Go Naked In The World

by Chamales, Tom T. ;

  “Do you have to get so wounded so easily, Nick?” she said.

  “Christ, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve only been home a couple of days and my family’s on my back. Now my friends are starting. I haven’t done anything, honest.”

  “No, I guess you haven’t. But you’re about to. I know you that well.”

  He took her hand in a friendly way. Well, he’d ask her to take a drive and have a drink. And if she didn’t want to go, the hell with her. He’d call Nora. He wasn’t going to sit around here and let this rich-bitch lecture to him all afternoon on how to act the way a youthful suburbanite should act.

  “I think I’ll take a drive,” he said. “Would you like to come along. Maybe have a drink. Or a late lunch.”

  “Is the top down?” she asked. “I want to get some sun today, Nick.”

  “It’s down,” he said.

  “Good,” she said. “I’d like a drive in the sun.”

  They walked back and picked up her beach towel and when they got to the car, he put on a sport shirt and they drove out west past the forest preserve to a tavern that they had gone to often together back before the war. She was surprised when he ordered a stinger for them. That had been “their” drink back in the summer when they used to listen to Helen O’Connell sing “Green Eyes” and “Amapola,” and she didn’t think he would remember.

  They had their first drink leisurely listening to the music from the juke box and talking about the days before the war, standing there at the bar in the bare feet—he with his sport shirt on, and she with a man’s shirt that would have fitted him over her two-piece suit. It was a rustic old place, with a big stone fireplace, that did most of its business at night, but stayed open in the daytime because of the country club people from the three clubs nearby who used to drop in in the afternoons, and sometimes for lunch. It was dark and cool in the place, and now they were the only ones there.

  “I don’t think I’ve been here since the last time we were here together,” she lied to him.

  “It must have changed hands,” he said.

  “Maybe the owners are in the Army,” she said.

  “Or dead,” he said.

  “Okay, Morbid,” she smiled. “Or dead. Who was that girl, I mean woman, you were with the other night—Nora.”

  “I met her in Chicago,” he said. “A mutual friend introduced us. I’d never met her before, but I knew her husband,” he lied suddenly, not knowing why he had lied again. “He’s dead.”

  “She’s a little old for you, isn’t she?”

  He grinned. “I don’t know if she is or not,” he said. “She’s fun.”

  “I didn’t think you believed Catholic girls could be fun.”

  “How’d you know she was Catholic?”

  “We went to the ladies’ room together,” she said. “She went to St. Mary’s, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said, wondering what this rich-bitch had said to Nora in the ladies’ room. Certainly she had tried to bitch it up. She had real talent for that, this one. A real subtle talent.

  “You been going with Raul much?” he asked her.

  “Raul’s a good friend of mine, Nick. You know we’ve been friends since we were small. Our families have known each other since we were children.”

  “Another drink?” he asked her.

  “Don’t drink a lot this afternoon, Nick. Please.”

  “I don’t intend to,” he said. “But will you have another?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll take a little ride.”

  “All right,” she said.

  He put his arm around her and pulled himself up close to her right there at the bar while the bartender was making the drinks. And held her close, and bent over and kissed her gently, and felt her fingers clamp on his arm.

  “You can be so gentle sometimes,” she said, her nun’s face inches from the scar on his face. “I like you when you’re like that. Remember how we used to read poetry?” she said.

  “And write it,” he said. “I wish I could write like you. You could really write if you wanted to, I think. If you’d let yourself go.”

  “I still write it,” she said.

  The drink came and she played the juke box. The first song was Rhapsody in Blue.

  “Remember when you read Green Mansions the first time? How you wanted to run away to South America?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then you began to read Ibanez and you wanted to go to Spain.”

  “To Valencia,” he said. “His young books were good. Flor de Mayo. Barrac. And Blood and Sand. That was a good book—Blood and Sand.”

