Mom stopped; so did Constanza. Trying to look sly, but still looking mostly enraged and out of control, Mom said, “We got any more milk?"
“I no know," quavered Constanza.
“You're lying, you dirty wetback!" Mom yelled, and waved both arms around. ''Look in that refrigerator, and you'd better come up with something!"
Shaking with fear, Constanza stumbled to the refrigerator, managed on the second try to get it open, and brought out two full cartons of milk, which she set on the butcher block as though they were offerings to a violent god.
"Open them!”
The refrigerator door snicked itself shut behind Constanza as she fumbled open first one and then the other carton. Mom grabbed them, one at a time, poured out great gushing white streams of milk onto her head, drenching herself, sopping her old print dress, getting milk even into her shoes.
Over by the television set, Dad snickered but didn't look away from the golf game. "Pouring milk on her head again,” he told himself.
Mom flung the first carton away, and then the second, and they bounced and rolled around the room. Pointing past Constanza at the refrigerator, she yelled, "Give me that half-and-half! I saw that half-and-half in there!”
Constanza nodded spastically, backing away from Mom toward the refrigerator, not willing to look away from the older woman, but having to in order to open the refrigerator door, search the interior, bring out the nearly full small carton of half-and-half. On the other side of the room, Dad nodded his head in satisfaction, clucking the teeth in his hands.
The half-and-half poured more slowly through Mom's matted hair, down around her ears, through her eyebrows, and over her hot mad eyes. She hurled the empty carton back over her shoulder, away, away, anywhere. It barely missed Dad, who didn't even blink.
Mom took a deep breath, fists clenched, knuckles standing out against the thin white milk-stained flesh. "Heavy cream!” she screamed. "Give me heavy cream! I want heavy creeeeaaammmmmmm!”
23
I rock back and forth on my stinging rump, the heels of my hands pressed to my stinging eyes. Oh, this just came over me, this just came over me, I must regain control.
I regain control. I stop rocking back and forth. I lower my hands from my calm face. I say, “Finally, I just had to go down there to the beach house myself."
FLASHBACK 15E
Jack, in Hush Puppies and chinos and polo shirt, paced back and forth on the gray board deck of the Malibu house. Through the glass doors of the living room, Dad could be seen watching a bicycle race on television. Out of the curtained glass doors of the bedroom came Mom, soaking wet, furious, a crushed empty milk carton in her hand. She stomped across the deck toward Jack, her shoes making squelching sounds. "So there he is," she snarled. "The big man."
"Mom," Jack said helplessly, spreading his hands. "What do you want from me?"
"Airline tickets," Mom snapped.
Startled, not having expected this at all, Jack said, "What? Where to?"
"Home, of course." Mom gave the house a look of hate, gave the Pacific Ocean a look of hate, gave Jack a look of hate. She said, "What is this cruddy place to Dad and me? Nothing but sand and faggots everywhere. We want to go home to Grover's Corners, where we belong."
"Mom!" Jack cried, stricken. "You can't mean that! You can't leave me!"
“The hell I can't," Mom told him. “And I’ll knock you down if you get in my way."
Bitter, betrayed, deeply hurt, Jack raised himself to his full height and spoke with slow, mature grief. He said, “You don't love me. You never loved me. You never loved anybody. You don't know how to love."
With impatient asperity, Mom said, “Well, who ever said I did? I never wanted children in the first place. It was all your father's fault. He could never do anything right his whole entire life long. Though I do have to admit he was right when it came to this."
“When it came to what?" Jack asked.
“You," Mom told him. “We didn't have children, we had you. Mewling and puking, whining about yourself from the day you were born. A weakling and a coward. You'll never amount to anything."
“But—" Jack stared at her, not knowing where to start. “I make millions!" he cried. “I'm rich and famous! They write me up in magazines!" Madly, wildly gesturing at the house, he cried, “Look what I bought you!"
