This was getting sloppy as hell. Maybe Daddy-oh could afford dry cleaning bills, but the boys would rather spend the dough in a movie. They decided to end it fast. They ended it by resorting to feet, and this time there were six pairs of feet because the shrimp was already out and, except for one boy who was enjoying kicking the piss out of an unconscious man, the others were free to give their undivided attention to Daddy-oh.
They gave it to him. They gave it to him until they felt they’d squashed his scrotum flat, and then they gave it to him equally around the head. He stopped struggling at last, and they grabbed his briefcase and dumped everything into the gutter, tearing the papers and the notebook, and then ripping the stitching on the bag, and breaking the clasp, and finally working it over with a knife, until it looked like a holiday streamer hanging from the ceiling of a dance hall. The kid with the knife in his hands got ideas, but the sport was over now, and when the sport is over you get the hell out of the neighborhood before the cops show on the scene. The kid put the knife away reluctantly, and they all strolled off down the street, heading for the street lamp near Third Avenue.
They walked out of the darkened block in pairs, two, two, and a final group of three. They walked up Third Avenue and looked in the shop windows and whistled at a few girls in tight sweaters, and they laughed a little and joked a little and then met in one of the ice-cream parlors, where two of the boys shot the works on banana splits. The other boys had ice-cream sodas or malteds, and they were all very orderly even though they laughed a lot.
When they left, the proprietor couldn’t help commenting to his wife that high school kids were much quieter than they were in his day.
The clock on the kitchen wall had become a leering face. She could almost see eyes on it, could almost twist the advancing black hands into a crookedly grinning mouth.
The steam had gone off at a quarter to eleven, and the apartment was cold now. She trembled slightly, holding her robe close to her, looking at the clock once more.
It was possible, of course, that Rick had begun enjoying himself, had possibly even gotten drunk, and had forgotten to call her again. Anything, of course, was possible. But when he’d called, he told her he was going to have a few beers with — what was his name? — and that she should plan on a later-than-usual supper. He’d also asked her if she minded, and she’d said no, not at all, even though she’d have preferred him to come directly home.
The later-than-usual supper had been ready by eight. She did not remember how many times she’d gone to the living room window and looked down to the street eleven stories below. She knew Rick’s walk the way she knew the new contours of her body. She was able to spot him a good half-block away from the project, and generally when he saw her standing by the window, he’d wave at her, then look hastily in both directions before crossing 174th Street and heading for the door of the building, out of her line of vision.
The street tonight was unusually deserted. Perhaps it was the unseasonally strong wind that had driven everyone indoors, leaving the lamp posts solitary and forlorn-looking. The supper she’d prepared stood in its pots on the stove, cold now. The dishes set on the kitchen table looked up at her with open white faces.
She was worried, truly worried. The radio in the living room was tuned to WNLW, and the strains of ‘Music ‘Till Midnight’ wafted into the apartment, soft, lilting melodies that made the place seem more empty. She would wait until midnight, until the announcer with his honeyed tones gave the talk about another day having gone to rest, with a future day ready to burst on the horizon. Or maybe she’d wait for the opening theme of ‘The Milkman’s Matinee,’ or perhaps until the theme had played and Art Ford came on the air. Yes, she’d wait until then, and if he wasn’t home, she would phone the police.
Even the idea of phoning the police frightened her. It was as if by admitting the possibility of violence, she was openly acknowledging that violence had happened.
She felt tears spring to her eyes, and she held them back desperately, hating the way she cried so easily lately, knowing it was due to her condition, and hating even that word now.
If anything has happened to him, she thought. If anything has happened to him. She could not hold back the tears. They streamed down her cheeks, and she wiped at them with the sleeve of her robe, and her mind conjured a picture of her giving birth to her child, with Rick not there, sometime in the future, with Rick not there, not there.
No, nothing has happened, she told herself. He’s just having a good time. He’s just j or gotten to call.
But doesn’t he know I’m worried frantic? If that’s all it is, I’ll kill him, I really will, not calling when he knows I’m worried sick.
She smiled at the idea of killing him, because that was silly, because she was worried that... that something had happened to him, and she would certainly not kill him, and when the realization of her silliness struck her she laughed a little, and the laugh dissolved into rapid tears, and she wiped at them with her robe until the sleeve was all wet. She prayed desperately for the phone to ring, prayed for the doorbell to burst into sound. The tears kept flowing unchecked, as if all the worry inside was running down out of her eyes.
There was a rush of violins from the radio, gripping the cold air of the apartment, and then a crooner’s voice flowed from the prolonged violin passage, as warm as copper, tender, soft.
She rose and walked far into the kitchen, walked right up to clock, as if she were defying its hands to move while she watched them. It was eleven-fifty, ten minutes to the deadline she had set. She wrung her hands together, stopped it when she felt like the heroine of a cheap melodrama, and then began pacing the floor, walking back and forth before the set table.
Rickie, Rick, come home, she pleaded silently.
She walked back into the living room again, stopping at the window and looking down at the deserted streets, watching a newspaper sidle up to the curb, flap wildly in the gutter for an instant, and then leap onto the sidewalk.
When she heard the key in the latch, her breath caught in her throat. She whirled from the window and shouted, “Rick? Rick?”
She listened to the rattling of the key for a second and then rushed into the foyer, reaching for the inside lock. He was twisting his key at the same time, and they worked at cross purposes, fumbling on either side of the door, each anxious to have the door open, each anxious to remove the metal barrier between them.
And then the door was open, and he stood there unsmiling, blood caked on his mouth and streaked on his face, his left eye almost closed, his cheek ripped wide in a flap of flesh. His suit was torn, his new suit, the tweed he looked so well in, and there was a rip in his shirt, and she saw the flesh of his chest beneath that tear, and it was the sight of that skin, exposed-looking, white against the soiled white shirt, vulnerable-looking, that brought the tears again.