“My father,” said Karras. “Yeah, I’m just like my father, all right. I drink too much, and I got no ambition, and I treat my wife like some kind of maid, like she’s some kind of hired help. Most nights, I can’t seem to make it home for dinner—”
“Pete—”
“—and I don’t even know how to love my own son.” Karras’s voice broke. “Just like my father. Perry. Yeah, I’m some kind of man, all right. I’m so much of a man that one woman’s not enough for me. I even got a woman on the side—”
“Goddamnit, Pete,” said Perry, avoiding Karras’s eyes. “I don’t want to know.”
Karras got close to Perry’s face. “And you always wanted to be the kind of man I am. Why, that’s good for about a million laughs, Perry. The truth of it is, you’re more of a man than I’ll ever be. You always have been. Don’t you get it?”
Helen honked the horn once again. Perry looked at the car, waved his hand. When he turned back, Karras could see a redness in Perry’s eyes.
“I better take off. I haven’t even read the Sunday paper yet. Gotta get to those funny pages. Skeezix is out at the family farm with Nina and Chipper right now. Chipper thinks you can make milk by mixing bran and water, see—”
“Save it, Perry. I haven’t read ‘Gasoline Alley’ in over ten years.”
“I still keep up with it, I guess.”
Karras smiled. “Go on. Go on and get up with your family.”
“Adio, Pete.”
“Yasou, Perry.”
Perry Angelos took the steps down to the sidewalk, crossed the street. When he reached the car, he stopped, put his hand to the handle, looked back. Eleni, Dimitri, and Georgia Karras were walking slowly northwest, in the direction of their apartment. Peter Karras was limping down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, heading south. Perry got into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition, and pulled away from the curb. He gave the Packard gas, headed uptown.
“What’s wrong?” said Helen.
“Nothing,” said Perry. “The wind must have got to my eyes.”
“You better put on your glasses, honey.”
“All right.”
Perry got the glasses from his pocket, slipped them on his face. Helen scooted over on the seat, leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Pete didn’t look so good, did he?”
He looked like it’s all closing in on him. Like he’s walked into an alley that’s all bricked up.
Perry said, “He looked all right.”
Helen kissed Perry softly behind the ear. He smiled.
“What’d you do that for?”
“I’m happy, that’s all.”
Perry said, “I’m happy, too.”
Evthokia slapped Diana on the arm in the backseat. There was an argument, and Diana began to cry.
“All right, you two,” said Helen. “Cut it out!”
“Let ’em play,” said Perry, listening to the emotion in his daughters’ voices, liking the sound. He put his arm around Helen. He pulled her close.
Vera Gardner opened the door. She stood in the frame in her half-slip and black brassiere. She held a tumbler full of scotch and ice in one hand. She put the tumbler to her mouth and drank.
“Little early for that, isn’t it?”
“I suppose. You want one?”
“More than one.”
Vera laughed, wiggled her foot: a calfskin, platform heel with a slave-bracelet strap. “You like?”
“Seymour Troy. I saw ’em down at Hahn’s.”
“Twelve ninety-five. But I had to, Pete.”
“Let me in, baby, before you catch your death.”
“Don’t you like me like this?”
“I like you every which way,” said Karras. “I’ll like you even more when we get inside.”
He entered the room, kicked the door shut behind him. He threw his fedora on the bed. Beneath the bed, he could see the handles of Vera’s suitcases protruding from behind the sheets.
“Scotch all right?”
“Fine.”
She fixed him a drink from a tray she had set up, and carried it across the room. He took it, drank hungrily. Vera got close to him, took the tumbler from his hand, placed it on the dresser. Karras studied her jittery eyes; she was halfway lit, and there were dirt trails on her face.
“You been cryin’.”
“I guess.”
“About what?”
“Things.”
She crushed her mouth against his, kissed him desperately.
“Hold me, Pete.”
Karras said, “I will.”
Karras opened his eyes. He yawned, read the time off the rectangular face of his Hamilton: almost two o’clock. He got up on one elbow, rolled onto his side, leaned into Vera. His finger traced a circle around the cherry-red nipple of her right breast. God, she had those perfect tits — the most beautiful he’d ever touched.
Vera swiped dimly at a tickle on her nose. Karras watched her eyes jerking around behind closed lids. She moaned a little, moved her lips, tossed her head from side to side. A line of sweat had formed on her upper lip. The sheets beneath her were wet, and they were wet and slick from their lovemaking as well, just a half-hour before. Vera’s slightly rank perspiration and the tang of booze hung in the air.
Her head suddenly came up off the pillow. She looked at Karras with wide and questioning eyes, as if she were seeing him for the first time that day.
“Relax, sweetheart. It’s just you and me. You were dreaming, that’s all.”
Vera sighed, dropped her head down on the pillow. Karras draped his arm over her, fitted himself between her thighs. He listened to the tick of his Hamilton and felt the drum of Vera’s heart pulsing through his fingers. He went to sleep.
Karras woke alone on the bed. The light had changed in the room. He glanced at his wristwatch, saw that another half hour had passed.
He sat up and let his feet touch the floor. He scratched under his balls and brushed a dry patch of white from the inside of his thigh. Vera stood naked in front of the window frame with her back to him, staring at the gray window, completely steamed over from the cold outside and the bowl of water which Vera kept on the radiator below the sill. Vera smoked a cigarette with one hand and in the other held a tumbler of scotch over ice. An ashtray sat on the radiator next to the glass bowl. Vera tapped off a bit of ash which drifted down and missed the tray.
“Hey, kiddo,” said Karras, but she did not turn around.
Karras got up, went to his suit jacket laid neatly across the miniature chesterfield by the makeup stand. He drew an envelope and his deck of Luckies from the inside pocket. He lighted a cigarette and limped across the room. Karras put his hand on Vera’s shoulder.
“Been up long?”
“A little while, I guess.”
“Here ya go. Vera. Thought you might like these.”
He put the envelope in her hand. She studied the envelope and then its contents, smiled oddly, blinked her eyes.
“It’s Hamlet,” said Karras helpfully. “One of those Shakespeare plays.”