A Way of Life, Like Any Other

by Darcy O'Brien

  I borrowed my father’s rosary and got through the penance between communion and the last prayers. Dad must have wondered why my penance was bigger than his, but when we were having breakfast at his favorite coffee shop, where he knew the waitresses by their first names, he just asked me whether I was happy. I said I was, and asked him whether he had had a good Thanksgiving. He had taken Granny out to a restaurant run by an old shipmate of his because she needed a rest. Afterwards they watched television. It had been a good Thanksgiving, but he didn’t care about holidays so much any more. What had I done? I told him some of it. He said Sam Caliban must be a nice man and I said he was. Families could be great things if they worked right. His father and mother had never been apart. Granny had asked to see me. How about taking a drive down to the beach? We could all use the fresh air on a nice day. I said I had to get back to the Calibans and he said he understood.

  Being with my father had depressed me for some reason, and I was glad to get back and take a swim, but when Mr. Caliban woke up he got into an argument with Mrs. Caliban about how much money he had lost. He refused to say and she said she knew damned well he had gone the limit.

  “I don’t care what you do with your money,” she said, “just don’t you dare try cutting down my horse allowance. There’s going to be a revolution around here, not an evolution, a revolution.”

  “Did I say anything?”

  “You will. Just try it.”

  Jerry and I went into our room to get away from the noise. We lay on our beds watching a football game and Jerry told me about his date with Alice Arbeiter the night before. Alice had the biggest tits at Beverly Hills High. They were so big she had to have a custom made bra. She wasn’t very tall and she was skinny everywhere else, so her tits looked even bigger. She had absolutely spectacular jugs. Jerry had been dying to get his hands on them ever since he had first seen her walking across campus in a sweater jiggling to beat the band. It was like they had independent suspension because when she walked one would go up and down and then the other. Well last night he had made it, bare titty from Alice Arbeiter at the drive-in movie. There was a rumor that she was a prude but he had found out different. He had her tits out before the intermission and they were out during the whole second feature. They were even bigger than he had imagined, and they didn’t sag at all. He got his hands all over both of them and she went wild when he kissed them. They were so big and full that the light from the movie reflected off them and they probably attracted attention from the other cars. She had actually balanced a coke on one of them. But she wouldn’t let him into her pants. Next time. Next time she might just put out all the way.

  “Would you ever consider marrying her?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding? She failed algebra three times already. Besides, by the time she’s twenty-five those things are going to be down to her knees.”

  I told Jerry how I felt about Linda in my English class, and he said that Linda went out with guys from UCLA and was probably humping everyone of them. There was a rumor that Linda already had an abortion. I was sorry to hear that but I wanted to date her anyway.

  “We should have a double date,” Jerry said. “Me and Alice and you and Linda.” I thought of what it would be like sitting in the back seat of Jerry’s Mercury with my hand all over Linda’s thighs watching Jerry handle Alice’s enormous gar-boons in front. That would be something.

  Mr. Caliban didn’t like losing money, and when he did lose he tried to make it up as soon as possible. Mr. Ziff was glad to extend his credit, and in the next couple of months he flew to Las Vegas several times to try to win back his money. He wasn’t having any luck, and what made it worse, the picture he was working on, a jungle epic, was running into production difficulties and was over budget. It might turn out to be the first picture he ever lost money on, and it couldn’t have com e at a more inconvenient time. One evening in March we were sitting in the contour chairs waiting for Mr. Caliban to get home from the studio. Mrs. Caliban answered the telephone.

  “No. Sam’s not here. I’m expecting him soon. . . . Yes, I can take a message. . . . What’s that? . . . Who is this? What’re you trying to do, scare me to death?” She listened silently. It must have been very bad news. I wondered whether Mr. Caliban had been killed on the freeway. Then she took the receiver away from her ear and stared at it, as people do when the other party has hung up.

  “Pour me a gin, Jerry,” she said. “Make it a double. Oh my God.”

  Jerry asked her what had happened but she wouldn’t speak. When Mr. Caliban came in she rushed to his arms.

