Making Love

by Norman Bogner

  “I'm tired of silence,” his daughter replied.

  Joe Conlon angrily pushed his plate away and upset the salt cellar.

  “This is a time for thanksgiving and we oughta be givin’ it. This is the greatest country in the world and we're lucky to be alive and livin’ it. I like to think of meself as a progressive man with a modern outlook.”

  “That you are, Joe,” his wife averred to any doubters.

  “I've been through the depression, hauled garbage to feed my family, and I hate what's happenin’ to my country. I'm on the other side of the fence from Nixon, but good lord the man's tryin’ to salvage the wreckage. Any damn fool—excuse me, Father—can see that. Is it wrong not to want your daughter not using narcotics, or marryin’ a colored man, or prayin’ that she'll get the best possible education she can, and get married and raise a family? You don't have to be Irish or Catholic to want those things. Or havin’ the streets safe, so people can walk them? Human life must be protected....”

  He was drowned out by a chorus of amens.

  “Kids in the Village usin’ hard drugs, and sleepin’ with anyone that's got a motorcycle....”

  “But, Dad, they choose to live that way.”

  “Look to yourself, Patricia, and explain how someone with an A-minus average suddenly drops to a C-plus. The work gettin’ harder?”

  “Joe, leave her, will you,” Sally said. “This isn't the time—”

  “I'm her father and this company is her family, and we don't have to hide anything. Chargin’ wigs to your mother. Never heard of anythin’ so crazy in me life.”

  “The courses get harder as you go on, Dad,” Erin explained.

  “I don't agree. How's it that people start at the bottom of the ladder, then rise to the top? By dint of hard work.”

  “It's all this sex, coming to the surface,” Father Burns observed. “No one's against it; the church is for it, the Pope is, I am, so's your family, Patricia, but we're opposed to excess.” He was ready to launch into his fallen-woman sermon, but Conlon caught him of balance.

  “The next time I find an attractive man, I'll ask Christ's permission before I do anything foolish,” she said.

  “You haven't done anything yet?” her mother asked, panicky vows and prayers choking her voice. “You're a good girl, Pat.” She had the good sense to know that twenty-year-old virgins were a luxury, like French goose pâté.

  “Contentious, she is, that's all,” Joe said, dismissing the subject. After all, it was Thanksgiving, and there was something to be thankful for, although he wasn't sure now what it was.

  * * * *

  The rambling wooden frame house with its endless passages, four floors, and fleet of rooms had a real chance to become a third-rate boarding house, but it was free and clear and Joe had no reason to move into a high-rise or new neighborhood. The house, like Gaul, had been divided among children and grandchildren and would go to them when he and Sally were no longer there to call the shots.

  Jane went upstairs with Conlon to her girlhood room, an empty chamber of old memories.

  “I think you were a bit rough on them,” Jane said.

  “I've seen you with your parents, too.”

  “I'm a special case.”

  “You've singled yourself out as a special case.”

  “I'm suffering from the opposite problem. Too much freedom. I wanted to be told what to do.”

  “It's frightening....”

  “What is?”

  “Getting to know yourself,” Conlon said. “I should feel something about my old room, but all there is is a bed I cried in, a noisy radiator, and the smell of cabbage, which goes to prove one thing—I'm breaking out. I was thinking at dinner that—well, it's crazy but it's true. If I were Mel, I would've done the same thing. Extra piece on the side getting troublesome. Famous Jewish motto about women that's whispered into a boy's ear when he's thirteen. Use them, abuse them, lose them.”

  “Are you going to tell your family you're leaving school?”

  “I'll write to them in a while.” Her red hair and freckles were aflame with spite. “They're so damned provincial. You don't have to come from Tennessee to be a yokel. You just have to be Irish.”

  “They're nice, sweet people.”

  “Jane, I think your parents are, too. So don't be so fucking sentimental.”

  She noticed a curl of trees and a small fruit arbor in the back garden which the room overlooked, and she could imagine Conlon as a small girl playing out there after school, surrounded by brothers and friends, and doting parents who'd discovered that their youngest, their last, had the brains they'd all been denied.

