“You’re all tensed up in your neck,” she said, grabbing hard the muscles from his shoulders to his neck.
“Missus, all I want to do is earn me a few bucks. Then I’ll be on my way.”
“Don’t you worry about that. There’s more than a few bucks around here.” It sounded like a promise. Beef let her massage his shoulders.
“It would smell up the whole place,” he said.
“What would?”
“The body. In the bathtub.”
“I suppose it would,” she said. “Do you have a mother?” she asked.
He scratched his ear and looked at the dirty water in the tub.
“Yes, missus,” he said.
“Does she kind of watch out for you?”
Old women ask such crazy questions, he thought. You wonder what goes on in their heads.
“No, she pretty much lets me go my own way,” he said, making it sound like a virtue.
“Are you happy, then, Bomba?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, are you glad the way your life turned out? Can you look back and be satisfied that you made all the right decisions?”
“I want to meet the man who says that. I can’t say that, lookin’ at me.”
“So you probably would be happier today if your mother was there to protect you from yourself, to keep you from foolish mistakes.”
“I guess...I guess I would, if you put it that way.”
He made his belch keep quiet as it slipped away under his hand. How could she know his mother was uncaring; how could she know he yearned for the protection of a parent? He was glad she asked no more questions. He shut his eyes and drifted with the rubbing on his back.
THREE
Beef was sitting on the sofa in a bathrobe Ginny had lent him when Mrs. Lister returned from the laundromat with his clean clothes in a paper bag. The robe was too small for him. The seams were under stress.
She refilled his coffee cup.
“You like the coffee?” she asked him.
“Sure,” said Beef.
“Good to the last drop.”
Mrs. Lister handed him the bag and self-consciously he excused himself and went into the bedroom. The clothes were warm, fresh from the dryer. Among them he found a plastic package containing a brand-new pair of briefs, Fruit of the Loom. He shook his head and laughed silently. She doesn’t miss a trick, he thought. Already he liked her.
He took off the bathrobe and opened the closet door to hang it up. The closet was neatly arranged with a woman’s clothing hanging on the left, a man’s hanging on the right. He took out one of the sports coats to look at it. It was too small for him. On the inside of the door were two hooks. On one hung Ginny’s robe; nothing was on the other. Beef put the robe there.
Near the closet was her dressing table and mirror. There were several porcelain angels on the table, amid powder, make-up, and perfume in disarray. He moved away from it to dress, past the single bed in the room, to the opposite wall. On this side was a plain square chest of drawers with a leather jewelry caddy on top. Everything was square and straight and neat, and reflected a man who needed order.
Dressed, he went back into the living room. “Thanks,” he said, and laughed shyly.
She pretended to be surprised to see him. “Who’s this fine-looking young man?” She shook his hand very briskly. “How do you do? Would you like to be the vice-president of my company? Marry my daughter? Vacation on my yacht?”
“Aw, c’mon,” he said.
“Have a Fig Newton.” She handed him the bowl.
He ate the Fig Newtons and wandered across the room, where he noticed several thick scrapbooks on a bookshelf. He touched one, half afraid they represented a dead child.
“Go ahead,” she said, “you can look at it.”
He saw Mrs. Lister observing him curiously. Would she never speak? He put down the Fig Newtons and pulled a scrapbook off the shelf. He opened it on a page where a heavy metal disk was anchored. The American Legion Award Medal: For God and Country, in recognition of his courage, leadership, honor, service, and scholarship.
“They don’t go giving those things away to monkeys, you know,” said Ginny.
“Yours?”
Ginny laughed. “Are you kidding? I dropped out in the eighth grade. It’s my son’s.”
Beef voiced his intuition. “Not dead, I hope.”
“If he were dead I would be dead.”
Beef closed the scrapbook and returned it. “You’re probably very proud of him.”
“He’s always had a way with his classes,” she said. “I used to give him a dollar for every A he got. Sometimes those dollars were hard to find too. I still try to reward him with something when he brings home an A, which is most of the time, I can tell you.”
