I ran down the walk, slipping in rain puddles, opened the car door, and pulled Wolfstein off the steering. His mouth was cut and his face was blue. He didn’t appear to be breathing.
“Call a doctor.” Assuming the worst, I yelled up to Leila, “I think maybe he’s killed himself.”
She ran back inside. By now, Joely, Sabby, and Seymour were hurrying out of the basement in various styles of night garb.
Collectively we argued about whether or not to move the body until Dr. Calvin Ferrell arrived. He was the Floren Park general practitioner, a youthful, tousled man who proved disturbingly jovial about both life and death.
By the time Ferrell reached the car, the corpse inside it was conscious. We carried him up the steps and returned him to his bed, once I had inspected it for insects and declared it safe for slumber. After the doctor put a bandage on his cheek and provided a sedative for his soul, Wolfstein sank to peace. So we adjourned our vigil at his bedside and stood outside the door. Then Joely, Sabby, and Seymour went back downstairs to bed.
“That man ought to be dead,” Ferrell told Leila and me. “And not from any car accident, either. His body’s riddled with ill health. Cigarettes, booze, nerves. I’d make him do something for himself or else get him out of here before you have to pay to ship the body home.” He cheerfully snapped his bag shut.
Leila offered Ferrell a drink of scotch, which he annoyingly accepted. He aggravated that rudeness by sitting down and amiably reminiscing with Leila about the medical calamities of previous summers. Finally he got up to say good night. Leila was unabashedly yawning, offering a hint.
“Well, see you, Leila. Things sure do pick up for me when you get to town.”
She saw him to the door. I went down to my basement room, changed into some blue jeans and a T-shirt, and returned with Mittie’s slacks to Leila’s bedroom. Once again, I found her lying upon her bed. This time, however, she was sound asleep. The speed, ease, and frequency with which Leila landed in the arms of Morpheus was enough to make a younger suitor jealous. As she failed to respond to either vocal or physical promptings, I folded Mittie’s pants neatly over a chair back, then thought better of it, mussed them, and dropped them on the floor where I had found them. I left her with one backward look at her wondrous (though not as far as I was concerned, wonderful) capacity to relax.
At that moment, a lumpy gray mattress beside Joely Finn in the basement would undoubtedly have led to an unattractive self-pity. So I stretched out on the living room floor, relit my fire carefully, and stared at it. And then, remembering her, though nothing is worse than such memories when you’re miserable, I fell asleep, “Jardin, Jardin,” ringing like a sweet bell in my brain. The great waste of life expended in the living of it weighed on my heart and sank me into a sorrowful slumber. Stuporous as the dead.
Chapter 6
I Fall into Disgrace
I awoke, dank, cold, and achy. Mittie Stark was standing over me. Oh, shit, I thought, he knows. He glowered high over my head, swaying back and forth in a tower (I assumed) of Othelloean rage. We stared at each other mournfully across the vertical distance of his height, which made me even more apprehensive. So I stood up to alter the angle, to face the blow directly. But to my surprise, he offered me not a choice of weapons, but a proposal.
“’Lo, Deshin. You wake? Les go. Don’ wanna go in there.” He pointed vaguely toward Leila’s room. “Not yet. Not sleepy. Les go for drink. You me. Oookay?”
The fondness I felt toward Mittie for not knowing I’d tried to have sex with his wife was such that had he asked me to walk back to Denver with him, I would not have refused.
“Sure,” I sighed in relief, “I’ll be glad to go with you, but are you sure you wouldn’t rather go to sleep? You look sort of unsteady.” I didn’t want to be judgmental, but he was staggering about on a raft at sea, and I had heard the tales of his past “problem.”
“Am unsteashy,” he agreed, and tapped the side of his head significantly to indicate the area of disequilibrium. “Thas why les go.”
Assuming that he knew his own antidotes better than I, I pulled on my boots and we weaved, arms on shoulders, in a fraternal embrace out into the rain.
