Every word I wrote put Ginnie further and further behind me. And if one play about her would not do it, then the next one would. I would write about her forever if it took that long to forget her. And if it took longer than that, then I’d strum it on my harp or twang it on my pitchfork, for I was a one-man band playing a one-note tune—Ginnie in the morning, Ginnie night and noon—an endless aria da capo, until I’d get it right.
On one of my nights with “The Lonely Look” it all got terribly oppressive and I had to stop. I had to get out, take a walk, kick a can, fly a coop. I was about to do just that when the phone rang. It was Pat. She was sorry to interrupt me but would I like to come over to her place for a late dinner? She had never made dinner for me and would just love to as she was a very good cook and had come into possession of a duck or something that her brother had shot so many of that he’d dropped one off at her doorstep—so I said I’d love to.
Walking over to Pat’s place I felt like a man who knew he was walking into a trap but who couldn’t turn back. Poor Pat was making dinner for her boyfriend. Where I came from that meant the ringing of church bells and the immediate stitching of a wedding dress. It would never come to that, of course, but Pat didn’t know it. I considered telling her, the only question being before or after we’d made love. A gentleman would tell her before. I would tell her after, for I had reached a point in my life where I placed my own well-being ahead of the well-being of others. It was a simple jungle approach, predatory to a point except that I was not quite a vicious carnivore, merely a leaf-eating cad who, if he killed at all, did so only to stay alive. I would take from Pat, but I was also giving. And if it reached a point where I was giving more than I was getting, then I’d be off to a different pasture, leaving her to the jackals. I would feel badly, of course, because I rather liked the girl and her obscene innocence, but a good animal takes to the high ground at floodtide and to the river during drought.
It was candlelight and Kostelanetz, and the duck never had a chance. I had thought to pick up a bottle of wine and that was gone in a few clinking, lying toasts. For the evening Pat had dressed primly, something gingham and high-necked. It was endearing, almost poignant, and we sat opposite each other at the table, peeking at each other from around the candle she had set so close to dead center that it looked to me to be up her nose.
The chit-chat was impossible and unendurable, about everything and nothing at all. And I wasn’t sure that the eventual love-making was worth the price of the banal preamble. I knew I was being a prick because, at least for that one evening, Pat most certainly deserved better from me than grudging endurance.
Dessert was something fluffy and coffee was something espresso with a lemon floating on it. Pat did the dishes, singing “America the Beautiful” while I put my feet up and smoked a good cigar. She came out of the kitchen with nothing on but high heels and a garter belt, thinking that that would turn me on. She was right. The interesting thing was that, all through the lovemaking, my main concern was not with keeping my pecker up but with keeping my cigar lit. I managed to do both very nicely as Pat cursed and moaned in her usual manner and groaned and screamed and came, always in that sequence.
For the highlight of the evening she had decided to go with her own special brand of fellatio, or “French,” as she so darlingly put it.
“Ben, I’m gonna give you French like you never got it before.”
“Be my guest.”
“You just lie back and I’ll—that’s right, get comfortable. Oh, Jesus, but you are beautiful. It’s like—I just have to—” Then she stopped.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, lying sultanic on my back.
“I want all the lights off. I want it so dark that—” and she turned off all the lights. “Don’t go away, darling.”
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere, sweetheart.”
“Be back in a minute. Don’t move. Ben, just stay there.”
I stayed there as I had no other plans at the time. The only light in the room was the orange dot from my waning cigar, and I lay on my back making orange circles in the air with it, marking time till the return of my gal, Frenchie Marseilles. I heard her in the doorway. “Pat?” She didn’t answer. “What’re you up to?”
“Shhhhhh.”
“Shhh, yourself. Where are you?”
“Shhh.”
“Pat?” I could hear her getting closer and I could feel her weight on the bed. Christ, I thought, little skinny Pat—had she eaten that much for dinner?
