But the next incident had been unquestionably questionable. He had looked at the starry sky and had seen a section of the terminal N and a top slice of the O in EL HUTCHINSON, dark against the sky. And his eye had wandered to a possible route to the roof. A low wall, and a higher wall, a low roof and a cornice and the high roof.
Mary Jane, sniveling against his chest said, “Everything I ever do turns out miz’able.”
“Hey!”
“What you want, Gamble?”
“Bet if you got up there you could sit on those big letters and look all over hell.”
She stared up. “Lovely idea! Get the good old ice ax and the crampons. We got to climb it because it’s there.”
“My feeling exactly.”
The climb was easy. After he helped her over the cornice, they stood up and looked around. They could see the car lights on the main highway, all the lights of the city, and the little beads of light coming winding down the mountain.
“Wow!” she said.
“A perfectly adequate comment, my dear. It has the proper semantic ring about it. Say it again.”
“Wow!”
They walked to the front of the roof and looked down. “Cars look like beetle bugs,” she said. “Shiny old beetle bugs. Gives me an icky feeling I want to jump.”
“Inconsiderate. Messy.”
They investigated the huge concrete letters. They were eight feet tall, square cut, festooned with the frayed wire and the broken and burned-out bulbs from the brave days when the sign had been lighted. The big letters made for lovely games. They played like children. He would think of a word beginning with each letter, and she would drape herself on, in or against the letter in a pose to illustrate that word. She was particularly successful with horror and lazy, and he banged his big hands together in applause. Then they sent code to each other. This was accomplished by trotting back and forth and pausing in front of the desired letter, and slapping your hands once to indicate the end of a word. But they ran out of words. and it was tiring. He sat in the curve of the U and she sat in the curve of the O.
“One thing wrong up here, Gambelino.”
“What’s that?”
“Terrible room service.”
“We could let down a rope. Some lovely co-operative gentleman might tie a bottle on the end.”
“No rope.”
“You have a practical mind. Practicality upsets me.”
“Maybe we can unravel something. Make a rope. You wearing anything unravelly? Can’t use anything I got on, Gambelino. Be left up here bare as a wood nymph.”
“That vision would be artistically sound but socially undesirable. And I am wearing khakis. They don’t unravel.”
“Maybe we could weave something out of that beard. What the hell is under that beard, Torrigan? I’ll just bet you’ve got one of those chipmunk mouths and no chin at all.”
“Young woman, I have a powerful face. I haven’t seen it in years, but I bear a distinct resemblance to Burt Lancaster.”
“So why goop it up with hair?”
“Your questions are impertinent and personal. But as you are too young to know better, I shall answer you. It is a reverse play, my pet. Artistic gamesmanship. Because it is obviously trite for me to wear a beard, a rather evident cliché, it would be reasonable for me to go about clean-shaven. So I take it one step further, back to the beard. In addition, it leaves me in a constant state of readiness for any historical pageant that may pop up. The hundredth anniversary of the American Garden Club or something. In addition, I find a sensuous pleasure in combing and brushing it. I am not a slave to a razor. It cushions any blow at the jaw. It gives me freedom of action because it advertises the fact that I am a practicing eccentric. It gives my most trivial comment an emphasis of portentousness. And it attracts women.”
“Hah! Like Gloria?”
“You are making sport of me, my child. I knew the lady long ago and far away. I will break, for once, my inflexible rule against speaking of old affairs, particularly to a minor. She was married then. And full of an antic, reckless joy. It was in Maine, and we could hear the sea from my windows. But, to my disappointment, child, she has aged very poorly. Not in appearance. But in the texture of her spirit. There is no more tenderness, no flair for the romantic nuance. She brings to the gentle arts of love all the implacable purpose of a riveting machine. She is a truly alarming organism. What, I ask you, is dalliance without the flash of wit, the clever turn of phrase, the lazy heart-to-heart conversations? But I bore you.”
“Gamelino, you are a hairy fraud.”
“Of course.”
“I am not attracted by a beard. I want to run through there barefoot, pushing a mowing machine.”
“The mental picture sickens me.”
“So leave us go get a drink to settle your stomach, Torrigan.”
“I think of you as my lovely daughter.”
They went to the edge of the roof. Mary Jane started down first. She stood on the cornice and turned to put her foot down to the ledge and lost her balance. She teetered for a moment, her back to the drop, arms waving madly. And just as she started to go, Gam grabbed a flailing arm and yanked her back. She huddled against his chest, breathing hard, and he held her tightly.
“Lovely daughter nearly becomes small smear on stone,” she said weakly.
“If you knew how sensitive I am, you wouldn’t do things like that.”
“I am sober. I am humbled. I’m sorry I bad-mouthed your beard.”
He released her. “Perhaps you will have to be lowered on a rope.”
“When they crack up the aircraft, you send them right on up again into the wild blue stuff, man. Don’t think I haven’t got eyes for this fine solid roof, but the bar service is nowhere.”
She moved with great care. He followed her down. After they jumped down from the final wall they bowed and shook hands. “The Big Top will miss you, Madame Scaloppini,” he said.
