When he’d told Marie that he was very upset about her going to that den of iniquity, the WigWam, she’d looked at him but said nothing, but he knew, oh how he knew that goddamn stubborn look that she’d got from her mother. The WigWam! He could have made his fortune a hundred times over, for the love of God, had he bet that if the son of a bitch asked her out anywhere, that’s where he’d ask her. And she not even really divorced, not in the eyes of God. The last time John had gone to the WigWam was when? Ten years ago? And even then it was a nest of drunken floozies and five-hundred-dollar millionaires sniffing around their skirts like a pack of mongrels. My God, it was enough to turn your stomach. You can bet your bottom dollar that’s where that little bastard would take her. And she, like the simp she was when that slimy article turned on his five-and-ten charm, by Jesus Christ, she thought he was doing her a favor, she thought it was a compliment. No fool like an old fool. Oh, the dump was the perfect place for him to give her the old soft soap, to the tune of cheap rotgut booze and that nigger music that the young chippies jumped around to, dancing they called it! With their behinds wiggling around for anybody to see! When he’d gone a little further and said that he really didn’t want her to go, what do you even know about this man except that he’s divorced, and very pretty that is, isn’t it? the blind leading the blind, she set her face against him and said that she’d accepted the invitation and that as far as she was concerned what really got his back up was that he was scared to death of what the other boarders would think about it and she was sick and tired and fed up worrying about what a few relics that she didn’t give two cents for — and neither did he if he’d admit it — would say about anything. And then she said she wanted to wash her hair and that was that. It was easy to see that her head had been turned when she talked to her own father that way. A spectacle, no two ways about it, that’s what she was making of herself.
She was a good-looking woman, anybody with half an eye could see that, and he knew what a little bugger of a man like Thebus wanted with her — not that Marie would ever disgrace herself by letting him do — letting him get away with any smutty filth he’d cooked up. Married and a mother or not, she was as innocent as a girl, it troubled him even now to think of her and that greaseball she married doing God knows what… Well, that’s all over and done with and he’d seen many a man stop and turn around to look at her on the street and she’d walk along with her head up high as if they didn’t exist. But this one! He got around her with his Billy this and Billy that and his sad tales of his own boy — all peaches and cream and snots and tears, sure, now that he’d deserted him to chase sluts. Well, when she came back from town he’d tell her a thing or two about her precious gentleman admirer, and God bless Helga Schmidt for letting him know about it. Now there was a woman, straight as a die. Oh yes indeed, Helga Schmidt had the goods on the son of a bitch, and any man who runs after the janes the way he did was not about to change his spots just because he’d met a clean pure woman like Marie. By God, he wouldn’t put it past him to talk about marrying her, as if Marie would ever fly in the face of God, but he wouldn’t put it past him to say anything if he thought it might allow him to take liberties.
The sun had finally flooded the whole expanse of the church steps and he’d gone across the road to the porch where he bumped into Ralph Sapurty, just what the doctor didn’t order, and had to grin and bear it listening to his horse’s-ass chatter about God-knows-what. Just yes the poor unfortunate gawm to death and give him a nice big castor-oil smile every now and again. Then he saw Dave Warren’s car turn at the bend down the road and in a minute pull up and he watched Marie get out, loaded down with bundles to beat the band, like it was Christmas. She went past him like a ton of bricks, barely giving him the time of day, oh and how cute she was about it, saying that she didn’t want to interrupt him and Sapurty, as if she had no idea in God’s green world that the man gave him conniptions! Well, he talked with Ralph, if that’s the word for it, for a few more minutes for the sake of appearances, and then excused himself and said that he had to go upstairs and do something that nobody else could do for him, that’s the sort of remark that Ralph thought was more fun than Weber and Fields, the poor stupid man. When he reached Marie’s room he heard voices and for a minute thought that Thebus was in there with her, by God, he’d — but then he realized that it was just Billy, and you can rest assured that she’d brought him something from Hackettstown, oh the boy was spoiled rotten without a father to put his foot down, did she expect him to be father and grandfather and breadwinner all rolled in one? It had been enough of a burden even when Bridget had been alive. She wasn’t one to let things slide, when the boy needed to be taught a lesson she wasn’t the kind to shirk from it. Well, he wasn’t that kind and now, well, the handwriting was on the wall as far as all the good it had done him. He should have cracked him across the face once in while. Now they thought, the both of them, that they could walk all over him. Oh, it was grand for them. He pushed the door open hard and walked into Marie’s room.
They both looked at him as if he was something the cat dragged in and Marie was right on the verge of harping about knocking on a person’s door but he must have had a look on his face, there’s life in the old dog yet, and she shut her trap, thank God for small favors. The first thing was to get the boy to hell out of there, he was entirely too acclimated to hearing every word that passed between them, turning into a little old man he was with a wise little face on him. Aha, and there it was, by God, wouldn’t you have known it, a pair of shoes, nothing to them but a few scraps of leather, if you can call it that, and a high heel to show off her legs, the man has got her crazy as a bedbug, daffy! He held the door open and told Billy to go out and play, he had something to speak to his mother about, and she was about to open her mouth again but let it pass and the boy went out with some kind of a goddamn toy, another dollar thrown out the window, they thought he was made of money. Then he closed the door and started in on the shoes, what a pretty penny they must have cost, and for what? Could she even answer the question with a closetful of shoes not six feet away from her gathering dust? And a good time it was too to bring out what Helga had told him about young Lochinvar, that Romeo running after any skirt who looked in his direction, he never liked the cut of his jib from the first day he saw him running down off the porch all dressed in white like some horse’s ass of a sissy with a pipe stuck in his mouth like a collar ad, all for show it was, couldn’t she, for Christ sake, see what a fool he was making of her? Helga’s cousin saw him with some painted slut on his arm lovey-dovey as you please, coming out of a rattrap of a hotel, a fleabag that you’d get the itch just to pass by. This was the knight in shining armor with his hair all slicked down with brilliantine like a regular gigolo? This was the man that was taking his daughter dancing, or God knows what he had in mind? John put nothing past such an article!
He wasn’t prepared for her anger and spunk in talking back to him, and what did Bridget being sick all that time have to do with her letting this man be her escort, he’d like to know that, and could she tell him that? With a pair of high-heeled shoes meant for a girl of eighteen, not a mother who’d been married in the church at a high nuptial mass and in the eyes of God was still married. She sailed right by that and tore into Helga, that backbiting dutchie she called her, can’t you see what’s as plain as the nose on your face? That sauerkraut-eater has, oh don’t deny it, she has grand plans for you, oh my, grand. Why, you talk about what people, pardon me, the antiques here, think about Tom and me, Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Don’t you think they can all see that woman setting her cap for you? And she’d say anything to play up to you, anything she thinks you want to hear, by God, she’ll say it, in spades. He didn’t mean to — maybe he didn’t actually say it — but he forbade her to go out with that sly article and her face got as white as her shoes. She said she’d do as she damn well pleased! With a bleached blonde of a tramp he was seen, a whore! he said, and blushed. That’s the kind of a man who’s taking you dancing! Worse than that greaseball of a husband of yours, and bejesus he doesn’t even have a bit of an ass on him! By God, it’s one of the wonders of the world that the man can manage to sit down. She was holding the door open for him and wiping tears from her eyes. Oh Poppa, she said, what a spiteful thing to say, what a spiteful, mean thing to say to your own daughter.