“And Jim…?”
“Jim took care of me,” she said. “He was always good to me. And he never asked anything in return.”
We sat there in silence awhile. Finally our eyes met. We looked at each other. I smiled. She tried to smile but it didn’t work.
“Be nice to me, Davie,” she said. “Don’t be suspicious.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “Peggy, I won’t.”
Then I said, as cheerfully as possible, “Come on, let’s find you an apartment.”
I found a car that same day at a used-car lot, and afterwards we found a place for Peggy.
It was a small place. Two rooms, bath and kitchenette for $55 a month.
It wasn’t going to be empty for about two days so we went back to her old place. I invited her out to dinner. Then to a show or maybe down to the amusement pier at Venice. She accepted happily.
“Let’s start all over,” she said impulsively during the afternoon. “Let’s forget the past. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”
I hugged her. “No, baby,” I said, “of course it doesn’t.”
When we went in the house Albert and his wife were sitting there in the front room. That they’d been arguing was obvious from the forced way they broke off conversation. There were splashes of red up Albert’s white cheeks.
They looked up at us. The old, sullen resentment in Albert’s expression. The prissy, forced amiability in Mrs. Grady’s face.
“Mrs. Grady,” Peggy said, “I expect to be moving out in two days.”
“Oh?” said Mrs. Grady. With that tone that can only be attained by landladies about to lose a tenant.
Albert looked at her. He looked down at her bust. I felt myself tighten in anger. The look on his face made me want to drive my fist against it.
“Is there something wrong here?” Mrs. Grady asked, a trifle peevishly. “Perhaps…”
“No, no,” Peggy said, “it’s fine. I just want an apartment, that’s all.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Grady. “Well.”
“I just happened to stumble across it today,” Peggy said, “or else I would have given you more notice.”
“I’m sure,” Albert said, his fat lips pursed irritably.
More tightening in me. Peggy moved for her room.
“Excuse me,” she said.
I followed without thinking.
“Gratitude,” Albert said. And when I was going into her room he said something else. Something about little trash.
I felt myself lurching to a halt. I threw a glance over my shoulder. Then I felt Peggy’s restraining hand on my arm.
In her room she looked at me.
“I guess you should have waited outside,” she said.
“What’s the difference?” I said, loud for all to hear. “Change your clothes and let’s get out of here.”
She put up a screen and went behind it. I saw her halter and shorts flutter over the top and I tried to avoid thinking of Peggy standing there tanned and nude. I tried to concentrate on my rage at Albert. But your mind is hardly your own when it’s distracted by such merciless visions.
She came out in a little while. During which time I sat listening to the angry voices of Mr. and Mrs. Grady, lovable duo. And I heard the word “trash” used again. Albert wasn’t hiding it.
“We’d better go,” I said, “or I swear I’m liable to punch that slob in the nose.”
Silence outside. I hoped they heard.
“I wish you could leave tonight,” I said.
“I… so do I,” she said. And in her voice I heard the mixture of revulsion and contempt and, yes, fear.
They were talking when we went out into the front room again. But they shut up. They looked up at Peggy, who wore a light blue cotton dress and had a blue ribbon in her hair.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to refund your money,” said Mrs. Grady, revealing the depth of her soul.
“I…” Peggy started.
“She’s got no claim to it, mother,” Albert snapped bitterly, “no claim ’soever.”
“I don’t expect it back,” Peggy said.
“I’m sure you don’t.” That was Albert.
“Shut your mouth, Albert,” I said. Surprised at myself how easily it came.
“Uh!”
In unison. Mr. and Mrs. Grady were both outraged at my impertinence.
“Come on,” I said and Peggy and I left. Hearing a muffled, “She’ll be sorry for this,” from Albert as we closed the front door behind us.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Peggy said as we got into the car. Then she laughed and it was nice to hear her laugh again.
“Did you see the look on his face?” she said. “It was priceless.”
We laughed for three blocks.
***
I parked the car on one of the streets that lead down to the Venice pier. And we walked down together, hand in hand.
Unaware that we were being followed.
We tried to hit a swinging gong at a shooting gallery. We nibbled on buttered popcorn and threw baseballs at stacked wooden bottles. We went down in the diving bell and watched tiger sharks circle the shell holding us, watched manta rays and heard the man say over and over, “They fly, ladies and gentlemen—they fly!” We rode the little scooter cars and bumped each other and Peggy laughed and her cheeks were bright with color.
I don’t remember everything. I just remember the walking, hand in hand, the warm happiness of knowing she was with me. Remember her screams of mock fear as the roller coaster plummeted us down through the night and then up again, straight at the stars.
I remember Funland.
It’s a strange concession. One of those things. Nothing really but a big black maze. You wander through it, down inclines, turning corners, searching for an exit—all in a blackness that’s complete and abysmal. This sounds pointless, I guess. Until you take a girl. A lot of loafers hang around there. They wait for unescorted girls to go in.
I don’t know what it was that made me nervous from the start. Maybe it was Peggy. She seemed to be driving herself, daring herself not to be afraid. Her laughter was forced and her hand in mine shook and was wet with perspiration. She kept tugging.
