The Justice of the Peace displayed no such force; for one thing, he had the gout. It was necessary for him to remain seated while he married them, though he compensated for his posture with a clear, loud, nondenominational voice. It was a Sunday afternoon and when Paul and Libby entered, they found the JP pulled up close to an old cabinet-model radio, a large scrolly piece with WEAF WJZ WOR WABC marked on the yellowed station selector. The JP’s wife turned off the radio during the ceremony. She was an elderly lady who wore glasses and a print dress that was a little longer in back than in front; below were nurse’s white oxfords. She touched the bride ten times at least, then removed some artificial flowers from the closet and put them in a blue vase behind her husband, whose bandage was in need of a change. She called him “the Judge,” and she called his gout “the Judge’s difficulty.” “I hope you won’t mind the Judge’s difficulty,” she whispered, and then raised his bandaged foot up onto a cushioned chair. It stared at them throughout the proceedings.
When it was all over the Judge’s wife put the flowers back in the closet and turned on the radio. The couple from next door, who had been called in to serve as witnesses, hugged the newlyweds; the woman hugged Paul, the man Libby. The Judge’s wife looked from Libby’s ring to Paul’s ring and said all there actually was to say about them; she managed more excitement than one really even had the right to expect from the wife of an old sick Yonkers JP. “They match,” she said. The Judge said, “Elizabeth, Paul, will you step up here, please?” After a quick glance at each other, they approached and stood on either side of his difficulty, expecting his blessing. He said, “Now you know how to get back into the city, don’t you?”
“Yes,” they said.
“That’ll be ten,” said the Judge.
He preferred not to take a check on Paul’s Ithaca bank. “We’re dealing with strangers all the time,” the Judge’s wife reminded the young couple. Libby had to give them the cash.
Two buses and a subway carried them back to New York in an hour and a half; Libby got out before Paul in order to change trains for Queens — husband and wife would meet at Grand Central with their suitcases at six that night. When they parted, so preoccupied were they, that they forgot to embrace. Paul traveled the rest of the way alone, back to Brooklyn to tell his family what he had done.
He got off the subway at Atlantic Avenue, where he was struck with how familiar he was with every trash can, every last signpost and pillar. On the way up the street to his family’s apartment he slipped the ring off his finger and into his coat pocket. He would begin his accounting slowly, give them a chance to … But then he saw before him the grave, ironic, savage face of Lichtman; he remembered the insults and the pain, and he put the ring that matched his wife’s back on his finger and entered with his news.
And his father threw him out of the house. Mr. Herz had not summoned up so much courage since he had invested his life’s savings in frozen foods and gone under for the fourth time. But he wouldn’t go under again! In one life, how many times can a man fail?
On the train back to Ithaca, Paul wept.
“We don’t need them,” Libby said, cradling his head in the dark car. “We don’t need anybody.”
“That isn’t it,” her husband replied. “That isn’t it …” And it was and it wasn’t.
2
“How?”
“Paul, I don’t know how. Maybe it’s not even so.”
“Well, it is so, isn’t it? If it’s not, what are we getting upset about?”
“Well — I think it is so, then.”
“You haven’t gone to a doctor, have you? By yourself?”
“Paul, I’m just always very regular — you could set your watch by me.”
“Maybe you’re upset. Maybe it’s working at that place, all the running around you have to do. Maybe you should take a day off.”
“I practically just started.”
“That’s all right. That’s why you’re upset.”
“I’ve been upset before. I get a tight colon or a runny nose — but never this.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know how.”
“You don’t use that thing right.”
“I do use it right.”
“On the little booklet that comes with the grease it shows how you should lie down when you put it in. I’ve told you a hundred times, lie down the way it shows in the booklet. No — you’ve got to stand up. You’ve got to do it like you’re putting on your shoes!”
“Either way—”
“Why can’t you do it the way it says to do it? Why do we have to take chances?”
“Paul, that’s not a chance. A doctor showed me how, standing up. It’s perfectly all right.”
“If it’s so all right why are you ten days late?”
“That hasn’t anything to do with it.”
“What does?”
“I don’t know what does. Please, let’s not fight about it.”
“What are we going to do if you’re pregnant, Libby? What are we going to do with a baby now?”
“I’ll menstruate. I’ve had pains — I had some this morning.”
“I thought you didn’t get pains.”
“Maybe I will this time. Maybe that’s why I’m irregular.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know! Leave me alone. I’ll menstruate for you. Just leave me be!”
“Don’t menstruate for me, Libby. Oh, don’t start any crap like that. You came running to me, didn’t you? ‘Paul, I think I’m pregnant — oh what’ll we do!’ ”
“I was upset. We quit school, we came here to make money, we got jobs, and now suddenly this!”
“All right, Libby, all right.”
“All right what?”
“Arguing is stupid.”
“Honey, I’ll go to the bathroom. I’ll check.”
“You know how? That first day, right after your last period—”
“But it’s safe then.”
“No time is safe. I said use the damn thing. Take a minute out and use it.”
“It’s so unaesthetic — it’s such a pain in the neck. It’s so unspontaneous.”
“And she romanticized them into a family of ten.”
“Maybe I’m not pregnant. People miss whole months sometimes. If we can’t figure out how, then I’m probably just missing a whole month. Maybe it’s from working at a new job—”
“We can figure out how. I can figure out how.”
“It’s safe then! Four days at the beginning, four at the end. We always did that.”
“We were lucky.”
“It’s biologically impossible—”
“They swim, Libby. They hide in nooks and crannies, waiting.”
“I just know I’m not. I can’t be. We are careful.”
“Libby, you’re careful when you use that thing the way it’s supposed to be used, when you don’t skimp on the goddam jelly.”
“The jelly’s expensive. The jelly costs two dollars a tube!”
“So what! Did I ever say anything? Did I ever say don’t buy more jelly? Buy it! Use it! Squander it! That’s what it’s for!”
“But the diaphragm does all the work.”
“Oh Libby.”
“Well, I can’t stand it! I have to put it in me! Right in the midst of everything and I have to stop and fill that plunger! I hate it!”
“And what do you prefer — this?”