“He’s still in school?”
“He takes night courses at C.C.”
“Sounds like an ambitious kid.”
Ginny rocked her flat palm in the air to indicate the wavering of her son’s drive. “The potential is there, but left to himself he’d throw it all away on a scheming little bitch.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Where do I start?” she said. She sat on the arm of an easy chair. “Where do I start?”
“It’s up to you,” said Beef. He looked at Mrs. Lister for a suggestion. She was preoccupied with no more than the years behind her.
“It’s not easy,” she said, “to tell someone that you tried to kill yourself once.”
“You did that?” asked Beef. He did not think she was the type. She seemed to like a good time.
“I’m not ashamed to say so.”
Mrs. Lister shook her head grimly, her sleepy face almost falling to the handle of the cane she held in front of her.
“A person’s got to be either really brave or really a coward to do somethin’ like that,” said Beef, putting into one observation all he knew about suicide.
Mrs. Wynn contemplated for a moment and concluded, from an insider’s point of view, “I can tell you, it takes a lot of courage to do such a thing.”
“What made you do it?” asked Beef. “I could never do it, not even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”
“It starts with the little things,” she said, “and the next thing you know...”
“You mean you really wanted to...” He too had often wanted to commit that mortal sin. But he would never confess to it.
“Yes, rather than live without Gordie, I would die.”
“Gordie?”
“My boy. He wanted to move out.”
Now Beef knew that the robe he had worn belonged to her son.
“He wanted us each to find an efficiency apartment and live separately. He would call me every day, he said. Ha!”
It seemed a reasonable desire to Beef. The boy probably wanted a place to bring some girls and horse around. Mothers are fine for cooking and keeping house but they sure as hell can scare away the pussy.
“He probably only wanted his own place so he could call his friends over to raise hell,” he told her.
She looked at him in a most peculiar way. “My son does not raise hell.”
“Ah,” said Beef, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. Tell me, how old a fella is he?”
“He’s twenty-four.”
Beef wondered what he did instead of raising hell. “But he wanted to move out, huh? What’d you say?”
“Quite frankly, Bomba, I couldn’t say anything. I had to lie down on the sofa. I have this recurring malady, a mystery to the doctors. My blood gets light, and my breath gets short, and I don’t know what all. I just have to lie down and shut my eyes. And he has the brass to say I always and only get sick whenever he talks about another living arrangement.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know when I get sick,” she snapped at him. “I get sick.”
“Only reason I asked, is if you do maybe it’s all in your head.”
“There’s a world of people around eager to tell me wh
at’s going on in my head; I can’t open up the Reader’s Digest without somebody telling me what’s going on in my head, and now comes a window washer from the Salvation Army to join the throng. Jesus?’
“Only tryin’ to help.”
“I know I was sick. I knew I’d be dead in three days if I were left alone. I can’t live alone. I can’t, I can’t.”
“Well, maybe you could get married or something,” said Beef.
“You’re an intelligent boy, you know that?”
Beef was embarrassed. It was a compliment he had never before heard, and one he could not possibly take seriously.
“Without knowing anything about the situation, you were able to put your finger right on the problem between us. I had recently got married.”
“You’re startin’ to lose me now,” said Beef.
“But he had had it annulled.”
‘Whoa, you’re really losin’ me now.”
“‘I’m glad he got the annulment,’ Gordie tells me. ‘Sam Leonard was my age,’ he says. ‘So what?’ says I. My answer to someone upset about a woman marrying a younger man is, ‘So what?’”
“I’ve seen marriages like that work out real nice,” said Beef.
“He accused me of offering that young man money to marry me, a great deal of money. How outrageous! Where would I get any money, I asked him.”
“What’d he say to that?”
“Well, he said something very mean.”
“What?” asked Beef. He felt entitled. He had listened this far.
“He brought up an unpleasant memory.”