  “Bear, Bear, Big Bear! What are they trying to do to you? I was afraid you were already dead. Hold me, Bear, I can’t live without you.”

  “Reports of my death are premature,” Mr. Caliban said. “Mark Twain. What the hell is this?”

  “That’s what I want to know, Big Bear of my heart. Why do they want to kill you? Who would want to kill the sweetest guy on the face of the earth? Oh sweetest love Bear, they said they’d kill you.”

  Mr. Caliban made himself a drink and we all got into the chairs. Mrs. Caliban said this terrible voice on the phone had threatened to murder her Bear. The voice had said that if he didn’t take care of that matter and quick, his life wasn’t worth shit. That was what the voice had said.

  “It must be a mistake,” Mr. Caliban said. “There must be a thousand Sam Calibans in this godamned country. There’s a Sam Caliban in Jersey City. I’ll take care of it, Little Bear. Don’t you worry. There’s a million nuts loose in this country.”

  “I can’t take this,” Mrs. Caliban said. “I almost died of fright. Is there any Nembutal?”

  “Jerry, get your mother a Nembutal. Some bastard is scaring hell out of my wife. I’ll take care of it.”

  Mr. Caliban contemplated a Picasso.

  10

  PALM SPRINGS

  JERRY TOLD me his father was having a crisis. His father had a new girl friend, and that was probably at the heart of it. He had had girl friends off and on as long as Jerry could remember, but never anything serious. The new one was taking up too much of his time and was costing him money. He had cast her as the lead in the jungle epic. She had dark, shiny skin, big dark eyes, and gorgeous legs, and she had seemed absolutely typecast for the part of the girl who is raised by a cheetah family, but she couldn’t act worth a damn. Mr. Caliban had tried everything. He had even had her dialogue written out of the script so all she had to do was purr, and that could be dubbed, but she was hopeless. She ruined every scene she was in. So he had demoted her to a supporting role. She was pretty mad about that and he had had to make it up to her in other ways, Cartier rocks and a penthouse on South Rodeo Drive that set him back $500 a month, and he was wasting time and pots of cash keeping her happy. Imagine a man of his age going bananas just to keep his end in.

  And on top of her the gambling debts. After the threat Mr. Caliban called his friend Ziff. Mr. Ziff expressed shock and mortification and said he would get right on it, but it would probably be a good idea if Mr. Caliban made an installment payment on the debt, say $50,000. That would make it easier for Mr. Ziff to handle the hot-heads in the organization who didn’t understand what friendship was or how honorable Sam Caliban was. And one other thing though it probably wasn’t necessary to mention it. Mr. Ziff would do everything he could and would take the heat off, but he did have this responsibility to the stockholders. It was an awkward thing, but he did have this responsibility.

  Mr. Caliban got the picture. He went into action right away. But he didn’t want to dig into his capital, not yet any way. Hell, he could always take up a few rugs, and there were the paintings, but those were his insurance. They would see to it that Jerry could go to Harvard no matter what. The idea was to send Jerry to Harvard and then to the Harvard Law School so he could come out knowing enough to take care of problems just like this and save the family thousands in legal fees. Mr. Caliban had one more card to play before he dug into his capital. He would bankrol
l Nick the Greek. There was no better man with the dice anywhere and he made his living out of situations just like this. Nick the Greek always gambled on other people’s money and then took a cut of the winnings, a healthy cut, but Nick the Greek was worth it. He had no money of his own, he lived too high, but there was no better man with the dice. And Nick the Greek was a friend from way back. There was the time when Nick had had a heart attack. He had just crumpled over with the dice in his fist. At the admissions desk a nurse bent down over the stretcher and asked Nick the Greek for his health insurance card. He didn’t have one. The nurse asked to see a bank statement. Nick muttered, he was in great pain, that he wasn’t in the habit of carrying his fucking bank statement around with him. It was three in the morning, so they couldn’t telephone the bank, and Nick didn’t have a bank account then anyway. All he had was the money he had been bankrolled with and that couldn’t be used for a heart attack. The nurse was sorry, but they could not admit anyone without proof that he could pay the bill. The hospital would go broke letting just any sick person in. Nick told the nurse to get in touch with Sam Caliban. Nick almost died, but Mr. Caliban took care of things, and Nick had been in his debt ever since, morally. Nick would be only too happy to win back Mr. Caliban’s money. You needed a friend in this world. It was a tough world, but if you knew the right people it made things a little easier.