By then the storm had slowed to fat, soppy drops of rain, which thunked down on us perpendicularly. The wind was gone, and the air was heavy. Mittie insisted on driving the Red Bus, and after a series of unnecessary horseshoe curves executed on perfectly straight-stretched roads, we slid to a halt in the mud field that had been earlier the Red Lagoon parking lot. Stepping out of the bus, Mittie lost his footing, stumbled, and threw me face forward into the mud. He promptly fell on top of me and relaxed, giggling. In an attempt to help each other rise, we danced about in a bear hug for a while, evidencing in the execution of splits, spins, and flips, acrobatic agility I had not known myself capable of. Finally I caught hold of the running board and then pulled us both up by a door handle. I felt like an idiot. After a brief rest, we made our way over to the bar; our shoes sucked in, slurped out of the sticky mud.
“SHIT,” Mittie said. “Debson! Naturally!”
He was pointing, however, not at Spurgeon Debson, but at a monstrous dog, a Great Dane, skulking about the bar entrance. Aroused perhaps by this mention of his master’s name (for it was, I deduced, Spur’s dog and not Mittie’s metaphor), the animal leapt forth, flattened us both once more into the mud, and took to biting us about the ankles. Paralyzed as I was both by position and anxiety, I was able to remember that I still had in my jacket pocket two enchiladas wrapped in wax paper, which the Mexican proprietor had pressed on Verl (who never finished his dinners) and which Verl had pressed on me. I squeezed them out of my pocket and flung them over into the mud field. The dog scrambled off in their direction. We slid off in the opposite, ran through the door of the bar, and slammed it behind us.
The consternation of our rout and arrival at the Red Lagoon provoked some of the regulars near the door to welcome us in with undue attention.
“You two fellows been fighting over a greased pig?”
“Naw. They’s a couple of rooting hogs themselves.”
We ignored these random pleasantries and slid into a booth. Mittie ordered us tequila, which I had never tried before. The manager, Tony Menelade, brought it over personally, and joined us. Mittie and he then explained to me the inviolable ritual of drinking tequila by demonstrating on the two drinks before them. First the salt on the flesh between the thumb and forefinger, then the liquor in one quick motion, then the lemon squeeze.
After my lesson, the manager went back at Mittie’s request and returned with a whole bottle and a whole lemon. We drank and talked. Tony told us he was apprehensive because his ex-wife, whom he referred to as “Lady Red,” was back in Floren Park. He didn’t know why yet; she’d offered no explanation. But since, originally, she had signed all the legal papers, the whole place was actually, by court law, hers, every stick of it, down to the booth we were sitting in and the saltshaker in his hand. As she was sneaky and nasty-tempered as a cat in heat, there was no telling what tricks she was planning to pull. All he knew was he had a physical weakness for her he just couldn’t recover from, much to his (confidential) shame, and the only thing for him to do to keep from just handing the whole place over to her was just to stay away. I couldn’t understand why he was telling us this. Finally he sighed, brushed away our commiseration for his weakness, and slid to his post behind his threatened bar. People in Floren Park seemed to be having trouble with their spouses.
So Mittie and I were left by ourselves with every intention of good fellowship, but nothing very much to say to each other. As I practiced flipping salt into my mouth during the lull, I caught a side glimpse of Spurgeon Debson coming out of the men’s room zipping up his pants. He stalked through the bar and then through the front door. I also saw that Mittie had seen him.
“Know who that is?” Mittie asked.
“N
o. Who?” I replied, as I thought it wiser not to mention my previous meeting with Spur since Leila had introduced us.
“A shit-eating cocksucker,” Mittie answered, just as though he had said “the guy who runs the butcher shop down the street,” or “tackle for the Green Bay Packers.”
“You don’t like him?” was my next question.
Mittie’s eyes narrowed into a wary watchfulness, “Know any reason why I should?”
I truthfully couldn’t think of a one and said so.
“He thinks he’s a playwright. He’s not. His plays are garbage. Know what they’re like?”
I shook my head.
“One ass stands center stage and spits on the Establishment for three hours. That’s what.”
It sounded quite probable, judging from what I remembered of my first encounter with the author when he had punted Sam the Shriner across the street.
Mittie proceeded to almost articulate further objections to Spur. “He spits on the Establishment, and then he brags about his lousy M.A. he got from some fart-ass school. Can you beat that?”
I said I couldn’t and asked, “How old is he?”
