Whipple's Castle

by Thomas Williams

  Henrietta sat by the fire, seeing empty places in the room. It was the winter for death. Let them crow of the victories happening or to come. Victories over what, over whom? Some kind of monster out of space, was it? Was it a victory over fascism, now, fought by boys and men who didn’t know fascism from German measles?

  In the smiles of victory she saw the same vicious triumph she’d seen on Hitler’s face at the fall of France. She saw the same primitive joy in giving death. Patton, for instance, wearing his six-shooters. She saw it in Harvey. She saw it all over town. She read it in the papers and heard it on the radio. They were fighting the war for a new car and a new refrigerator, according to the ads, and that was a good way to put it, because they didn’t give a hoot in hell for anybody else; they killed vermin, everybody was killing vermin, to get them out of the way so they could get theirs, the things they wanted, and it was a nice nasty way to put it, to hide it, that they fought for a new car and a new refrigerator.

  But then she thought of Wood, and her bitterness melted. He looked like them all, so broad and manly and upright, but she could not see death in his squarish, unhumorous face. She never had. But then he’d rarely let his face be read, even as a child. She tried to pray for him, but even as she considered it she saw how silly and stupid it would be, because she’d never prayed out of real belief in her life. There’d have to be too many its, ands and buts in any prayer she’d make.

  But she loved and honored her son. What else could she do for him?

  Nothing.

  Suddenly a big hand was on her shoulder. It was Horace, who stood leaning massively over her, his coarse face staring fiercely, meaning to comfort her.

  That winter and spring Horace continued to do errands for his father concerning the tenements. He had changed a great deal, and everybody noticed it. When he moved his body now, it was with purpose, almost aggressive purpose, and this new tension in his muscles caused him to have control he’d never had before. When he reached for his glass at the table, he believed, now, that the glass would stay there until his hand got ready to grasp it. Inanimate things were no longer quite as aggressive toward him. In a dream he had even killed a Herpes with his hands. The others got away. He knew they were only in his mind, but somehow this thought was frightening, so he tried not to know, knowing all the time that Zoster and the Herpes were in his mind.

  Zoster skulked in the cellar, and when Horace went to the cellar he thought of Susie’s warmth and frailty. He carried David’s loaded revolver in his back pocket under his handkerchief, but he would not shoot Zoster, he would kill him with his bare hands if he appeared in conjunction with Susie’s goodness. Then why the gun? he sometimes asked himself. If he actually shot it in the house someone would hear it and all hell would break loose. But in spite of these disturbing questions, his power grew. No longer did he have to make a pact with his own death each time he descended into the cellar’s stench of earth, potatoes, vegetable rot and the wisps from the coal fire. His shoulders squared; hard as iron, he challenged Zoster. If he turned, he turned slowly in his strength, his rage contained, his fear contained, deliberately wanting to look upon the scaled head that had never yet dared to face him. He held out an arm, an offering to that mouth, but kept the other ready. He had never seen Zoster but he knew what he looked like, how the scales overlapped, the long teeth clashed, the eyes shone with triumphant, smutty mirth. He knew where the joint was in that neck, the main joint where reptilian horn glided in cold oil to protect the black nerves and blood.

  But then, the fire shaken down—not too far, as David had shown him, the drafts right, the cleanout door shut—he left the furnace creaking contentedly like a huge, fairly friendly domesticated animal in its stall and climbed the stairs into the real world again. Sweat always beaded his spine at his escape from the confrontation with Zoster, and it turned cool as he shut the door and strode, not too fast, through the shelf pantry into the kitchen.

  “You’re not afraid of the cellar any more?” his mother asked.

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I mean, I can go down there now.”

  But he was not sure that he could go down there, just himself, just Horace Whipple. He became something else, a sort of warrior, not that little boy who cringed in terror under his damp bedclothes. It was like dying and being born again into that stern duty. It took a great carefulness of thought, and thought was a dangerous thing to weave into spells, because it might trick you.

  On Friday afternoons he trembled as he tapped on Susie’s door. She always smiled and kissed him on the forehead, sometimes putting her arms around him for a second. But sometimes she seemed tired, and he grew worried. Sometimes she would seem listless and distracted, though always friendly. But then he’d come the next Friday and she’d greet him all lively and full of excitement again, and they’d sit at the table and talk. Her eyes were dark blue, blue as plums, and her wide cheeks bowed when she smiled, she smiled so wide. He liked it best when she wore no lipstick, because without the lipstick’s hard red proclamation to be seen, her face was softer, and she seemed more intimate with him.

  What he didn’t like at all was to find Mrs. Palmer sitting at Susie’s table, sometimes with a bottle of beer. Susie called her “Candy,” and they made references to things Horace wasn’t sure about. Candy was Beady Palmer’s wife, and she had four little kids to take care of—three of them the children of her first husband. She lived in the apartment across the hall, in the only three-bedroom apartment in the building, and she left the doors open so she could hear if the little kids started screaming. She was four or five years older than Beady, with that smooth hard look about her, her blond hair too much fussed with, that Horace understood was supposed to be attractive to men. When he’d first seen her there he stood silent and embarrassed, he was so surprised. A slithery green dressing gown fell loosely from her shoulders, and underneath were only pink bands and smooth, cuplike structures of pink silk. As Susie introduced him to her she drew the green material across her breasts and over her thighs.

