Well, Dan, it’s about time I went down and fed the stock. Old Ned is resting up so he’ll be all full of p——& vinegar when you come up. I knew you’d like to know that. Ha-ha. I have been going on here about long enough. Next thing you know I’ll be turning into one of them book writers your learning about at college. So long till next time.
Your friend,
CAP
Oh. Clint says to say hello for him, too.
I could see him laboring over the letter with that stub-pencil of his, the sweat trickling down the outer edges of his white mustache.
“He isn’t very well educated, is he?” she called from the bathroom.
“He’s one of the smartest men I know,” I said.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“I know.”
“You can see how hard he worked on that letter,” she said. “I kept trying to see through all that stiffness to the real man.”
“You have to meet him to see that,” I said.
“I hope I get the chance,” she said.
“You will,” I promised her.
Somebody knocked at the door, and I put Cap’s letter down, swung the bathroom door shut and answered it.
It was my mother.
“Danny, baby,” she said, her mouth kind of loose and her tongue a little thick.
I couldn’t say anything. Just seeing her was like having somebody grab me by the stomach with an ice-cold hand. I know that sounds literary, but that’s the only way to describe it. I held the door open and let her in. My hands started to shake.
The years on booze had not been very kind to my mother. Her hair was ratty and gray, and not very clean, and her hat was kind of squashed down on top of it. She’d tried to put on some makeup and had done a rotten job of it. Her coat was shabby, and she had a large hole in one of her stockings.
She stood uncertainly in the middle of the room, waiting for me to say something.
“Sit down, Mother,” I said, pointing at the couch.
“Thank you, Danny,” she said and perched uneasily on the edge of the couch.
“How have you been, Mother?” I asked her.
“Oh,” she said tremulously, “not too bad, Danny. I’ve got a pretty good job down in Portland. I’m in maintenance.” She pronounced it “maintain-ance.” “It is with the company that owns this big office building. I work nights.”
I nodded. It was about what I’d expected.
“I got a week off,” she said. “I heard about poor Jackie’s marriage going on the rocks. You heard about that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Well, quick as a shot I went to my boss and I told him I was going to have to have a few days off so I could come up to Tacoma and see if I couldn’t help him maybe patch things up. Poor Jackie. He’s had such bad luck with his marriages.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But he told me it was too late for that, and I was just so awful sorry. Then he told me you’d gone back to school up here, so I just had to come up here and see you. I mean, you are my baby and all, and we haven’t seen each other in just years and years, have we?”
“It’s been a long time, Mother,” I agreed.
She was nervously trying to light a cigarette, and finally I fired up my lighter for her. Her hands were shaking as badly as mine were.
“Would you like a drink, Mother?” I asked her.
She raised her face quickly, and the sudden look of anguish cut right through me. She thought I was being snotty.
“No games, Mother,” I said. “I’m going to have one, and I just thought you might like one too, that’s all.”
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “maybe just a little one. I’ve been cutting way down, you know.”
“Mixer? Water? It’s bourbon.”
“Just a little ice, Danny, if you got any.”
I fixed us a couple, and I could see by the way her hands were shaking that she needed one pretty badly.
We both drank them off, and I refilled the glasses without saying anything. I think we both felt better then.
“I’m so proud of you Danny, baby,” she said. “I mean your college and all. I never told you that, did I? There’s so many things I never got the chance to tell you. You and Jackie both seemed to grow up so fast. It just seems like I no more than turned around and you were both gone. First Jackie in the Navy, and then your father passing away, and then you leaving like you did. It just all happened so fast.”
“It’s like that sometimes, Mother,” I said. “Nothing ever stays the same.”
“I can still remember you two when you were little,” she said. “Jackie always so lively and full of fun, and you always so quiet and serious. Just like day and night, you two. And now poor Jackie getting divorced again.” She dug out a handkerchief and held it to her face. She wasn’t crying; she was just getting ready.
“He’s a big boy now, Mother,” I said.
“It’s just all so rotten,” she said. “You’re the smart one. Don’t ever get married, Danny. Women are just no good. We’re all bitches.”
“Now, Mother.”
“No, it’s true.” The tears were running down her face now, smearing her makeup. “Your father was a good man—a fine man, and look what I did to him. He didn’t understand me, but that didn’t give me the right to hound him the way I did. I tried to be a good wife, but I just couldn’t help myself.”
“It’s all right now, Mother. Just try not to let it get you down.”
She finished her drink and mutely held out the glass. I doubt if she was even aware that she was doing it. I filled it again. She was making a good-sized dent in my bourbon, but what the hell?
“I’m pretty much a failure, do you know that, Danny? I failed your father, and I failed you boys.” She was crying openly now, the wet, slobbering, let-it-all-go kind of crying you see once in a while in an old wino.
“I’m so sorry, Danny. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right, Mother. It was all a long time ago.” How could I get her off it?
“Please forgive me, Danny, baby.”
“Come on, Mother.” That was too much.
“You’ve got to forgive me,” she said. She looked at me, her eyes pleading and her face a ruin.