“I have make zee farewell pair-formance. Giff me my severance pay.”
“But first we shall become dronk.”
She took his arm and they marched inside.
It was about that time that the little blackouts began. When they had first begun, years before, they had terrified him. He was afraid that while the conscious mind was blacked out, he might do some unspeakable act of violence. And he was afraid that they signified the beginning of serious alcoholism. But, through canny questioning of his friends, he had learned that there seemed to be no detectable difference between his actions while still functioning and when blacked out. And, as the affliction did not seem to become worse as time went by, he had gradually come to accept it as a standard phase of his drinking times, a personal idiosyncrasy. But when he looked back over an evening of periodic blackouts, it was as though he looked at a movie where the projection bulb burned out at intervals. When it burned out, however, the projector kept functioning. So when the light would come on again, the thread of the plot was lost.
The light came on once and he found himself having an involved argument with John Kemp and Barbara Kilmer about communication in art and the responsibilities of the artist to his culture. At another bright interval, he was standing in the lobby and Mary Jane was vividly angry at him. She was shouting into his face, backing him up step by step as he protested feebly. She was explaining forcibly that it would be a waste of rope to hang him and a waste of lead to gut-shoot him. He gathered that he had offended her by making certain disparaging remarks about Texas and Texans.
In one most curious sequence which seemed to bear no relation to the rest of the evening, he was in a room he did not recognize, and he was sitting on a bed with a glass in his hand. The drooping, indifferent Margot sat in a weary wicker armchair, talking endlessly in her flat British monotone. Her pale slender legs were drawn up into the chair and her only garment was a towel with wide blue-and-white stripes knotted around her waist. She had a glass in her hand and as she talked she ran it up and down her forearm and occasional
ly touched it to her cheek. He sat there nodding agreement to talk he found almost impossible to follow. It seemed to be a long story about some American officer in London a long time ago and what it had done to her marriage. She seemed to have a special talent for being able to recall every dull and insignificant detail, the date and time of day of all telephone calls, and precisely what she was wearing at the time, and when the kippers at breakfast had been too salty, and the exact roads and mileages and villages they had passed through when they had driven together to someplace or other.
He looked at her, and saw how nicely made she was, how slimly delicate, how smooth and flawless her skin texture. He looked at her with no more desire than if he had been staring at a figurine that held up a lamp. His jaw creaked as he kept stifling yawns. And he began to feel an enormous sympathy for that young major so-and-so if he had had to long endure this total recall of statistical, gastronomical and geographical trivia. There was a crushed-petal look about her long slim face, a bruised look that seemed to promise a dissertation on evil when she opened her mouth. But the flat dreary voice went on and on and on.
“It’s been so good to talk with someone mature, Mr. Torrigan. Someone with wisdom and sympathy. Everyone seems so hurried.” She uncurled her long legs and stood up slowly. She put her empty glass on the bureau and drifted over to the other bed, in slow ivoried slimness. She unknotted the towel and took it off, stretched out on the bed and placed the towel across her middle.
She yawned and said from the shadows, “I’m really teddibly widdy. D’you mind too awfully much, darling?”
“Mind? No, I don’t mind. Not at all.”
“It’s act’ly despicable to encourage you, darling, and then disappoint you, but really I’m emotionally exhausted from pouring my heart out to you. Catch the light like a dear.”
Gam turned out the light and heard her sigh as he quietly closed the door behind him. As he turned, a figure sprang at him in the dimness of the hall, and before he could protect himself a hard fist crashed against his jaw. He recognized Paul Klauss. The smaller man stood in front of him, fists clenched, face distorted.
“What’s the matter?” Gam asked.
“You know damn well what’s the matter. I hope you’re satisfied. I hate every damn one of you. I’ll get even with all of you somehow. You’re a dirty stinker, Torrigan!” And Paul Klauss began to cry. He struck again, and hit Gam solidly in the same place as before.
“You keep doing that and I’m going to …”
But Klauss had turned on his heel and he went scurrying up the corridor, his shoulders hunched, sobbing audibly.
The final flash of memory was the most distasteful. Kemp and Ardos were walking him to his room, his arms across their shoulders. They held onto his wrists. He was trying to make his legs work, and it was a strange sensation. Like riding a rubber bicycle.
And he was saying, braying, “Rumors are flying. And I’m not deny-innng la da da da dut da dada dado …”
“Easy, old horse,” John Kemp said.
And the world faded away again as they got him through the doorway of his room.
* * *
After Torrigan had been bedded down, John went back out to the lobby. Barbara was waiting for him. “Get the key?” She nodded and handed him the key to the station wagon. “And how was she doing?”
“Pretty good, considering.”
Rosalinda had disappeared. The bar was empty. The marimba player lay under his marimba. One guitar player was curled up nearby. The other sat on the floor in a corner, plucking slow sad chords, his nose almost against the strings.
After surveying the situation, Harvey, Monica, John and Barbara had a policy discussion. If they could be restored to partial life, it would be best to take them down into town in the wagon. If not, they might as well be left right there. Every bottle on the bar was completely empty.
