Collected Stories Page 7

  "Leaving you," she repeated to herself—still thinking about the late-at-night squalor around them.

  She remembered the sound of Phillip's footsteps as he had descended. Nightlike and hollow. She thought of the dark outside and the cold naked trees of early spring. She wanted to picture herself leaving the apartment at that hour. With Phillip maybe. But as she tried to see his face, his small calm little body, the oudines were vague and there was no expression there. She could only recall the way his hands had poked at the sugar-grained bottom of a glass with the dishcloth—as they had done when he helped her with the dishes that night. And as she thought of following the empty sounds of the footsteps they grew softer, softer—until there was only black silence left.

  With a shiver she got up from the couch and moved toward the whiskey bottle on the table. The parts of her body felt like tiresome appendages; only the pain behind her eyes seemed her own. She hesitated, holding the neck of the bottle. That—or one of the Alka-Seltzers in the top bureau drawer. But the thought of the pale tablet writhing to the top of the glass, consumed by its own effervescence—seemed sharply depressing. Besides, there was just enough for one more drink. Hastily she poured, noting again how the glittering convexity of the bottle always cheated her.

  It made a sharp little path of warmness down into her stomach but the rest of her body remained chill. "Oh damn," she whispered—thinking of picking up that lettuce leaf in the morning, of the cold outside, listening for any sound from Marshall in the bathroom. "Oh damn. I can never get drunk like that."

  And as she stared at the empty bottle she had one of those grotesque little imaginings that were apt to come to her at that hour. She saw herself and Marshall—in the whiskey bottle. Revolting in their smallness and perfection. Skeetering angrily up and down the cold blank glass like minute monkeys. For a moment with noses flattened and stares of longing. And then after their frenzies she saw them lying in the bottom—white and exhausted—looking like fleshy specimens in a laboratory. With nothing said between them.

  She was sick with the sound of the bottle as it crashed through the orange peels and paper wads in the waste basket and clanked against the tin at the bottom.

  "Ah—" said Marshall, opening the door and carefully placing his foot across the threshold. "Ah—the purest enjoyment left to man. At the last sweet point—pissing."

  She leaned against the frame of the closet door—pressing her cheek against the cold angle of the wood. "Sec if you can get undressed."

  "Ah—" he repeated, sitting down on the couch that she had made. His hands left his trouscr flaps and began to fumble with his belt. "All but the belt—Can't sleep with a belt buckle. Like your knees. Bo-ony."

  She thought that he would lose his balance trying to jerk out the belt all at once—(once before, she remembered, that had happened). Instead he slid the leather out slowly, strap by strap, and when he was through he placed it neatly under the bed. Then he looked up at her. The lines around his mouth were drawn down—making grey threads in the pallor of his face. His eyes looked widely up at her and for a moment she thought that he would cry. "Listen—" he said slowly, clearly.

  She heard only the labored sound of his swallowing.

  "Listen—" he repeated. And his white face sank into his hands.

  Slowly, with a rhythm not of drunkenness, his body swayed from side to side. His blue sweatcred shoulders were shaking. "Lord God," he said quietly. "How I—suffer."

  She found the strength to drag herself from the doorway, to straighten the lampshade, and switch off the light. In the darkness an arc of blue rocked before her eyes—to the movement of his swaying body. And from the bed came the sound of his shoes being dropped to the floor, the creaking of the springs as he rolled over toward the wall.

  She lay down in the darkness and pulled up the blankets—suddenly heavy and chill feeling to her fingers. As she covered his shoulders she noticed that the springs still sputtered beneath them, and that his body was quivering. "Marshall—" she whispered. "Are you cold?"

  "Those chills. One of those damn chills."

  Vaguely she thought of the missing top to the hot water bottle and the empty coffee sack in the kitchen. "Damn—" she repeated vacantly.