  “It must've been fun growing up here.”

  “Like to change places?” Conlon asked sullenly.

  “Is that what you really want? I don't think you would've survived.”

  “What—on charge plates, and a Rolls to take me to school, and a dozen trips to Europe before I was sixteen? It would've killed me. Definitely. As well as a coming-out party at the Plaza, my picture and four addresses in the New York Times.” She paused in an attempt to restrain her undefined anger, but failed to control it. “Send out for the blood plasma and my masseuse and maybe that'll fix my overhead smash.”

  “I'll see you downstairs.”

  She gripped Jane's arm tightly and then dropped it.

  “Jane ... I'm sorry. You are a friend. Better than I deserve. It's just that I don't want to wind up with an honors degree teaching civics or become the head of the payroll department in some factory and marrying a junior executive who stays put for the thirty years because of the pension plan. What I loved about Mel was that he'd squander, and I had it drummed into my head to save, save, save. Until I met him, I'd never been in a restaurant with someone who got a decent table. They always had one for me just by the kitchen. And it isn't good enough for me.” She turned away, caught sight of her face in the dust-filled mirror. “Look at that face and all those fucking freckles. Why couldn't I have been born with a big Jewish or Italian nose that could've been fixed?”

  Jane moved away stealthily, leaving her glued to the unchanging image of herself. Joe Conlon waited for her at the foot of the stairs. Pale blue worried eyes, his faith hurrying away from him, an elusive rabbit on an unceasing hunt. He began innocently enough, unsubtle and awkward, for discipline had never taught him how to hide his feelings.

  “How's your family, Jane? Saw your father's name in the Times at one of those golf tourneys.”

  “They're fine.” Family always meant Nancy and Jim to her and she couldn't hear the word without thinking it curiously inapplicable. In her mind she sought putative brothers, sisters, obscure cousins, but they didn't exist. Both her parents were only children. “My mother's busy with her charities.”

  “They get around, don't they?” He faltered, waved her to an armchair, shouted to the next room—hearts were about to begin—that he'd be in shortly. “I daresay the stock market's affected them, too.”

  “They grin and bear it.”

  “It's been lean here, what with contributions and that assassin Lindsay. You look fit.”

  They sat in silence. She knew that he didn't want her to reply to the aimless small talk he'd begun. All the furniture in the room, used only for guests, had a look of careful preservation, like dummy food in a supermarket window. A wall of Conlon's triumphs built to a uniform rectangle reminded Jane and strangers that the house was a monument to her scholastic achievement. A professional exam taker, Conlon had suffered one ninety-eight percent in her statewide tests—in math—and this was disputed against her, for the question had called for working out the problem and not simply the right answer which Conlon provided.

  “What's wrong with her?” Joe asked. “You're her friend....”

  Jane hated herself for lying.

  “She's a little restless.”

  “Seems to me we're losin’ her. Right before my eyes. An’ I don't understand the reason for it. We see her rarely as it is. Somethin’ w
e've done?”

  “No, you haven't got anything to do with it.”

  “Doesn't make me feel any better, Jane.”

  Feeble and pleading for light, he wouldn't be reassured, even though he continued to nod in agreement when Jane spoke of student freedom, the virtues of legalized pot, lip-service Catholics. He understood but didn't.

  Conlon's mother came into the room.

  “They're askin’ if you're playin', Joe.”

  “In a minute. I'm talkin’ to Jane.”

  Hands on hips, Sally stood over them like a referee holding up play and they stopped, waited for her.

  “Patricia's awfully touchy tonight,” Sally said. “Is it a problem with a boy or—” she stopped suddenly, finding Delphic truth—"her period? She was always irritable when she came on.”

  “I don't know,” Jane said.

  “I don't like askin', but perhaps you could find out.”

  “If it's a boy or her period?”

  “Yes, dear. The two sometimes go together. She looks tired and drawn. Rings under the eyes are always a sign—” Conlon appeared in the doorway, carrying a suitcase. “Are you keepin’ up with your wheat germ, Patricia?”

