All the Way Page 25