“Mother.”
“I’m begging you to forgive me, Danny,” she said. “I’ll get down on my knees to you.” She moved before I could stop her. She slid off the edge of the couch and dropped heavily to her knees on the floor.
“Come on, Mother,” I said, trying to lift her back to the couch, “get up.”
“Not until you forgive me, Danny.”
This was silly. “All right, Mother, I forgive you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Really, Danny? Really?”
“Yes, Mother. Come on now. Get up.”
She let me haul her to her feet, and then she insisted on giving me a kiss. Then she kind of halfway repaired her face. She seemed a little calmer after that. She talked for a few minutes and then got ready to leave.
“I’ve got just enough time to make connections for the Portland bus,” she said.
“Have you got your ticket?” I asked her.
“Oh, yes,” she said brightly. “I’m just fine.”
“Do you need any money—for a bite to eat or anything?”
“No, Danny, I’m just fine, really.” She stood up. “I’ve really got to go now.” She went over to the door. “I feel so much better now that we’ve had the chance to get things straightened out like this. I’ve worried about it for the longest time.”
“It was good to see you, Mother.”
“I’m so proud of you, baby.” She patted my cheek and went out quickly. I watched through the window as she carefully made her way around the house in front. Her hat was on lopsided, and her dark coat had a large dusty patch on one shoulder where she’d stumbled against something. She went on out of sight.
“Oh, Danny,” Clydine said. “Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry.”
She was standing behind me, wrapped in a bath towel, huge tears bright in her eyes.
“Oh, it’s all right, Blossom. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember. You get used to it after a while.”
“It must have been awful.”
“I don’t even hold any grudges anymore,” I said. “I thought I did, but I really don’t. I really forgave her, do you know that? I didn’t think I ever could, but I did. I wasn’t just saying it.” It surprised me, but I meant it. “I just wish she could quit drinking, is all,” I added.
39
IT was a Thursday morning several weeks after Mother’s visit and Clydine had just got up. I was still lying in bed. She stood nude in front of the full-length mirror that was bolted to the bathroom door. She cupped her hands under her breasts.
“Danny,” she said thoughtfully, hefting them a couple times.
“Yes, love?”
“Do you think I ought to start wearing a bra? I’m pretty chesty, and I wouldn’t want to start to droop.”
I howled with laughter.
“Well,” she said, “I wouldn’t! I don’t see what’s so goddamn funny.”
She was absolutely adorable. Sometimes I’d catch myself laughing for no reason, just being around her. I loved her, not with that grand, aching, tragic passion that I’d pretty well burned out on Susan, but rather with a continual delight in her, a joy just in her presence. Believe me, there’s a lot to be said for joy as opposed to tragic passion. For one thing, it’s a helluva lot less exhausting in the long run.
Anyhow, nothing would do but our cutting classes and my taking her out immediately so she could buy herself some new bras.
We got back about eleven, and she modeled them for me.
“What do you think?” she said doubtfully.
“It’s different,” I said.
“You don’t like it.”
“I didn’t say that. I just said it’s different. How does it feel?”
“Like a darn straitjacket,” she admitted. Then she sighed deeply. “Oh, well, I guess it’s just another one of the curses of being a woman.”
“Poor Blossom.” I laughed.
She stuck her tongue out at me. I’d noticed, but hadn’t mentioned, the fact that she’d backed way off on the truck-driver vocabulary and hadn’t really gotten much involved with the militants up here. She’d told me that she disagreed ideologically with the main thrust of the university militants, but I suspected that she’d just plain outgrown them. At least I didn’t have to worry about her getting her cute little fanny chucked into jail every weekend. That was something anyway.
After lunch she had a couple of classes, so I had a chance to get some concentrated work done. I was tackling the possibility that Melville’s Billy Budd was not a simple hymn of praise to the natural man, but rather a much more complex parable of the struggle of good and evil—represented by Billy and Claggart—for the soul of Captain Vere. I’d landed on it by way of the chance discovery that Melville had practically camped on the New York Public Library copy of Milton’s Paradise Regained all during the time he was writing Billy Budd.
I was deep in the mystic mumblings of the Old Dansker when Jack showed up.
He looked awful. He hadn’t shaved for several days, and his eyes looked like the proverbial two burned holes in a blanket.
“Jesus, man,” I said, holding the door open for him, “what the hell happened to you?”
“I just got out of jail,” he said.
“Jail?”
He nodded grimly and collapsed into the armchair by the door. “You got anything to drink?”
I got him a water glass and poured it half-full of whiskey. His hands were shaking so badly that it was all he could do to get a good solid slug of bourbon down.
“What the hell happened, Jack?” I demanded.
“You know that .45 I bought from Sloane?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Sandy stuck the damn thing in her mouth and blew her brains all over the ceiling of my bathroom.”
“Oh, Jesus!”
“The cops held me on suspicion of murder for three days in the Tacoma jail until they finally decided that she did it herself. They had the inquest this morning.”
“Christ, man, why didn’t you get in touch with me?”
“I thought you knew. It’s been in all the newspapers and on the radio and TV.”