  His knees urged close to hers in the darkness and she felt his body contract to a shivering little ball. Tiredly she reached out for his head and drew it to her. Her fingers soothed the little hollow at the top of his neck, crept up the stiff shaved part to the soft hair at the top, moved on to his temples where again she could feel the beating there.

  "Listen—" he repeated, turning his head upward so that she could sense his breath on her throat.

  "Yes Marshall."

  His hands flexed into fists that beat tensely behind her shoulders. Then he lay so still that for a moment she felt a strange fear.

  "It's this—" he said in a voice drained of all tone. "My love for you, darling. At times it seems that—in some instant like this—it will destroy me."

  Then she felt his hands relax to cling weakly to her back, felt the chill that had been brooding in him all the evening make his body jerk with great shudders. "Yes," she breathed, pressing his hard skull to the hollow between her breasts. "Yes—" she said as soon as words and the creaking of the springs and the rank smell of smoke in the darkness had drawn back from the place where, for the moment, all things had receded.

  Like That

  Even if Sis is five years older than me and eighteen we used always to be closer and have more fun together than most sisters. It was about the same with us and our brother Dan, too. In the summer we'd all go swimming together. At nights in the wintertime maybe we'd sit around the fire in the living room and play three-handed bridge or Michigan, with everybody putting up a nickel or a dime to the winner. The three of us could have more fun by ourselves than any family I know. That's the way it always was before this.

  Not that Sis was playing down to me, either. She's smart as she can be and has read more books than anybody I ever knew—even school teachers. But in High School she never did like to priss up flirty and ride around in cars with girls and pick up the boys and park at the drugstore and all that sort of thing. When she wasn't reading she'd just like to play around with me and Dan. She wasn't too grown up to fuss over a chocolate bar in the refrigerator or to stay awake most of Christmas Eve night either, say, with excitement. In some ways it was like I was heaps older than her. Even when Tuck started coming around last summer I'd sometimes have to tell her she shouldn't wear ankle socks because they might go down town or she ought to pluck out her eyebrows above her nose like the other girls do.

  In one more year, next June, Tuck'll be graduated from college. He's a lanky boy with an eager look to his face. At college he's so smart he has a free scholarship. He started coming to see Sis the last summer before this one, riding in his family's car when he could get it, wearing crispy white linen suits. He came a lot last year but this summer he came even more often—before he left he was coming around for Sis every night. Tuck's O.K.

  It began getting different between Sis and me a while back, I guess, although I didn't notice it at the time. It was only after a certain night this summer that I had the idea that things maybe were bound to end like they are now.

  It was late when I woke up that night. When I opened my eyes I thought for a minute it must be about dawn and I was scared when I saw Sis wasn't on her side of the bed. But it was only the moonlight that shone cool looking and white outside the window and made the oak leaves hanging down over the front yard pitch black and separate seeming. It was around the first of September, but I didn't feel hot looking at the moonlight. I pulled the sheet over me and let my eyes roam around the black shapes of the furniture in our room.

  I'd waked up lots of times in the night this summer. You see Sis and I have always had this room together and when she would come in and turn on the light to find her nightgown or something it woke me. I liked it. In the summer when school was out I didn't have to get
up early in the morning. We would lie and talk sometimes for a good while. I'd like to hear about the places she and Tuck had been or to laugh over different things. Lots of times before that night she had talked to me privately about Tuck just like I was her age—asking me if I thought she should have said this or that when he called and giving me a hug, maybe, after. Sis was really crazy about Tuck. Once she said to me: "He's so lovely—I never in the world thought I'd know anyone like him—"

  We would talk about our brother too. Dan's seventeen years old and was planning to take the co-op course at Tech in the fall. Dan had gotten older by this summer. One night he came in at four o'clock and he'd been drinking. Dad sure had it in for him the next week. So he hiked out to the country and camped with some boys for a few days. He used to talk to me and Sis about diesel motors and going away to South America and all that, but by this summer he was quiet and not saying much to anybody in the family. Dan's real tall and thin as a rail. He has bumps on his face now and is clumsy and not very good looking. At nights sometimes I know he wanders all around by himself, maybe going out beyond the city limits sign into the pine woods.