I felt her hand sliding up my leg, at my knee, moving up my thigh. It seemed a little coarse, a little sandpapery. “Pat?” I asked. The hand found my penis and grabbed it. It wasn’t Pat. It was a man—and he was diving for my cock. My right hand shot down and found a bald head and I knew who it was. I smashed at him with both fists but still he wouldn’t let go. I could feel his head, his face, his mouth, trying to draw me in.
“You sonofabitch!” I shouted, all the while hitting him, gouging at his eyes, trying to get a grip on them as if his head were a bowling ball. Finally, his head bent backwards and his fingers let go of me, the bed sagging to one side with the bulk of him. “God damn you, Pat!” I yelled. “You’re in here somewhere! Turn on the light!”
The light went on and the following people were onstage and in the following manner: Pat was standing at the wall switch, one hand covering her face. She was sobbing, frightened, bordering on shock. She was in a plain robe and wasn’t skinny pretty anymore. She looked like a faded whore, tubercular, waning.
W. Charles Gruber was naked right down to his chubby toes, his flabby Santa belly hanging over his sex so that he looked to have none at all. He sat on the edge of the bed, his face bloodied where I must have hit him a minimum of fifty times. It was swollen and off kilter. It was a mess.
I sat against the headboard, my legs drawn up like those of a caught-red-handed tart, both my fists smarting, both my hands searching the sheets—for I had lost my cigar and, on top of everything else, I didn’t need a fire.
“Ben—” Pat was gasping, fighting for air as she spoke. “He made me do it. I swear. Please. Oh, Jesus.”
“Shut up, Patricia,” said Gruber, surprisingly calm despite his bloodied condition. “Don’t be toady.” He looked at me and tried to smile. “I thought you’d be more a man of the world, Ben.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, getting up and scrounging for my clothes. “If you did, you’d have propositioned me directly instead of sneaking abound in the dark, using her as a shill.”
“Please, Ben—I had to do it.” Pat was a wretched, sexless thing, pitifully irretrievable and knowing it.
“What a fucking waste you are,” I said to her, “setting me up for the phantom cocksucker.”
“No need for that,” said Gruber, finding a towel with which to mop his face.
I challenged Gruber. “What do you do, use her as bait to smoke out the fairies?”
“You’d be amazed at how many are glad to come out of the closet. She warms up the audience for me, gets them receptive.”
“You thought I’d be receptive?”
“Well, I hoped so. Nothing ventured and all that. I think you may have broken my nose.”
Pat was raging. “I’m not gonna do this anymore, Charlie! No more! Never again, you shithead! I’m never gonna do this again!”
“Yes you will.” And he looked over at me. “She gets three hundred a week, under the table—plus her salary. Plus a lot of cock. All she wants.”
“No overtime?” I asked.
Gruber laughed. “Ben, I hope you’re mature enough to keep this to yourself.”
“Actually, I’m thinking of taking out an ad. I’ll bring it to you for your approval.”
And he laughed again. “God damn shame that you’re so—provincial. Nobody has to know and—I can give you favors.”
“I don’t need favors. I don’t work for you anymore. I quit.”
“Some day you may need backing for a play or influence in set
ting up a film. You’re a good writer but it can still take you years. Why don’t you just look at me as being a short cut?”
“I hate to tell you what I look at you as.”
He drew back, annoyed. “It’s one thing to reject, it’s another to insult. Don’t flaunt your heterosexuality so strongly. It suggests that maybe you’re a little afraid.”
“Not afraid. Just disgusted.”
“As for Patricia, don’t be too harsh on her, either. She’s only a poor working girl. Besides, it isn’t as if she hasn’t been fucking you royally. Only let me assure you, I do it better.”
“Is that supposed to tempt me?”
“You’re not required to do anything but lie back and let it happen. No big deal. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid I’ll make you pregnant and that I’ll have to marry you.”
He didn’t laugh. “Better men than you have let it happen and have reaped the rewards without feeling compromised or soiled or threatened.”
“Yeah? Name five.”
“I can name fifty.”
“At 20th?”