  Jerry and I went to Palm Springs the day Nick the Greek was to start winning back Mr. Caliban’s money. It was Easter vacation. I felt bad that I was going to miss Easter Sunday mass with my father, but the Palm Springs prospects looked too good. Mr. Caliban had lent his new girl friend to Jerry, because Mr. and Mrs. Caliban went to Hawaii every Easter, it was a family tradition. Tanya was every bit as sensational as Terry had described. It was too bad she couldn’t act, she had star quality.

  We were driving through Banning in the yellow Mercury. I was sitting in the back and when I leaned forward to look at the speedometer I could smell Tanya’s perfume. Jerry was doing ninety.

  “Hit a hundred Terry, and I’ll come,” Tanya said, “I swear I will.” He did. Tanya moved her bottom around and I craned to get a look. Her dress slid up her legs. “I came, I swear I did. God, you’re a great driver.” She put her head in Jerry’s lap and made cheetah noises. Now I couldn’t see anything but I could tell what she was up to.

  In about two miles Terry cried “Shee-it!” and Tanya asked for his handkerchief. He didn’t have one, so I handed mine over. I told her to keep it. The Joshua trees were there, Mt. San Jacinto had snow on it. A cop stopped us.

  “You were doing a hundred and five, buddy.”

  Jerry handed the cop a card. The cop said okay, but keep to the speed limit. Tanya said Mr. Caliban had given her one of the cards too.

  It was pleasant sitting by the pool watching Tanya dive in with hardly a ripple, but at night she and Jerry had each other and I had only The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. I read about how Steffens had had his first ejaculation back in the nineteenth century exercising horses around Sacramento, but through the wall noises of love disturbed my concentration. Tanya had tremendous energy and a wide vocabulary in her field. I came to admire her during those few days. I knew she had been petulant and difficult with Mr. Caliban but with Jerry she was just plain fun. She seemed at peace with herself and displayed a unity of mind and body that would confound philosophers. Jerry spoke to me privately of marrying her after he finished law school. His father would be well into his sixties by then and might not mind giving her up. Gratifying as a friend’s happiness can be, I wanted more for myself. My chief purpose in coming to Palm Springs had been to find Linda and to probe her interest in me. We had conversed in class, but all I really knew about her was that she shared my enthusiasm for Willa Cather’s descriptions of sod houses in Nebraska. The rest was rumor. I made a tour of the motels and discovered her alone by a pool unscrewing the cap on a bottle of Sea and Ski.

  “Let me do that for you,” I said, very bold.

  She acquiesced. Imagine my delight. I could touch her everywhere her bathing suit was not, and all for a perfectly legitimate purpose, to shield her flesh from harsh rays. She was like Lauren Bacall only a little less angular. The cream spread easily. I spread it gently, firmly, gently, lingering over her slim feet, which I had never before seen out of shoes, and when I ventured near the bottom of her suit, she didn’t stop me on either side. I bought us cokes and we discussed who else was in P.S.

  “I came down with Sharon. She’s been seeing this guy.”

  “You seeing anyone?”

  “Sure. I don’t know how I feel about Marty any more. You know Marty? He goes to UCLA”

  “Is he the big guy I’ve seen you with? He must be a jock.”

  “Football. All he cares about is football. ‘Course he’s in love with me.”

  “You in love with him?”

  “I don’t think I’m in love with anybody right now. We’re lavaliered though. I think I want somebody more intellectual.”

  “Listen. We could go to a movie tonight.”