  Thinking about such things I lay in bed wondering what time it was and when Sis would be in. That night after Sis and Dan had left I had gone down to the corner with some of the kids in the neighborhood to chunk rocks at the street light and try to kill a bat up there. At first I had the shivers and imagined it was a smallish bat like the kind in Dracula. When I saw it looked just like a moth I didn't care if they killed it or not. I was just sitting there on the curb drawing with a stick on the dusty street when Sis and Tuck rode by slowly in his car. She was sitting over very close to him. They weren't talking or smiling—just riding slowly down the street, sitting close, looking ahead. When they passed and I saw who it was I hollered to them. "Hey, Sis!" I yelled.

  The car just went on slowly and nobody hollered back. I just stood there in the middle of the street feeling sort of silly with all the other kids standing around.

  That hateful little old Bubber from down on the other block came up to me. "That your sister?" he asked.

  I said yes.

  "She sure was sitting up close to her beau," he said.

  I was mad all over like I get sometimes. I hauled off and chunked all the rocks in my hand right at him. He's three years younger than me and it wasn't nice, but I couldn't stand him in the first place and he thought he was being so cute about Sis. He started holding his neck and bellering and I walked off and left them and went home and got ready to go to bed.

  When I woke up I finally began to think of that too and old Bubber Davis was still in my mind when I heard the sound of a car coming up the block. Our room faces the street with only a short front yard between. You can see and hear everything from the sidewalk and the street. The car was creeping down in front of our walk and the light went slow and white along the walls of the room. It stopped on Sis's writing desk, showed up the books there plainly and half a pack of chewing gum. Then the room was dark and there was only the moonlight outside.

  The door of the car didn't open but I could hear them talking. Him, that is. His voice was low and I couldn't catch any words but it was like he was explaining something over and over again. I never heard Sis say a word.

  I was still awake when I heard the car door open. I heard her say, "Don't come out." And then the door slammed and there was the sound of her heels clopping up the walk, fast and light like she was running.

  Mama met Sis in the hall outside our room. She had heard the front door close. She always listens out for Sis and Dan and never goes to sleep when they're still out. I sometimes wonder how she can just lie there in the dark for hours without going to sleep.

  "It's one-thirty, Marian," she said. "You ought to get in before this."

  Sis didn't say anything.

  "Did you have a nice time?"

  That's the way Mama is. I could imagine her standing there with her nightgown blowing out fat around her and her dead white legs and the blue veins showing, looking all messed up. Mama's nicer when she's dressed to go out.

  "Yes, we had a grand time," Sis said. Her voice was funny—sort of like a piano in the gym at school, high and sharp on your ear. Funny.

  Mama was asking more questions. Where did they go? Did they see anybody they knew? All that sort of stuff. That's the way she is.

  "Goodnight," said Sis in that out of tunc voice.

  She opened the door of our room real quick and closed it. I started to let her know I was awake but changed my mind. Her breathing was quick and loud in the dark and she did not move at all. After a few minutes she felt in the closet for her nightgown and got in the bed. I could hear her crying.

  "Did you and Tuck have a fuss?" I asked.

  "No," she answered. Then she seemed to change her mind. "Yeah, it was a fuss."

  There's one thing that gives me the creeps sure enough—and that's to hear somebody cry. "I wouldn't let it bother me. You'll be making up tomorrow."

  The moon was coming in the window and I could see her moving her jaw from one side to the other and staring up at the ceiling. I watched her for a long time. The moonlight was cool looking and there was a wettish wind coming cool from the window. I moved over like I sometimes do to snug up with her, thinking maybe that would stop her from moving her jaw like that and crying.

  She was trembling all over. When I got close to her she jumped like I'd pinched her and pushed me over quick and kicked my legs over. "Don't," she said. "Don't."