“Oh.” Beef was content to drop it and leave her unpleasant memories to herself. He ate another Fig Newton.
“He reminded me of the time I bought a cattle ranch for three hundred thousand dollars when I didn’t have but thirty-two dollars in the bank.”
That might well be an unpleasant memory, thought Beef.
“He didn’t have to remind me of that, I won’t ever forget. Someday I’ll have that ranch or another like it. I’ll call it Rancho del Buen Amigo. It’ll have a grand high arch to pass under, and will we have cattle! Soundest investment in the world, Bomba. People have got to eat. We’ll have horses, naturally, and we’ll keep some chickens, for Mrs. Lister to feed. But the main business we’ll be in will be cattle. The Rancho del Buen Amigo.”
For a few more seconds she followed the dream of it.
Beef took a bowlegged turn around the sofa and said, “Ma’am, I reckon you’ll be a-needin’ a good foreman.” He laughed nervously. She did not join him.
“After that,” she said, “I got off the sofa and went into the bedroom. The sofa opens up for his bed. All I can remember is taking a handful of pills and lying down on the bed to expire. If that’s the way he was going to be, he could make it on his own. I had stayed beyond my welcome. I would not be missed, neither would I be mourned.”
“How come you didn’t...you know?”
“Are you afraid to say it? I’m not. Die. I didn’t die because he came into the bedroom. He had his choice then, of his own free will. There was nobody there but him and me, and I was unconscious. He could have gone for a milk shake and come back an orphan. But he did the right thing, as he always does, finally. He’s a good boy, at the bottom of it all, and he loves his mother. I know that. I often have doubts, sure, but I know...I know.”
“They pumped out the old gut, huh?”
“Oh, they had me figured for a goner. She’s a dead one, indeed, they thought. They were all ready to pluck out my eyes and kidneys and liver and give ‘em all to some beaners on welfare.”
“But you pulled through.”
“It would be nice to say we lived happily ever after.”
“Uh-oh, trouble.”
“The worst.”
“He moved to another place anyway.”
“Nothing so ordinary. While I am lying in the hospital within touching distance of no tomorrow, where do you’suppose he is?”
“At your side?”
“Not on your life. He’s being interviewed.”
“The papers?”
“Now, do you suppose anyone in Colorado Springs would be interested in reading the circumstances of my demise?”
Beef wouldn’t know about that. “Well, who’s interviewing him, then?”
Whoever it was, Ginny’s expression indicated she had little use for the individual.
“Apparently the first thing they do when you try to kill yourself is get a woman to interview your son, to talk to him intimately while he’s most vulnerable.” Her voice became that of the baby coquette. “Tell me, Mr. Wynn, has your mother ever attempted anything like this before? Oh, I see. Well, can you describe her state of mind, Gordie, prior to the unfortunate event? Poor baby, can I do anything for you, honey? Here, put your head against my breast.”
It seemed like odd treatment to Beef. He had never heard of the practice.
“Oh, they call them psychiatric social workers, but if you ask me it’s a glorified title for a hot-pants bitch. I’m dying and he’s making goo-goo eyes at a psychiatric social worker.”
“A stiff joint’s got no conscience.”
“Bomba!”
“Sorry, missus, my mouth ain’t fit for polite company.”
“It might help for you to try to picture the scene. Believe me, I have.”
“Rotten of me.”
“I know her type. Seen ‘em all my life. While the poor fella is at his weakest, emotionally speaking, they wage their campaign. She’s older than him, three years older, and she’s a...a...” In the present context the word was so foul Ginny was having difficulty saying it. “...she’s a beaner.”
“Mexican?” asked Beef.
She nodded. “She smokes marijuana and she runs around with nigger boys...”
“Now, now, now, you’re storying,” said Mrs. Lister, her first words in Beef’s presence. He was startled at the sound, like the dry and frail yielding to the wind.
“Don’t now-now-now me, lady. I didn’t raise a son to be manipulated by some south-of-the-border slut.”