  “Every second I can.”

  “Seriously, are you?”

  “Good night, Mother.”

  “Are they some winter things for school?” Joe asked, looking suspiciously at the old Woolworth suitcase.

  “Yes, Dad,” she said in a weary voice, then came toward her mother.

  The red hands held her face. They seemed to be permanently imprinted with a pattern of chilblains and smelled of ammonia. Through the kitchen door, she saw that the turkey was back in the roasting pan, imprisoned in a quicksand of gray fat. Frank sat sullen at the kitchen table, smoking a Camel and drinking coffee. He avoided looking at her, nursing a private grievance.

  “Say good-bye to your brother.”

  “Good night, Frank.”

  “I'll tell you something, Patricia. I don't think it's right to scoff at your own family.”

  “I can speak my mind.”

  “Well, dammit, you're getting an education and none of us around here has been that lucky, so you oughta know better.”

  “You had the chance when you got out of the service.”

  “I had a family to support.”

  “You were just horny, Frank. A simple fact. And the GI Bill wasn't designed to accommodate that. Good night, all.”

  “It sounds like you're gettin’ a truly worthwhile education.”

  “Make it up with your brother, Patricia,” her mother said, nervously rubbing glycerine on her hands.

  “She doesn't have to bother, Mother. You needn't drop by for Christmas, Patricia. We won't be expectin’ you.”

  Joe went to the hallway with the two girls and asked Conlon if she needed any help with her suitcase, but she shook him off and kicked open the unlatched door. She gave him a dutiful wooden peck on the cheek and then started down the walk.

  “Good sweet Christ, Sally,” they heard him say, “I waited all night for her to kiss me and....”

  Outside the crisp night air had a hint of snow and the sky hung low, laminated with a deep magenta glow, like a coloring process that had run. Conlon shook her head, carrying on an exclusive dialogue with herself while Jane wiped the ridge of ice from the windshield.

  “My father'll like the color of the sky. He'll be able to quote Matthew: ‘... the signs of the times ...’ Something like that. An indication of hypocrisy.” She got into the car, avoided the two faces pressed against the front-room window and looked straight down the quiet road she'd skated along as a child, then said bitterly:

  “My mother's knowledge of me revolves around two things—am I taking my wheat germ and what's my menstrual cycle doing. I haven't taken wheat germ since I left home, always hated it, and my period's never so much as given me a bellyache. Keep away from Irish bars and laborers and don't screw. With that kind of advice behind me, how can I possibly go wrong? I can conquer the world, face any problem, get straight A's, and live a happy, productive life.”

  “Conlon, you're a bitch.”

  “Well, maybe I'm finally learning something.”

  The blight of Kew Gardens behind them, they headed due east through the broken glass of Queens. Conlon fought with a jagged hangnail on her thumb. Jane couldn't quite see why concerned parents should cause her this degree of worry. Group love? Was that it? More than likely, since Conlon could holler with the best of them, and if the two men with their heavy portfolios hadn't known they were onto a sure thing, they would've run for their lives. By the same token, Conlon could have dialed 911 or the FBI if the indignities had been totally devoid of sexual merit.

  “Face it, Conlon, it wasn't so terrible the other night.”

  “It's awful, Jane ... you're right. I'm ashamed to admit it though. I'm a mark.”

  “If you'd been told what was going to happen, what would you've done?”

  “Thought about it.”

  “Not the least bit curious?”

  “Curious, yes,” Conlon said, then considered withdrawing from the discussion. “I cared about Mel. Are you in love with Sonny?”

  “Yes, I am. But that doesn't alter the fact that when I was in Marbella this summer, I fooled around.”

  She seldom made admissions about her personal life, but now, secure with Sonny, the summer seemed remote, a memory of old irrelevant facts. They couldn't touch her, and so she talked, wondering afterwards if she hadn't needed the exorcism, the small reward that goes with the confession of an unindictable misdemeanor. Conlon sulked, and Jane knew she wanted some evidence, so that Jane could hang alongside her. Nothing else, Jane realized, would make Conlon feel better. She had nothing to gain from such a reciprocal exchange, and it appealed to her innate philanthropical tendencies.

