by Ann Bannon
Laura pleaded with her. “I just want to be sure they didn’t do you some awful harm you don’t know about, darling!” she said. “I’m no doctor, I can’t give you anything but Band-Aids and sponge baths and love.”
“That’s all in the world I want, baby,” Beebo smiled. “I’ll get well in no time.”
But Laura was too genuinely frightened to let it go at that. “What if they come back?” she asked. “Then they’d get us both.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” Beebo said and her face became hard. “Because I’d kill any man who laid a hand on you. Any man. I don’t care how. I wouldn’t ask any questions. I’d do it with whatever was handy—a knife or my own hands.” Laura started, staring, at her. “No man will ever touch you, Laura, and live. I swear.”
Laura went pale, wondering how Beebo would react to a marriage between herself and Jack; wondering how much violence she was capable of. “All right, Beebo,” she said. “Will you—just tell me one thing? Why won’t you see a doctor?”
Beebo turned away from her then, petulant as a child. “I haven’t seen a doctor in twenty years, Bo-peep,” she said.
“Why?”
Beebo sighed. “Because they might find out I’m a woman,” she said quietly.
Laura covered her face with her hands and cried in silence. It was futile. Beebo was a woman, no matter how many pairs of pants hung in her closet, no matter how she swaggered or swore. And while she could fool some people into thinking she was a boy, there were a lot more she couldn’t fool, and to them she looked foolish and rather pathetic. But Beebo was too sick to argue with. Laura was afraid of the way she talked, of the harsh way she laughed.
“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” she said.
“We won’t talk about it at all,” Beebo said, facing the wall, her back to Laura. “Where were you tonight, Laura?”
Laura swallowed convulsively before she could answer. “I was at the movies,” she said.
She waited for Beebo to question her further, but there was no questioning.
“I guess I’d better wash,” Beebo said. She rolled over and looked at Laura. “Do you really love me, baby?” she asked, and her eyes were deep and clouded.
“Yes,” said Laura with a sad little smile, afraid to say anything else.
Beebo gazed at her for a while, returning the smile. “Thank God,” she whispered, her hand caressing Laura’s shoulder. And then she said, “Where’s Nix?” She started to get out of bed but Laura stopped her.
“They hurt him, Beebo,” she stammered.
“Hurt him? How?”
“They—darling, I don’t know how to tell you—please, Beebo!” she cried in sudden fear as Beebo pushed past her. She stopped at the edge of the bed, staring with huge eyes at her little pet.
“I didn’t realize—it was so bad,” Beebo blurted inanely.
“He’s dead,” Laura whispered.
“Oh. Oh, that was too much. Too much…” Beebo stared at him, her face almost stupid with sorrow. She didn’t scream as Laura had, or turn away sick. She just gaped at him for a while with Laura clinging to her and murmuring, “It’s all right, darling, it’s all right,” because she didn’t know what else to say.
Beebo got off the bed and went to him, kneeling beside the ruined little body, and picked him up in her arms.
Beebo looked at Laura with the blood running all over her and there was grief on her face. “He was just a dog,” she moaned. “Such a little dog. There was nothing queer about him!…And he could talk, too.” She almost shouted it and Laura waited, trembling, for her to move.
“He was so sweet, Laura,” she said with tears coursing down her face. “You never liked him much, but he was such a good dog.”
“I loved him, Beebo, he was a part of your life,” Laura protested anxiously.
But Beebo ignored it. It was half a lie, spoken in affection, but still a lie. “I could always talk to him and it seemed as if he understood,” Beebo said. “I know you thought I was crazy. But there were times when I had to talk to somebody and there wasn’t anybody. Only Nix. I had him for seven years…since he was six weeks old.” And she clutched him to her and wept and Laura looked at her, all bloodied and heartbroken, and thought, She feels worse about the dog than about herself.
“Now that he’s gone…at least we’ll have one less thing to fight about.” Beebo looked very pale and odd. “Won’t we, baby?” she said.
