Making Love

by Norman Bogner

  “Don’ want to start on the wrong foot with you, Jane. Reliefville you can forget. I been thinkin’ a couple of things like takin’ a course in printin', which has a strong union and you get top dollar once you qualify. Or motel management. You spend an hour a day studyin', take some kinda exam, then the school gets you located. I think it's more my line, you know, bein’ social with people excetera,” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I see I finally struck home with you. I'm findin’ myself an’ if I know I could count on you, it would be so much easier.”

  His skin color turned a liverish yellow and his arm moved around his stomach.

  “What's the matter?”

  “I was so nervous about seem’ you—” He broke off and lurched into the bathroom. He began heaving. When she attempted to come in, he cried, “Please, don't...”

  An empty-belly drunk. She'd grown up with it, impossible to disguise no matter what it was called. Nancy had lost servants by the dozen who no matter what salary she offered refused to clean up vomit, and Jane had been saddled with the task. The last time she had done it, she remembered telling her mother: “I guess I really do love you,” a reasonable explanation wasted, since Nancy had already lapsed into unconsciousness.

  “Are you okay?” she called out.

  She heard him gasping for air, the water running, and the painful moans of relief.

  “Yeah, but don’ come in. I made a mess.”

  She pushed open the door and saw him with his head under the faucet, water splaying in every direction. She stooped down to look for some old rags that Mrs. Burke kept in a carton below the sink.

  “Oh, Christ, what a thing to happen,” he protested. “All over me.”

  “Take your clothes off and get into the bath,” she said.

  “Jane, I'm sorry.”

  He wobbled, more drunk than before, losing his equilibrium.

  “Just do what I say, will you?”

  “I can't move.”

  She peeled off his clothes, ran the bath water, then hurried out for a mop. When she came back, he was in the tub, dozing. He'd knocked over the carton of cleaning materials and she saw that a number of children's toys were in the bottom, one of which had tumbled into the bath with him. A small red speedboat. She nudged him, but couldn't rouse him, then turned the shower to cold, hoping the shock would revive him. She picked up her tooth glass and poured cold water over his neck. He grumbled, fluttered his eyes, and stared dumbly at her, disoriented.

  “Wha’ happened?”

  “You passed out.”

  “I thought you wasn't speakin’ to me....” His mind again lapsed, and she repeated the ice-water treatment, this time successfully.

  “How are you now?”

  “Hazy but better.”

  “Can I leave you for a minute? I want to get rid of this stuff.”

  “Sure....”

  “You won't fall asleep?”

  “No. The cold water's good, like I was in the locker room after a game.”

  “You were.”

  She disposed of his clothes, the rags, and mophead in the incinerator and rushed back to the apartment. The phone was ringing and she darted into see if he was all right before answering. He sat in the tub, his concentration absorbed by the small boat, and she realized that he was safe and playing.

  “Hello, Jane, this is Charles....”

  The voice sounded faraway, unreal.

  “I phoned before but there was no answer.”

  “I'm tied up.”

  “I hope this doesn't mean goodbye.... I'm a persistent man.”

  She slammed down the phone and went back to the bathroom, bringing with her a large towel and her robe. He smiled, more alert now, and with embarrassment removed the boat.

  “I'm always wearin’ your bathrobes.”

  “I don't mind.”

  “I guess I had too much, and mixin’ with wine isn't a good, idea unless you're used to it.”

  “Why wine?”

  “I run a little short this mornin’ and bought a couple of bottles which I polished off before comin’ here. I needed a little pick-me-up.”

  She forced two boiled eggs and toast down him, then a glass of milk to line his stomach. He fell asleep almost immediately. It was just six-thirty, but dark for hours, a time for all little men to be in bed.

  * * * *

  Conlon arrived shortly afterward, her cheeks flushed from the cold and the elation that comes with small success.

  “I got the job. It's with this new film company. I'm the publicist and girl Friday. And you've got your roommate back. We both should be happy.”

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  “Is that necessary? Or even relevant?”

  “I don't know. Probably to Sonny.”

  “He'll grow up.”

  “Do I want him to?”