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Maria, naturally,” said Ginny contemptuously. “What’s she look like?”
“She’s lovely,” said Mrs. Lister.
“Oh, shut up.” Ginny poured another cup of coffee for Beef.
“You can’t deny that, Ginny,” said Mrs. Lister.
“It helps to be lovely, that’s my experience,” said Beef, dunking a Fig Newton into his coffee.
“I wonder how lovely she’d be with a good splash of acid in the puss.”
“Some hoodlums once threw acid at a newspaper columnist,” explained Mrs. Lister. “It blinded him.”
Beef gritted his teeth just in imagining it. “Well, missus,” he said, “maybe it’s one of those mild flirtations we all go through.”
“Would that it were, Bomba, would that it were.”
“Hell, I wish I had a nickel each for my mild flirtations.”
“We saw her with him, Mrs. Lister and I,” said Ginny. Mrs. Lister nodded. “On a night he was supposed to be working. We saw the car in the parking lot of the Chef’s Inn, and we just went in to see for ourselves.”
“She was very pretty to look at,” said Mrs. Lister. “Her hair was so black and shiny.”
“She sat with him so brazen, as though she owned him.”
“They were holding hands across the table,” said Mrs. Lister.
“In a public place, and me supposed to be convalescing at home after almost dying.”
“Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like,” said Beef. “Did you go up and talk to them?”
“Not on your life. We went right back outside and let the air out of two of the tires. A man caught me, but I told him to go to hell, I was only letting the air out of the tires on my half of the car.”
“Why don’t you call her up and tell her where you stand?” suggested Beef.
Ginny turned to her old friend and raised he
r voice. “Mrs. Lister, Bomba the Jungle Boy says I should give Maria a ring on the telephone.”
Mrs. Lister giggled behind her claw-like hands.
“Well, it seemed like a sensible thing to me,” said Beef.
“Boy, I’ve been calling her night and day for these many days. I wake her up three or four times a week to talk to her. She changes her number, but I find it again. Child’s play. I tell her when everyone else is sleeping what I think of beaner bitches who take dope.”
“Bet she enjoys hearin’ that,” said Beef.
“She usually hangs up on Ginny,” answered Mrs. Lister.
“She’s a nervy bitch, I give her credit for that, but she will not have my son. If there’s to be a winner in this contest, it’ll be me. I promise you.”
“You got my vote,” said Beef.
“I don’t quit. I’ll never quit till I’m six feet under.”
“I’m here to wish you good luck,” he said. “May the best man win. Think it’s gettin’ time for me to do the windows, huh?”
She looked at the clock.
“My goodness, boy, I’ve been keeping you from lunch with all my troubles. How ‘bout I make you a Dagwood? A meal in itself. Here, Mrs. Lister, you come help me.”
Beef followed them into the kitchen and sat at the table and watched them. Mrs. Lister opened the refrigerator and poised before it. Beef worried that she might fall into it. She handed Ginny the mustard and mayonnaise, the turkey and ham, the salami and cheese, the condiments. As quickly as she handed them, Ginny arranged them on a huge roll.
If this ain’t the damnedest thing, thought Beef. Come to earn a buck and stay to eat like a rajah. Looks like I’m hired out today as a sympathetic ear. Nice work if you can get it.
They served him a sandwich fit to be photographed for the Sunday supplement. Next to it was placed a cold quart of milk and a glass. He was in business.
Mrs. Lister watched him finish his first bite, then said, “Tell him about the flowers, Ginny.”
He listened to Ginny Wynn as he ate his sandwich.
Gordie had been in bed with the flu. Ginny and Mrs. Lister, who were devotedly nursing him, had intercepted the box of flowers when it was delivered to the apartment. Ginny opened the box and read the note, which said, “Will tell you a secret, but first get well, my darling. Come by as soon as you’re able. All my love, Maria.”
The Accomplice: The Stairway Press Edition Page 3