“Thirty-four! A bum. A leech. Won’t get a job. Against his principles. Makes jewelry and diddles teenage girls into buying it. Son of a bitch.”
“What’s he doing in Floren Park?” I asked.
Mittie gulped his drink. “Trying to put it up my wife,” he answered. He paused to let this statement take effect. I was very uncomfortable. At that moment the manager came over with a bowl of pickled hard-boiled eggs, which he assured me were the best thing to eat with tequila. They were, at least, a thankful diversion. He went away. I offered an egg to Mittie; he ignored me. I ate three myself in six quick bites.
Mittie went on. “That’s why he’s here. Probably done it already too. Him and his lousy Great Dane both. Probably slid the lousy dog between her legs. Shit, she’s had everything else there.”
Why, I wondered, don’t I tell him to stop, tell him he had no right to talk about her like that? He was making me sick. And my silence was a betrayal of Leila, wasn’t it? But then, hadn’t I, like the disgusting Spur, wanted to betray Mittie? Should I confess that? Even if I hadn’t succeeded, hadn’t I tried? I ate another egg and let him talk. It was undoubtedly helpful for him to get it off his chest. He had finished with Spur and turned to Leila.
“Bitch. Just can’t have enough. Kill you. It’s never enough. Suck you up. Right?” He leaned into my face, his breath was thick and bitter. “You know, don’t you? Here we sit, and we’ve both had it up her. What a joke. You were the first, weren’t you? I think that’s what she told me. Maybe not. Who knows? I don’t think you’re so great-looking. Anybody can be smooth…Bitch! Her and my old man. It’s never enough, is it?”
Mittie ought to have help. My ears were throbbing with a flush of jammed blood. I ate two more eggs and washed them down with tequila. Mittie kept on. The tequila had no taste, and I kept drinking.
My stomach heaved on the seventh egg and I made it to the sink in the men’s room with my hand holding vomit in my mouth. When I finally could look up, my visage in the broken mirror over the sink almost made me retch again. I scrubbed my face with paper towels and tried to scrape some of the mud off my clothes. Across the mirror someone had written, “Kim will suck your dick like a candy stick.” I stared at the words while I waited for my stomach to let me know if it was finished. Who was Kim? Hey, I saw your name on the lavatory wall. Who was that? Temple Drake, wasn’t it? And where was Leila’s name and number? I smeared the words across the mirror with my hand.
As I carefully led myself back to our booth, a fat hand reached up and grabbed my sleeve. “Hey! I know you from somewhere. Sit down! I’m buying.”
It was the fat Shriner from yesterday. (Yesterday! Could that be true?) “Bobbie,” Sam and Shirley had called him. So the woman with him now must be his wife, Lois, the long-suffering Lois who had been left holding the big table at the polka hall.
“I beg your pardon,” I mumbled, as I tried to walk on past his table.
“Don’t tell me,” he warned. “I’ll get it.” He pointed a barbecued sparerib at my face. “Yes, sir! Artie’s kid! Sam knew you. Got it! Have a seat, sonny.” There was a paper platter of gnawed rib bones in front of him, and his fat fingers were sticky with red grease. At the sight, my stomach tightened in protest, and my face broke out in a sweat.
“Excuse me, but I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know anyone named Artie.” I wrenched these words out between my teeth, my sleeve slid from the grasp of his fat red fist, and I walked away.
“How do you like that?” I heard him say behind me. “Snotty little prick. Try to be nice. They’re all like that. Deny their own father. Country’s gone to the dogs, Lois. Pure and simple fact. It’s been a downhill slide since Ike. We ought to go to Australia. Ought to just get out and let the freaks and the fairies have the whole damn place!”
If Lois agreed to emigration, I couldn’t hear her.
Mittie was not at our booth. Frankly, I hoped he had gone home without me. I would have preferred a walk in the rain to more of his accusations. But he hadn’t. He had in fact gotten his second, his tenth, wind of the evening. He had moved over to the bar, where he stood in a thick clump of men for whom he was offering to buy drinks.
“Wans tobias uh shot,” one of the bystanders informed me with satisfaction. But a barrel-chested man in a plaid sports jacket protested. He would buy the drinks. He would buy the Red Lagoon. He would buy any damn thing he wanted.