“I—I guess so,” Laura said. She’s cracked! she thought. She went into the living room then, leaving Beebo alone for a few minutes, and called Jack. He was alone.
“Jack, I don’t know how to tell you. I—they raped Beebo.” Her voice was low and shaky.
Jack wasn’t sure whether she was kidding or not. He wasn’t even sure he heard her right. “Lucky bitch,” he said. “I wish they’d rape me instead. I’m never in the right place at the right time.”
“I’m serious, Jack.”
And when he heard the catch in her throat he believed her. “Who raped her, sweetheart?” he said, and the levity was dead gone from him.
“She doesn’t know. Some hoods. God knows who they were.”
“Did you call a doctor?”
“She won’t let me!” Laura’s voice rose with indignation. “Of all the nonsense I ever heard in my life! She’s afraid the doctor will find out she’s a female. I think we’re all going crazy—” But she felt Beebo’s hand then taking the phone from her, and she surrendered it without arguing and went to the couch and collapsed.
“Jack?” Beebo said. “I’m all right. It looks worse than it really is. I’ll live.” The front of her was sticky with Nix’s blood.
“You talk like it happens all the time,” Jack said with scolding sympathy. “Like getting you teeth drilled, or something.”
Beebo smiled wryly. “How is it you always know just what to say to a girl, Jackson? Make her feel real swell?”
“How is it that you’re such a goddamn prude you won’t let a doctor examine you? The doctor doesn’t give a damn what sex you are.”
“They killed Nix.” She threw it at him unexpectedly, silencing him about the doctor. And she described him with such detail that Laura didn’t want to listen. She got up and went into the bedroom to escape the conversation.
Beebo joined Laura on the bed ten minutes later, wearing her men’s cotton pajamas. Laura was too tired and weak to move. Beebo undressed her where she lay on the bed and dragged her under the covers naked.
“I don’t know what to do with Nix,” she said. ‘I’ll have to figure something out in the morning.”
They lay in each other’s arms, absorbed in their own thoughts. Laura’s mind was a potpourri of vivid impressions. She would never forget the bloody little dog, nor the fragrant skin of the Indian dancer, nor Beebo’s misery, nor those sinfully sweet kisses she stole from Tris….
“Jack’s coming over tomorrow,” Beebo said in her ear.
“Good.”
“Why ‘good’?”
“He’ll help us. He’ll make you see a doctor and he’ll do something about Nix. I don’t know, I just feel better with him around.”
“If I didn’t know for goddamn sure how gay you are, baby, I’d hate that guy.”
Laura had to laugh. “Beebo, if you get jealous of Jack I’ll send you to a head shrinker.”
“Okay, okay, I know it’s nuts. But you talk about him all the time.”
“I’m very fond of Jack. You know that. He brought us together, darling.” And she said it so gently that Beebo clasped her tighter and was reassured.
Laura slept, finally. But Beebo could not. She spent the night with her arms around Laura, taking her only comfort in Laura’s nearness and the sudden apparent return of her affection.
Jack came at eight-thirty. It was a Saturday morning and he had the day to spend. With his usual detachment he wrapped Nix up while Beebo was dressing. He carted him down the stairs in a garbage pail and left him for the morning pickup in a trash bin, w
ell hidden in a shroud of papers. When Beebo came into the kitchen a few minutes later he just said, “He’s gone. Don’t ask me about it, Beebo. It’s all over.” He found it almost as hard to talk about as she did.
“Damn you, Jack,” Beebo said feebly. But she was glad he had done it for her. She felt lousy. All the excitement and anger that had sustained her the night before were gone, leaving a lassitude and nausea that swept over her in waves.
Laura made her go back to bed and fed her breakfast from a tray.
“Don’t leave me, baby,” Beebo begged and Laura promised to stay near by. But as soon as Beebo had swallowed a little food and kept it down, she fell asleep, and Jack pulled Laura to her feet and dragged her, whispering protests, into the kitchen.
“How can I talk to you in there?” he demanded and fixed them both some coffee.
