In Milton Lumky Territory (1984) Read online

  “Thank you,” she said. “That’s a very nice compliment.”

  “I mean it,” he said.

  She closed the scrapbook. “I feel so discouraged,” she said. “I don’t mean right now; I mean in general, these last few years. When two marriages have failed … you always wonder if it’s you. I know it was me. Pete said I did nothing but brood and worry, and Walt didn’t tell me that, but he might as well have; he said I treated everything as a crisis. He said I have a crisis mentality. I fear calamity any moment. Like Henny Penny. The sky is falling … do you recall?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And they both feel I’m imparting it to Taffy.” Turning toward him she said urgently, “That’s why I need somebody around me who’s cheerful and easy-going and takes things in his stride. Like you.”

  “I don’t think necessarily you’re imparting anything like that to Taffy,” he said, thinking that after all she had terrorized him for a year, left a permanent impression in his mind, and yet he had emerged, survived it, arrived at adulthood in an optimistic mood. Was that not proof that she had done no real harm? Of course, he thought, maybe I’m just lucky. And he also thought, Maybe there is damage to me, down under the surface. I just don’t know it. I haven’t seen it.

  AT ELEVEN-THIRTY Susan said good-night and went off to the bathroom to take a bath and go to bed.

  Alone, he sat in the living room, watching an old movie on the TV set.

  I have moved back to Montario, he thought. No, not exactly to Montario. This is actually Boise. But to him it was the same; it was the place he had come from.

  However, it did not discourage him. It was so different. Nothing could be further from the old days, his life as a high school student folding up newspapers and flinging them onto porches … or, before that, playing marbles after school, watching “Howdy Doody” on the ten-inch TV screen in the family living room, while his older brother Frank messed about on the back porch with pond water for his microscope.

  That made him meditate about Frank.

  His older brother Frank now worked in Cincinnati for a chemical company, as a research chemist. He had gone through Wayne University, in Detroit, on a scholarship granted by a soap company. Frank was married and he had a child three years old. How old would Frank be? Twenty-six or so. And he owned - or was paying on - a house and car. So Frank was a success, by any standards; he held a professional job, doing what he had enjoyed all his life … he was talented, alert, skilled, and one day he would be publishing in scientific journals. He had a great future; in fact, he had a great present. In school Frank had been popular. Bruce remembered him striding about in his tennis shoes and slacks, his hair combed back and oiled, his skin shining and blemish-free, waving at everyone, being good at school dances, being elected to this and that. Going steady with Ludmilla Meadowland, the blonde whom the senior class had elected Miss Montario for the JC pageant of 1948. In the parade, on June tenth, she had coasted down Hill Street on a float made of potatoes, carrying a banner reading WIN MONTARIO HIGH WIN WIN. The Principal of Montario High had shaken hands with both her and Frank, and the picture of the three of them had appeared in the Gazette, the newspaper which Bruce had trudged along with, folding and tossing, folding and tossing day after day, for two whole years.

  All his life everyone had dropped it in his ear that his brother Frank was the bright one.

  Evidently, he thought, it was true. Look where Frank is. Look where I am.

  But, try as he might, he could not drum up a feeling of discouragement. I like this, he thought. I’m getting a deep charge out of this … it really appeals to me. There is something satisfying about it, a kind of order. A unity. That someone from his early life could have the power to pull him over backward this way made him feel that all those years had not after all added up to nothing. In those days he had naturally been powerless to help himself. He had done what everyone else did. They shot marbles after school, so he did so, too. They went and stood in line for the kiddies’ matinee at the Luxury Theater on Saturday afternoon, so he did so, too, whatever crummy film might be showing. Those repetitious and futile years had been so tiresome that, now and then, he had despaired. What was it all about? What did he get out of it? Nothing, apparently.

