“Well, I guess that’s sort of right. But I would’ve asked if you hadn’t asked yourself first.”
“You are a living, crawling, slimy piece of shit.”
“You think I don’t know it? I know I’m a bastard. And I don’t even know why. I just keep falling in love. It’s not just getting pussy, McCain. It really isn’t. I really, truly fall in love. But it never lasts very long.”
“You fell in love with the maid?”
“You’re not gonna believe this-I damned near asked her to marry me.”
And I felt sorry for him. I wasn’t even sure why. But every once in a while you see somebody the way they really are-it only takes a second of seeing them that way-and then you can’t hate them quite as much as you did. It’s a curse.
Then he did me a favor and went back to his whining. “I’m jeopardizing my inheritance here, you know.”
I was running out of medals to pin on this guy.
“It’s funny,” he said. He took out his pack of Viceroys. “My parents were against me marrying her because she was Jewish. They’re not anti-Semitic or anything-Kylie’s folks weren’t all that hot about me marrying her, either-j that they’re pretty strict Catholics and everything -but now-I mean, I’ve kept them up on developments and everything-now they’re taking her part in this. They’ve really gotten to love her.”
“That isn’t hard to do.”
Sudden anger. “You bastard. You did screw her that night she was here, didn’t you?”
I could have told him the truth. But why? His ego needed some grief. In my best mature voice, I said, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“God,” he said, miserably. “You can’t trust anybody these days.” And then-ffgive him at least a smidge of credit here-he said, “I guess that’s pretty ironic coming from me, huh?
About not being able to trust anybody, I mean.”
“I won’t tell her for you, Chad.”
He started talking to himself. Angled his head away. Took a deep drag on his smoke and began to ramble. “You know what I’m really scared of? Looking into her eyes when I tell her. You ever see her eyes when you hurt her feelings?
She looks like this devastated little girl.”
He was right.
“And I don’t want to put that hurt in her eyes anymore. I’ve been doing it night after night for a month now. I haven’t just walked away, McCain. You have to give me that, anyway. I know I’ve gone back and forth between the two of them but it’s only because I don’t want to hurt Kylie. Hell, I’ve known for a long time that we had a shit marriage. We never should’ve been married in the first place. We’re just too combustible.”
He was starting to persuade me and he knew it.
“She’ll still want to see you,” I said.
He looked at me, done with his reverie.
“Oh, I know. But she’ll know the situation.
I won’t explain that to her because you’ll already have covered it.” Then: “I won’t even care if you sleep with her.”
“You pimping for her now? I hate to tell you this, Chad, but you don’t have the right to hand her out like candy.”
“You jerk. You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean. Now get off my steps.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“You slimy, crawling, stinking piece of shit.”
“So you’ll do it, McCain? Will ya, please?
Will ya?”
“You vain, pompous, arrogant-”
“So you’ll do it?”
“Yeah,” I said, “you rotten bastard, I’ll do it.”
She wasn’t home and she wasn’t home and she wasn’t home. I kept trying her every ten minutes. I wanted to get it over with. I dragged the phone with its long extension cord over to the couch so that I could lie down and watch “Science Fiction Theater.” It had been on back when I was still a teenager. It was funny how I was already nostalgic for a pastime. How can you be nostalgic when you’re only twenty-four? But it was the old shows and the old songs and the old sights-the way the shadows of the trees played on the river; the deserted baseball park where you could see advertisements on the fence for businesses that didn’t exist anymore; the Catholic school where I’d pined so arduously for the beautiful Pamela far across town at public school-mch as I liked Kerouac and art films and Evergreen Review and Lenny Bruce-I already missed the simpler times behind me. And “Science Fiction Theater” with the ultimate father figure, Truman Bradley, was part of those simpler times.
She called.
“He isn’t here.”
“I know. You need to come over here.”
“What?”
“Please. Just get in your car and come over.”
“Oh, God, this is going to be bad, isn’t it, McCain?”
“Please, Kylie. Just come over.”
“He couldn’t even face me himself, could he?”
“Right away,” I said. “Please.” And hung up.
She was at my door in under ten minutes. Her knock was exceptionally loud. I learned this was because she knocked on the door with a full fifth of Jack Daniels. In her other hand she carried a suitcase. A big one.
No sign she’d been crying. No sign of trembling. No sign of anger. This was scary.
I took her suitcase.
“You want a drink?” I said.
“Please. You mind if we put on some music?”
“Anything in particular?”
“You pick.”
“Been listening to this blues guy. Oscar Brown, Jr.”
“Fine,” she said.
She got her drink and she got Oscar Brown, Jr.
She sat at one end of the couch with her lovely legs stretched out across my lap. She wore blue walking shorts and a white T-shirt.
“He tell you he was leaving me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He say he was in love with her?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He say he couldn’t face me because he “didn’t want to put any more hurt” in my eyes?”
“Yeah. Some kinda bullshit like that. He probably thinks it’s a good line.”
“He does. He thinks all his lines are good lines.”
“And by the way, thanks for telling me what I was supposed to tell you. I was sorta nervous about how I’d say it.”
“I almost told him I was pregnant.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“No. But it would’ve made him suffer. This way he just gets to walk away.”
She finished her drink in three gulps. Then swung her legs off me and stood up.
“You ready for another one?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“I’m going to make a stiff one.”
“The night’s young.”
She actually smiled. “Yes, McCain, and so are we.”
She poured about half a glass full of sour mash, ran a silver slip of tap water into it, added a couple ice cubes from the fridge, and then came back, bringing those wonderful long legs with her.
When they were once again inhabiting my lap, she said, “Tonight’s the night we sleep together, McCain.”
“Probably not.”
“C’mon, McCain, I’ve got to sleep with you tonight.”
“Because he’s sleeping with her tonight.”
“No, because I want to sleep with you.”
“You like me. I like you. We’re friends. That part’s true. But the reason you want to sleep with me is because of her.”
“Well, maybe part of the reason.”
“Most of the reason.”
“Maybe fifty percent of the reason,” she said.
“Maybe eighty percent of the reason.”
“Maybe fifty-five percent of the reason.”
We listened to Oscar Brown, Jr.
“Boy, this drink’s really getting to me,” she said.
“That’s probably more booze than you’ve had in your entire life-right there in that one drink.
Nobody says you’ve got to drink it.”
She set it down on the coffee table.
“Wow. I’m woozy.”
She laid her head back against the arm of the couch. Closed her eyes.
“Would you dance with me?” she said.
“I thought you were woozy.”
“I’m all right now.”
“You’re a dancer, huh?”
“Not really. I mean, I used to dance with my sister sometimes when we watched “American Bandstand.” And I danced in high school the few times the boys would ask me. They wanted to slow-dance with girls with big breasts so that let me out.” Pause. “I want you to hold me, McCain, I really need you to hold me, and dancing’s a good way to do that.”