Me? I jumped on his back, got him in a hammerlock, and began choking him for all I was worth. He was beginning to gurgle and stagger. Then, preposterously, leaping ten years back in time to when I used to kick the crap out of my sister Mary Ann, I spoke the triumphant command into Hayden’s ear. “‘Uncle.’ Say ‘uncle.’”
He wasn’t of a mind to say “uncle.” Instead, running backwards, he slammed me against the wall. We both fell, kind of sideways, but still I wouldn’t let go. “Uncle!” I yelled. “Uncle, you sonofabitch!” And I put everything I had into the crunching of his neck. Florrie just lay on her bed through it all, watching us as if maybe we were all in her imagination.
“Uncle,” he said. Barely, because he didn’t have much breath left. I let go, rolled away from him, and sprang to my feet like a wrestler. I had an ashtray in one hand and a bigger ashtray in the other.
He was rubbing his neck. “You’ve got some grip there.”
“Anchorman on the tug-o-war team at The Stokely School for Girls,” I said, still brandishing my ashtrays.
“I believe you,” he said. Then he turned to Florrie and smiled. “Sorry, kid—I had a few drinks and—”
“Will you just get out of here?” she said, drawing herself together and massaging her boobs, mostly to see if she still had them.
“Some pair of pussies,” he laughed. “Betch you’ve never seen a real live prick.”
“We’re lookin’ at one now,” said Florrie, and Hayden left the room, laughing, limping and coughing.
I closed the door, locked it, and looked at Florrie. “You all right?”
“Yeah. I just hope my left tit snaps back. I’d hate for it always to be five inches lower than the right one. Won’t be able to wear a bra anymore. Have to wear a slingshot.” She began to laugh. “Do you believe that guy?”
“I believe anything.”
We laughed. Florrie soaked her tits in epsom salts and I washed my hair. In the shower I could only think of Ben. It was a long shower and I only hoped that he was doing likewise and that he was enjoying his soap as much as I was enjoying mine.
Next morning, before rehearsal, I cabbed over to visit Ben’s folks, meanwhile wondering why I’d ever suggested it in the first place. It was the act of a dutiful future daughter-in-law, and, as such, it was stupid. And transparent, and bound to be embarrassing. Ben obviously had no more in common with his family than I had had with mine. We had both broken with our former lives so what the hell was I doing poking around in his?
It was a nice house in a not-so-nice neighborhood, and before I got out of the cab, I made as certain as I could not to look like a flashy chorus girl. I had no makeup on other than a little eyebrow pencil because, without it, I had no eyebrows to speak of and I certainly didn’t want to look as though I’d singed them off while baking a batch of Betty Crocker brownies. I wore a kerchief around my hair and a dull sweater and a duller skirt and flat shoes, and I looked more like a Croatian domestic going on a job interview than the hotsy-totsy cutey who was sleeping with their only son.
They were very nice, very cordial, and I could see that Ben favored them both, built like his father but facially resembling his mother. They really didn’t know what to do with me other than to pour tea at me and push cookies on me and ask the usual stifling questions about my family. Ben’s mother was verbal and intelligent in a most basic way. His father was reticent and fidgety. They didn’t seem to match but maybe that’s because I was so out of water with them.
Ben had called the night before and had told them about selling his play. They were delighted, of course, but were more surprised than anything else. They asked how I had come to meet Ben, and I told them of the apartment and how I had moved in when Ben went into the Army, adding that I had moved out upon his return, but there was a self-condemning pause in the middle of my statement that Mr. Webber never picked up on, though Mrs. Webber did. She didn’t say a word, didn’t rustle a hair, but I knew that she knew.
They showed me Ben’s room but spared me his baby pictures, and, all things considered, it was a pleasant enough interlude if not altogether thrill-packed. Ben’s father said good-bye but stayed inside because of his virus. I guess he didn’t want it to get away. But Ben’s mother walked me down to the street to where I might better get a cab, neither of us speaking for almost half a block.
“How old are you, Ginnie?” she asked rather motherly.