“You'll never buy me, Sunny Jim," Mom said. She threw the empty milk carton at his feet, spun about, and marched back into the house.
Jack, devastated, slowly sank to his knees, staring through the glass doors into the house. On his knees, he kept going, curving slowly in over his stomach, his torso bending downward until his forehead touched the warm wood of the deck. He stayed in that position, hands folded over stomach, forehead and knees and toes touching the deck. A faint moaning sound came from him.
24
A faint moaning sound comes from me. I close my mouth over it, and when that doesn't work I close my throat. This time, that's all it takes. (Sometimes, I have to close my hands around my throat and squeeze real tight to make it stop. I'm glad I don't have to do that in front of Michael O'Connor, intrepid reporter.)
Calm again, I say, “Well, I felt I had to go along with Mom's wishes."
Sympathy in his voice, O'Connor says, “She was a little rough on you, wasn't she?"
“We all have our needs," I assure him, feeling how placid I am, how easy in my mind. “I bought those airline tickets for Mom and Dad and said good-bye. Buddy drove them to the airport. All that was left was to have Constanza stop the milk deliveries, and it was as though the whole episode had never been."
“But—" O'Connor says. “You wanted them there. That was the whole point, wasn't it?"
“Their needs were different from mine," I say, smiling and smiling. “Besides, it all worked itself out, finally. It meant the house at the beach was available soon after that when I needed it."
“Needed it?"
“Yes." Remembered sunshine floods my eyes. “Just around that time, you see," I say, “I fell in love again."
FLASHBACK 17
The living room of the beach house looked much as it had before, except that now the walls were completely lined with bookcases filled with heavy serious tomes. These bookcases caused the furniture to be moved inward, cutting down on party space, making the room cozier but less open. The television set was gone. The fire in the central white-brick fireplace was the same as before, a neat construct of large logs, burning slowly with lovely dancing flames in orange and red that gave more beauty than heat.
Lorraine Morriswood entered the room. A tall, slender, beautiful, brainy young woman in tailored tweeds and dark-rimmed glasses, Lorraine moved with a kind of horsy assurance that was simultaneously elegant and very erotic. She circled the room, obviously looking for something, and just as obviously not finding it. Finally she stopped, raised her head, and called, "Darling?"
From somewhere else in the house, Jack's voice answered, calling, "Yes, darling?"
"Darling," called Lorraine, "where's Kierkegaard?"
Jack strolled into the room, wearing black loafers, dark slacks, tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, and a paisley ascot. “Gosh, darling,” he said, “I haven't seen it.” Pointing to a nearby end table, Lorraine said, “I'm sure, darling, I left it right there.”
Jack looked around, then snapped his fingers and said, 111 know, darling. I bet Constanza put it away when she was in here cleaning.”
Lorraine turned in a slow ironic circle, on her face an expression of mock despair as she gazed helplessly at all the bookcases. “Oh, dear, darling,” she said. “And Con- stanza's hopeless when it comes to the alphabet. Lord knows where poor old Keirkegaard's got to.”
Jack, with a merry laugh, took her by the elbow, stopping her steady circling motion, turning her toward him. “I tell you what, darling,” he said. “Let's let poor old Kierkegaard just go hang for a while.”
“Why, darling,” Lorraine said, with an arch look, “whatever ca
n you mean?”
“You know, darling,” Jack told her, and his hand stroked slowly up and down her arm.
She laughed, a rich throaty sound, her head thrown back. Removing her glasses, she dropped them on the table from which Kierkegaard had disappeared, then reached up and back to remove the barrettes holding her rich full hair. Auburn waves shook loose, framing her face, reflecting deep reds from the fireplace. She threw her long arms around Jack, and passionately they embraced. Laughing, kissing, fondling, licking, murmuring, stripping the clothes away from each other, they descended toward the fur rug stretched before the fire. A warm musk filled the air. . . .
25
There. See? There are happy memories. In isolation, there are moments in one's history one can look back upon with pleasure, saying to oneself, of oneself, “Then it was good to be alive."