Laura drank in silence, listening to his rambling talk with one ear, gratefully. She thought of Tris and wondered whether to confess to Jack about the dancer or keep it a secret. She knew he wouldn’t like it.
“Beebo acted kind of crazy last night,” Laura said. “I think she felt worse about Nix than about herself.”
“No doubt she did. But pretty soon she’ll feel her own aches and pains. Maybe I can find her another hound somewhere. I just hope to God she doesn’t use this thing to make a prisoner of you, Mother.”
“A prisoner?”
“She was getting pretty desperate about you, you know. I think that has a lot to do with all the drinking.”
Laura realized then that he didn’t put a shot of booze in his coffee. “You’re still on the wagon!” she said.
He swirled his coffee reflectively. “I remember,” he said, “when Terry was giving me the works a few months back. I nearly drank myself to extinction. Beebo’s not above trying it herself.”
“Oh, God, that was awful!” Laura said, remembering Terry.
Terry had been enough to drive a strong man mad. If he had been nasty about it Jack could have stood it better. He could have preserved his self-respect and he might have had the strength to kick Terry out sooner than he did. But Terry was nice. He was delightful and cooperative. He was unfaithful, he was taking every cent Jack made as Jack made it, and he was hardly ever home.
But Jack was in love with him; angrily in love with the wrong person, sticking to a doomed attachment as if every new shock and every unexpected pain only strengthened his need for the boy.
Jack knew it was hopeless. He knew it was draining his strength and making a coward of him. In his mind the whole sad farce of the thing was perfectly clear. But he acted on his emotions in spite of himself, and as long as Terry loved him he couldn’t let him go.
Curiously enough, Terry did love him. Jack was home base to him; Jack was security. Jack paid the bills and bolstered him when he was low, and no matter how rough and rotten the rest of the world might get, good old Jack was always there, always the same.
But the end had to come. There was never enough money, there was never enough understanding, there was never enough of the right kind of love. It took just one sharp explosion of acid resentment one night, when Jack caught Terry cheating after two years of bitter suspicions, to blow them apart. It was almost too painful to think about afterwards.
It was over now, of course. Terry was gone. But the ache for him and the loneliness, even the desire to be tormented remained.
“You never heard from Terry, did you?” Laura asked.
“No. He took his things and left and I haven’t heard from him since. Makes me think he must have left New York.”
“Do you still want him?” She asked it not to hurt him but because she knew he had to say it now and then or die of it.
“Of course I want him,” he said briefly. “Drink your coffee. Your patient is howling for attention.”
Chapter Five
THREE WEEKS, Laura wrote in her diary, sitting in the living room while Beebo slept. Three weeks of this, and if it goes on much longer I’ll end up hating her. I felt so sorry for her at first. It was such a cruel thing and it hurt her terribly. But she’s well now—I know she is. She’s lying around getting fat and drinking like a fish and not working. If she doesn’t get back to work soon I’ll lose my mind. And she’ll lose her job for sure. They’ve been calling all week.
Laura hadn’t minded being a nurse at first. She tended Beebo gently and made her rest and, being unsure herself and hounded by her patient to forget it, she never did call a doctor. But Beebo seemed to come out of it fast. Physically the scars healed quickly. At the end of a week she was up and around. She hadn’t had a drink since the day it happened, and she talked about going back to work the next Monday.
But then Laura came home late one evening and she found Beebo drunk.
“Where the hell have you been?” Beebo shouted at her when Laura came in and found her in the kitchen. “I’m sick and miserable, I’ve just been through hell, and you can’t even come home from work to make my dinner for me.”
Confronted with such a bombardment of nonsense, Laura wouldn’t even answer her. She undressed and took a shower, but Beebo followed her into the bathroom and went right on yelling. Laura had pulled the shower curtain but Beebo opened it and watched her bathe.
“Laura,” she said, “where were you?” No answer. “Tell me. Tell me, damn it!” It was an order.
“Ask me like a civilized human being, then,” Laura said, turning around to rinse her soapy back.
“I’ll ask you any way I goddamn please. I have a right to know.”