  Practically the only moment in his first fifteen years that had meant anything to him at the time had shown up by accident. The Gazette had run an offer to mail out phonograph records of great symphonic masterpieces for coupons clipped from the daily paper. Since he was a carrier, he had access to the coupons, and he had gathered a batch and sent them off to Illinois, and after a month or so he had received in the mail a flat package wrapped with brown paper and tape. Opening it, he had found three twelve-inch records bundled up in cardboard. The labels on the records were blue and read only “World’s Greatest Symphonies.” The names of the orchestra and the conductor were not given. This particular set of records - it had no album, only paper sleeves - turned out to be the Haydn Symphony Number 99. He played it on his table-model phonograph, which he had gotten as a Christmas present during junior high. Up to then his musical taste had run to Spike Jones, and after that it more or less still did. But that particular symphony had had an enormous impact on him; it had affected him to the soles of his feet. He played the three records until they turned white and wore away into noisy hissing.

  His rabid interest in the music proved that if given a choice he would have swapped his life as he was living it for a different town, other people. It proved that he was not happy. Of course, he knew that. He moped continually about, from home to school and back. What a contrast to his brother Frank, who sailed out daily in the best grade of sweater, slacks, and hair oil.

  At fifteen he had lain by himself in the darkness of his room, listening to the music on the phonograph. Sharpening the cactus needles with the little machine that he had bought for a dollar and a half that spun the needle around a disc of sandpaper … collecting a Band-Aid box of sharpened needles ready to be stuck in, half way through a record side, if the needle in the arm began to wear too much.

  He could have lived entirely in that room, if someone had thought to push food through the keyhole. Piped in by means of a tube, he thought. Perhaps that had been the defect. Outside the room he had suffered. He could not keep the thing with him. And he did like to get out once in awhile and stir around and see what was doing. Eventually he had wound up in Reno working for C.B.B. And in the same manner he had wound up back here, intrigued by things that had fallen in his direction, unable to turn down a chance at something that promised to be new.

  When the old movie ended he shut off the TV set, made certain that the front door of the house was locked, turned off the living room light as Susan had at great pains instructed him to do, and then eyed the bathroom to be sure Susan was out. It looked good and dark, so he went into his room, got a towel from his suitcase, and crossed the hall to it. Soon he was washing and brushing, preparing for bed.

  In his room he lay tossing restlessly, unable to sleep. Insomnia had plagued him in his childhood and here it was back, probably because this was Boise once more and because he was so reminded, in the last day or so, of the old days.

  What pill did he have that he could take? Somewhere he owned a bottle of antihistamine pills, supposedly for allergies and colds, but he had found that antihistamines put him into a relaxed doze and he kept the bottle for that. No doubt it was in the glove compartment of the Merc. For another hour he lay, but still he did not sleep. So at last he got up, put on his blue wool bathrobe and his leather slippers, and set out through the dark house toward the front door.

  He successfully reached the car, but he did not find the bottle in the glove compartment. So he had to return to the house, up the dark path and onto the porch and into the living room, without it. Maybe it had been stuck in his suitcase and had filtered down out of sight, among the shoes. Thinking that, he started along the hall to his room, back where he had begun.

  Before he could
open his door another door opened and Susan looked out into the hall. “Oh,” she said. “I thought possibly it was Taffy.”

  “I left something in the car,” he said.

  He opened the door to his room.

  “I don’t want you to worry,” she said, from behind him.

  “About what?” he said.

  “About anything. You seem distraught.”

  “I just can’t get to sleep,” he said. “All the excitement.” He entered his room and took a look at the clock.

  Susan followed after him into the room. She wore a long pink quilt-like robe, with a narrow ropy sash. Her hair floated down in a great number of loose, light strands, without apparent weight. It came to rest on her shoulders, much longer than he had seen it to be before. “I have some phenobarbital,” she said.

  “That would be fine,” he said, with gratitude.

  After going off somewhere in the house and rummaging about, she returned with a yellow-plastic drinking cup, and, on the palm of her outstretched hand, a tiny tubular pill.

