Young Mr. Keefe

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  He steadied his hand, and she drew in on the cigarette. “Let’s get another drink,” he said.

  “All right.”

  Later, Mike Gorman came up to him. “What do you say?” he said, smiling. “Had enough yet?”

  “I sure have,” Jimmy said. “Let me say good-bye to Claire and Blazer and I’ll be right with you.”

  “I was just thinking—want to drive out to the beach and go for a swim?”

  “Sounds like a great idea,” Jimmy said. “Be right with you.” He started across the room towards Claire.

  Half-way across the room, the broad-shouldered man in the blue sport jacket stopped him, grabbed his arm. “Hey,” he said. “You’re a lone wolf here, too, aren’t you?”

  “Well—” Jimmy began.

  “Tweetums, the old bag I came with, has passed out in the can. Let’s you and me scoot out and grab a piece of tail.”

  “I’m sorry, not to-night—”

  “C’mon.”

  Jimmy looked at him. He was tall, blond-foreheaded. His eyes were lake-blue and Nordic; he was smiling a big, friendly smile.

  “I didn’t get your name,” Jimmy said.

  “Stan Erickson—went to Cal. What’s yours?”

  “Jim Keefe.” He took his outstretched hand.

  “What d’ya say? I know a good place, south of Market. Let’s beat it out of this joint.”

  “I can’t, no kidding—” Jimmy said. From the other side of the room, he could feel Claire watching him.

  “C’mon,” he said. “I’m feeling real horny. How about you? And I’ve got funny tastes—I like to rough ’em up a bit—”

  “Oh?” Jimmy said. Something buzzed, far back, inside his head.

  The man went on talking. “… girl back at Cal, about a year ago. I got loaded and took her out in my car after a dance. Raped hell out of her—but she was a good sport, never breathed boo—”

  What happened then, or whether it was then, or whether the man said some more, and Jimmy hit him after that, he couldn’t remember. But all at once, in a terrifying, blinding whir of sounds that drowned out every other sound in the glass room, he went off. He was hitting him, and tears were running down his face. He was not striking another man, he knew that. In that blond, blue-eyed face, he was striking himself, who had now betrayed Helen as thoroughly and as permanently as this man had.

  And with the hate, the private, unspoken hate that each man reserves for his own being, he went at him, to kill him.

  The man rose from the floor, and, sobbing, Jimmy hit him again. The man rose again and came forward. Jimmy watched him. Then, with a sound like the tinkling of a breaking glass, he stopped thinking.

  When he came to, he was on the sofa, and Claire was bending over him. “Oh, Jimmy!” she cried. “Oh, Jimmy! Why did you do that? What’s happening to you? Jimmy, we can’t have you around here any more! We can’t! Now go. Oh, why! Why would you do such a thing at my party!”

  He closed his eyes again.

  “Come on, old trooper.” It was Mike Gorman’s voice.

  After Jimmy and Mike had left, Claire felt she should say something, make some sort of explanation to the guests who remained, and try to put together the shattered pieces of the party. Everyone had gone except the Frys, the Browers, and Diane, but she felt she should make the effort anyway.

  “If you had only known him before,” she said. “If you had only known him before, as we did. He was—oh, I don’t know, the most wonderful guy! The most wonderful guy in the world. Full of fun, and I mean real fun, not just silly things like to-night. Why, he—he used to throw these fantastic parties at his family’s place, and everyone, but everyone, came to them—from New York, from Philadelphia, from everywhere. ‘Jimmy’s having a party—’ the word would start, all over town. People would do anything for invitations, and they usually came anyway, without them, and brought all their friends. His family have a beautiful place in Somerville—they’re very rich.” Claire’s eyes grew misty. “I remember one night someone brought a ladder and we all climbed up on the roof, and someone set off fireworks in the chimney, skyrockets, Roman candles, and things—you should have seen us! And one time there was a terrible drink we made in a huge glass—it had everything in it—gin, whisky, liqueurs, brandy, milk—awful! The Flaming Mame, we called it, after the song, and because it was inflammable, to say the least. We floated a gardenia in the centre of it, and everyone that came through the door had to take a sip of it, before they could come in! He loves people so. He never wanted them to go, never wanted the party to end. He’d do anything to keep the party going. He was never like this. A couple of weeks ago, he and Blazer and I went up to the mountains—behind Squaw Valley. Jimmy brought a huge Thermos of martinis! That’s the sort of funny, wonderful things he always used to do …” She turned to Blazer, who sat on the sofa, gazing stonily into space. “Remember at college, Blazer?” she said. “Remember Jimmy’s twenty-first birthday party, when everyone rode bicycles down the stairs of the Zeta Psi house, with toilet-paper streamers, and for hors d’œuvres we ate empty ice-cream cones, and there were balloons filled with helium all over the ceiling, and oh—just fabulous! He was always organizing things—wild, crazy, fantastic things. He’d get that look in his eye one day and say, ‘Let’s have a party,’ and then off we’d go, only every party had to be the party to end all other parties …”