“Twenty-two.”
“Ben is twenty-four.”
“Yes. I know.”
“How long did you say you knew him?”
“Not very long.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Yes.”
“You could have said no.”
“You would have known. I’m not twenty-two, either. I’m going to be nineteen.”
“I can see why he likes you.”
“Thank you.”
We walked a little further and she seemed to think a long time before getting to what was really on her mind. I watched her face. It was so much like Ben’s that it was almost spooky. “You must be careful, Ginnie.”
“About what?”
“You know.”
“Getting pregnant?”
“Yes. Sometimes young people let it be the reason for their getting married, even though they’re not really suited to each other and they don’t realize it until much later.”
I went fishing. “Like you and Mr. Webber.”
“You’re very direct, aren’t you?”
“Well, you don’t exactly come at a person from out of left field.”
We kept walking, down the street of Ben’s boyhood—Ginnie Maitland and his mother. She spoke again. “His father and me, neither of us ever understood Ben. But he’s good. A girl could do worse. Still, you should try to be certain that when you marry you do it because you want to and not because you have to. I’m not just talking Ben. I’m talking any man.”
“Ben is the first man I’ve ever gone to bed with.”
Her words came attended with a most meaningful smile. “His father was the first man I ever went to bed with.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Good-bye, Ginnie. Thank you for coming by.” And she turned and walked back to her house in that not-so-nice neighborhood.
Sitting inside my cab I realized that Ben’s mother was quite a lady. Not the “my son is perfect” type I had half expected, but rather a sensitive and thinking woman who, in her own way, was trying to tell me that love did not reside solely in the genitals and that those who believed it did were courting a lifetime of paying the piper, all for a couple of quick shots in the dark.
I thought about Ben and whether I truly loved him. After all, we had really been with each other for a very short time and under the most romantic of auspices—the returning soldier materializing into the budding playwright, and the dancer stepping out of the chorus to glorious stardom. Well, maybe not “glorious,” and maybe not “stardom,” but a helluva big step toward both.
Did I love Ben? Yes, I loved him. But weren’t there other things I should be taking the measure of besides his penis and the duration of his orgasm and how long it took his to reload? Shouldn’t there be more to my thoughts of him than the way he moved nakedly, and the things he said to me before, during, and immediately after our copulations? Oughtn’t there to be more to our relationship than groping and grabbing and lusting and sexing and fucking on stairs and sucking in tubs? Nope, I couldn’t think of any. Not at that time. Maybe when I got back to him we’d talk philosophy and politics and the price of rhubarb in Saskatchewan and the changing course of the Gulf Stream and the Last of the Mohicans, but, for the moment, nope, there was nothing of any significance, nothing that could dislodge his penis from my vaginal mentality. Nothing at all.
So, get thee behind me, Mrs. Webber, with your warnings and your wisdom. If your husband fucked then like your son fucks now, you have no right to complain. The merchandise was good when you got it; when you took it home it worked. That there are no ex
changes and no returns is of no concern to me because, you see, Mrs. Webber, I’m nineteen tomorrow. Nineteen and I like what I see turning this way and that in my mirror, batting an eye, leveling a breast, cocking a hip at the world. Don’t bother me with cautions, Mrs. Webber, when it’s love songs I want to hear.
That night we opened. The first show went very well. We finished with “Georgia Brown” and it never was better. The second show was going just as well. We would finish with “Jet”—or so we believed. But Hayden Shepherd, that laughing lout, told the orchestra that we’d be staying with “Georgia Brown,” just as in the first show, and that’s what they were to play.
He did it to get even, of course, to embarrass us and make us look bad. But the stage was short and a little too high, and, when Richie and Florrie came out in their “Jet” costumes, only to hear the orchestra playing “Sweet Georgia Brown,” Florrie got rattled and misstepped and went over the side, off the stage. And she broke her ankle. And that was the end of that. The Pickering Trio was out of business.