I smile at Michael, who will never in his drab life know even one moment like those evenings in front of the fire with sweet Lorraine. "This is how we met," I say. "Lorraine Morriswood was doing her doctoral thesis at Chicago on Post-Camp Male Nonaggression in the Popular Arts. Naturally, I was one of the people she had to interview."
"Sure," O'Connor says. "Makes sense."
"Just like you're interviewing me now, Michael," I say. "Only, that time it led to greater things."
"She was your second wife," O'Connor says. The brilliant researcher struts his stuff again.
"That's right," I agree. "Lorraine and I sensed right away we were meant for each other. It was a whirlwind romance, taking us both out of our mundane concerns, our everyday affairs."
"I guess you figured you were due for some happiness right around then/' O'Connor says. *
"Very good, Michael," I say, smiling upon him, pleased to find in him this unexpected capacity for the dramatic mot. I may even read the piece he writes on me. "Anyway," I say, "we had, Lorraine and I had, a small private wedding at the London Registry Office."
"I remember," O'Connor says, "the news footage of the two of you coming out of there, protected by the bobbies, with the big crowd of fans in the street."
"They're there all the time,” I say modestly. "I believe they camp out there. Some say they've been there since the Paul McCartney wedding, others that it goes back as far as Elizabeth Taylor. Some scholars suggest a Druid connection, but I myself don't go that far. In any event, as you may have surmised, Lorraine introduced me to a world I'd never known, a world of the mind. Through Lorraine, I met some of the foremost thinkers of our time, men and women who could understand a universe in a grain of sand. And Lorraine . . . Lorraine understood me more deeply and truly than anyone ever before, or since."
FLASHBACK 17A
The beach along here, in the fog, was empty, untouched, timeless. It wasn't even possible to guess the time of day, except to know that it was day, the sun far off somewhere creating a luminous pearl- escence in the haze, so that every drop of suspended moisture in the air was distinct and separate, another silver-gray perfect beryl. In this gauzy light, the broad tan beach was as clean as the evening of the first day of creation, while the modestly murmuring sea was a textured charcoal gray with highlights in streaks of white, lapping along the shore. Visibility was down to perhaps eight or ten feet, so it was possible to think of oneself as being alone on the planet; or not even a planet, but some small asteroid, far from the trials of life.
Jack and his Lorraine came striding easily through the luminous fog, dressed in similar laced boots and baggy corduroy slacks and windbreakers with the hoods up around their faces. They walked hand in hand, and the fog condensed on their cheeks, sparkling there. "Gosh, darling," Jack said, "it's almost as though it's the beginning of the world, as though we're the first humans ever. Do you suppose we'd make the same sort of mistakes?"
Laughing at him with friendly familiarity, Lorraine said, "But, darling, how could you be the first man? You're so much closer to the last."
Jack's smile grew blank. "I don't think I follow, darling," he said.
Lorraine shook her head, lovingly amused. "You know," she said, "it's fascinating sometimes to see how unaware you remain of your symbolic relationship with the mass audience."
"Unaware?" Jack asked. "Do you think so?"
"Yes, of course, darling," Lorraine told him. "Do you have any idea who you really are?"
"I'm a movie star, darling."
"Yes, but why you'?” Lorraine asked him. "Why do millions of people spend money to see you in the movies?"
"Gosh, darling," Jack said, open-eyed and clear-browed, "I don't know."
"You are, of course, wonderfully talented, darling," Lorraine said, "but honestly, you know, so are others. From the pool of talent in the world, the mass audience always chooses that one person, that tiny group of individuals, who represent the ethos of the age, its quintessence, its spirit and vitals. You are of that band, darling. Your talent launched you, but now it's the age itself that drives you. Another pilot is at the wheel. You are no longer under your own control."
"Sounds almost frightening," Jack said, with a light but respectful laugh.
"The symbolic freight you carry, darling," Lorraine assured him, "would crush a lesser man."