  “Listen, Jane, don't look too closely at anybody or else you may wind up alone, looking at yourself. You love him.” She looked directly at Jane—her startling green eyes opened to f:1.4, the last stop—since she was incapable of evasion. “To tell the truth, he's a very lovable human being and I love him a little myself.”

  “Which means?”

  “You're got a treasure. Wear it in public. I'm going to love you and leave you. Date with the boss and his credit cards. Tonight I'm a starlet out with a producer. Have you got something starlet I can wear?”

  “Trouser suit, the velvet one?”

  “Terrific. It doesn't cling and I won't have to wear my styrofoam bra to make up the shortage. Don't wait up for me. I may do something daring. Saturn's in my third house. I only hope he can get the job done. Very young, like twenty-three. From Toronto, but he made his money the hard way—his father gave him two million dollars and told him to leave Canada. Can you imagine anyone getting paid to do something I'd do for nothing?”

  She took out a note pad, wrote some figures, then sat with pencil poised between her front teeth.

  “I'll be making a hundred and ten dollars take-home pay, so I can pay you off twenty dollars a week. I owe you three hundred dollars, right? Don't answer, it's right”

  “Forget it.”

  “I can't. Stores I can run out on, but friends I have to pay back.”

  Conlon studied Jane for a moment, noticing that her attention had drifted away. She sat kneading her hands as though the answer to life lay in regrouping one's fingers. She'd attempted to be airy, lightly lifting Jane's depression, but had achieved mixed results, and now she could not avoid the obvious, painful conclusion that Jane had changed, not simply for a girl to a woman; there was something more intangible about the transformation, and Conlon felt younger, out of touch.

  “Jane, do yourself a favor, stop thinking. You've run out of angles. You're not the poor little rich girl who's been badly treated. You're a woman with a good shot.”

  “My money would make a bum out of him.”

  “He's a bum already, but a nice one.”

  Jane poured herself a tot of scotch, clunked in a few ice cubes, and mixed it with her finger.

  “If it doesn't work out, what's going to happen to him?”

  “He's been destroyed. I thought all you rich people were interested in salvage. Isn't that why you contribute to charity?”

  “I love him,” she said now trying to convince herself.

  “That's enough. Jane, I've done quite a bit of thinking about what happened to me. I didn't love Mel but I loved the idea of having an affair, the adventure of sneaking down from school. I enjoyed the fact that he was lying to his wife just to be with me. I ate up the bullshit. In fact I was thinking of writing to the two guys he fixed me up with. I was so fucked up that the only thing they could do was unfuck me. I'm myself now.”

  “Are you my friend?”

  “That's a funny question to ask me.”

  * * * *

  Asleep, Sonny seemed more like a tree felled in a storm than a man. She'd forgotten how big he was. But somewhere along the line the
chemistry had gone awry, for what he had in size he lacked in will. He engulfed the bed, an arm dangling on either side, the white man spread-eagled by dissident minorities he'd abused, and how ironic to have picked an innocent. She habitually watched people sleep. As a child, she had snuck into her parents’ bedroom to study their reactions and not to catch them in the act, for she seemed to know instinctively that men went into women and the performance of this task she considered unworthy of curiosity, which is some degree accounted for her passiveness. But during their sleep—the movements, the expressions, the position of limbs, the head—she believed people revealed character. Of this little-known area of human activity, she had from age three become a pioneer investigator. She could, in fact, sit for hours, silently observing the drama of a static situation which put her in the position of creator.

  Sonny's face, slack then tense, his brows continually arched in surprise, appeared to confirm the many facets of his frustration. Occasionally the lips smiled, harmlessly amused, or his fingers toyed with a lock of hair. His innocence, she thought, was totally reckless and depended entirely on the favor of an invisible God. His prowess a promise never kept. Somewhere along the genetic path, someone had laughed, played a practical joke and a godlike body had been made, but the tongue and brain with which the revelation of wisdom must be channeled had been withheld. In its place a rootless, indefensible sensitivity, geared only for the conditions of peace. Ironic, she thought, that he had been a football player, a vocation suited only to the bellicose. Of course he'd been defeated; smaller, shiftier, more truculent men had conspired against him, and he had played out his death as a witness, without ever coming close to seeing his true isolation. His childlike enthusiasm for games, eventually a weapon he turned upon himself, a walking, talking, living suicide. He could command nothing more than his own loyalty, giving it openhandedly, a gift fecklessly bestowed for the asking.