The three of us sat in the dressing room looking at the cast on Florrie’s leg as if it were about to hatch and the three of us would be its mother. There was nothing much to say, we had said it all. Richie was suing the hotel but we knew where that would get us. As to Hayden Shepherd, he said that it had all been a misunderstanding, an unfortunate accident. He had gotten our music confused. Period. It hardly constituted a criminal act. Yes, we had insurance but not nearly enough, especially when you considered that we’d have been better off working for nothing and getting all that experience than sitting home and collecting the insurance millions, which it never came to anyway. It came to five hundred dollars.
Monty flew out immediately, as soon as I called him. The hotel would give Florrie a good room until the doctor thought her well enough to go back to New York, which he guessed would be in about a week. As to Richie and me, there was nothing for us to do but cancel the rest of our bookings. The Pickering Trio Minus One was like Larry, Curley, and——or Patty, Maxine, and——or red, white, and——.
We said cheery good-byes to Florrie, telling her stiff upper lip and all that shit and kidding Monty not to make love to her until her plaster cast had properly hardened. And then Richie and I shoved the whole act into a cab and headed for the airport.
On the plane to New York, Richie told me that the doctor had told him that the break in Florrie’s ankle was very serious. It would take a long time to heal and, even then, it might never be a hundred percent. Bye-bye that fabulous instep. Bye-bye career, dear Florrie. Hope that Monty will marry you, or you’ll be working a switchboard for Linens of the Week.
With the act in mothballs, with Florrie wounded in action, Richie had no time for sentiment. He figured we’d better get to work immediately on getting ourselves a replacement. I resented that and asked him why he didn’t just shoot Florrie and be done with it. Richie thought otherwise, saying that Florrie might have some value as a brood mare and that, with a little push from Monty, maybe in about twenty years, her daughter could take her place. I told Richie that he was a cruel sonofabitch but I knew he wasn’t. He was just a thirty-year-old dancer who’d waited a lifetime for his big chance and wasn’t of a mind to quit just because one of his two horses shattered a foreleg. I put my head on his shoulder and cried all the way to LaGuardia.
Sweet Barry Nadler was there to meet us, filled with words of encouragement, most of them profane but all well-intended. We piled into a cab and headed back to New York City, Richie and Barry in the back, planning strategy, me up front thinking only of Ben. He was all I had going in life and I would be seeing him soon.
How I wanted to be with him in that, my darkest hour. How I needed him. My insides almost hurt at the thought of him. Ben would make me feel better. He would wave his magic wand and all the pain would turn to passion. He would hold me and let me cry all I wanted for as long as I wanted. He would be my daddy and my buddy and would dry my eyes and buy me ice cream and tell me I was pretty. And then he would be my lover and the rest of the world would drop away and we’d be at the core of the earth, making lava and causing tremors, waking up Australia with twelve-foot waves, the tidal aftermath of our doing the Oceanic Roll.
They let me off at the apartment, both of them winking paternally at me and telling me to get lots of sleep. I raced up the stairs, my dumb bag clanging every bannister rail, bringing people out of their doors to see what was the clatter. All I could think of saying was, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” after which they all shut their doors, happy to know it was the British and not the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe.
I got to our door and fussed for my key. It was late—almost midnight—and if Ben was asleep, I wanted to wake him in my own way, not with a knock on the door.
I found the key, opened the door and sneakered in. It was dark, just one light on. I put my bag down quietly, as if it were filled with explosives, and, fluffing my hair and straightening my boobs, I went to Ben’s room. It was darker there than in the hall. I felt my way over to his bed and was startled by its emptiness. I switched the light on—no Ben, just his unmade bed that looked as though it hadn’t been made in a year.
I went to my bedroom, maybe he’d be there. He wasn’t. I turned that light on—no Ben. Just my unmade bed, looking like two years. I turned on all the lights. No Ben anywhere, not in the bathroom, the living room, the kitchen—not even in the refrigerator. I was troubled, insecure, betrayed, humiliated, angry. What the hell was he doing out at such an hour? Who was he with? Had one of those stewardesses returned? Had Ben weakened? Would he do that? Ben? My Ben?