  “Where did it all end?” Sue Fry said.

  “Here. To-night, in this living-room. Oh, no, not really, of course. Because he’s been through a lot—that’s why he flew off the handle to-night. He’ll be the way he used to be again, I know. I have too much faith in him. I know he won’t be like this always—”

  “Well, no wonder his poor wife—”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Claire said. “Poor wife indeed! I met her—” She stopped abruptly. “I mean, I never met her,” she went on quickly. “Neither Blazer nor I have ever met her. They were married only for a short time, but when I think of what that bitch has done to him—”

  “It is a shame.”

  “He used to stand in the middle of the room, like a god or something. Like Adonis or Apollo—he didn’t use to be so thin, and everyone in the room would converge upon him, and he’d talk—he would say the most wonderful things. There was a group of friends he had—Pat Berry, the Caldwell twins, Elizabeth and Mary Lewis, Joanne Furness and whoever her current beau would be, myself, Blazer, Scrib Newton, Harry Gerische, and Lou Bonner and his girl, Carrie Henderson—they were the nucleus of it. Really, he was the nucleus, because there never was a set group before he came along—and we flamed—oh, how we flamed! The roaring twenties had nothing on us. Not only had we all had our first drink before we were sixteen—we’d done more than that. We’d been drunk, and been sick, and been taken out to the car, and we’d been crazy in love and cried on some strange boy’s lap all the way home, we were so in love with someone—usually him. He created a kind of fiction out of our lives for a moment—giving us wonderful tales to tell, all this before we were even in college. And then of course college—” Claire stopped, wondering if she was weaving too much of a fiction around Jimmy’s life.

  The last people yawned. “It all sounds very exhausting,” Phyllis Brower said. “Too bad we can’t keep up that pace any more ourselves.” She looked at her husband. “Remember we have to get the sitter home, Bill,” she said.

  “There was no pace!” Claire said desperately. “It was just—well, interest was what it was to keep up. Of course we all knew that nothing we did was—important, or even very worthwhile, but we loved him just the same. We still do!”

  She excused herself and went into the bathroom. She found Tweetums DeMay sprawled, face downward, on the white tile floor, a pathetic figure with her black faille cocktail dress twisted around the backs of her knees, above her stocking tops. Her arms were outstretched, embracing the toilet bowl. Claire sat down on the edge of the bathtub and burst into tears.

  When Jimmy awoke the next
morning, he had to spend a minute or two figuring out where he was. He was in an unfamiliar room, on a lumpy sofa; the walls of the room were hung with assorted fishing prints and snapshots secured with pieces of Scotch tape. On a cluttered desk in the corner stood a pile of books, phonograph records, and newspapers. In another corner was a pile of athletic equipment, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks, ski poles, tennis rackets, and fencing foils. Jimmy sat up, swung his legs over the side of the couch, and shook his head, trying to clear it. Mike Gorman appeared from the kitchen carrying coffee in an aluminium percolator. He was wearing a white T-shirt, khaki pants, and a pair of woolly bedroom slippers. “Hi,” he said easily. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Rotten,” Jimmy said, rubbing his jaw. It was swollen and tender. “What happened?” he asked. And then he said, “Never mind. Don’t tell me.”

