“Whatever it is, you want it, but you don’t”
“Yeah.” She brought him more coffee. When she was seated beside him again he began talking about something that had happened in one of his earlier marriages. She followed the story trying to catch the point he was making, but couldn’t. When he finished he began discussing aspects of their current situation, puzzling it out, and then switched into a reminiscence of something that had happened thirty years earlier. Then she realized that the first story had had no point, that he was not telling her stories with points. He was working back and forth through his life and trying to tell her who he was.
He talked and she listened. She brought him more coffee until he said it was giving him the jitters, and then he switched to applejack. She brought the jug and a glass. He drank, but not heavily, taking small sips as punctuation as he moved from one recollection to another.
Around daybreak he paused, and he was silent for a long while before she realized he had finished. But the conversation was not finished. He was waiting for her to give it another direction.
She said, “Sully? I don’t have to do it anymore.”
“You could just stop.”
“Yeah.”
“You had a need, Melanie. The first time wasn’t to turn me on. It was for you.”
“So?”
“So why should you stop scratching if the itch don’t go away?”
“Maybe it went away.”
“Even if you think so—”
“How could I know for sure?”
“There’s no way.”
“I know I could stop if you want me to.”
“The question’s what you want to do.”
“I want what you want.”
“No good. Suppose you could have it either way. The Good Fairy comes and gives you a wish. You can go on doing it with me wanting you to or you can stop with me wanting you to stop. See what I mean? That’s the question you got to answer.”
He was right, it was the question she had to answer, but she had to think about it first.
“I would go on,” she said finally.
“Uh-huh.”
“Because I like the things it’s doing for us. Sully, I never really knew you till tonight.”
“You mean all this talking.”
“Yeah, all this talking. You never talked to a woman like that, did you?”
“To anybody. No, I never did.”
“So nobody ever knew you. And nobody ever knew me. And all the girls you’ve had, none of them ever got to you the way I do. That’s not a question either because I know it’s true. The past few nights. You never had that with anybody else.”
“You’re right.” He looked at her. “You know something? Another thing that scares me. All my life I see a girl, and I want her. Like you turn a faucet and water comes out. Lately nothing. The other night Markarian’s in with his daughter, and thinking about her and the coon and about how Markarian was with you it occurs to me it would be like turning the tables if I got to his daughter. He screws my wife so I screw his daughter. Poetic license. No, that’s not it. Justice. Poetic justice.”
“So.”
“So you saw her, you know what she looks like. And here I’m having this thought and I look at her and it comes to me that I don’t want to. Poetic or not, I got no urge at all for the little bitch.”
“You wouldn’t want to have her?”
“Not in the slightest. You would want me to have her?”
She licked her lips. “I would want me to have her.”
“Did you ever—”
“No. I never even wanted to until just now. I never even thought about it until just now. Lately I’ve been having all kinds of new thoughts.”
“Welcome to the club.”
“The thought excites you, doesn’t it? Me with her.”
“Yeah, it does. Why the hell is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You with her excites me. Me with her doesn’t. Why the hell is that?”
“Well, me with Markarian does, as far as that goes, and—”
“That’s something else worries me.”
“That you’re—”
“Not that I am. Not exactly. I mean I never felt anything that way. For another man. I can’t imagine it. But the idea that this business of being turned on by what you do with someone else, that it’s a fag thing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, skip it. I don’t understand it myself, it’s just a feeling. Just something for when there’s nothing else to worry about, and there always is. Melanie? This I got to say because I can’t talk myself out of it. You could meet somebody you like better.”
“No.”
“It could happen.”
“It could never happen.”
“Again, even if you believe this, how can you know?”
She said. “Jesus, I’m so tired.”
“Yeah, we’re wearing ourselves out. Let’s go to sleep, huh?”
“It’s necking,” she said.
“Huh?”
“How I know it could never happen.”
“You lost me.”
“Remember with Markarian? Necking in the living room, going through a long buildup? The whole thing was necking. Fucking him was necking.”
“I don’t—”
“Even having an orgasm, part of me wasn’t there. It was in the future.” She shook her head, impatient with herself. “Jesus, I’m so exhausted I can’t put words together. What made me hot with him was thinking how I would tell you about it. And what we would do afterward. If I’d of come home and we didn’t do anything, I’d of been ten times as frustrated as if I never left the house in the first place. Oh I want to do things, baby. Freaky things I never used to think about. Girl things. Group things. But to go out and do them and then come on home, because that’s the important part. The other is necking. What’s so funny?”
“They would lock us up. The both of us. If they could take off the tops of our heads and look at what’s inside, they’d lock us up. No question. We’re a pair of weirdos.”
“Yeah.”
“They’d lock us up,” he said.
