“Same place I hear ever’thing else.” Dot pointed at the floor. “GroVont ever gets a newspaper I could be the only reporter.”
Maurey turned sideways in the booth and leaned against the wall. “We’re experimenting with friendship. We could go back the other way any second.”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
Dot laughed like she always does. “Hate is a good way to start being friends. Better than the other way around like those two old farts.” She pointed at Bill and Oly who were back in their regular corner booth. They stared into their coffee cups as if they’d done a freeze-frame in that position.
“What’s wrong with them?” I asked.
Dot more or less sorted. “They were meat and gravy for thirty years. Had a logging business, you never saw Bill without Oly or Oly without Bill.”
“You still don’t,” Maurey said.
“We used to think maybe they’s queer, but who ever heard of a queer logger.”
“Must get lonesome in the woods,” I said.
Dot grinned real big. “That’s why God made sheep,” and she went off into a veritable gale of mirth. Maurey and I cut eyes at each other, knowing this had something to do with dicks and tunnels, but not sure how sheep fit in.
“I have to watch them every minute now. Bill’s punched out Oly three times this month. Almost broke his nose the other day. Oly don’t know what to make of it. He’s gotten skittish. The whole cafe is tense.”
I studied the two old men nodding over their coffee cups. They didn’t appear skittish, they appeared dead. Their hands wrapped around their cups, as if that was the last possible source of warmth. At one point, Bill swallowed and Oly blinked.
I ordered a cheeseburger and coffee. Maurey had a vanilla shake. When Dot brought the food, Maurey went right to the point.
“Dot, do you and your husband have sex?”
Dot’s head kind of snapped back an inch. She snuck a quick look around for eavesdroppers, but there were no other customers besides the old men practicing for death. Dot smoothed her apron with her right hand. “Jimmy’s been in the army two years, over in Asia the last six months, so there’s been a dry spell here just lately.”
I smiled sympathetically. Maurey went right on. “But you used to have sex, right, before Jimmy went away?”
Dot’s eyes went into a memory mode. “My Jimmy had the appetite. He’d of done it four times a day if I’d let him. I got scared to wash the dishes for fear of him sneaking up behind me.”
“Then men like it and women don’t?”
“Oh, I loved it, sugar, better than ice cream and chocolate cake.”
“Then why were you scared to wash the dishes?”
“I guess I was more a twice-a-dayer than four times, though if Jimmy’d come back tomorrow, I swear I could adapt.”
I stared out the window at the sunshine, pretending I had a woman who wanted it twice a day but was willing to go four. I wondered how long each time took. If it was fifteen minutes, that’d mean an hour of fucking a day.
“My mom won’t be home for another twenty minutes,” Ginger Ann purred. “You want to stick it in?”
“But that’ll be five times since school let out this afternoon.”
“Sam, it’s not romantic to keep score.”
Maurey sucked on her shake straw thoughtfully. “How much come did Jimmy put out each time?”
Dot sat down at the table behind her. “Maurey Pierce. There are things people don’t compare.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Why? Lovemaking is private. We do it but we don’t say how much you-know-what came out.”
“It’s okay to say ‘came out’ but not okay to say ‘come’?”
Dot blinked three times—blap-blap-blap. “That’s talking dirty. Kids your age shouldn’t talk dirty.”
“I don’t see how it can be dirty,” I said. “Lydia told me sex is an expression of affection and love, theoretically, and good, clean fun, practical-wise. Why is doing it clean, but talking about it dirty?”
Maurey waved her hand as if she were clearing the air. “I just want to know if a third cup is average.”
Dot tittered, which is really weird in a woman over twenty-five. “We girls can’t talk about it in mixed company.” She nodded her head at me.
I scooted out of the booth. “I’m going to the can.” To Maurey, I said, “Remember anything she says. I didn’t hold out on you.”
Dot slid over into the seat I’d just left. “What’s he mean ‘hold out’?”
In the men’s room, I discovered the deal had gotten stiff again, too stiff, and pointed in the wrong direction to pee. Could just talking about the penis make it get bigger? That would be really weird. Within the last year, kinky hair had sprouted down in the ball area. I knew that when a kid got kicked down there it hurt like shit, more than getting kicked in the stomach or butt, so those clumps in the sac must be nerves.
As I gave it a little squeeze it seemed to get even harder, about as hard as an aspen branch, not as hard as an elm. The thing had been stiffening up now and then since I was eleven, could there be a way to blow the goo without being asleep or sticking it in a girl? I couldn’t see how. By pinching the end a tad, I could make the slit open and close, like a mouth. I pretended I was a ventriloquist and could throw my voice.
“Hi there, my name is Dicky. I live in your penis. I get big when I want and I squirt when I want.” Then I wagged him side to side.
“Jesus Christ,” I said back to Dicky.
Never did get a chance to pee.
When I returned to Maurey, I had to walk past Bill and Oly’s corner booth. Neither one had moved, but a low growl came from Bill’s upper chest, kind of angry grizzly bear-like. I skirted way wide so he couldn’t grab me.
Back to my cheeseburger, I asked Maurey, “Dot tell you how it’s done?”
Maurey looked disgusted. “She said sex is a wonderful and special experience, but it can never be done right unless the two people are in love.”
“Sounds like a crock to me.”
“That’s what I told her.”
A letter arrived from Caspar.
Samuel,
Everyone can master a grief but he that has had it.
Pay attention. This affects the way you live and there is just a possibility that the family brains skipped a generation and you think with more than your organs.
A man in San Bernadino, California, has invented a way of dramatically strengthening tires by blending carbon black with rubber. This means the price of carbon is going to skyrocket, which means you may be forced to find a job someday. Ask your mother if she knows what a job is. I have also heard an ugly rumor of an old retiree in a garage somewhere who has discovered “carbonless” carbon paper, a way to make carbons without discoloration of the fingers. Added to this misery, a company named Xerox may do away with carbon paper completely.
So the Caspar Callahan Carbon Paper Company is searching for a way to expand. I am considering nylons.
Keep all this under your hat, Samuel.
I trust you and your mother are adapting to the weather. I understand the pass you caught against Victor, Idaho, showed resourcefulness and daring. Good work. Did I ever tell you of my days at Culver Military Academy?
Tell your mother that I have a friend in Belgian Congo whose tenant was recently devoured by rabid Negroes.
Your dignity and the Callahan name are your most precious possessions, Samuel. Guard them diligently.
Your grandfather,
Mr. Callahan
I showed the letter to Lydia. “Are we supposed to think he makes these weird quotes up?”
“It’s a tone-setter stratagem to make his thoughts relevant. I remember that dignity line from when I was your age,” Lydia said. “I told him I’d rather have a T-Bird.”