“Come on, Davie, let’s find our way out.”
“What did we come in for?”
“To find our way out.”
“Progress,” I said.
The place was like a coal mine. I couldn’t see a thing. It had a dank, rotting odor too, that place. The smell of uncleaned spaces and water-logged wood and the vague, left-over smell of thousands of phantom bodies who had come in to get out.
And there were sounds. Giggles. Little shrieks of deliberate fright. Or were they deliberate? Peggy’s breath was fast, erratic. Her laughter was too breathless.
“Babe, what did we come in here for?” I said.
“Come on, it’s fun, it’s fun.”
“Some fun.”
She kept pulling me, and I held on tight, moving through the blackness that was filled with clumping and shuffling of feet. And more shrieks and giggles. And the sound of our breathing. Unnaturally loud.
“This is scary,” Peggy said, “isn’t it?”
We touched walls, bumped down inclines, pressed together in the dark.
“Excuse me,” I said. It sounded inane.
“All right,” came the phantom reply. In a voice that had more fright than elation in it now.
“How do you get out of here?” I said, trying to get rid of the rising uneasiness in me.
“You just wander and finally you come out,” she said.
Silence. Except for feet shuffling and her breathing and my breathing. Shuffling along in the dark. With the rising sense that we weren’t alone. I don’t mean the other people in the black maze. I mean somebody with us.
The next thing I remember, the last thing for a while, was a sudden blinding beam of light behind us. A rushing sound behind me. And me whirling around into the eye-closing light. Then feeling two bi
g hands grab my throat, strong arms spinning me, now in blackness again. A heavy knee driving into my back, and something hard crashing down on my skull.
And though it was dark, for me it got darker. I felt myself hit the floor and start falling into night.
But not before, on my knees and almost gone, I heard Peggy scream out in mortal terror.
***
Somebody was slapping my face.
I twisted my head away and groaned. Sounds trickled back into my brain. I opened my eyes.
I was still on the pier, half-stretched out on the walk, propped up against a wooden fence. A crowd was watching me with that alien and heartless curiosity that crowds have for stretched-out victims of any kind. I heard a voice saying, “It’s nothing folks, he just fainted. Don’t congregate, please. Don’t get the police on me, thank you kindly, I appreciate it. Nothing at all folks, just fainted that’s all, he just fainted.”
“Peggy!”
I struggled up, suddenly remembering her. The pain in my skull almost put me out again. I fell back on one elbow.
“Take it easy, boy,” said the man with the cigar in his mouth, the loud sport shirt. “Just fainted, folks. Don’t congregate, please don’t congregate.”
He looked at me. “How’s the head?” he asked.
“Where is she?” I asked. I grabbed his arm, fighting off the dizziness. “She’s not still in there, is she?”
“Now, now,” he said, “take it easy.”
“Is she!”
“No, no, no, no, nobody’s in there now. It’s cleared out. Stop yelling please. You want the police to come down?”
“Did you see her leave?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” said the man, still looking around. “Somebody said they did.”
“Alone, was she alone?” I slumped against the fence, dizzily.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure. Please, folks, don’t congregate like this. Be a good egg, folks. Give me a break and don’t congregate like this.”
I pushed up then and started through the crowd, holding myself tight to keep the pain from knocking me on my face again.
I kept seeing her in there. In pitch blackness. With her fear of men. And someone attacking her in blackness. It would drive her out of her mind.
Then another thought.
Jim.
Steig trailing us. Jumping me. Taking Peggy away. It seemed terribly logical to me then.
I started running up the pier for the car and planning to drive to Jim’s place to find her. Strange there seemed no doubt in me that she actually was there. Only in a white rage could I be so certain.
I rushed past endless gaudy concessions, the barker voices shrouding me with blatancy, calling me to break balloons, and throw pennies and pitch hoops around knife handles and telling me what they were going to do if only I’d stop. I got a stitch in my side but kept running, gasping for breath.
Then, suddenly, I thought, I’ll phone him. He would more than likely deny it but then again he might not. He might flaunt it. It was worth the try.
In the airless booth my head started throbbing. I gritted my teeth, panting. I looked up Jim’s number, sweat rolling down my face. I called the operator and had the call put through.
His voice, assured, dripping with aplomb.
“This is David,” I said. “Is…”
“David who?”
“Newton!” I said angrily. “Is Peggy there?”
“Peggy? Why do you ask?”
“Is she there?”
“You sound hysterical,” he said.
“Did you have me attacked tonight?” I asked furiously, not thinking at all. “Did you have Steig take Peggy?”
“What are you talking about?”
I suddenly felt my insides falling. If it weren’t Steig, then who was it?
“Speak up, David. What are you talking about? What’s happened to Peggy?”
I hung up. I pushed out of the booth. I walked a few feet. Then I broke into a weaving run again. I felt a wild fear in me. What had happened to her? Where was she? Oh good God, where was she?!
I moved off the pier and wove up the dark street past bars with tinkling pianos and a mission with a tinkling piano and tone deaf converts singing for their supper.
