In his apartment on the top of The Abraham Lincoln Apartments, thin, balding Chic Strikerock, Vince's older brother, awoke and peered nearsightedly at the clock to see if one could manage to remain in bed a bit longer. But the excuse was not valid; the clock read eight-fifteen. Time to get up ... a news machine, noisily vending its wares outside the building, had awakened him, fortunately. And then Chic discovered to his shock that someone was in bed with him; he opened his eyes fully and made himself rigid as he inspected the covered outline of what he saw at once, from the tumble of brown hair, was a young woman, and one familiar (that was a relief -- or was it?) to him. Julie! His sister-in-law, his brother Vince's wife. Good grief. Chic sat up.
Let's see, he said to himself rapidly. Last night -- what did go on here after All Souls, anyhow? Julie appeared, didn't she, distraught, with one suitcase and two coats and telling a disjointed story which boiled down to a simple fact, at last; she had broken up with Vince legally; she no longer had any official relationship to him and was free to come and go as she pleased. So here she was. Why? That part he couldn't remember; he had always liked Julie but -- it did not explain this; what she had done concerned her own secret, inner world of values and attitudes, not his, not anything that was objective, real.
Anyhow, here Julie was, still sound asleep, too, here physically but withdrawn into herself, curled up, retracted mollusc-like, which was just as well, because for him it all seemed incestuous, despite the clarity of the law in this variety of matter. She, to him, was more like family. He had never looked in her direction. But last night, after a few drinks -- that was it; he could not drink any more. Or rather he could, and when he did he underwent a rapid change for what at the time seemed like the better; he became outgoing, adventurous, extroverted, instead of morose and taciturn.
But here was a consequence. Look what he got involved in, here.
And yet on a very deep, private level he didn't object as much as all that. It was a compliment to him, her showing up here.
But it would be awkward, the next time he ran into Vince checking everyone's ID at the front door. Because Vince would want to discuss it on a profound, meaningful, sombre basis, with much intellectual hot air wasted in analysing basic motives. What was Julie's real purpose for leaving him and moving in here? Why? Ontological questions, such as Aristotle would have appreciated, teleological issues having to do with what they had once called ‘final causes'. Vince was out of step with the times; this had all become null and void.
I had better call my boss, Chic decided, and tell him -- ask him if -- I can be late today. Should settle this with Julie; what's up, and so forth. How long is she staying and is she going to help pay expenses. Basic unphilosophical questions of practical nature.
He fixed coffee in the kitchen, sat sipping, in his pyjamas.
Turning on the phone he punched his boss's number, Maury Frauenzimmer; the screen turned pale grey, then white, then cloudy as an out-of-focus portion of Maury's anatomy formed. Maury was shaving. ‘Yeah, Chic?'
‘Hey,' Chic said, and heard it sound forth proudly. ‘I got a girl here, Maury, so I'll be late.'
It was male-to-male business. Did not matter who the girl was; no need to go into that. Maury did not bother to ask; he showed on his face the involuntary, genuine admiration, then censure. But -- the admiration came first! Chic grinned; the censure did not bother him.
‘Goddam you,' Maury said, ‘you better get into the office by no later than nine.' His tone said: I wish I were you. I envy you, damn you.
‘Aw,' Chic said, ‘I'll be in, soon as I can.' He glanced towards the bedroom and Julie. She was sitting up. Perhaps Maury saw her. Perhaps not. In any case it was time to conclude the conversation. ‘So long Maury, old man,' Chic said. And rang off.
‘Who was that? Julie said sleepily. ‘Was that Vince?'
‘No. My boss.' Chic put on the coffee water for her.
‘Hi,' he said, walking back into the bedroom and seating himself on the bed beside her. ‘How are you?'
‘I forgot my comb,' Julie said, pragmatically.
‘I'll buy you one from the hall dispenser.'
‘Those measly little plastic things.'
‘Um,' he said, feeling fond of her, feeling sentimental. The situation, she in bed, he sitting beside her in his pyjamas -- it was a bittersweet situation, reminding him of his own previous last marriage of four months ago. ‘Hi,' he said, patting her on the thigh.
‘Aw god,' Julie said. ‘I wish I was dead.' She did not say it accusingly, as if it was his fault, or even as if she meant it passionately; it was as if she were resuming a conversation from the night before. ‘What is the purpose of it all, Chic?' she said. ‘I like Vince, but he's so goofy; he'll never grow up and really bear down at the business of living. He's always playing his games of being the embodiment of modern organized social life, the estab-man, pure and simple, whereas actually he's not. But he's young.' She sighed. It was a sigh that chilled Chic because it was a cold, cruel, utterly dismissing sigh. She was writing off another human being, severing herself from Vince with as little spilled emotion as if she had returned a book borrowed from the building's library.
Good grief, Chic thought, this man was your husband.
You were in love with him. You slept with him, lived with him, knew all there was to know about him -- in fact knew him better than I can, and he's been my brother for longer than you've been alive. Women down underneath, he thought, are tough. Terribly tough.
‘I, uh, have to get to work,' Chic said, nervously.
‘Is that coffee you have on for me, in there?'
‘Oh yeah. Sure!'
‘Bring it here, then, will you, Chic?'
He went to get the coffee, while she dressed.
‘Did old Kalbfleisch make his speech this morning?' Julie asked.
‘I dunno.' It hadn't occurred to him to turn on the TV, although he had read in the paper last night that the speech was due. He didn't give a damn what the old man had to say, about anything.
‘Do you really have to trot off to your little company and go to work?' She eyed him steadily and he saw, for what perhaps was the first time in his life, that she had lovely natural colour in her eyes, a polished slab texture of rock-smoothness and brilliance that needed the natural daylight for it to be brought out. She had, too, an odd, square jaw and a slightly large mouth with a tendency to turn down, tragedy-mask like, with her lips unnaturally red and lush, drawing attention away from her rather drably-coloured hair. She had a nice figure, rounded, pleasant, and she dressed well; that is, she looked splendid in whatever she wore. Clothes seemed to fit her, even mass-produced cotton dresses that other women would have difficulty with. Now she stood wearing the same olive-coloured dress with round black buttons which she had worn the night before, a cheap dress, really, and yet in it she looked elegant; there was no other word for it. She had an aristocratic carriage and bone-structure. It showed her jaw, her nose, her excellent teeth. She was not German but she was Nordic, perhaps Swedish or Danish. He thought, as he glanced at her, that she looked fine.
It seemed to him certain that she would hold together well over the years, not deteriorate; she seemed to be unbreakable. He could not imagine her getting sloppy or fat or dull.
‘I'm hungry,' Julie said.
‘You mean you want me to fix breakfast.' He perceived that; no doubt, there.
‘I've fixed all the breakfasts I'm going to fix for any man, you or your dumb kid brother,' Julie said.
Again he experienced fear. She was being too harsh, too soon; he knew her, knew she was this way -- but couldn't it be glossed over, at least for a while? Was she going to bring to him whatever her last mood with Vince had been? Wasn't there going to be a honeymoon? I think I'm in trouble, he thought to himself. I've got hold of just too much here; I'm not up to it. God, maybe she'll move on; I hope so. It was a childish hope, very regressive, not grown-up, masculine. No real man ever felt this way, he realized that.