“Just so they put us in the same cell.”
“Yeah. And just so they let you out once in a while, huh? Oh, God, am I tired. I am so tired.”
ELEVEN
That Friday morning, at about the time Sully and Melanie Jaeger headed upstairs to bed, Hugh Markarian went into his den and uncovered his typewriter. He put a fresh sheet of paper in place and typed “119.” at its top. He looked thoughtfully at the number as if waiting for it to tell him something. It occurred to him that it ought to tell him something. If nothing else, it ought to give a short nod of recognition. It was not as if he and “119.” were meeting one other for the first time. Just renewing old acquaintances.
He had first typed that particular number almost a month ago, at which time one might say it had told him something, told him it was time to take a week or so off. Then, two days ago, he had typed it again. And again yesterday morning. And now today.
He thought now of his conversation with Linda at Tannhauser’s, his buoyant assurance that he was extending his leave from the book because he was enjoying the free time, but that within a few days he would return to it with no trouble at all. One day he would simply be ready, that was all.
And true to his word, he got out of bed Wednesday morning knowing that this was the day. Even before he reached his den his fingers were anticipating the feel of the typewriter keys. Then he’d typed the damned number at the top of the damned page and waited for something to happen, and nothing did. Nor had anything happened yesterday when he repeated the performance verbatim.
Nor was anything extraordinary happening now.
Perhaps “119.” had numerological significance. Perhaps it was some sort of jinx. He couldn’t remember that the number had played any prior role in his life. It had never been his address, for example. Was it a prime numb
er? He got a pencil and played with the number. No, it was not a prime; it was the product of 7 and 17. They in turn were both primes, but it seemed likely that a great many numbers, numbers of pages which had presented no difficulty, could make much the same statement.
Suppose he just skipped on and wrote “120.” And came back and wrote “119.” later? No, by George, because it would be more than a little trick to write a page with no idea of what might happen on the one preceding it. And if he just omitted “119.” forever, it looked to be cheating, like skipping from twelve to fourteen when numbering hotel floors. If one really wanted to be safe, one would build a hotel with a thirteenth floor and not put any rooms on it. Now, insofar as the pages of a book were concerned, on the other hand—
His mind went on playing along these lines until he told himself to stop. This was silly. There was a point to working, and there might be a point to not working, but he was deliberately thinking along unproductive lines.
He skipped down a few lines from the top of the page and typed: “Reasons why this book is not getting written.”
And below, in outline form:
(1) Other things on my mind.
(a) Karen.
(b) Linda.
(c) Melanie.
(2) Problems with the book.
(a) Too much time away from it and lost the handle.
(b) Worried about writer’s block has indeed brought on writer’s block.
(c) The book stinks.
(3)
But he stopped there, because there was no third category, or if there was it didn’t really apply. All of the elements he had listed were valid but only one of them mattered. He did have other things on his mind, and they inevitably included Karen and Linda and might be said to include Melanie if one thought of her more as a metaphor for sex in general. And he had been too long from the book and had lost his feel for it, and blocking itself was its own cause, operating much like impotence; if you worried about your ability to write or to make love, the worry intensified the inability.
But the last item was the important one. The book stank. Or he thought it did, which came to more or less same thing. It was very difficult to go on with something in which you had to be totally involved if the suspicion kept gnawing at you that you were creating garbage.
Was it bad?
He hefted the manuscript, knowing he would have to read it again, knowing he didn’t want to. Of course he had read it Wednesday. He had thought he might be able to jump right back into it that morning, but when his fingers froze on the keys he knew he would have to read the book through and pick up its tones and highlights before he could go on. It hadn’t seemed bad then. It had pleased him. There were lines he did not remember having written, lines and exchanges which he knew were damned good. But after having read its 118 pages, he was still no closer to writing the next page.
He moved the typewriter to one side and centered the manuscript on the desk in front of him. However good or bad it might be, he was going to hate what he read today. He’d read the thing just two days ago and on this go-through he was sure to see only the weaknesses. Still, he had to do it Something might strike a spark, something might put him back into the book. And that was what it was all about, after all. You had to be inside what you wrote.
At first the process of reading was difficult in and of itself. His eyes scanned the pages but his mind kept slipping along other paths of thought. There were, indeed, many things to think about.
His coupling with Melanie Jaeger had been imaginative and intense, his responses sure and strong, his control certain. But it might as well have been happening to someone else. His body performed, experienced, fulfilled itself. His mind, blocked and frozen, was utterly remote. By the time her little red car pulled out of his driveway the details of their lovemaking were already receding from memory.