“Peggy,” I gasped.
And found her in my car.
She was sitting slumped over on the right hand side. The first impression I got was one of stark shock. She was shaking violently and continuously. Just staring blankly at the windshield and shaking. She had her right arm pressed over her breasts. The fingers of her left hand in her lap were bent and rigid.
“Peggy!”
I slid in beside her and she snapped her head over. Her stare at me was wild with fear. I put my arm around her shaking shoulders.
“What happened, Peggy?”
No answer. She shook. She looked at me, then at the windshield again. Her pupils were black planets swimming in a milky universe. I’d never seen eyes so big. Or so terror-stricken.
“Baby, it’s me. Davie.”
She started to bite her lower lip. I could almost feel the rising emotion in her. She literally shook it out of herself.
It suddenly tore from her lips. She threw her hands over her face. Then she drew them away just as suddenly and held them before her eyes in tight claws of blood-drained flesh. She clicked her teeth, clenched them together and tried to hold back the moaning.
But her breath caught. And a body-wracking sob burst from her throat. She dragged her hands across her breasts. And I saw that the front of her dress had been ripped open and one of her brassiere straps had been snapped.
“I’m dirty,” she said, “dirty!”
I had to grab her hands to keep her from ripping open her own flesh. I was amazed at the strength in her arms and wrists. Impelled by savage shock, she was almost as strong as a man, it seemed.
“Stop it! Peggy, stop it!”
Sitting there in Venice, California, in a black Ford coupe trying to calm the hysterics of a young woman afraid of sex who had been attacked.
Some people stopped and watched with callous curiosity while Peggy shook and groaned and gnashed her teeth and tried to claw away the flesh that had been touched by some vicious attacker.
“Peggy, please, please…”
I wanted to start the car and get away from those staring people. But I couldn’t let her tear at her own flesh.
A long shuddering breath filled her. And she started to cry. Heartbroken crying, without strength or hope. I held her against me and stroked her hair.
“All right, baby,” I said, “cry, cry.”
“Dirty,” she moaned, “I’m dirty.”
“No,” I said. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m dirty,” she said, “dirty.”
As soon as I could, I started the car and drove away from the curious people. I drove along the ocean for a while and then stopped at a drive-in. By that time she’d stopped crying and was sitting quietly, way on the other end of the seat, staring at her hands.
I’d put my jacket over her to cover the torn dress and slip. I ordered coffee and made her drink it. She coughed on it but she drank it.
It seemed to calm her a little. I stayed away from her. She wanted it that way, I knew. She almost pushed against the other door, crouching as if prepared to leap out should I make the remotest suggestion of an advance.
“Tell me what happened, Peggy?”
She shook her head.
“It’ll help you if you can tell me.”
Finally she did. And the visualization of what she said made me shiver.
“Someone grabbed me,” she said. “I screamed for you but… but you didn’t answer.”
“I was unconscious, Peggy.”
For the first time she looked at me with something besides fear.
“You were hit?” she asked.
I bent over and told her to touch the dried blood on my head.
“Oh,” she said in momentary concern, “Davie…�
��
Then she drew back.
“Go on,” I said.
“Some… some man put his hands on me. He clawed at me. He tore at my dress. I scratched him. I think I must have scratched his eyes out. Oh, God I hope I did. I hope he’s blind!”
“Peggy, stop.”
I saw the look of revulsion on her face. Because she had suddenly picked up her hands to look at them.
She made a gagging sound. Then she started rubbing her fingers over her skirt. I saw what it was.
Skin under her nails. The skin of the man who had tried to rape her.
I got a pen knife from the glove compartment and cleaned her nails while she kept her head turned away, her eyes tightly shut. Her hands trembled in mine.
“I think I’m… going to be sick,” she said.
I felt sick myself, flicking those particles of someone’s skin on the floor. Someone who had terrorized the girl I loved. It was almost as if he were present with us. I thought vaguely of taking those particles to the police but then I just let them fall. I couldn’t stand putting them in an envelope.
“Peggy,” I said, “do you think it was Steig?”
She couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she said she didn’t know.
“If I’d had a gun,” she said, “a knife, a razor, anything. Oh God I’d have…”
I felt the muscles of my stomach tighten. Until I told myself that she’d been driven half-mad with fear. And I pushed away the thought I was trying so hard to avoid. And came up with another one that had preyed on me since I was conscious again.
“Peggy.”
“What?”
“Did he…?”
She closed her eyes.
“If he had,” she said, “you wouldn’t have found me here. I’d be in the ocean.”
My stomach kept throbbing as I drove up Wilshire. The thought of her being alone after this experience distressed me terribly. Worse than alone, alone with Albert. What if he made an advance this night?
And then I thought, what if it were Albert who had attacked her in the first place?
I didn’t know how to put the thought to her. I didn’t want to alarm her needlessly. She seemed set on going back to her room. If I made the idea horrible, and she went anyway…
Thoughts. No end to them. And no resolution.
As I turned up 26th I saw Albert’s Dodge in front of the house. And another car too. Jim’s Cadillac.
Someone Is Bleeding Page 4