  Maybe Sis had suddenly gone batty, I was thinking. She was crying in a slower and sharper way. I was a little scared and I got up to go to the bathroom a minute. While I was in there I looked out the window, down toward the corner where the street light is. I saw something then that I knew Sis would want to know about.

  "You know what?" I asked when I was back in the bed.

  She was lying over close to the edge as she could get, stiff. She didn't answer.

  "Tuck's car is parked down by the street light. Just drawn up to the curb. I could tell because of the box and the two tires on the back. I could see it from the bathroom window."

  She didn't even move.

  "He must be just sitting out there. What ails you and him?"

  She didn't say anything at all.

  "I couldn't see him but he's probably just sitting there in the car under the street light. Just sitting there."

  It was like she didn't care or had known it all along. She was as far over the edge of the bed as she could get, her legs stretched out stiff and her hands holding tight to the edge and her face on one arm.

  She used always to sleep all sprawled over on my side so I'd have to push at her when it was hot and sometimes turn on the light and draw the line down the middle and show her how she really was on my side. I wouldn't have to draw any line that night, I was thinking. I felt bad. I looked out at the moonlight a long time before I could get to sleep again.

  The next day was Sunday and Mama and Dad went in the morning to church because it was the anniversary of the day my aunt died. Sis said she didn't feel well and stayed in bed. Dan was out and I was there by myself so naturally I went into our room where Sis was. Her face was white as the pillow and there were circles under her eyes. There was a muscle jumping on one side of her jaw like she was chewing. She hadn't combed her hair and it flopped over the pillow, glinty red and messy and pretty. She was reading with a book held up close to her face. Her eyes didn't move when I came in. I don't think they even moved across the page.

  It was roasting hot that morning. The sun made everything blazing outside so that it hurt your eyes to look. Our room was so hot that you could almost touch the air with your finger. But Sis had the sheet pulled up clear to her shoulders.

  "Is Tuck coming today?" I asked. I was trying to say something that would make her look more cheerful.

  "Gosh! Can't a person have any peace in this house?"

  She never did used to say mean things like that out of a clear
sky. Mean things, maybe, but not grouchy ones.

  "Sure," I said. "Nobody's going to notice you."

  I sat down and pretended to read. When footsteps passed on the street Sis would hold onto the book tighter and I knew she was listening hard as she could. I can tell between footsteps easy. I can even tell without looking if the person who passes is colored or not. Colored people mostly make a slurry sound between the steps. When the steps would pass Sis would loosen the hold on the book and bite at her mouth. It was the same way with passing cars.

  I felt sorry for Sis. I decided then and there that I never would let any fuss with any boy make me feel or look like that. But I wanted Sis and me to get back like we'd always been. Sunday mornings are bad enough without having any other trouble.

  "We fuss lots less than most sisters do," I said. "And when we do it's all over quick, isn't it?"

  She mumbled and kept staring at the same spot on the book.

  "That's one good thing," I said.

  She was moving her head slightly from side to side—over and over again, with her face not changing. "We never do have any real long fusses like Bubber Davis's two sisters have—"

  "No." She answered like she wasn't thinking about what I'd said.

  "Not one real one like that since I can remember."

  In a minute she looked up the first time. "I remember one," she said suddenly.

  "When?"

  Her eyes looked green in the blackness under them and like they were nailing themselves into what they saw. "You had to stay in every afternoon for a week. It was a long time ago."

  All of a sudden I remembered. I'd forgotten it for a long time. I hadn't wanted to remember. When she said that it came back to me all complete.

  It was really a long time ago—when Sis was about thirteen. If I remember right I was mean and even more hardboiled than I am now. My aunt who I'd liked better than all my other aunts put together had had a dead baby and she had died. After the funeral Mama had told Sis and me about it. Always the things I've learned new and didn't like have made me mad—mad clean through and scared.