He went back to his bed, a bed now pungent with Melanie’s scent. He did not expect sleep would come but surprised himself by falling asleep almost at once. He slept fitfully, time after time pulling himself awake out of eternal variations of the same dream. Each time he dreamed of heights—a window ledge, a mountain precipice, a long steep endless flight of stairs, an idiot over an abyss. In each dream he would be paralyzed by fear but would force himself to edge his way along the window ledge, to descend the staircase a hesitant step at a time. He would reach his destination only to find that one window ledge led only to another, that still another flight of stairs confronted him. And then, as vertigo seized him and he was poised, about to fall, he would fight his way back to consciousness, sitting up in bed with his heart violent in his chest.
He had had these dreams for as long as he could remember, and only rarely would he recall dreams that did not have something to do with heights and falling. Sometimes the dreams held no terror and the endless descending of stairs was merely annoying and frustrating and slightly uncomfortable. On other nights, like this one, the terror was acute. And the fear would persist during the period of consciousness immediately following. If he ever fell in the course of a dream, if he ever failed to rescue himself in time—
He was not sure what the dream meant and rarely worried about them. Heights did make him uncomfortable, in or out of sleep, and he suspected that the dreams merely provided a mechanism for the unconscious expression of fear, any fear at all. Fear of death, fear of failure, any of the justified or irrational demons that curl in the corners of men’s souls.
When he awoke for the final time, the dream had no sooner receded than he thought of his daughter. She had been in several of the dreams, he seemed to remember this, although he could not recall what role she might have played. He remembered seeing her face, and that there had been a particular expression on it, but he could not remember anything about that expression.
He passed her room on the way downstairs, noting that her door was open. He paused on the stairs. The prospect of confrontation unsettled him, yet he never considered postponing the moment. He merely wanted to steady himself for a moment so that he would handle this well. It would be important to handle it well. Nor was it just a matter of handling things; at the same time he would have to be honest, and he was not entirely sure what words and attitudes on his part would constitute honesty.
She was alone at the kitchen table. She raised her eyes at his approach, and in the instant before she smiled he saw an expression on her face he had never noticed before. It struck him later that it might have been the face she had shown him in his dreams.
She said, “Hi. Is Linda coming down?”
“She didn’t stay.”
“Neither did Jeff.”
“Sleep well?”
“Okay. You?”
“Oh, not too bad.”
“She wasn’t quite what I expected.” The words came out less casually than she intended. “Linda, I mean.”
“How?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“She also wasn’t Linda.”
“Huh? You introduced—”
“No, you did, actually. You introduced yourself and told her she must be Linda, and she agreed with you.”
“Oh, wow! I just took it for granted—”
“No harm.”
“I mean that was pretty stupid of me, wasn’t it? I just thought—except I didn’t think.”
“Forget it.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry.”
She reached for her coffee cup, and he could very nearly read the unvoiced question in a comic strip balloon over her head. Then who was she?
He said, “Her name is Melanie Jaeger. She’s married; her husband runs the Barge Inn. I never spoke to her before last night. We ran into each other in Lambertville, and she came back here with me. It wasn’t anything important to either of us. It was uncomplicated and physical and we both seemed to require it.”
He couldn’t read her face. He wondered if he’d said too much, or if he ought to elaborate on what he’d told her. Why did he feel he had to justify himself?
She said, “I guess that’s why she wasn’t the way I expected Linda to be.”
“Why?”
“Oh, that it wasn’t important, that it didn’t mean anything. I got the impression—this is silly, what’s the difference what impression I got?”
“No, I’m interested.”
“Well, I had the feeling you and Linda had something heavy going on. And then meeting—what was name?”
“Melanie.”
“Well, I didn’t see her as your type, I guess. Don’t ask me why. And the general vibes. You know, it felt more casual than—oh, I don’t know.”
“‘Heavy,’” he said. “That’s a good word.”
“I probably overuse it.”
“You did get that impression about Linda and me? I didn’t know I’d said that much. You’re right. At least I think you might be. There’s a feeling of possibility between us.” He was not looking at Karen now, was talking as much to himself as to her. “I think I might be ready to … get involved. I’m not sure. And it’s questionable whether she’s ready for any sort of involvement. But what happened last night was certainly very light by comparison. Not heavy at all.”
“This is so far-out.”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She suddenly grinned at him. “A different woman every night. I thought men your age were supposed to slow down.”
He drew a blank for a moment. Then it dawned on him.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No, no. You made an assumption and I let you hang onto it. Linda and I never had sex.”
“But—”
“I brought her here. Primarily to meet you, as a matter of fact. Then sex did seem a possibility, but she decided she wasn’t ready for it. So I drove her home. You assumed I’d been to bed with her and it seemed easier to let it go at that than to get into an awkward conversation. Though it could hardly have been as awkward as the one we’re in right now.”