Ice-Cream Headache (16 page)

“I’m going up there,” he said, loud, and waited. He was hoping somebody else would get up, too. Nobody got up. Most of them looked at him and then looked away, their eyes curiously flat.

Okay, he thought, okay. Then to hell with all of you.

“You’re not going to do any such thing,” Norma said. “You sit down.”

Sylvanus did not say anything. Maybe it was because he had felt the old Law-fear and was ashamed of it. Or maybe it was because he had been beaten up once by two big Second Army MPs in Memphis and had his nose broken. After they wore their bars, or their pistols, so long a time they got to believing it. You had to say something once in a while, if you wanted to go on with the pretense of being a man.

He pulled a couple deep breaths down into the fluttering and waited for the big rage, the red rebel rage, to come. He could always depend on the big rage, could Sylvanus. He had learned how to utilize it in combat, when you were more scared than this, when there was nothing nowhere to depend on but the big rage that was the only thing that could burn the fear and the cowardice out of you for a little while. Maybe the boy did not know about the big rage yet, well he would learn soon enough when his war came along. When you had the big rage, not even the screaming wild men of Japs could scare you. And certainly not the Strong Arm of The Law that had, ironically, taught it to you.

He had walked down the main street of Memphis where he was in the hospital carrying a fifth of whisky at right shoulder arms and rifle-saluting every officer he met. For that theyd beaten him up and broken his nose. Yet it hadnt hurt him a bit. He hadnt felt it at all.

It was not that he hated or blamed them, they were only doing what they had been taught and got paid for, it was the ones down here on the beach that made you sick to your stomach, that forced you to be different from them. He could feel it rising all through him in a red ecstasy of no-consequences.

He started up the hill after them. “Van!” Norma said. “Van, come back here. Dont make a fool out of yourself.”

He headed for the path around the corner of the Lodge back to the maintenance parking lot, where they were taking him.

Mr Lemmon was already there ahead of him. Mr Lemmon was standing wide-legged arms-akimbo in the middle of the narrow path. Mr Lemmon had his back to Sylvanus, and was watching them with the boy, like a hotel manager watching his houseman move some nasty-drunks out of his lobby before going back to soothe his ruffled guests. Sylvanus could not get past him, not without some hard elbowing, or else crashing through the thick eight-foot shrubbery.

From the parking lot the Park pickup roared and then faded off down the double dirt path to the asphalt.

Mr Lemmon turned around then.

“Oh, hello there, Mr Merrick,” he said easily. He shook his head. “I always hate to see things like this happen, you know? Dont you?”

Mr Lemmon had got the drop on Sylvanus, but he was not going to rub it in. All over now, his face said, lets forget it.

“Where they taking him?” Sylvanus said.

“Over to Sullivan. He’ll be tried probably, and fined.”

“If he pays them any fine, he’s crazy. What he ought to do is prefer countercharges against both of them.”

Mr Lemmon looked surprised. He shook his head. “That wouldnt do any good. That kind of thing always does more harm than good. The best thing that boy can do is write it off to experience and learn from it.”

“Yes,” Sylvanus said. “It should teach him a lot. If he thinks about it,” he said. “Its a great credit to your Park, Mr Lemmon. Its even a fine comment on the whole of our great Middle West culture. For a minute there I thought I was in Georgia.”

Mr Lemmon smiled. He moved his shoulders tolerantly. “It isnt my Park,” he said. “I only run the concession. It isnt going to help my business any. If I ran this Park—or this world—I’d probably instigate a change of policy in both. But I dont ran either, Mr Merrick.”

He was right of course, and Sylvanus had to admit to himself grudgingly he was glad now he stopped him, and then their eyes met with some kind of tacit agreement that made Sylvanus Merrick feel warm, and at the same time shocked him with dislike for himself as a hypocrite. It was the first time he could ever remember having been on the other side of the fence.

“I’m going over there,” he blurted out suddenly.

“Over where?” Mr Lemmon said friendlily.

“To Sullivan,” he said.

“Well, thats up to you,” Mr Lemmon smiled. “I suppose in your business things like that help make material.”

“Something like that,” said Sylvanus.

Norma was waiting for him at the corner.

