The old man crushed his cigarette butt, Bobby tore the prosthesis out of the mattress, sobbing. The poor guy tottered on his legs but didn’t go down. Day was breaking. He let out another shriek. This time he aimed a little lower-around stomach level and his moving arm went through it like a howitzer. The mattress bent over in half. Without missing a beat, Bobby freed himself, then went for the head. The cloth must have been brittle-it cracked open with the sound of a pig getting its throat slit.
While Bobby continued to let loose on the mattress, reducing it to bits, the old man looked away. The sidewalk was deserted, with one foot in the night and one finger in daylight. I had the feeling we were waiting for something.
“Okay. That ought to do it,” said the old man. “You want to give me a hand…?”
Bobby was completely exhausted. His hair was plastered against his forehead, as if he’d dunked his head in a tub of water. He let us guide him back to the truck. We sat him down behind the steering wheel. He asked me for a cigarette. I offered him the pack. They were filtered.
He started shaking his dull head.
“Hey, those are faggot cigarettes!”
“Right.”
I could see that he didn’t even remember what had happened. Just to be sure, I glanced over at the mattress. These kinds of people sometimes make you doubt what’s real and what isn’t, and that’s hard enough to deal with under normal circumstances there’s no reason to make things difficult on purpose. By now my feet were completely frozen. The old man tossed a full garbage can into the compactor and I went inside quietly to put some shoes on. Betty was still sleeping. I heard them start down the street and asked myself why I had bothered to put my shoes on, when it was only seven o’clock in the morning. I had nothing special to do and was still pretty sleepy.
16
We worked on the house for a good two weeks, Betty astounding me at every turn. It was a pleasure to work with her, especially now that she’d adopted my pace. She left me alone when I didn’t feel like talking. We stopped regularly to down a few beers, It was nice out. She restocked my mouth with nails, she never screwed up, and she was finally able to use a paintbrush without the paint running up to her elbow. I noticed a million little things that she took care to do correctly she was a natural. There are girls like that-you wonder how many more rabbits they have in their hat. In these eases working with a girl is the best, especially if you’re clever enough to have scored a new fifteen-inch foam mattress and can make her come down off her ladder with one well-placed beckoning glance.
Since we had to do our shopping on foot, and since we had a little extra money, I started checking out used cars. I read the want ads, Betty peering over my shoulder. Big cars were cheap because people panicked about gasoline. Big cars were the last flicker of a dying civilization, and now was the moment to take advantage of it. What difference does it make-sixteen or twenty miles to the gallon? Is it really worth making a big deal over?
We wound up with a Mercedes 280, fifteen years old and painted lemon yellow. I wasn’t wild about the color, but it ran well. At night I’d look at it through the window before going to bed. Sometimes a little ray of moonlight would hit it. It was by far the coolest car on the street. The front fender was a little dented, but it didn’t matter much. What bothered me most was that the headlight frame was missing. I tried not to notice. The back three-quarters looked like new, though. That’s how it is everything in life is but an illusion. Every morning I’d look to make sure it was still there. Eventually I got used to it. I got used to it until the day I had a fight with Betty-the day we were coming back from the supermarket.
She had just calmly run a red light-we had missed becoming pancakes by a hair. I offered a subtle reflection: “Keep this up and we’ll be walking home with the steering wheel in our hands. Is that the idea?”
We’d gotten up early that day. We were planning to start on the biggest part of the renovation. At seven in the morning, I took the first swing with the sledgehammer into the wall that divided the bedroom from the living room. I went right through it with ease. Betty was standing on the other side. We looked at each other through the hole while the dust settled.
“You get a load of that?” I said.
“Yeah… you know what it reminds me of?”
“Yeah. Stallone in Rocky III.”
“Better than that. You writing your book.”
She came up with things like that from time to time. I was starting to get used to it. I knew that she was being sincere, but she also had this need to prick me with a needle, to see if I reacted. I reacted. When I thought about it, it gave me a feeling like having a bullet lodged in my back. It would move without warning. The pain made me groan inside. I looked away. But that wasn’t the most important thing. Sometimes life seemed like a forest full of vines-you have to grab hold of one before you let go of the other, or else you wind up on the ground with both legs broken. In the end, it was all amazingly simple-a child of four could understand. I discovered more things living with her than I ever would by sitting in front of a blank page, my brain boiling. The only thing worth anything here on earth is what you learn by doing.
With my finger I dislodged a little brick that was getting ready to fall.
“I don’t see really the connection between breaking a wall down and writing a book,” I said.
“I’m not surprised. Forget it,” she said.
I went back to smashing the wall without a word. I knew it hurt her when I said things like that-spoiled her fun-but I couldn’t help it. I had the feeling I was talking to myself. We spent most of the morning piling up boxes of broken plaster on the sidewalk. She didn’t unclench her teeth once. I didn’t want to annoy her. I even made a little small talk here and there, not needing a response-about how warm it was for January, how one sweep of the vacuum cleaner would make it look like nothing had happened, how she ought to at least stop and drink a beer, how I’ll be damned if the house doesn’t look completely different now, how won’t Eddie be thrilled when he gets a load of this?
I tried a potato omelet to get her mind off it, but it didn’t work-the spuds just stuck to the bottom of the frying pan like the lowlife trash they are. “There’s nothing more depressing than grabbing onto a branch that only breaks in the end.
It was hard to go back to work comfortably after that. I thought we ought to get a little air. We took the car-destination shopping center. I needed more paint, and I knew she had two or three things to buy-it’s rare when a girl isn’t out of some cream or moisturizing lotion, it’s rare when a girl refuses to go shopping. If everything worked out, I’d be able to chase away the dark clouds with a tube of lipstick, two or three new pairs of panties, or an industrial-strength candy bar.
We drove slowly up the main street with the windows half open-the noonday sun like peanut butter slathered on holy wafers. I zipped into the parking lot. She hadn’t said a word the whole way, but I wasn’t worried-in thirty seconds I’d have her in the cosmetics department, and the game would be won. I pushed the shopping cart myself. She kept her hands in her pockets and her head turned aside. Twenty more seconds, I told myself.
There weren’t many people. I stayed behind her, letting her go, watching her toss box after box into the basket. I thought maybe I could get a discount at the checkout line-all I had to do was show them how damaged their packaging was. But I kept my mouth shut. I still had a few good cards left to play.
We went toward the beauty department. We went right by it, not even stopping. I didn’t get it. There was a foxtrot coming over the loudspeakers. Maybe she had decided to keep sulking until nightfall-at any rate that’s the way it was looking. I’d have to play it close to the chest.