I immediately became frightened. Call the police, the hospitals, the morgue. Would I come down and identify him, they had nine bodies that fit that description.
Something on the table, by the telephone. A bit of paper. Writing on it. St. Regis Hotel. Room 735. It bothered me. Who was in room 735. Were they holding some kind of meeting there about Ben’s play? How long had that bit of paper been there? A week? Today? Tonight?
I called information and got the number of the St. Regis Hotel. I called and asked the name of the person registered in Room 735. Mrs. Barringer. I hung up. Mrs. Barringer? Who was Mrs. Barringer? I began to tremble. Should I call that room and ask for Ben? If Ben were there with Mrs. Barringer he’d hardly answer the phone. Nor would she put him on if asked to. Miss Barringer might, but Mrs. Barringer? Not likely. I left the apartment.
The doorman held the taxi door open. I had no change so I gave him my million dollar smile. He accepted it. To the elevator, my temples thumping, perspiration at the roots of my hair. Seventh floor. Down the carpeted corridor. Room 735. I stood before it, wanting to run, but I had come so far. From Pittsburgh with love to the St. Regis with fear. I knocked on the door.
A woman’s voice. “Who is it?”
“Chambermaid!” I said, opting for my French accent, unused since Chips.
The woman again. “Come back later, I’m fucking!”
Not to be believed, but I continued with the scene. “But, madame—I’ave fresh towels for you.”
“Later! I’m sucking this big cock!”
I knocked again, going with the flow, thoughtless inertia. Boneless amoeba pressing on. “Please, madame—will only take one minute.”
Nothing from inside. Not a sound. Just the booming in my head and the firing across my bow. Then—the door opening—and Ben. Naked. The woman behind him, pumping him, her lips laughing, “Vive la France!”
Mommy? My mommy? Nightmare in the doorway. Phantasmagoria—was there ever such a word? I stood there, looking—again and again, over and over—to make certain. I knew it was them because they knew it was me. Everybody knew everybody and nothing had to be said.
Run, Ginnie, run. Feets, do your stuff. Elevator, down. Lobby, stand back. Door, revolve. Taxi?
The taxi took me to Forty-nine West Sixty-third Street. I had never been there but I knew where he lived. I pressed the buzzer under his nam
e and the buzzer buzzed back. I opened the door and went up the stairs. Richie stood in his doorway, in his pyjamas, watching me climb toward him. “Ginnie?”
“I think so.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well—” I reached him and cried and he led me inside. He wanted to make me coffee but I wouldn’t let go of him because I couldn’t. He took me to his bed and got me to lie down. He placed a cold washcloth on my forehead.
“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked.
“No.”
“You’re on the verge of hysteria. I think you’d better let it out.”
“Can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.” I wanted to talk but the words were log-jammed in my throat. Big bites of them. Chunks. All balled up, choking me. Gum globs and peach pits.
“Ginnie, you have to talk.”
I couldn’t.
“Is it Ben?”
I nodded.
“Had a fight?”
I shook my head no.
“You found him with someone.”
I nodded.
“With who?”
“My mother.” And the boiler blew. And the words, jarred loose, came out babbling, over the rush of tears and the wrack of sobs. And if Richie hadn’t held me I would have detonated from within.
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“And Ben?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Mommy’s dead.”
“What?”
“My mommy is dead.”
“Ginnie? You—killed her?”
“I’m killing her now. She’s dead. Mommy is dead.”
In the middle of the night it grew calm. The bed was big and Richie lay beside me, not touching me. I tried to stitch it together in my head. Had I really seen the two of them together? I had. Would I be able to tolerate the reality of it without going bugs? Perhaps. Two questions. One, did Ben know she was my mother? Two, did Maggie know I was Ben’s girl? If both answers were yes then the pair of them were irredeemable and would burn in hell. But what if it were all coincidence? Certainly, stranger things had happened. No, stranger things had not happened. Not to me. Not to me.
There Should Have Been Castles Page 35