“Well, I hope you’re satisfied now,” she said. “You’ve played the hero—”

She stopped long enough to smile at Mr Lemmon whom she had not seen. Mr Lemmon nodded smiling and discreetly passed by. Sylvanus had no doubt that Mr Lemmon believed they were married. Norma waited till he was clear out of earshot.

“—and made a laughingstock out of both of us,” she said. “Everybody on the beach is laughing.”

“Let them laugh,” he said.

“I couldnt very well stop them,” Norma said sadly.

“I’m going to drive over to Sullivan,” he said. “Do you want to go along?”

“To Sullivan? What on earth for?”

Norma looked at him incredulously. Then, behind her, he saw the girl come up from the beach carrying their things and go up to Mr Lemmon guiltily. Mr Lemmon was very polite to her, he told where they had taken the boy and advised her to drive their car over there and pick him up there. Mr Lemmon hoped he could be of some service, and just to call on him. The girl thanked Mr Lemmon.

“Havent you had enough heroism for one day?” Norma was saying. “Do you have to go over there and make fools of us again? Do you—”

“All right!” he said violently. “All right! To hell with it! Lets go home, shall we?” The violence in his voice startled him even. It was obvious it startled Norma.

“I think thats just what we’d better do,” Norma said stiffly.

They walked along side by side. She did not say anything else. Neither did he. All during the walk down around the lake and back over across the dam with the wild cherries growing tall on both slopes and almost making a tunnel out of the road. All the way back to the cabin.

By the time they got home she was no longer angry. She went into the little kitchen quietly and started getting the lunch. He went out on the porch to get dressed, still thinking what he had been thinking all the silent trip home, how fine it had been yesterday evening when he came home and found her there.

It was too much to expect of a man. You had no right even to demand so much of yourself, if nobody else saw it but you. Life was all compromise anyway. It always had been. It always would be. There would never be any more justice than there was now. Conquer the plague and smallpox arises, conquer smallpox and typhoid arises, conquer typhoid and polio arises. It was not that he expected what he did to make any difference. And he knew how much she loved him. It was a decision that came at some time in every man’s life, he knew that too. Maybe you could call it the last death rattle of youth. Twenty-six was a good age for it. And after the spasm was over it wasnt so bad, you could have a good life.

Nature had made it that way, hadnt she? and it was silly to fight Nature, wasnt it? He used to be contemptuous of the men like her father, like his father. Not any more. They were the men who kept the world going, and if they had to be liars to do it, well, the world was based on a lie, wasnt it? There were worse ways of living than lying. And a man could not just renounce the whole heritage, he could not escape it that way, he had to have some place to stand if he wanted to rupture himself moving the world.

He must have known all the time he was dressing what he was going to do. Maybe that was why it took him so long. He went out to the kitchen. Norma was smiling and humming a little as she worked on the lunch. “Norma,” he said.

“Yes, dear?” she said.

“I’m going over to Sullivan.”

She put down the bowl and laid the spoon carefully beside it. He guessed she must have known too, then. “Now what?” she said. “I thought we decided that, didnt we?”

You had to admire courage like that.

“You decided it. I didn’t. I wanted to go. I wanted you to go too. If you dont want to go, you dont have to. But dont try to keep me from going. You have no right to keep me from going.”

“I’m not trying to keep you from going. If you want to go, go. But you’ll only be making a fool out of yourself. Out of both of us. If thats what you want to do, go ahead.”

“It isnt really my going,” he said. “That has nothing to do with it. This is something else, between you and me.”

She looked at him a couple of seconds and started to smile, then changed it into a laugh. “I dont see how whether some lovesick boy pays a fine for spooning has something to do with you and me.”

“Yes you do,” he said. “I’m not saying its sensible. Maybe its crazy. Maybe it wont do any good at all. But its not the boy—I got used to seeing that in the army. Ohls’s fist wasnt aimed at that boy, Ohls’s first was aimed at you and me, Norma.”

“Oh now,” Norma laughed. “Back onto Fascism.”

“Look,” he said. “Lets you and me face it for once. Lets tell the truth to each other for once. We’ve both lied to each other since we first met, even. You’ve always intended for me to go into your father’s business: all the time we’ve been talking about other plans, you’ve intended that, havent you?”