  “Thanks,” he said, rolling the pill from her palm and into his own. She passed him the tumbler and he managed to get the pill down, even with her watching. It had always bothered him to have someone watching him when he swallowed a pill.

  Suddenly she put up her hand and pressed it against his forehead, startling him as much as if he had been kicked. “You’re sunburned,” she said. “From driving. I think you have a little sunstroke; you’re probably running a fever.”

  “No,” he mumbled.

  She glided around the room to the window, lifted the curtains and shade aside to see if the window was closed. “I could hear you tossing around,” she said. “Is it because it’s a strange house? You know, I was thinking that maybe I’ll just put it squarely to Zoe that I want you to start coming in. Tomorrow you come down to the office with me, when I go in at nine. Okay? So go to bed and go to sleep, so you’ll be fresh in the morning. I want to show you all the invoices for the past six months, the things I’ve ordered.”

  The times that he had spent the night with Peg had been marred by Peg’s need of keeping her hair up in metal curlers. And her hair, beneath the curlers, was plastered to her scalp in a hard knobby pad. But here stood Susan, with her hair free and soft, and it surprised him. How limited his experience with women during the night hours was. His mother had gone about the house at night with her hair up in a bag that tied like the tails of a Negro mammy’s cap. That ended his experience.

  Below her robe, he saw, her feet were bare.

  “I’m always fresh,” he said.

  “Oh how nice,” she said. “Good night, Bruce.” She swept out of the room and shut the door after her.

  The phenobarbital had started to affect him; his senses dulled, he put away his bathrobe and slippers and crept into bed. Presently he began to drift off.

  The next he knew, the door was open again and Susan was coming back into the room. She came closer and closer to him, to the bed, and then she bent down so that she was directly over him. her hair brushed across his face, making him want to sneeze. Then the quilt collar of her robe pressed against his shoulder. “Can I get in?” she said. And, sliding and twisting, she was in, beside him in his bed, wrapped up in her quilt robe.

  Sighing, she made herself comfortable. She pulled the blankets up over her and then she squirmed over on her side, facing him. And then she sat up, flinging the covers away, and began unfastening her robe. When it was off up over her arms and shoulders she wadded it up and pushed it from the bed, onto the floor. In the darkness he could hear the exertion of her breathing. The bed swayed as she dropped back down beside him, now in a nightgown of some sort; he could not see it but a portion of it rested on his neck.

  Now, lying back, she waited. But she did not wait long. All at once she scrambled around, poking her sharp, hard elbows into his chest, to lean over him and peer at him remorselessly. As if, he thought, she could, by staring intently enough, make the room light enough to see. Make him, too, light enough to see. He felt as if she were lighting him up, making him shine everywhere, from head to foot. And still her inspecting gaze traveled over him, making him shine brighter and brighter. The glow of himself made him hurt and he gasped and reached up to move away one of her elbows.

  “Hello,” she said.

  He said, “I can see you’re not worrying.”

  “That’s because of you. You keep me from it.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he said.

  She said, “Do what you want.” Her voice had a reconciled, obedient quality that was new to him; it was a very small sound, almost a kind of chant. Suddenly her eyelids flew open and she stared at him wildly; her hand rose and she pressed her knuckles into her mouth, as if she were trying not to break out laughing. “This is incredible,” she said. Trembling, she rolled away from him and out of the bed, onto her feet; standing with her back to him she became silent, her head down, one hand on her throat, the other stroking rapidly at her hair.

  He rose up out of the bed, in his pajamas, and standing directly in front of her, put his hands on her shoulders. Her bones felt hollow, as he pressed his fingers into her; she seemed to give, to become smaller. She let her arms fall to her sides and she remained silent, passive, even somewhat remote. And presently, as he held onto her, the troubled lines left her face. He pressed his hands harder into her, and for her the situation ceased to be a concern. Everything about her smoothed out and became relaxed and at peace.