  We went to see Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron in Daddy Long Legs. Linda leaned over and told me that she had gone to a movie with a guy once who had made a hole in the bottom of the popcorn box and put himself through it, and when she grabbed for popcorn she screamed and slapped him. After that we giggled every time we ate the popcorn, and we held hands for about the last fifteen minutes of the movie. I had borrowed Jerry’s car. I didn’t have a license but he had given me the card. I drove out into the desert, asking Linda questions so I could listen to her voice. I liked her voice so much that I had telephoned her often just to hear her say hello. Then I would hang up. She didn’t know this, of course, and I was smart enough not to tell her. Now I felt I could listen to her voice forever as we drove in the dark. I told her how much I admired her essays in English class and she said they weren’t as good as mine. I told her she had wit and sophistication and that she didn’t walk like the other girls. She walked like a model or a person with dignity. She asked didn’t I know that a lot of people hated her.

  “Some people say you’re a bitch,” I said. “I don’t think so. I think those people are inferior.”

  “I hate them,” she said. “I hate them so much I’d like to see them die. Don’t you hate some people that way?”

  “I don’t think I hate anybody. I’m not sure.”

  “That’s remarkable,” Linda said.

  I pulled off the road and parked in the desert. I started to say something but Linda told me to kiss her. We played with each other’s tongues and pressed our teeth together.

  “That’s the first time I ever kissed a Catholic,” Linda said.

  “Was it nice?”

  “Yes.”

  We kissed some more. I tried to put my hands in places but she did things with her arms and hands to keep me off, so I concentrated on the kissing.

  “I have to get back,” she said, and she drew away.

  “Why?”

  “I’m sorry. I promised I’d meet Marty. You know. We are lavaliered.”

  “But you said you didn’t love him.”

  “I know. But I have to get back. He’ll be mad.” She laughed a little. I said I guessed it was pretty funny, she and I like this, with them lavaliered and Marty waiting. We talked about love and marriage on the way back. She wanted to stay free all her life, whether she was married or not. Her mother got after her all the time. Her mother acted as though there were no such things as contraceptives. Linda said she was going to take a trip to Europe that summer and her mother wouldn’t be able to know what she was up to and neither would Marty. When I let her off I opened the door for her and kissed her right there in the street. Linda said she liked that and I was very brave because Marty was probably watching out the window of her motel room. She wanted to see me again. She’d let me know.

  When I got back to our motel I had some gin and orange juice with Tanya and Jerry in their room. Tanya was wearing a black diaphanous nigh
tie that disturbed me. I had stone ache.

  “Well,” Jerry said, “whad’ja catch?”

  “We made out,” I said. “Nothing much.”

  “I’ll bet,” Jerry said, and Tanya rolled over on him.

  I dreamt that Linda was waiting for me at the head of a long, broad winding staircase. Wind billowed curtains at high windows and stringed instruments played. We made love until I was lifted out of her arms by a whirlwind. I landed on a beach. The sun was hot and I looked out at a rock in the water. Linda was impaled, naked lying on her back, on the point of the rock. Blood poured out of her, washing away in the waves. What a beautiful dream, I thought. This must be love.

  11

  ENCORE BRENTWOOD

  AT THE Calibans one of the Picassos and the Rouault Christ were gone. Nick the Greek had fucked up. Mrs. Caliban had believed that the threat had been against another Sam Caliban, but now she had to face facts. Her horse racing allowance was cut in half.

  “How do you expect me to live?” she said. “I suppose I’ll be back scrubbing floors again.”

  “Relax, Bear,” Mr. Caliban said. “I wouldn’t let Irma go for anything.”

  “You care more about Irma than you do about me.”

  “You are number one in my life,” Mr. Caliban said. “Why don’t you go to the track every other day? That way you won’t notice the difference.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said. “It’s just not the same. Oh, Sammy. What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to make five pictures this year instead of three, that’s what we’re going to do. Ain’t no tragedy.”

  “You’ll kill yourself. You’ve got to take care of yourself. Why don’t we join a health club? I could lose a few pounds.”