“Why? Were you planning to screw Mary Fradin?”
“I already did,” he said.
He told her that story, and then she told him a story about Anita’s husband and one of her girlfriends, and he told another story and she told another story, and then he observed that it was Sunday and that one should never finish a book on Saturday night. Happy? No man on earth had ever been so happy.
When they returned from dinner she automatically made drinks while he filled a pipe. They had both been reasonably drunk when they left for dinner, but their euphoria was so great that the alcohol did not slow them down. He felt that he could drink all night without getting tired or thick-tongued. All the liquor did was heighten their mood.
“We should have had wine,” he said.
“It was a dynamite dinner.”
“Uh-huh. Would have been better with wine, though.”
She considered. “You know what would have been great? Better than wine? Grass.”
“At Tannhauser’s? I can just see Trude passing around joints. What’s the matter?”
“I was picturing it. Offering them around in that apple strudel accent. No, not with dinner. Before dinner. It really does fantastic things for the taste of food.”
“I never heard that.”
“Oh, sure. It makes you more aware. Even with rotten food. I mean like school cafeteria food. Not all the time, but if you happened to be into a food thing. Like one time I had this salmon croquette. They always had things like that, salmon croquettes, stuffed beef heart, all this glop, and I was really wrecked one day and I got into this salmon croquette with this goopy yellow sauce all over it, and I could taste like all the different things that were happening there. And at the same time I was aware that it was cruddy. I kept thinking, wow, this is delicious, and wouldn’t it be great if I was eating something I liked?”
“I remember it works that way with music,” he said. “I never thought of it in connection with food.”
“It’s the same idea. Getting right down into things.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Oh, wow!”
“What?”
“What you said. Do you smoke?”
“Before you were born,” he said. “But not since.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Ages ago. After the war, when I was living in the Village. Just two or three times. At parties.”
“I didn’t realize people were into grass in those days.”
“‘Those days.’ Yes, back before the Flood.”
“I mean—”
“It was part of the Bohemian scene, although that word was beginning to die out by then. And I was never that much of a Bohemian. I never knew anyone who smoked very frequently. It was hard to get unless you had friends who were jazz musicians or unless you knew people in Harlem.”
“And you never smoked after that.”
“No. It wasn’t really a part of my life. And no one talked about it.”
“Did you dig it?”
He sipped his drink. “I’m trying to remember. My recollection is pretty vague. I didn’t get high the first time, I remember that. The other times I did, and I think I remember what it was like. I believe I enjoyed it well enough.”
“Would you try it again ever?”
“I wonder,” he said. “I suppose I might. You know, I’ve never really thought about this, but it’s surprising I haven’t tried it again in all these years. At least since, oh, at least in the past few years.”
“Since the divorce? Is that what you were going to say? Anita smokes.”
“Your mother?”
“That’s weird, isn’t it? All their friends do, which is probably why she does. But I’m not supposed to.” She told him of the conversation they had had on the subject. He laughed, thinking how typical it was of Anita in recent years. He supposed it was typical parental hypocrisy and was oddly pleased that he was not hypocritical in that sort of way.
“Daddy? Would you like to get stoned?”
“Why, I suppose I’d try it again,” he said. “Why not?”
“’Cause I could really dig smoking together. The two of us, I could dig that.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a connection in the area. Is that word still current? I could probably get some in New York.”
“You wouldn’t have to go that far.”
“I gather there’s some in New Hope, but I wouldn’t know who to ask.”
“Oh, you could say there’s some in New Hope. If Mechanic Street ever caught fire, the whole county would be stoned for a week.” She drank some more of her drink. Her face was thoughtful. At length she said, “You wouldn’t have to leave the house.”
“Ah, so.”
“Well, I have this one jay that somebody laid on me a while ago. I didn’t know how you would react so I never said anything about it. I could get it.”
“How does it mix with liquor?”
“I don’t know. I never used to drink. One joint between the two of us can’t do too much anyway. Should I get it?”
He grinned. “Mrs. Kleinschmidt wouldn’t approve,” he said.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
He had not been able to remember the feeling. But now he was able to recognize it, just as he had recognized the smell the instant she lit the misshapen little cigarette. And he remembered the elaborate ritual of dumping half the tobacco from a regular cigarette and dropping the roach in so that not a crumb of the marijuana would be wasted. They had called it tea then, and the cigarettes were called reefers, or sticks if you were especially hep. He couldn’t remember any special name for the butts. A roach, in those years, was something that crawled around the bathroom.
He sat back on the couch and closed his eyes. Yes, he remembered the feeling. How could he have forgotten the feeling? For that matter, how could he have gone smugly without it all these years? It did feel nice. There was no getting away from it — it felt very nice indeed.
“Daddy?” Her voice was so soft and lazy. “How are you feeling?”
“Far-out,” he said, and laughed.
“Let me look at your face. That’s such good dope. Oh, you’re so stoned!”
“Far-out.” “Oh, wow.”
“Where are you going?”
“Get more drinks. Throat’s dry.”
“You didn’t take the glasses.”
“How can I get the drinks without glasses?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So did I.”
“So did you what?”
“Huh?”
They both started to giggle. It was funny, he thought. You would get into a sentence and your mind was doing such interesting things and doing them so quickly that you forgot what the sentence was about before you could get to the end of it. He pursued this thought, considering all its implications, following them through to wherever they led him and then trying to remember what he had just thought of. One connection in particular struck him as meaningful, and he decided to tell Karen about it when she got back. Then he realized she was sitting beside him.
“I thought you were going to get the drinks.”
“Oh, man, are you wrecked!”
“Huh?”
“What have you got in your hand?”
He looked. He had a glass of scotch in his hand and no idea on earth how it got there.
He said, “I’m not stoned at all.”
“Right.”
“It’s a magic trick. A power I have. Whenever I want a drink I just wish for it and a glass turns up in my hand.”
“You silly Daddy.”
Later she said, “I’ve been wanting to ask all day. I read the, uh, the dedication page.”
“And you don’t want it dedicated to you.”
“Don’t even say it. I guess I was wondering what made you decide to dedicate it to me.”