“At 20th. At NBC. At Kemper. Not everyone is as square-assed as you are.”
“Why don’t you go for broke and make a pass at Rocky Marciano?”
“Best I ever had.”
I had all my clothes on and Pat looked at me sadly. “I love you. I’ll never do this again. Even if you never call me again, I’ll never do this again. I’ll love you, Ben—till I die. I swear.” She reached out to touch me.
I pushed past her, not angrily, just a sidestep. “Th-that’s all, f-f-f-folks,” I said.
I went out and walked home. Nothing surprised me anymore. Not even the next afternoon’s newspapers which said it all.
MOVIE V.P. STABBED TO DEATH IN LOVE NEST WITH SECRETARY
Mogul’s wife shocked and distraught.
Unknown assailant sought.
W. Charles Gruber, V.P. of 20th Century-Fox Films, was found naked and stabbed, in the East Side apartment of his secretary, Patricia Jarvas, aged 20. He had been beaten about the face and head and his nose was broken. Miss Jarvas claims that, while they were together, a man whom she described as black and about 40-45 years of age came in through the fire escape window. Gruber attempted to fight him off but was evidently not strong enough. According to Miss Jarvas, the man stabbed Gruber, took his wallet and fled via the fire escape. The police found the wallet in the courtyard below. It contained over $200. They also found Miss Jarvas’s fingerprints on the knife handle. The young woman claims that she tried to pull the knife out…etc., etc.
Dear, sweet, Brooklyn Pat Jarvas, trying desperately to save her skin, had not implicated me in any way. Nor could she without having the whole thing look as though she had murdered Gruber herself which, no doubt, had been the case. As far as the world was concerned, the entire matter added up to just another lecherous old man having dinner with his secretary—a little soiree which they had probably done many times before—only to be interrupted by a burglar. The police were troubled that the burglar had dropped the money and run off without retrieving it. Still, they were inclined to believe Pat’s story because, obviously, only a man could have inflicted such a beating upon Gruber. And even if a woman could, Pat’s unbruised hands put her above suspicion. Also, the coroner stated that the beating occurred before the stabbing, that the victim was not drunk or poisoned, and that Pat was, according to the police, guiltless.
I stayed out of it, of course, for it was mutually advantageous to both Pat and me to let things be. No charges were filed, though there had to be a legion of men in town who knew that sharing a candlelight dinner with a girl was hardly Gruber’s style. In any case, he was dead and in death had become a kind of tarnished hero. For though he had been cheating on his wife, he had attempted to fight off a much larger man. The black man was never apprehended. There was a play in there somewhere—as soon as I had the time.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ginnie
1952
Waking up was awful and I avoided it for as long as I could, thrashing about on Richie’s bed in a last valiant effort to stay asleep. As long as I could convince myself that I was asleep, that’s how long all that had happened could pretend to be a dream. But the sheets were pythons, and the sun had no respect, and already the dark bats in my head were fluttering to get out. I couldn’t hold them back and out they flew, chased by the morning, but not far enough. They didn’t go away like bad dreams should, they just sat on the bedpost and wiggled their veined wings and screeched at me, “True, true, true.” That’s how you know you’re in trouble—when the bats don’t leave. They all scattered when the door opened and Richie walked in, not out the window or into the closet but back into my head, where their caves were, and where all the leases were for ninety-nine years.
Richie had a cup of coffee for me and was being very gentle. “Good morning, pretty girl.”
I sat up and took the coffee. “Thanks. What year is it?”
“Hard to tell. You’ve been asleep so long. All I know is it’s three in the afternoon.”
“What afternoon?”
“My guess would be Thursday.”
“We made love last night, didn’t we?”
“I’d hardly call it that.”
“Was I awful?”
“Just a little crazy.”
“Yeah? Lucky you.”
“Not that way. I don’t think it should count. I don’t think it should go on your record.”
“If you’re really my friend, you’ll tell me that I made it all up. Everything that happened. Are you my friend?”