“No,” Norma said. “I’ve wanted you to do what you wanted to do. Always.”

“Come on,” he said, “come on. Lets both quit being proud, quit being respectable, quit being loving, quit being ashamed of what we honestly think. Lets be honest. For just once.”

She looked at him a long time. “I think it would be just as easy for you to do your writing and make some money too,” she said finally. “I think that. I dont see why you have to play a part and live in a garret and starve, to be a writer. Do you?”

“I’ve never starved,” he said. “I live pretty good, one thing and another.”

“You mean like tending bar at the Moose?”

“Sure,” he said. “At least they never try to influence my thinking.”

“Maybe that was all right for you by yourself,” Norma said. “But as your wife, Van, you owe me something too. I dont want to live like a gypsy. I dont want to be looked down on as cheap. And low class. I want security, for myself and my children.”

“You think your mother has security?” Sylvanus said.

“But of course,” Norma said. “She never wants for a thing, that my father doesnt buy it for her. If its within reason.”

“Then you dont think she ever lays awake nights scheming and worrying and scared to death she’ll lose that security, lose your father, every time he goes on one of his bats to Terre Haute or Evansville. Scared that maybe, some day, he might find one he’ll keep going back to? That there might not just happen, some place, to be some woman good enough to outsmart her and take him away from her? Do you call that security?”

Norma moved her head and looked down at the bowl. She picked up the spoon and began to stir the salad again. “No woman ever has that kind of security,” she said.

“But they could have,” said Sylvanus. “If they would only stop living their lives like your mother lives hers.”

Norma moved her head on her neck again, looking down at the salad. “I’d rather we didnt discuss my parents,” she said. “I think we can leave them out of this. If you want to go over to Sullivan and make a fool out of yourself, you just go right ahead.” She looked up at him. “Only remember this, I wont be here when you come back.”

He nodded. That was what he had dreaded. He had tried to avoid it every way he knew how.

“You’re still using yourself as a carrot under my nose to threaten me, arent you?” he said.

“If you want to put it like that, yes,” Norma said,

“You ought to know it wouldnt work any better than it did last time. You ought to know it would only force me into it more.”

“But this isnt the last time,” Norma smiled cheerfully. “This is now. Go to Sullivan, if you want. There wont be any coming back and giving in dutifully. This time I mean it,” she smiled.

“Okay,” he said. “I hear you.” She still believed it would work.

“We cant go on like this forever,” Norma said. “We might as well settle it, once and for all.”

“You mean settle who’s boss,” he said. “Settle who wears the pants.”

“Is that whats bothering you?” Norma smiled. “No,” she said. “Not at all. But if you cant do one simple thing like this that I ask you—You do owe me something, Van,” she said meaningly.

“Yes,” he said, “and you always make damned sure I never forget you gave it to me, dont you?”

“Thats a rotten thing to say to me,” she said contortedly.

“You asked for it,” he said. “You ought to know. You’ve always said I was a regular blackguard without ethics. Well, you decent women put too high a price on that thing for its actual worth. Some day the bottom will drop out of the market. Some day,” he said, “in spite of the decent women, this country will have to start advertising something besides sex. If it just lasts that long.”

“But theres no need to get angry, Van,” Norma smiled at him. “I’m only doing what you’ve been wanting, what you’ve been hoping I’d do.”

“I’m not angry,” he said. “What in hell gave you that big idea?” She still believed the old carrot would work.

“You really ought to be grateful,” Norma said sweetly. “I’m really doing you a big favor. I’m giving you the chance to get free. All you have to do is go to Sullivan. Then you can lie to yourself and say I left you and get out from under without having your conscience bother you. But then,” she smiled, “you always have known just how to handle me, havent you, Van?”

“You’re quitting me,” he said. “I’m not quitting you. Your loving old daddy cant very well get me out and horsehide me for betraying his daughter when its you quitting me. Now can he?”

“Ha,” Norma said. “Is that whats scaring you?”

“But cheer up,” he grinned. “Cheer up, kid. Theres plenty of other men around you can work on. It wont take you a week to find one, and you can use what you’ve learned on this one to help you sink the old hook into the next one. Most women need a couple failures to get their technique down letter perfect, anyway, dont they?”