Chapter 7
A Little Cold Water
“My name is Hade. Eddie Hade. Order anything you want. Everybody.” He swept us all into a wave of his gaudy arm; a cuff link glared. “Made it hard. Spend it easy. Right?” We nodded. “Money’s a powerful thing, it’s like a good-looking woman,” he snorted. “You can’t shut it up in a vault and stare at it. You got to treat it right. Take it out and flash it around.”
A chorus of toadies standing near him echoed:
“You’re damn right!”
“Can’t take it with you, that’s for sure.”
“Might as well.”
“Damn government will grab it if you don’t.”
The manager whispered to Mittie and me, “He can afford to throw it around. That’s Ed Hade. Owns the biggest car dealership in the state. Listen to them suck up to him. He could paper the Grand Canyon with dollar bills if he wanted to.”
“He reminds me of my father,” Mittie said sorrowfully.
“Me,” Menelade went on, “I gotta be careful. If I didn’t stick it away, where would I end up? You gotta think of the future.”
“You remind me of my father too,” Mittie told him.
On the other side of Mr. Hade, leaning away from him, was a Marine, Black, about six-foot-four, who turned, gave Hade one long evaluative look, and then stepped sideways, smoothly, and put more distance between them. Hade was sucking the ice cubes from his glass into his mouth and noisily chewing them. As more drinks were pushed onto the counter, he swept a chunky wallet of alligator tan from his breast coat pocket. He flipped it open and spilled out a long streamer of credit cards. Then he fanned a semicircle of fifty-dollar bills at his guests like a card dealer. Everyone gasped their admiration. He squeezed them closed with a grin and stuffed them back in the wallet.
There was a smirk from the toady standing immediately to the left of Mr. Hade, a smirk of rebellion, or presumption of his host’s good humor, or support of the surrounding toads. “How far did you have to chase a nigger for that Harlem billfold, Ed?”
Before we had a chance to see how Hade would respond to this question, the Black man reached across him and laid his huge hand firmly on the toad’s arm, at the same time asking, very quietly, “What did you say?”
Hade laid his hand on the Black man’s hand, which he removed
from the toad’s arm. “I don’t think I heard anybody talking to you, Roscoe.”
The Black guy flicked Hade’s hand away and shoved him backward into the toadie. The toadie fell down. At this point the manager tried to mediate by offering advice to both parties: “Let it go. He didn’t mean it,” and “Come on, Hade, he’ll kill you.”
Hade didn’t listen. Instead he lunged, swung, caught the Black man in the stomach with his first blow, glanced a soft jab off his shoulder with the second. That was all. The Black Marine knocked Hade full in the face three times and full in the paunch four. Hade sank down in a lump. Meanwhile, the toadie had clambered up the Marine’s back in order to get a chokehold around his neck from the rear. The Marine reached behind him, the way you would pull off a shirt, grabbed the toadie, lifted him over his head the whole long length of his arms, and pitched him sideways into the bar window. The crash started people screaming.
By this time Hade had stumbled back to his feet. He came at the Marine, head down, his face red, his hair flat with sweat, and the Marine slammed Hade’s skull five or six times into the side of the bar. When three other toadies began taking swings, Mittie and I went for them. Mittie jerked at someone’s arm; the guy ploughed into his stomach and flattened him. I tackled someone beneath his knees, was kneed in the chin.
Tony Menelade ran around in front of the bar. “Okay, okay,” he yelled. “Cool off. That’s enough. Get the hell out of here. All of you. I’m calling the sheriff. I’m calling Booter, Hade!”
It was quiet for five seconds. Hade grabbed his wallet out of his pocket, his face on fire, his mouth open panting. He took five of the fifty-dollar bills out, stuffed them in the manager’s shirt pocket, pushed him aside, and swung a wide left hook at the Black man, who side-stepped it. Half the people in the bar started in, kicking, cursing, spitting, grunting, and swinging at each other. The other half rushed to the exit. I pulled Mittie to his feet, and we were swept outside in the stampede, shoving and slipping our way through the mud.
The Delectable Mountains Page 7