  Letting go of her shoulders he took her by the hand and led her to the bed. She went placidly, stepping in without a complaint, and arranged herself as he unbuttoned his pajamas.

  “Cold?” he said.

  “Not too much,” she said in a detached voice. “I have a little headache, that’s all.”

  As he entered the bed with her he felt her hands reach past him to pull up the covers. She drew them over them both and then she reached up and clasped him.

  “I hope Taffy doesn’t wake up,” she said, all at once becoming concerned and stiff.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he told her.

  “But suppose she starts looking for me and comes running in here. Oh the hell with it.” With a surge of authority she tugged him down to her.

  Her hips were small, and her stomach, beneath him, seemed soft. But she smelled marvelous, from bath salts that she had put on. Her body, all over, was completely smooth, and without fat. She had kept herself in trim, like an athlete or a dancer. Just what he had longed for.

  5

  AFTER THEY WERE DONE they sat on the back porch in their robes, in the dark chilly night air. Wind blew around them and forced the shrubs and trees in the garden to lean back and forth. They could hear the wind stirring big, invisible trees off somewhere, in another yard.

  It all had a world-wide quality.

  Neither of them said anything. Susan had put on wool socks, large ski socks that covered her up to her calves. He had on a pair of argyles, but even so he found himself shivering and quaking, on and on, at an orderly rate. An almost mechanical tingling. Probably, he decided, it had to do with muscle fatigue. He felt tired in every part of him, but he did not want to go inside. He enjoyed the sound of the wind off elsewhere, plucking at trees they would never see.

  “Scary,” Susan whispered.

  “I don’t agree,” he said. He could smell flowers. Once, a moth flapped past, banged against the screen door and departed. Perhaps it had gone inside the house; they had left the door open behind them, to be certain of not being cut off.

  Gripping his hand Susan squeezed, and then she knocked her hard head against him.

  “You’ve never been married, have you?” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “But you’ve had sex before. Either that or you’ve read a particularly good book on it. You didn’t fumble around. I didn’t think you would. I want you to think a long time about this. I’m divorced from Walt. It’s a big step for a woman who’s been marr
ied twice to contimplate a third marriage. But marriages are made and broken. It’s better to take a chance and make a mistake than to -” She considered. “Fear isn’t a good thing to go by. Holding back for fear of making a mistake. Or is this all so far beyond anything you’ve been contemplating that it’s ridiculous?”

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t.” But actually it was. Now he found himself wanting to go back in, go to bed and sleep. “Let’s go in,” he said to her.

  “Fine,” she said. “Listen,” she said, as she bolted the screen door after them. “You go to your room and I’ll go back to mine. Mrs. Poppinjay has a key, and while she’s supposed not to come until nine or so, we might oversleep.”

  “Okay,” he said, more interested in sleep. The time was four-thirty and his fatigue had become an ache.

  Going off toward her room she paused long enough to blow him a kiss. Good night, her mouth declared soundlessly, and then he lost sight of her as each of them opened a door.

  What a night, he thought as he climbed into the still warm, damp rumpled, nice-smelling bed.

  Marriage, he thought.

  And yet the idea did not disturb him. It had a naturalness, as if it could be anticipated in the ordinary course of things.

  I guess that would make Taffy my step-daughter, he thought to himself. And what about the office. R & J Mimeographing Service, my job there. Would I inherit part of it … become part owner?

  It all sounded good to him. He went to sleep pleased, his mind on tomorrow.

  THE NEXT MORNING, at ten-thirty, he and Susan drove downtown together in his Merc, to the office.

  As they parked across the street, out of the two-hour zone, Susan said, “Listen, I have to run down and see about some dress material. You go on in and I’ll see you there in about half an hour.” Shading her eyes she peered and said. “The door’s unlocked. Zoe must be in there. If she’s too obnoxious, just walk out and sit here in the car, or wherever you want. But I don’t think she will be. She probably just won’t say much to you; she’ll probably be busy typing.”