Pleased, smiling like a puppy, Jack said, "Do you really think so, darling?"
"Darling," Lorraine said, holding tightly to his hand as they strode along the beach, "in many ways you're a monster, a statement of infantile voracious appetite. And yet at the same time you are God's holy fool, the sacred monster, the innocent untouched by the harshness of reality. You can be the hero, incredibly strong, and yet even I don't know the depths of your vulnerability."
Jack loved to hear talk about himself. He listened as they walked together, nodding, absorbed in what she was saying. "Tell me more," he said.
Lorraine was willing. "And yet, darling," she said, "in some ways you can represent evil as well. The innocent and the slayer of innocence all commingled together in one powerfully attractive package. And yet, how lightly you bear this burden."
With a brave laugh, looking at his Lorraine, Jack said, "Gosh, darling!"
The two walked on, along the beach, beside the whispering ocean, into the fog.
26
"Never had I known anyone so interested in me." I smile in contented reverie at my interlocutor. “Do you know what I mean, Michael?" I am remembering his name, even that. I am under control, by God, I am the captain of my fucking fate, I am the master of whatchamacallit. I say, “I don't mean interested, you know? I mean . . . interested! You know?"
“I think I do," he says, gazing at me over his knees and his notebook and his pencil and his nothing nose.
“I mean," I explain further, “you’re interested in me, right?"
“Yes, I am," he says.
“Your readers are interested in me," I say. “People going to the movies are interested in me. Everybody’s interested in me. But not like Lorraine. She really dug down in there. She really wanted to know me. But thank God she didn't care about the details, you see what I mean?"
He frowns. “No," he says simply.
“Lorraine wasn't interested in my biography,” I tell Michael O'Connor. “She was interested in my meaning. My biography is trash, don't you think I know that? Pop paperback history, a million pretentious movies, the same elements over and over again. The religious interlude, the failed rapprochement with the parents, the ghastly secret in the past, the casting couch, the betrayals, the glitzy locations, the glamorous diseased marriages, the problems with mood enhancers, the whole shmear. Lorraine didn't care about any of that. Her interest in me went deeper, into why these images are so powerful, why the population sifts itself over and over again for the same histories, the same qualities, the same doomed glamour."
O'Connor nods but doesn't write anything. "What conclusion did she come to?" he asks me.
I shake my head, disappointed in him. "Intellectuals do not come to conclusions, Michael," I tell him. "Intellectuals consider the situation. That's enough for
them."
"And it was enough for you, too?"
"It was paradise," I say. "And yet, almost from the beginning, there were these small signs of trouble ahead."
FLASHBACK 17B
The Malibu kitchen was clean again, once more carefully tended and polished. The television set was gone from the small white table, the fingerprints were gone from the refrigerator, the hanging copper pots gleamed as before, and everything was in its place with a bright shining face.
At the butcher-block island, Jack stood, neatly and absorbedly preparing a peanut butter sandwich on pumpernickel bread. From some other room in the house came a sound rather like a clap or a slap; Jack looked up, attentive, listening, but the sound was not repeated. He returned to his peanut butter and his pumpernickel.
Buddy entered the kitchen, rubbing the side of his face, but when he saw Jack his hand dropped immediately to his side and he forced a kind of careless but lopsided grin, saying, "Hey, how's it goin’, Dad?"
Jack smiled at him. "I say Nietzsche was right: Happiness is a woman."
Lorraine came into the kitchen, looking grim and flexing the fingers of her right hand. When she saw Jack and
Buddy, she dropped her hand to her side, ignored Buddy, and spoke lightly to Jack, saying, “Oh, hello, darling."
“Hello, darling," Jack said.
Buddy was awkward in the presence of these two together. Trying to hide the fact, he scuffed his feet and behaved in an elaborately casual manner. “Well, I'm off," he said, too brightly. “I've been invited to watch the Rams scrimmage. Wanna come along, Dad?"
Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 Page 10