  “Jesus,” she said. “You said he was a kid. He’s as big as a man!”

  Susie laughed and put her arm around him. “He’s my Horace,” she said gaily.

  Candy winked and mashed a pink cigarette butt into the ashtray. “Well, I say he’s as big as a man,” she said. The way she said it Horace wasn’t sure she meant just his size. There had to be some other meaning, the way she said it, as though at least one of the words she’d used didn’t mean what it usually meant.

  Susie would start using this strange language too, only not so much. It seemed she used it only to be polite to Candy, although she laughed when Horace couldn’t laugh, and then she seemed to have gone away from him.

  Once when Candy was there Beady Palmer came home from work.

  “Hey, Candy!” he began shouting in the other apartment. Candy yelled, “In here, lover boy!” Then in a lower voice she said, “If he can find his way.” She and Susie laughed.

  Beady came in, moving his dented cheeks from side to side so his eyes could see everything. “Well,” he said, recognizing Horace, “our illustrious landlord’s son and heir!” He saw the beer on the table. “Hey, Suze, let me trade you a hot one for a cold one,” he said. They all laughed, and Beady went to his apartment and brought back a quart bottle of Beverwyck Ale, which he put in Susie’s refrigerator. Susie poured him a glass from another quart that was evidently colder. But why the laughter?

  “I don’t want you to do no trading unless I’m present and accounted for,” Candy said. They laughed.

  “How about a beer for the kid?” Candy said. Horace said no, thank you, and they laughed. Susie patted his hand and smiled at him.

  But what caused the greatest laughter of all was later, when Beady put his hand on Candy’s leg and said, “Hey, kid, I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”

  After the laughter Beady said, “No kidding, we got to eat and git ready if we’re going out on the town.”

  “Some town,” Candy sa
id. “You mean the hog wrastle.”

  “‘Blue Moooon, da da di yadda di da,’” Beady sang.

  When they got up to go, Candy thanked Susie, who was going to leave the doors open so she could keep an ear out for the kids. “Rain or shine, we’ll be back at twelve, Suze, and thanks a million, huh?”

  “You’re a sweetheart, Suze,” Beady said. “I wish I could thank you in a more personal way.” They all laughed, and Candy punched him on the arm.

  When they were gone, Susie looked a little sad, and Horace asked her what was the matter.

  “Oh, it’s just life, I guess,” she said, sighing. “A girl gets lonely, Horace. You know what I mean?”

  “I’ll keep you company,” he said.

  “You’re a darling,” she said, squeezing his arm. But she still looked so sad he moved his chair over next to hers and put his arm around her. For a minute she put her head on his chest. His heart beat in his throat. He smelled her rich brown hair, oily and soapy. Her body was warm and soft, all encircled by his strong arm. His hand, wide and living on her side, felt her breathe.

  Finally, in a businesslike way, she straightened up and shook her head, then with an affectionate pat on his ribs she got up and began to clear the table.

  “You’re a love, Horace. You’re so nice. You really are.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Oh, Horace!” she said, smiling. “And I love you too. Very much!”

  But the next Friday when he came she looked awful. She looked older, with puffy places below her eyes and even at the sides of her mouth.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. She sat hunched over, drinking black coffee. Her white blouse was dirty.

  “Oh me,” she said, trying to smile. “It’s a combination of a hangover and the wrong time of the month, I guess.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll have a little hair of the dog,” she said. “Ooo, my achin’ head!”

  Black visions swam through his mind. Monthly, hangover, hair of the dog. He knew vaguely that women had a bad thing at certain phases of the moon. It was a curse they bore for being women, for being able to give birth. They bled. The hair of a dog he didn’t understand, but it was monstrous, bestial enough to go with the other.

  “A little hair of the dog that bit me,” she said, and got a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. “It’s a saying, Horace, when the dog is alcohol. Oh, here, before my mind goes blank.”

  She had the due rents ready, and a list of materials her father had bought for repairs to the two buildings—toilet floats, faucet washers, lumber, nails, paint, glazing compound, and three 7” x 9” lights. Horace was learning about these things, and now knew that lights meant panes of glass and not light bulbs.

  “Are you going to be all right?” he asked. She stood at the table, leaning on the knuckles of one hand while she drank out of the bottle.

  “Oh, Horace, I’m sorry to be such a slob. I meant to take a bath and change before you came, but I crapped out on the davenport.”

  “That’s okay,” he said.

  She sat down and leaned back in the kitchen chair, her eyes shut. “I know it’s awful, but a girl gets lonely, Horace. You know what I mean?” She opened her dark blue eyes and stared seriously at him while she thought.

  “I don’t know exactly,” he said.

  “To sit alone, nobody around, and hear music from somewhere? People laughing?”

  “I don’t have any friends except at home,” he said. “And you.”

  “Neither do I, really,” she said. “I mean Candy and Beady are sort of fun, but they have their own lives. Not that Beady wouldn’t try plenty if I didn’t slap him down once in a while.” She chuckled wearily.

