You put it in nice and slow, kiddo, take it from the man who knows. Bill leaned close to him and winked, then threw his whiskey down and sighed, took a sip of beer. Nice and slow and easy on the girl, don’t be in a big hurry, me bucko. Then when you hear a loud pop you know you’re on your way. He looked at Bill, his eyes wide and his mouth half open. Ah, nah, nah! Bill said, don’t pay me any heed! There’s no pop, bejesus Christ — can’t your own brother have a little fun with you? But I’m on the level with that slow and easy stuff, take it from the man who was there, from the man who knows. Christ knows, she didn’t know. While she was taking a bath their first night in a hotel he opened her drawer and kissed her chemises and drawers and silk stockings. When she came out of the bathroom her dark coppery hair was loose, falling over her shoulders and back. Under her white wedding peignoir the collar of her nightgown showed, white too, and embroidered with pale-pink roses. She blushed and looked away. He could see her heavy breasts shift as she smoothed the night clothes over her hips. Are you warm enough, John? I think it’s a little chilly in here?
I’ve never been good enough for you, have I, Mr. High Mucky-Muck? Mr. Church of Ireland? Too much of a gentleman to be a man, a patch on a man’s ass is all you are. Why God in His goodness knows you weren’t but half a man on our wedding night! And you needn’t gape at me. Go out and get another pint of beer, for God’s sake! Ah, that got her back up — that she couldn’t drive him to the whiskey but for a ball or two now and again. How she wanted to turn him into another Mick drunkard, but it wouldn’t work. Walked around the house all day in her torn housecoats and broken shoes, the soles flapping, her stockings full of runs and twisted into knots below her knees. And he’d come into that, still impeccable in his starched white shirts and creased trousers, his heart dull and empty as he heard her: Wipe your feet! You’re late! Talking to one of those cheap painted chippies in the office again? I wouldn’t put anything past you! Later she’d sit across from him, cracking pretzels on her bottom front teeth and swilling her beer, lost in radio dramas, her feet planted on the floor, legs spread, so that he could look up to her naked crotch. God forbid she should put on drawers in the house and wear them out! It was disgusting. During the commercials she’d talk about how some old biddy neighbor of Aunt Lizzie or somebody had seen that bum of a brother of his fall in the gutter outside of Fritz’s Tavern, the puke, by God, all crusted on his shirt front. Something, something about Bill. Or maybe about that “tramp” Whiting in the office. Oh, you had your eye on her, didn’t you, you goddamn old fool? Jesus Christ almighty, Bridget! Don’t be using God’s name in vain with me, Mr. Big-Shot. And don’t deny for a minute that for six months here there wasn’t a conversation that the name of that tramp didn’t come out of your mouth a dozen times. Miss Whiting this, Miss Whiting that, Miss Whiting the other thing. And no wonder, the tramp probably wears her skirts up to here and takes good care that you see plenty of her when she crosses her legs.
Odd and sketchy fantasies about Jean Whiting. But he was no fool. Not yet. The girl could have been his daughter, she was younger than Marie. The night that Bridget had humiliated him in front of that goddamn flatfoot Jimmy Kenny and his common-law moron of a wife, Helen what’s her name. Mentioned once, once, by Christ, to Bridget that she was a great help in the office to all the credit men in his section, a nice bright girl. Oh Jimmy, did John mention to you that he’s gone ga-ga over some little chippy in the office? Why, you should see him, am I right, John? He goes to work every morning dressed up like Astor’s pet horse, oh, fit to kill! And then that fat cop’s laugh, the phlegm catching and tearing in his throat until he spit his filthy oyster into a grey handkerchief. And what did he say? The great strong hero, the lord of the manor, Caspar Milquetoast? Ha ha ha— she’s a dizzy jane, cheap and pimples all over her face, God bless the mark. And you should smell the Woolworth’s poi-fee-yume off her, my God, she’s like a nigger on Christmas. We all feel sorry for her. He felt sick and drank off two more ginger-ale highballs as fast as Jimmy made them. But that licking of the floor, the dirt, kissing her ass, wasn’t enough. Bridget squeezed the blood out and when it was gone she kept on squeezing. Insisted that he better his insults until Jean became their jointly invented monstrosity, their freak. And Jean moved then, even more strongly, in his fantasies.
But what would he ever have had to say to her? Her sweet face and mouth, her red hair? God, I hate a redheaded woman, Bridget said. And so proved that he had once, in innocence, told her the color of her hair. Everything was a weapon to maim and hurt. When would he learn anything in this terrible life? Could be her father, my God, younger than Marie. Well, Miss Whiting, Jean, I’m so glad that you could have lunch with me — I hope you don’t mind eating at the good old Exchange Buffet, the Eat It and Beat It? Ha ha. Oh, she’d be a good sport. Her bright head across the table and other men looking at him enviously. I’m going to leave my wife because she forced me to insult you in front of a stupid ox of a gawm named Jimmy Kenny, a stupid gawm of a policeman. Then what? Now, Jean, take me somewhere, take me away, show me what to do, show me how to sin, do you want me to “keep” you? I’ve never ever seen a woman naked, do you know that? Oh my God! Not even when I was young, not even my wife, ever ever ever. It’s true! Oh God! Now, my brother Bill, there was a ladies’ man. A little bay rum, kid, a few Sen-Sen, get the old nails buffed and, oho! you win the cigar! The janes fall down and woiship.
And when Marie and the boy came, beaten and broke, she became more of a sloven than ever. Stopped cooking, tied her hair up in old rags, ordered the girl around like she was a servant. Another Katie, another poor Katie in the house. Took it all and worked like a slave and he never once opened his mouth. And where would you be without your mother and father to take you in and put a roof over your head? Stink of garbage from the rattled Mirror. You see how much that dago greaseball of a husband thinks of you, him and his redheaded slut! Bud Halloran was doing it to her, the son of a bitch. He wasn’t much younger than he was! When she’d stoop to open a bottom file drawer he watched how her skirt molded to the shape of her sweet thighs. My sweet Jesus Christ. No, he couldn’t be doing it to her, she was too sweet, too fine, too clean. A virgin for sure. Too fine. Oh Christ, I hope he isn’t doing it to her!
Then started buying two quarts of Wilson’s a week. He’d drink in the closet, the bathroom, guzzle some when she went out of the room. A kind of peace dropped on him into which came her first complaints, then her illness proper. The old slob Drescher with his “anemia.” He drank his Wilson’s and still went out for his pint in the evening, but now he and Marie drank it, while she whined and complained from the bedroom that they were glad to be rid of her now that she was too sick to get out of bed. And he couldn’t look across at his daughter because he knew that they would find in each other’s eyes the truth of her complaint. How quickly she died after being admitted to the hospital. A serious relapse, old Drescher, the horse doctor, said. Right, sure, they call it leukemia. Goddamn horse’s ass! Jean Whiting came to the wake with Bud Halloran and some other people from the office. And she sent a mass card. Back, he was back at work in a week and felt nothing. He looked at Jean’s thighs and bottom and felt ashamed of himself. His lust for her had helped to kill Bridget.