“We’ve been pretty busy, and I just haven’t paid any attention to the news for a while. God, Jack, I’m sorry as hell. I should have been there.”
“Nothin’ you coulda done.” He shrugged. “They were just playin’ games is all. Who the hell ever murders anybody by stickin’ a gun in their mouth?”
“When did it happen?”
“Monday night. I’d been out—just kinda pokin’ up and down the Avenue, you know. Anyhow, when I got back, there she was all sprawled out over the toilet stool with blood and hair and all that other gunk splattered all over the ceiling. Christ, Dan, I can still see it.” He covered his eyes with one trembling hand.
“Finish your drink,” I said, holding out the bottle to refill his glass.
He nodded and drank off the whiskey, shuddering as it went down. I filled his glass again.
“Look at that,” he said, holding out his hands. They were trembling violently. “I can’t stop shakin’. I been shakin’ ever since I found her. My hands shake all the time.”
“Come on, Jack, settle down,” I said. He was in tough shape. I should have warned him about it. God damn it, I should have warned him!
“Christ, Dan, I can’t. My nerves are all shot. I feel like somebody just kicked all my guts out.”
“Was she acting funny or anything before it happened? I mean, did she give you any kind of warning at all?”
“Hell no,” he said. “She always was kinda strange—you know, kinda quiet—but she wasn’t any different at all. Christ, the last thing she said when I left was, ‘See you when you get back.’ God, Dan, that sure as hell don’t sound like somebody who’s gonna kill theirself, does it?”
“No way,” I said.
“We was gettin’ along just fine. Hell, no beefs, no trouble, nothin’. And then she just ups and kills herself.”
“Did she leave a note or anything?”
“Nothin’. I think that’s why the cops put the arm on me. She even cleaned the place all up before she did it.”
“They got it all straightened out at the inquest, didn’t they? I mean, they didn’t leave the case open or anything?”
“No. It’s all settled. They had a lotta medical experts in and all. Angle of the bullet and all that shit. I was there because I found the body and called the cops. I got to hear the whole thing. Couple guys she’d gone with before I met her got called in, and they both said she’d talked about it when they knew her. Anyway, they finally ruled it ’death by suicide,’ and the cops had to let me go. The bastards sure as hell didn’t want to, I’ll tell you that. Once those motherfuckers get their hands on you, they hate like hell to have to turn you loose.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“God,” he said, “I couldn’t even go back inside my trailer.”
“What’d they do, padlock it all up?”
“No, nothin’ like that. I just couldn’t make myself do it. I went on out there, but I just couldn’t go inside. Ain’t that a helluva note?”
“You want to bunk in here for a few days?” It wouldn’t set too well with the Little Flower, but this was an emergency.
“No, Dan, thanks anyway, but I gotta get outa the area for a while. I’m goin’ down to Portland. Maybe stay with the Old Lady or something.”
“You’re welcome to stay here,” I said.
“It’s too close, man. I gotta get away. I was just wonderin’ if you could maybe come back down with me and get some of my clothes and stuff out of the trailer for me. I can’t make myself go back in there. I just can’t do it.” He sat hunched over, holding both hands around his glass.
“Sure, Jack,” I said, “I’ll leave a note for my roommate.”
“How is she?” he asked.
“She’s fine,” I said. I scribbled a quick note to her and we took off. I followed his Plymouth on down to Tacoma and on out toward Madrona. It was cloudy and calm that day, and the trailer court seemed kind of shadowy, tucked back in under a bunch of big old pine trees.
I got out and went over to where he’d parked his car. “What do you need, Jack?” I asked him.
“Grab my clothes and some shoes and stuff,” he said, not looking at the trailer. “Oh, get my transistor radio, too, huh? It’s in the bedroom.”
“Sure, Jack.”
“Don’t go in the bathroom, man. It’s awful.”
“I’ll have to,” I said. “You’ll need your razor and all.”
“Oh,” he said.
“It’ll be OK,” I told him. I went on into the trailer. It took me about twenty minutes to pack up all his clothes. I didn’t go into the bathroom until I’d got everything else squared away.
Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Most of the mess was in a dried pool between the toilet and the tub. I gathered up Jack’s stuff and took it on out to the living room. I tucked it all in various places in his suitcases and then hauled them on out to his car. On my last trip I carried out his radio and his shotgun.
“No, man,” he said, his face turning a kind of pasty color, “leave that fuckin’ gun here!”
“You can’t leave it here,” I told him. “Somebody might swipe it.”
“You keep it then. I can’t stand to look at the goddamn thing. I told you, Danny, my nerves are all shot.”
I took the gun over and put it in my car.
“Did you lock up?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “I’ll slip the latch when I leave. I’ll clean up that mess in there.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
I shrugged. “Somebody has to.”
“Thanks, Danny,” he said in a shaking voice. “I don’t think I’m ever gonna be able to go in there again.”
“You probably ought to sell it,” I told him.
He nodded. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “I think there’s some beer in the refrig. Why don’t we sit out here and have a couple? I need something.”