  For her part, she was faced with breathing life into a corpse, the fact that she desired it irrelevant, since the end result would be the same. Dead weight. He slept the night and she stood vigil, bleary-eyed but failing to reach the peak of exhaustion she needed.

  He awoke near six, hungry and horny, the twin plateaus of his ambition. The only practical gift still in his power to give, she took.

  They made love. Back in action on terrain he knew, he appeared the victor and Jane the victim. The best part of it for her, the interruption of thought. After he felt like a million, his cheeks glowing and eyes alive. In spite of his tornado drunk, his powers of recovery were as acute as a camel's. She recognized that her passion for him led only to a cul-de-sac.

  Shortly after, he announced proudly:

  “I'm ready to go again.”

  “I can't—I'm wrung out.”

  “You're not a quitter, Jane. It's only the first quarter,” he said jovially, examining her body, a gridiron over which he'd at last achieved invincible mastery.

  “I didn't sleep last night.”

  “Well, you got the rest of the day. We're not goin’ anywhere, are we? Lemme make you some breakfast.”

  They enjoyed seared eggs, Wonder Bread with gaping holes, buttered by a steamroller. The instant coffee, however, turned out magnificently, no fooling an experienced hand.

  “You know, Jane, this time it was better than before. Bein’ back with you is wonderful ... like I been given the game ball after the Super Bowl.”

  “I'm sleepy, Sonny.”

  “Before you go off, I got somethin’ to tell you. Tomorrow I'm gonna find out about the motel school. I couldn't today even if I wanted to. I gotta wait till one in the morning.”

  “Why?”

  “'cause that's when they do their commercial on the Channel Five movie. I never wrote down the number to call. Tonight I'll be ready. Sittin’ in front of the screen with a pencil an’ pad. I'm gonna support you in style, Jane. Wait and see.”

  She was asleep, giving him his turn to watch, but he had other pressing obligations—his last check to collect and two, no three (he had to include Conlon) Christmas presents to buy.

  * * * *

  “You really crapped out on us, Sonny,” Frank the bar manager said. “Boss'd like you back.”

  “Tell him for me ... when his prick reaches his ass, he can go fuck himself,” he said, walking tall. “I been pushed around long enough. Let him get some acid head who'll rob him blind. That's what the mother deserves!” Since his honesty was beyond reproach, Sonny traded on it deliberately, making Frank, who had the responsibility for shortages, wince.

  “Here's your check.”

  It worked out to $176.49 less deductions. He slipped it into his wallet, capital upon which to build a lifetime. He owed his cousin two weeks’ board for Wesley and that knocked fifty off. He passed a Merrill Lynch branch, studied the tape for a minute and decided to invest it all. Outside of a track, or crap table, he'd never seen such fast action. At least here he'd be sure of getting his money back without having to lodge a protest or threaten his local runner with a beating.

  He spoke to the manager and learned that they didn't handle investments of that size, then beat a hasty retreat. Strolling down Park Avenue, a street he'd seldom seen during daylight hours, he believed he was as good as any of the people walking out of apartment houses; the only drawback, money. He regarded the presence or absence of money as some fickle trick of nature, fortuitous, like height or eye color. He couldn't worry about it.

  He cashed the check at his bank, taking a hundred of it in singles. With his pocket swollen, he might have any amount. Jane had never seen him with a roll. Snow flurries began in earnest and he took refuge in a Fifth Avenue store. He had to ask a salesman in the shoe department the name of the store. Learning that it was Sak's he wondered how they'd react to a new credit customer. He found out quickly enough, citing Jane Teller Siddley and Pudge as references, both of whom had accounts and enjoyed credit. A hundred dollars’ worth of charge was extended, until final checks enabled them to clear him for bigger things.