  “Want some coffee?” Mike asked.

  “Thanks.”

  Mike poured some of the black steaming liquid into a cup and handed it to Jimmy. Jimmy took the cup with both hands and sipped it. “Is this your place?” he asked.

  “Yeah—how do you like my view?” Mike gestured towards the window. Beyond it was a smooth grey steel tower. “Best view of the gasworks in the city, I bet.” He smiled. “How’s your jaw?”

  “Great. I’m in great shape,” Jimmy said.

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to clobber that boy,” Mike said. “He and I had a few brief words earlier in the evening.”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said. He sipped his coffee.

  “I thought you had him at first,” Mike said. “He outweighed you by about thirty pounds, that’s all. Still, he didn’t look so pretty when he left.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. “You must have had a pretty lousy time. I guess you don’t think very much of my friends.”

  “Heck,” Mike said, “I didn’t mind them. I’ve met people like that before. They’re just a little young, that’s all.”

  Jimmy looked at him. Mike smiled his broad, sunburned smile. “Thanks for taking me out of there,” Jimmy said, humbly.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I guess that’s the end of them. I guess I’m glad.”

  “You could do a lot better.”

  “I know.”

  Mike Gorman sprawled in the chair opposite. “If you feel up to it,” he said, “we could drive out to the beach and go fishing. I usually do on Sundays. I’ve got an extra pole.”

  “Okay.” Jimmy looked into his empty cup. “Christ,” he said, “I wasn’t drunk, was I? Never mind—I know I was. I must have been a little drunk, or I wouldn’t have hauled off at him. Christ! Why do I keep on drinking so much?” He stroked his tender jaw again.

  “Well, why do you?” Mike asked.

  Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Why don’t you stop?”

  Jimmy looked at him. “Well—” he began. And then, a little defensively, “What do you mean, stop?”

  “Stop. Quit. Swear off. Or—”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I don’t know. Some people have a—a habit of drinking, which makes it harder. Look, I’m not trying to criticise—”

  “I know, I know,” Jimmy said. He reached for the percolator and poured himself another cup of coffee. “Stop,” he said softly.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “You’re referring to last week, I suppose,” Jimmy said. “Sleeping on the beach? Well, that was different—”

  “I’m not referring to that,” Mike said, smiling. “Hell, I’ve slept on beaches.”

  “I suppose I could stop,” Jimmy said. “I could just stop, like that. Like you said. But what would be the use? It would mean the end of Claire and Blazer …”

  Mike Gorman sat way back in the chair and stretched his legs forward. He put his thumbs in the top of his trousers. “What did that guy say to you, anyway?” he asked. “Why did you clobber him?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story,” Jimmy said. “Do you want to hear it?”

  Mike swung his long legs over the arm of the chair. “Sure,” he said, “if you want to tell it.”

  In the valley, the day was warm. It was a Sunday, and, in a religious community like Rio Linda, it was a churchgoing Sunday. Bells, from the seven churches in the town, sounded periodically, some close, some far away. It was a church-going Sunday and a car-washing Sunday, Helen thought as she walked down Lime Street by the park. The gutters trickled with water from the car washers, busy in driveways with their garden hoses. The sidewalks were decorated with churchgoers, in their church-going best, singly, in pairs, some with children. You could almost tell, by the way the women were dressed, which church each was attending. The High Episcopalians wore cool linen suits from Magnin’s, white gloves, pastel shoes, small, expensive straw hats. The Methodists looked hot in dark hats, dark shoes. From Okey town, came women in damp dark cotton dresses, often hatless, with bare legs, leading their children, who were uncomfortably crammed into grown-up-style hats and collars, going to the Church of the Foursquare Gospel. From the distance, a faintly discordant carillon began. “Rock of Ages, cleft for me …”

  Helen was not going to church. Her family had never been churchgoers. (“There’s no sweeter sound,” her father used to say, “than the sound of church bells ringing across the golf course on Sunday morning.”) She was dressed simply, in a cotton skirt and blouse, and she walked slowly, with her hands in the pockets of her skirt, under the trees that bordered the park, smiling hello at people she knew, stopping to chat with others.