  “I met one of those fortyish married men, off for a three-day cheat. Perfect, even bronze, and you know they've been using half a dozen different suntan lotions, just so they're not missing anything, and of course a member of the lime after-shave club. Good dancer, flat stomach, Canadian exercises, and naturally the first thing he does is offer you an airline ticket.” She now had Conlon's attention. “Mr. Colored Shirts, that's what I called him. I watched him at the discotheque for an hour looking around for strays. He'd reached the two a.m. desperates, which meant that he was prepared to lay money on a lucky young lady. In a way, I suppose he reminded me of my father, which isn't all that significant. He was also staying at the Marbella Beach Club, so we went back together.

  “No monkey business with Mr. Colored Shirts. He came armed to the teeth with, well, like the rubbers of the world. Skins, Ramses, French ticklers, lubricants. I didn't know what was on his mind, disease or perversion. He and Mrs. Colored Shirts were separated. Seventeen years of marriage, three teen-agers, and wallet-size photographs. Mrs. Colored Shirts is attractive, hides her fortieth birthday very well, and can write a textbook on eye shadow.

  “The problem is, and now I know I'm in for confidences, some of the magic that was never there to begin with is starting to wear off. Missus is delicately boned and a little small on top. Part of the problem. Then with the exception of the three planned births, he's never come in anything that wasn't made of rubber because she isn't taking the pill or going to use anything to accommodate his climax. Withdrawing is unsatisfactory for a few important reasons. She's spent a fortune on linen, pastel sheets, monogrammed pillow cases, and she claims those stains never come out. He once slipped a pillow under her ass and she didn't speak to him for a week. The other thing is that when the stuff gets into her pubic hair, it's hard to wash out and it depresses her. Anal intercourse is out because she is neither fag nor sheep. Oral activities are strictly for blue films and guys with black socks....

  “Everyone's upset—the kids, her parents, his parents, she is, he is. So he's traveling the world with a blue Pan-Am bag full of condoms, duty-free scotch, miniflagons of cologne—and if that isn't enough, he
's also Jewish and his friends have taken her side, think he's behaving like an ass, and cut him at the country club.

  “We made it and it's good and long but he's having a little trouble firing his rockets. Either it's the booze or it's late or too much sun or Canadian exercises. I arrive before him and he says very sweetly:

  “'Can I ask you a personal favor?'”

  “I'm basically generous so he can ask me anything. I've already asked him one earlier. Skin or nothing. No flywheels, bear grease, vibrators, or Jergen's lotion. Can he please, please, please! use a Trojan, which reminds him of when he was a kid and enjoying sex with the fresh wonder of adolescence.... That's it.”

  Conlon responded positively to this operation scar, nodded her head vigorously.

  “It sounds revolting.”

  “Why? I enjoyed it.”

  She looked at Jane with unmistakable skepticism, and although she wanted to say something wry, it came out bitterly:

  “Jane, what makes you such a sweet, lovely, goddamned, silly liar? For God's sake, I've never even caught you masturbating.”

  “Some people never believe the truth.”

  “Oh, I believe you had affairs, but with muscle-bound beachboys who were the sons of millionaires.”

  “Conlon, you're a case.”

  “Honey, what happened to me was real, ugly life, not some Spanish fairy tale. And I'm not going to be used again.”

  Sonny loomed ahead, standing guard by the night depository, and Jane had a wave of anticipation. He had the confused movement of someone waiting to be picked up uncertain of the direction of his destiny. He circled the corner, and she blew the horn, still a light way from him. Conlon noticed her nerves, sneered disapprovingly, but Jane didn't notice. Jane had the kind of luck to use something, then return it to the store and get a double credit for it, while Conlon had to fight with the adjuster, make threats, ultimately plead, and thank her stars she'd got a fractional rebate. The commerce of luck, unfair, hopeless for the world's Patricia Conlons, she thought.