  “Kipling,” she said. “And all excited, you wanted to go to India. Do you realize how you used to bore some people about your plans. ‘Kipling said this, and Kipling said that. And Blasco Ibanez said this, and Hudson said that’,” she said, laughing.

  “We had fun, didn’t we,” he said.

  “Yes, we did,” she smiled.

  “Remember that place we used to go to in the woods and talk?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go there,” he said. “I’d like to go there.”

  “All right, Nick. If you want to,” she said. “If you’re sure you want to.”

  He didn’t answer, but paid for the drinks, and they got into the car and drove out to the forest preserve, and parked far back, and got out and he took the beach towel and they walked back into the woods on a small trail they knew, then up a slight hill with the trees tall around them and much shade...then off the trail, carefully and slowly, she still in her bare feet—they were tender, he could tell, and down the side of a small canyon and into a clearing of flat grass, midst heavy green foliage, near a small stream, he put the towel down carefully and looked up at her. She was staring at him in that round, slightly bitchy, slightly afraid way she would sometimes stare; and still staring at him, reached up her arms behind her and undid the top piece of the two-piece suit and threw it on the ground, and he stood there as if mesmerized, staring at the young rose fresh breasts and the tree shadows that sliced across her body so quietly; standing there, he suddenly seemed to see, intermingled with the slight bitchery and slight afraidness, a strange sense of power, of mastery, about her and he was suddenly struck half dumb, almost terrified dumb, by the sudden perception (it was so horrifyingly strange). Then she undid the zipper on the side of her suit and slipped out of it, and stood there eyeing him.

  “Well,” she said after a moment, “this is what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  He just stood there as the half-dumb terror and shock went away; then the reality of what she had just said began to sink in—angrily.

  “Did you have to say that?” he said softly, but tightly. Then began to walk towards her and brought her up close. “Did you?” he asked, holding her shoulders tight in his hands.

  “No,” she said, almost relieved. “No—” she said fiercely.

  It was dark in the woods in the mid-afternoon, and cool from the heavy green foliage and the tall trees. And it was quiet with only bird sounds, and quiet from the lines of sun rays that edged through the trees. They stayed in the woods over an hour and a half and did not speak of poetry or war, or of before the war very much. They had bathed in the small stream, nude, and played their childhood game of splashing water on each other and had gone back to the towel in the clearing and later had bathed again.

  In the car she sat close to him and rested her head on his shoulder, and they decided they would ride for a while. As they came out of the woods on to the highway, she began to cry softly.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked her.

  She kept on crying softly and he could feel the tears hot and wet on his bare arm.

  “What is it, Ellen?” he asked again.

  “Nick,” she said, “did you—did you have to,” she cried.

  Oh Christ, he said to himself, here comes that goddamn Catholic guilt again. He patted her hand.

  “I thought
everything would be so—so different now,” she said, her voice quivering.

  “What’s wrong?” he said. “We didn’t do anything wrong. For God’s sake, Ellen.”

  “Don’t you understand anything?” she said with a genuine sense of frustration. “Consider anything? How anybody else feels.”

  He was truly bewildered now, and knew from experience that practically anything he would say would be wrong, so he decided not to say anything, but he was feeling very uncomfortable, and trapped, and caged in—and suddenly almost panicked—wanting to end this scene, which he felt somehow now bordered on the edge of hysteria as far as she was concerned.

  He drove straight back to the tavern as quickly as he could without making her suspicious that he was in a hurry. She didn’t want to go in, but he held her for a moment, wanting almost to scream as he did so, wanting this business that he did not know how to cope with (and feeling guilty because he did not, and for other reasons) to be over, and she finally consented to go into the ladies’ room and freshen up.

  At the bar he had a drink for her when she came out. It was straight brandy and he had already decided it was the only drink he would let her have. He knew what she could be like when she felt like this and had too much to drink.

  “I’m sorry, Nick,” she said when she came out. “I guess I just can’t explain it to you.” She was still red-eyed.