  “Slap him down?”

  “Oh, he’s a good guy, Horace. Don’t get excited. My goodness, you are all het up!”

  “I wouldn’t let anybody hurt you!”

  “Well, he wouldn’t hurt me, Horace,” she said, and laughed, then grimaced and held her head. “Ow! It only hurts when I laugh.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” he said.

  She opened her eyes wide. “What?”

  “When you joke about whatever it is. You aren’t you.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m afraid I am me, Horace. I’m afraid I am me, and it’s not so nice.”

  “What’s hurting you?” he asked her. He knew that his own experiences might really qualify him to help. “Please tell me, Susie. Maybe I can help you. Really.”

  “Life,” she said. “It hurts.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, Horace,” she said sadly. “You don’t want to know.”

  “I want to know.”

  She shook her head loosely. Dusk was coming into the room, and with it the cold ghostly blue of Futzie Petrosky’s tavern sign. He wondered if he ought to reach up above the table and turn on the light.

  “Horace, would you go into my room and get me the pack of Chesterfields on the bed table? The room on the left in there?”

  He went through the small living room, where the dark, bulky stuffed furniture was, dim rolled shapes that shouldered up into the windows. He felt his way, not knowing where any light switches were, past the toothpaste-watery smell of the bathroom. Her room smelled of her, and beside the bed the white pack of cigarettes gleamed on the table. Her bed was mussed, unmade, and he went quickly to his knees and put his head down underneath the covers in the wrinkled sheets, deep in her powerful smells where her body had lain. It was sweet, and he breathed deeply that heavy sweetness edged with sour.

  Back in the kitchen she took the cigarettes and lit one, her face edged black in the matchlight. She sipped her beer and then took a deep red drag on the cigarette. “Don’t turn on the light,” she said. “Futzie’s sign is bad enough when you look like a zombie.”

  “I want to help you,” he said. In the dusk his voice seemed grown-up and strange to him.

  “There’s nothing to do to help.”

  “You can tell me what’s making you so sad,” his grown-up voice said.

  “I was in high school once,” she began, as though she were telling a bedtime story. “I was in high school and I was a good girl and got good grades. I was maybe a little plump, but everybody said how pretty I was anyway. What was wrong with me was I was too friendly and I believed everything another person said. I just couldn’t believe anybody would lie. Now, that’s pretty stupid.”

  “And then?”

  “And I was in love with Wood. A lot of girls were in love with Wood Spencer Whipple. I guess I showed it more than anybody.”

  “Do you still love Wood?”

  “I threw that chance away a long time ago, Horace.”

  “Chance?”

  “Yes. Anyway…” She took a drink of beer; he heard the liquid gurgle in the bottle. “Anyway, one day at school I found a note in my desk, and I’ll tell you word for word what it said. It said, ‘Dear Susie, I think you are swell. I like you a lot. Would you meet me at 9:30 after DeMolay by the big pine next to the Congregational Church? Love, Wood W.’

  “That’s what the note said. Naturally I thought it was from Wood. But it wasn’t, because he told me about six months later, as nice as he could, that it wasn’t from him. So I’m waiting in the shadow of that big pine and my heart’s beating a thousand times a minute. I’m all dressed up, all fixed up as good as I can, and I see a tall boy—I can see his outline against the lights of the square…Well, it was Gordon Ward, saying that because of something or other at DeMolay, Wood couldn’t come, but he’d asked Gordon to take me home. Boy, was he smart! He figured everything. I couldn’t stand him, you see. He used to goose me in school. And now he had a chance to be so nice, and Wood never sent me another note or anything, so I kind of rebounded. I was lonely anyway, living three miles out on the farm and not getting into town for things. It was a long ride on a bicycle, and scary after dark. And Gordon had his Plymouth convertible coupé, so he could stick my bike in the rumble seat.”

 
“Gordon Ward,” Horace said.

  “Oh, that’s all history,” Susie said. “Water under the dam. Now everybody’s in the service. Gordon’s a hero. Poor Wood’s overseas too. Wood was so kind to me, Horace. He came to the farm, and my father pointed his shotgun at him. Now people are really shooting at him. I pray he won’t get hurt!”

  “I pray Gordon Ward gets killed,” Horace said.

  “Don’t say that! Oh, my God, Horace! Don’t say such a thing! It’s wrong!”

  “There’s others too,” Horace said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing dead.”

  “Horace!” she said. A chair scraped, and she stood up. “Please, Horace, never say things like that!”

  He got up slowly and went to her, so strong he could hardly move. She smelled of beer, that bread smell, and sharp sweat, and the deep, hurt sweetness that was part of her skin and glands or whatever. He brought her against his chest.

  “Horace?” she asked, her arms against her sides.

  “I’m not going to let anybody hurt you,” he said slowly, hearing that new odd timbre in his voice. He wanted to convince her that he had seen death as close as anyone, that he was deadly serious and did not wish upon death lightly.

  “Oh, I feel awful,” she said, tapping his sides as a signal that he should let her go. “And I’ve got to work tonight. I’m taking Bessie Higgins’ shift for her, and it’s going to be sheer purgatory.”