Laura turned the water off and eyed her coldly. “I had dinner with Jack,” she said. “He dropped in after work.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Call him.” She stepped out of her bath, cool and dripping and haughty as a princess, and Beebo burned for her.
“I don’t believe a word he says. He always lies for you. No matter what I ask him he’s always got an answer. I used to like the guy, but Jesus, it’s gotten so I can’t trust him anymore. He’s always on your side.”
Laura wrapped herself in a towel and began to rub herself, but Beebo suddenly put her whiskey down and clasped her in a bear hug.
“Laura, darling, I felt so rotten today. And I looked forward so much to having you home. It’s so quiet and lonesome around here all day without Nix. I nearly go mad. Baby, I know I’ve taken up a lot of your time, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t ask those bastards to rape me.”
Laura relaxed slightly in the embrace, since she couldn’t squirm out of it. “You felt better today, not worse, Beebo. You told me so this morning.”
“That was this morning. I got worse this afternoon,” she said petulantly.
“You got worse at exactly five-thirty when I was fifteen minutes late.”
“Where were you?”
“With Jack. Beebo, you’ve been drinking. You promised me you wouldn’t.”
“If you’d been home I wouldn’t have to!” Beebo released her abruptly, picked up the whiskey glass with a swoop of her hand, and defiantly finished what was in it.
Laura cinched the towel around herself and approached Beebo. “Do you know what you’re saying, you nut?” she said. “You big fool? Beebo, answer me!” But Beebo turned her back and watched Laura with glittering eyes in the mirror on the medicine chest.
“You’re saying that you can’t stay sober without me, Beebo. Do you realize that?”
“I can’t stay sober if you don’t love me, Laura.”
“Oh, damn you, Beebo!” Laura almost wept with frustration. “You’re only saying that to make me feel guilty. To put the blame on me instead of on yourself where it belongs! I didn’t give you your first drink, God knows. I don’t ply you with liquor. You’ve fixed it with your conscience so no matter when you get drunk it’s my fault No matter how much you drink, you’re only drinking because Laura is such a bitch. Well, I won’t buy it! It’s a damn plot to make a prisoner of me!”
“A prisoner! Now where did little Bo-pe
ep get that fancy idea?” Beebo’s eyes were narrow and sharp in spite of the whiskey. Her anger brought clarity with it. “That sounds like the kind of propaganda Jack would spout.”
“No—” Laura began, but Beebo silenced her with a menacing wave of her hand. Laura found herself trapped against the bathroom door.
Beebo put a hand up on the door on either side of Laura and looked down at her. “Now, suppose you just tell me what Jack said,” she said.
“What makes you think Jack said it? I can think for myself and you know it, And I am a prisoner here!”
“You can’t think for yourself when Jack’s around. That bastard is the Pied Piper of Greenwich Village. He opens his yap and all the little fairies listen popeyed to whatever he has to say. Including you.”
Laura looked at her and found herself caught by Beebo’s spell again. Beebo was born to lose her temper. She looked wonderful when she did. It exasperated Laura to feel a bare animal desire for her at times like this.
“Jack said it. Come on. Jack said it, didn’t he?” Beebo insisted.
“All right!” Laura almost screamed. “Jack said it!”
She looked up at Beebo with embarrassed desire and to make her shame complete, Beebo saw it. And she knew she was in command again, even if only for an hour or so. Beebo was learning to live for those hours. The rest of the time nothing much mattered.
Beebo shifted support of her leaning body from her arms to Laura, lifted up Laura’s angry helpless face and kissed it. “Why aren’t you like this all the time?” she asked. And Laura startled her when she echoed, “Why aren’t you like this all the time?”
“Like what, baby? Drunk?”
“No…,“ Laura hesitated. She didn’t quite understand what she meant herself.
“Mad?” Beebo asked.
“I don’t know.”
Beebo laughed. “If it’ll help I’ll get mad and stay mad, Bo-peep. I’ll get drunk and stay drunk. Would you like that?” She interspersed her words with kisses.