The marimba player responded. He was even able to help fold up his marimba. The sleeping guitarist took longer. John selected what he hoped was the proper fee, divided it in thirds, and gave it to them. The small group walked out to the station wagon, Harvey carrying the marimba.
“No need of any of the rest of you coming,” John said. “This one here says it’s all right to let them off in front of the palace. And that’s right on the zócalo.”
“I’ll come along for company,” Barbara said.
“Good. Thanks, Harvey. And Monica.”
“The clean-up boys,” Harvey said. “The old reliables, hey, John? Monica and me, we’ll get some of the crud out of the way. Some party, hey?”
“We can say it was long,” John said.
He drove the musicians into town. They mumbled their thanks and trudged sleepily away. The zócalo was empty. The city slept.
“This may sound insane, John, but I’d like to walk around a little.”
“I’d like that too.” He parked the car. They walked around the three contiguous public squares and sat on an iron bench under the tree shadows in the zócalo nearest the post office. A taxi deposited somebody at the Marik and drove away.
“How good a time did you have?” he asked her.
“I had … an interesting time, John. I guess I’m a people-watcher. Adore airports and railroad stations. I’ve never been a participant in group stuff. When I was young I was horribly shy. I have a lot more confidence in myself now, but I guess I’m the introvert type. So I watch. And I wonder why people do what they do, and what makes them act the way they do. So I guess I had a good time. But—and I guess this sounds odd—I wouldn’t have had a good time if you weren’t there.”
“It’s nice to hear, but I didn’t contribute any sparkling observations.”
“Did I? I can’t remember any. No, I had a feeling of stability with you there. I knew that if anybody got drunk enough to be difficult, Klauss or Gam or anybody, you wouldn’t let it get messy. So it was like having a … ledge to watch from.”
“Makes me sound stodgy and reliable. And I guess I am.”
“Not stodgy. A woman alone has special problems when a party goes that far off the rails. I’ve no objection to drinking. But I don’t like to see people … wallowing around.”
“I’ve wallowed a time or two.”
“So did Rob. The poor darling always wanted to sing. And he had no more voice than … one of those horns on boats. He sure was loud. That’s odd!”
“What?”
“I’ve tried to learn to be so terribly casual about bringing up his name. But it has been imitation casual. Like sticking a knife in my heart, and sometimes bringing up his name so I could feel the hurt. But that time … it really was casual. That isn’t the right word. Casual sounds like indifferent.”
“Natural.”
“Yes, that’s much better! To be able to do that makes me feel … sad and faithless and disloyal. But it also makes me feel fatuous about myself. Proud that now I can begin to believe I’ve got the emotional guts to get over it. Not ever completely over it, John. But enough so it won’t count in this … business of living.”
“Obligation to live.”
“Yes. To myself first.”
“And Rob secondly.”
“That’s what my father tried to tell me. I couldn’t believe it. It seemed horrible. But I’m beginning to understand what he meant. He was more of a person than I am. Maybe this affair of … mourning my life away is something he wouldn’t want. But I’ve felt that any other choice is a … violation of privacies. I have a kind of fastidious dread of … dirtying up sacred memories with substitutions. That horrible little Klauss person caught me off guard and somehow hypnotized me into kissing him. Into responding for a moment. It was vulgar and exceedingly nasty. I wept with shame. And I scrubbed my mouth with a brush until my lips were sore.”
“I can understand that.”
“Rob was very smart about people. He would have seen through that Klauss person in a minute. I was always the gullible one. So I’ve always been a little uncertain of my own judgment about
people. That’s why it took me so long to be able to relax with you, John. You know, you are quite a different sort of human being than Rob was. But in so many ways you are alike. Mostly, I guess, it’s that flavor of strength. When Rob felt that he had used his own best judgment to reach a decision, he did not give one damn what anybody in the world might think of him or his decision. I think you’re like that too.”
“A flattering description of a stubborn man. Yes.”
“I’ve always been too impressed with what other people might think of me. Too concerned. Sometimes it would irritate Rob. You know, you two would have liked each other.”
“I hope so, Barbara.”
“Lately you’ve let me go on and on about myself. I guess you’ve got the complete personal history of one Barbara Kilmer, bit by bit. But aside from your work, you haven’t said much about yourself. I’m not really quite sure why you’re here, John. It seems strange that you could just take off, when your firm is doing so well.”
“It messed up quite a few contracts. There’s a good reason, Barbara. I’d like you to know about it. I’ve wanted to tell you. And I want your advice. I think that women have a sounder approach to this sort of … fiasco.”
He started way back. He told her of the young marriage and why it didn’t work and why it couldn’t have been made to work. And then he covered the years that followed, the good exciting years of struggle and growth. He told her about Kurt and Mary, the kind of people they were. Their goodness. And Mary’s determined attempt at matchmaking. And how it ended for the three of them. How she had not been able to hide her love, and how the interwoven relationships between the three of them had been hopelessly destroyed. He told her of the decision he had to make, to buy Kurt out or be bought out by him. He explained to her what it would mean in terms of effort were he to buy Kurt out.
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