  He handed her the drink and went over and played a couple of Benny Goodman records on the juke box, and came back. She had to call home to see if her father had returned from Chicago, she said. If he hadn’t, she had to go home and pick up the car and get her mother at the country club. She made the call and came back.

  “Will you pick me up for the party tomorrow,” she said.

  “Sure,” he lied. Then, “Oh God, I can’t, Ellen. I promised Raul’s father I’d bring Nora. Jesus, I forgot all about it,” he said, taking a quick drink.

  She stood there at the bar in the oversized shirt over her black two-piece bathing suit, staring at the brandy snifter sadly with that nun-like sadness, but really wanting for a moment to laugh, to laugh at him and let him know she knew he was lying. What a rotten liar he was when you got to know him. And it seemed suddenly to her that he was always lying, even when he could tell the truth, he would suddenly lie. It made her want to laugh again. He was such a fool sometimes. Such a little boy fool, she thought, staring her best sad, nun sad, stare at the brandy snifter.

  “You’re in love with her, aren’t you, Nick?”

  “For God’s sake, Ellen, I’ve only been out with her once. And that was as a favor to her husband, more or less. I told you I knew her husband. I didn’t invite her to Raul’s party. You know that. You were there. You know damn well I didn’t.”

  “I believe you, Nick. I’m sorry. I’m a little upset. That’s all.”

  “I’m sorry too,” he said.

  “Will you drive me out to the country club to pick up my mother? We could have a drink at the pool out there. Mother would love to see you.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Of course I will. I’d like to see your mother, too.”

  They finished and went out to the country club, which was the most exclusive of all the country clubs in the area. There were only eighty-five members, Ellen reminded him on the way out, and six hundred on the waiting list. She didn’t have to remind him, though—he had heard it so often. Then she added (she always added it), of course, if Nick’s family wanted to join, her father would do everything he could to see that they got in as soon as possible; he was on the board.

  At the country club they went to the cabana bar by the pool side. Her mother was playing gin rummy in the sun near the cabana and drinking gin and tonic. They said hello to her and went over to the bar to wait for her to finish. She looked like an older version of her daughter, and was very pleasant, and seemed genuinely happy to see Nick.

  It was strange standing by the pool side, with everything so clean and formal and rich, and the championship golf course sprawling off—rolling and manicured and green down below; the waiters in their white jackets, and the maids in their white uniforms, and the little rich war babies playing in the kiddies’ pool; the tanned bodies of the young, just-returned-from Smith, Wellesley, Marymount, Finch, and Radcliffe young ladies; and the young war-wives, young ladies, and the older sophisticated ladies; and the round-faced sweating men still in their golfing outfits, sweating and round-faced rich, and the young men just returned from their Eastern schools with their slightly Eastern rich dress and their slow drinking, strictly Eastern school mannerisms. (Wasn’t there any draft here?)

  It was so hard to believe that somewhere in the world men could possibly be dying. That in the rubble that was Germany, half-starved animalistic little children stole and murdered and scrounged and lied and cheated just to exist, just to live in the debris of their hovels. In India, parts of India, there was so little food that the rats had become maddened and packed together to attack the populace. And that in Russia another purge was on (the war had not killed enough) so that there would be fewer men to share the nation’s ration

  they did not know here

  They hid, he thought, behind the sin of Adam, and therefore hid behind the sin of all the ages. Hid behind that sin the barbarism of the Inquisition. Hid behind that sin (the white man’s own sin) of the purge and degradation of the dark skinned races, and ironically, forced upon themselves the darkness that was their age. Hid behind that sin (Adam’s sin)—the sin of war, and though as men, they would not deny the sin (no, these people would not deny it) but here behind their self-complacency, their normalcy, they lived in the woolly state, that though there was the sin of war, it was others who had committed it. As men, he thought bitterly, behind all this they were not men that were a part of human nature and therefore did not have to bear the sin of the ages, only the fruits—he thought, as if they honestly believed they could stand outside the evil gray-black shadows of these centuries of sin. If there was such a thing as sin—no, there was really only one sin: the sin of Adam. What an atom of a sin, Nick thought, was Adam’s, beside all this.