“Yes. Which is why I have to tell you that you didn’t make it up.”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because Ben called. And Barry called. And everything they said backs up what you told me last night.”
“What’d I tell you?”
“That you found Ben with your mother.”
“How do I not let it get to me?”
“Accept it. Accept it as being real and having happened, and go on from there. You’re nineteen. There’s a lot of living behind you. What you have to do is use those nineteen years to deal with the next ninety.”
“You mean I have to die at a hundred and nine? Trees live longer—and turtles.”
“But they can’t dance a shit.”
“Such wisdom.”
“I have a plan. I want us to put it immediately into motion. I want us to find a replacement for Florrie and then get our asses back on the road. Ben’s been calling.”
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
“He says he can explain.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“What about your mother?”
“She’s dead.”
“Ginnie—come on.”
“She is God damn, no fooling dead. I mean, she could show up and stand right where you’re standing and she’d still be dead. She’d just be wasting her time.”
“There’s got to be an explanation somewhere, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think anything. Nothing. Zero. Let’s dance.”
We auditioned girls, which I found grisly. Florrie still hurting in Pittsburgh, and there we were in New York, looking to write her off. We found an out-of-the-way rehearsal hall to avoid Ben’s finding us—provided he was really looking—Meridian Hall, way on the West Side, with a floor so tilty it was like dancing on the deck of a sinking ship. None of the first batch of girls was good enough—giving us a new appreciation of Florrie—but we kept plugging. Maybe Ruby Keeler would come out of the chorus, or Carol Haney, all sloe-eyed and yellow-banged, an imp to set off my kook.
I gathered that Ben was calling and that Richie was fending him off. But as much as I wanted to see him, I couldn’t bring myself to even talk to him. I knew I’d get so furious that it’d blow all chances for a reconciliation. The idea was for me to slowly come down to earth and then, with both feet on the ground and the shock and hurt wor
n down at least a smidgeon, be better able to hear his explanation. For, surely, there was an explanation. There had to be. Though I could believe anything about Maggie, I couldn’t think the smallest evil of Ben. Yes, I’d speak with him, of course I would. Yes, I’d see him, you bet your ass I would. And, yes, it would have to be soon because I just wasn’t making it without him. Sleeping with Richie was to have someone to hang onto when the world was falling away, and after that one time, I slept single-o. In the spare bed. Claudette Colbert to Richie’s Clark Gable.
I never knew what day it was, not really. All I knew was that, on Sunday night, Ben’s play would be on and that would mark the beginning of his bound-to-succeed career. I looked forward to seeing that play, wanting desperately to be at his side when it went on but knowing that it was out of the question.
My plan was to call him right after the play to tell him it was brilliant and to assure him that, even if we never saw each other again, I was pleased that he was on his way to adoration and riches (fame and fortune seemed too hackneyed). I liked that plan. It was corny as hell, right out of a movie that only an audacious Katharine Hepburn could carry off, but it had a cold dignity and a snooty style. And, more than anything else, it might just mark the resumption of diplomatic relations, showing Ben that I had an open mind and was willing to hear his version of the St. Regis story, after which we might meet on neutral ground for an adult discussion of that painful breech in our affair. The truth was—okay?—the truth was I was ready to forgive him anything because to go on without him was to court insanity, something I was not crazy about doing.
That afternoon Richie showed up with the valise I had brought back from Pittsburgh and left at Ben’s. He said that Ben had dropped it off at Barry’s, which I thought was very nice of Ben. But Richie was acting strangely and not caring much to talk about it, so I let the matter drop.
I unpacked, and because most of my duds needed washing that’s what I did. Up till then I hadn’t needed any workout clothes because Richie was doing all the auditioning while I took notes on how each girl did. But since that was getting us zilch, Richie figured that he and I should do the numbers together, the better to show the girls how we thought it should look. As to all my other clothes, they were at Ben’s, wondering whatever had become of me and why they had been so dreadfully abandoned.
There Should Have Been Castles Page 39