  With the run of the store he wandered into lingerie. It had been years since he'd bought a woman a present, and he thought Jane required a transparent shortie nightgown. He fell instantly in love with a flimsy maize affair, trimmed with lace, bespeaking good taste. Conlon wound up with a ski scarf which could also convert to a head wrapper if she insisted on it, and Wesley Junior, a sports jacket. The world of shopping opened up to him and he embraced it. His days had formerly been employed in sleeping, handicapping horses, and worrying about the sports line. With nineteen dollars still left out of his advance he put down a deposit on a gray herringbone overcoat. A prospect motel manager had to make a good impression. Leaving the store, he became troubled by the TV commercial: an elderly couple poring over a looseleaf notebook and some unidentifiable text. Perhaps they were studying bookkeeping or accounting procedures. He hoped not, now alarmed. He could count cash with the best of them but he was certainly no scientist.

  * * * *

  Jane gave the Western Union boy a dollar. She had no change and he had snow on his hair. She brushed her teeth, gargled, then ran the bath. Distracted and without curiosity she opened the telegram.

  dear jane i am going to connecticut for the weekend stop will you please consider joining me stop every room has a fireplace stop lee naturally comes with me and can cook many things in addition to mandarin cuisine stop we are also as you know close to some lovely restaurants stop i promise faithfully to shoot on sight anything that even resembled a cheese danish though we don't keep firearms stop please affectionately

  charles luckmunn

  p.s. a prepaid answer has been provided to save time

  Sonny rang the doorbell as she was about to step into the bath, and she crumpled up the telegram before letting him in. He proudly held up his striped Sak's shopping bag, no longer a stranger to luxury. He kissed her cheek, cautioned her to use the spy hole and ask who was outside before opening the door.

  “How're you? Rested? Snowin’ like mad o
utside.” He contemptuously dropped his overcoat on a chair; the form-fitting herringbone would be ready in a few days.

  “I'm having a bath.”

  “I'll keep you company. Wash your back, even if you don’ say please.”

  He stationed himself on a stool, peered over the tub rim to get a better view, but saw only bubbles, the roll in his pocket solid as an ancient bunion.

  “So this is why you smell so good all the time.” He looked around the small room, dimly recalling something familiar about it. “Brilliant idea, me leavin’ a suit and stuff here.” Undershorts had not turned up and he wore a pair of her baby-blue bikini panties. Snug, but he was enjoying them. It had given him the idea for seeking lingerie for Jane. If they gave him pleasure, what must they do for her? The nightie would be a banquet.

  “Listen, I called my cousin's wife an’ she invited us for Christmas. Family thing, what do you say?” He couldn't contain his happiness. “You, me, an’ the kid together with them. Christ, I never had anythin’ like it. When I was playin', we used to get together at the stadium—the whole team—an’ eat there. Wives, girlfriends, but it was never like family. I guess it can't be when you got waiters pullin’ your plate away.” He kissed the top of her head. “Conlon can come, if she's got nothin’ on.”

  “Okay, if you like.”

  “What're you down about?” The intolerable suspicion that she still harbored a grievance against him was terrifying. “You're still tired.”

  “I'm fine, Sonny.”

  “Nursin’ a drunk is no pitnik.” He bowed his head. “I just had to get it outa my system. Picked up my check an’ now I feel clean with nothin’ pullin’ me down. Honest, Jane, yesterday was the las’ time for a number like that.”

  In penance he massaged her neck muscles, eliciting groans of pleasure from her.

  “You're real tense. Did you know that?”

  “Who used to give the team party?”

  “It was Pudge's bash. We used to get drunk together every time. Joy-Sue included. She come drunk. Couldn't wait; then we'd run back to Pudge's place—big Colonial with them white pillars, maybe thirty, forty feet high. Lotta Wild Turkey got drunk there.” A half-smile of pleasure danced on his lips, a waltz never to be forgotten. “One year we got so smashed that him and me wound up sleepin’ on the same bed. Come mornin’ I reach out for Joy-Sue, and there's ole Pudge laughin’ his head off. Sonny, he said, I know you done just about everythin’ a man could do, but I don’ think there's room on our team for a fag halfback. Laughed ourselves sick.” His face shone with other-worldly joy. “I'm the leadin’ ground gainer that season, too, which makes it double funny. Love o’ God, what a season that was. Never had more fun. Broke trainin’ whenever I wanted to. On the town everyplace—Cleveland, LA, New York. I tell you, Jane, I never been so happy....”