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.