  Ellen went into the clubhouse to pick up some things she wanted to take home to have laundered, and when she returned they finished their drinks. Ellen signed the check with a nonchalant flourish that almost made Nick wince; then Ellen’s mother joined them and they began the drive home.

  “I thought it would be nice if we had Nick over to dinner some night this week,” Ellen said to her mother in the car. Ellen was in the middle of the front seat.

  “Fine, Ellen,” her mother said. “What night would be convenient, Nick?”

  “Well, I—I don’t know. Really I don’t,” he said. “You know, I just got back.”

  “Almost any night would be fine, wouldn’t it, Mother?” Ellen said.

  “Well, I’m busy Monday,” Nick said.

  “How about Tuesday then?” Ellen said. “That’s bingo night at the club, too.”

  “How would you like that?” Ellen’s mother asked Nick.

  “Tuesday,” he said. “Sure, Tuesday would be fine.”

  He pulled up in front of their house.

  “Come on in, Nick,” Ellen said.

  “I can’t, Ellen. I’d like to, but I really can’t. I’ve got to go to confession down at the Greek church,” he lied. “I’m going to church with the family tomorrow.”

  “Come on,” Ellen said, “just for a while.”

  “If Nick has to run on, let him,” her mother said. “We’ll be seeing Nick at dinner this week.”

  Her mother got out of the car. Nick started to get out to help her, but she insisted he remain seated, and said goodbye and walked away.

  Nick talked to Ellen for a moment and said he would see her at Raul’s party tomorrow, and if he could, would try to break his date with Nora and take her, and if he couldn’t, would come early for dinner Tuesday so that she could read him some of her poetry. He kissed her goodbye and walked her to the door and kissed her a
gain lightly, and left.

  As soon as Ellen was inside, her mother called her. “I like that boy, Ellen,” she said. “Oh, he’s not very polished, I admit. But your father wasn’t either when I met him.”

  “I like Nick too,” she said.

  “You always have, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. I think I understand him. We like so many of the same things.”

  “It’s too bad he isn’t Catholic,” her mother said.

  “Who isn’t Catholic?” her father said, coming into the room.

  “Nick,” Ellen said. “Nick Stratton.”

  “Was he here?” her father asked. “His father’s the talk of LaSalle Street. He’s cleaning up with those theatres, I hear—I’d like to see Nick.”

  “He’s coming to dinner this week,” Ellen said.

  “Good—good,” the father said. “You know, it is too bad he isn’t Catholic. His mother is, though, isn’t she?”

  “Mary’s a good friend of mine,” the mother said.

  “You ought to give her a call some time,” the father said, sitting down. He signaled for his daughter to come over. She did. And sat down on his knee and put one arm around him and kissed him.

  “What did you do today?” he asked her.

  “Had fun,” she said, and began to muss his hair.

  “You always have fun, don’t you?”

  “No,” she smiled. “But I did today,” she said, and kept on mussing his hair.

  CHAPTER XX

  CHURCH that Sunday was quite an affair. When the Strattons had arrived, which was a little after nine, Old Pete sent Mary and Yvonne into the church proper and took Nick down to the priest’s office. Only the very highest of the hierarchy, such as Old Pete and Lou Duck and the Stratos brothers, were invited into this inner sanctum of the church where, on Sunday mornings, this elite group would gather to drink Greek brandy, perhaps even play cards, and pass the time until the collection was taken, which was near the end of the service—usually around one o’clock, the service usually being four and a half hours long.

  Nick was really very surprised at being invited down to the office. It was unheard of, anyone as young and un-established as Nick being invited into the office on Sunday morning. It made Nick realize, heading for the priest s office, that this was indeed a much bigger occasion as far as Old Pete was concerned than Nick would ever have conceived. Indeed, as far as Old Pete was concerned, an event of major proportion.