  “Good morning, dear, how are you?”

  “Fine, thank you. And you?”

  She walked on. She had no particular destination. She was walking for exercise, for relaxation, for something to do. She wished, in a way, that she was going to church. She wished religion compelled her, moved her the way it seemed to move some people, comforting them, giving them something to feel. Rosary beads in their hands, a silver cross, the feet of a statue, a shaft of sunlight through a stained-glass window, the smile of a saint’s face, the swinging censer, murmurous chants and benedictions, signs and radiances—faith. Something to feel. Religion, to her, existed in terms of these unrelated feelings; she did not understand them, she had never tried. It was shameful, really, she thought, to know so little about what went on inside a church. Was it only feeling, impressions, emotions swelling from songs—or was it also something thoughtful, intellectual, reasonable? She didn’t know. It would be a worthwhile thing to do, she thought, to get some books on religion, read them, and acquire a little authoritative knowledge. Perhaps she would.

  Spending her time until the baby came would be a problem, she could see that. Life, which had been so tumultuous for a few months, had slowed abruptly to a great, calm quiet. A quiet of mornings in the garden, talking with her mother, napping in the afternoons, sitting in the sun. She could not live this way for ever. Soon, but perhaps not yet, things must be decided. She would have to take some course. Perhaps she could take a job, get a nurse for the baby, move away from home, find a little apartment.

  It was not an exciting prospect, but then nothing seemed to be these days. Was this the divorce doldrums? This irresoluteness, uncertainty, a feeling of being neither this thing nor that thing? Rock of Ages, she thought, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee. Ah, at least that would be something, a quiet place in the cleft of a great rock with no thinking, no wondering about the future. She tried to lift her thoughts out of this channel of despair. She tried to think that having the baby would give her life purpose. After the baby, she told herself, everything would be all right. But that was hard to believe. It was even hard to believe that there would be a baby. What would it be like?

  At least she had told Jimmy, she was glad of that. At first, she had planned not to tell him, but that would have been too cruel. She remembered the shocked expression on that blonde girl’s face when she told her. She had not realized until then, really, that she was being unfair, trying to keep ever
ything private, within herself.

  But I am a private person, she thought. I am afraid to be known, to be seen, to expose the horror within me, afraid to confide in people until I am sure that they love me.…

  That girl, Claire—what a surprising thing that had been, what a strange visit! She was certainly pretty. She had an emphatic prettiness that Helen herself lacked, a positive, movie-star prettiness. She was Jimmy’s type. He should have married someone like Claire, Helen thought, instead of someone like me. They would make an attractive couple—Jimmy so dark and tall, Claire so gold-coloured and tinkly, like a pretty ornament—and gay. Jimmy liked things gay. He liked the party to go on. He hated to see the guests go home, or to see the bar close. She laughed bitterly. Had Jimmy found her dull? she wondered. Was that it?

  If only … if only …

  Why did you keep on hurting me? she asked him now, almost aloud. Why didn’t you stop, or pause, just once? Couldn’t you see that I was capable of love in my own way, in my own quiet, private way? How could you think I was cold, when I tried to explain at Yosemite, when I asked you—? Didn’t you ever understand what I was trying to tell you? A secret about me … and about yourself—or did you understand the secret and decide it was far too dull to live with? I know I’m not perfect, she said. I am not smart. I am not beautiful, or gay—or even inspired! But you could love me, and you seemed to once. And I. I love you!

  What was he doing now? His life involved Claire, she was sure. A party here, a party there, this one or that one for dinner, this group of friends now, another group later, never any finish. Something new, some new place, some new, nice person he could laugh with—that was what he lived for, wasn’t it? They loved him, she was sure, for his impression, the impression he made with them. Not for anything true or fine or honest within him, things she had glimpsed once upon a time, or thought she had. They loved him for his money. In their eyes, he could afford to make any mistake he wished. “The Keefes never make mistakes,” he had said. How much does a mistake cost? A hundred dollars? A thousand? Pay for it. Go on to another.