A Woman Named Drown - Padgett Powell (5 page)

I asked, without planning to, if I could take a
shower.

"
No ceremony here," she said, indicating
another part of the house with her cue.

"
Before I do," I added, again more or less
surprising myself, "should you know me any better?"

"
Like what?" she asked, looking up.

"
I don't know. ]ob, name, sexual preference.
That sort of thing."

"
I thought you kids did away with that song and
dance."

"
We tried."

"
Take a shower."

In the shower, beautiful pink-and-green tiles seemed
to move a bit along with Ray Conniff, too. I held my head in a big
towel for a while and saw a double bed and without ceremony got in
it, under a spread that had a thousand fuzzy balls on its fringe and
millions smaller on its surface.

When I woke up--it was one of those sleeps in which
you drool--I was out of the covers and people were talking.

"
Well, you'd think a bitch named Drown'd dress
before goddamn t'ree o'clock, for Christ sake," boomed a male
voice. I heard Mary say, very formally, "What can I get you,
Virginia?"

The door opened and Mary came in, motioning for me to
stay put. "Guess what?"

"
What?"

"
A drop-in."

She slid out of her robe and into real clothes with
her back to me. "There's two drawers of the old man's things
when you want to come out."

She left and I got up. Not once do I recall wondering
what in hell I was doing there, though now, looking back, it seems a
good time to have wondered. Perhaps I was held by the certainty that
I had to stay in order to find out. I tested my head with a small
shake and saw my face was waffled from the knitted bedspread. I
looked like a kid up from a nap.

In one of the indicated drawers, I found the old man
had left two kinds of pants: swimming trunks with built-in net liners
and bright putter pants with elastic waists. The shirts were all
pastel Ban-Lons. I did not see the clothes I came in. I found some
white shoes. I emerged in a canary golfer's ensemble.

When I stepped into the den I was converged upon by
the loud man, who introduced himself simply as Hoop and pointed out
his wife, Virginia, as if she were down the block. Virginia waved
vaguely to us while talking with Mary, who came over with a tray of
drinks. Hoop and I took one.

Hoop had balls in play on the table. "Hey, bud,
you play this friggin sport?"

"
I don't shoot for shit." My language
seemed to delight him.

"
It's a bitch all right," he said. "It's
a motherin bitch." He then missed his remaining shots, feigning
dissatisfaction with himself. I thought he was going to ask for a
game, but he racked his cue and came over to me, stopping within a
whispery, conspiratorial distance. "Hey, Constance," he
yelled, winking at me, "what's two sailors got to do get some
liquor in these drinks, for Christ sake?" He quickly whispered,
"You got a good one there--lotta the boys give a nut be where
you are. You know what I mean?"

"
Sure I know what you mean."

Hoop shot out his hand for a confirmational men's
shake, and I shook it solidly. Still holding on to me, and pulling me
closer, Hoop bellowed, "This boy's all right, Constance!"

Holding and squeezing and tugging me to and fro, he
said again, "He's all right, he's all right." Mary came in
bearing more drinks and a very patient hostess face.

"
You takin 'm to Florida or something?"
Hoop said to her. "He looks just like Sam."

"
No plans, Hoop."

"
What's your handicap, son?"

"
I peg the meter," I said.

"
Ha! Whorin Mary! I'm off the friggin scale
myself. We'll shoot
thirty-six
sometime. That's how to beat you youngsters. Thirty-six.
Sudden
death
." He offered the handshake again.
"Sudden friggin death."

"
Let's go up with the girls, Hoop. I want to
meet your wife."

"
Blame you for that, I don't," he said.
Tapping his front teeth with a fingernail, he said, "Perfect
teeth."

We went up from the sunken den into the bright patio.

"
God
damn
if you aren't a green thumb to beat the friggin band, Connie,"
he yelled as we entered the undiffused, flowery light. He opened a
bank of the jalousie windows and beheld the garden, stooping a bit to
look through the slits. "Jesus the rumrunner, would you look at
that?" We both looked through the slits.

"
Remind me to cut you a spray, Ginny," Mary
said to Virginia, who stood by smiling. She did have perfect teeth.

"
Oh, please--" Virginia said.

"
No, it's no trouble. You know me: Too many
glads in the glasshouse."

"
Goddamn. Trouble, my purple baboon ass. She's
got to cut 'em down, honey. Need someplace to walk in this friggin
Amazon."

"
It's my pleasure, Ginny, it really is."

"
Thank you, Constance," Virginia said.

"
Hey! Friggin idea! You gals go out there and
mow some friggin parrot jungle down and the kid 'n me makes a round."

Hoop rushed toward the bar, a substantial
rattan-and-hardwood thing I hadn't noticed, dusty in a corner of the
patio. Virginia and Constance went out with a pair of shears.

"
Would you look at the dust!" Hoop yelled.
"Find me some swabbin gear, Chief."

I went in the kitchen, made us two drinks, and
returned with a rag and soap. "She's been making them in there."

"
I know, for Christ sake. Broad's got this bar
from the islands, beautiful friggin teak here, won't use it. We take
it apart and hide it on board and
get it here
and get it back together--that's
the
friggin miracle
, and
tight
when we busted her up--no friggin
numbers on it like your dinosaurs and shit."

"
Where was this?"

"
Mutton fart capital of the world."

"You were in the navy?"

"
Guam, Guadalcanal, one of them G islands. No,
Seabees. All them islands is alike. This bastard could've come from
the halls of friggin Montezuma. What the shit difference. It's heavy,
pure-quill teak, we stole it from an
operating
whorehouse
, we got it here is the thing.
Contrabandits! Joke!"

Hoop threw the rag and soap bottle at the bar's small
chrome sink. "Whore called Five-ton sits on it, crying, see?
Because Stump and me are having at it with screwdrivers, see?"
He goes into falsetto. "I love you, Joes, no shit, Joes, but
need post office for sell love.' Five-ton whines this at us, see?
Imagine that: some wiseheimy tells 'em a friggin whorehouse is a
post
office
and they
buy
it. 'You want first class, Joe?' It was a scream. 'You want special
delivery?' There Five-ton is, trying to hold the bar down, crying,
and Stump and me start pulling it apart. Beautiful." He is
wiping the bar with great, broad strokes. I already feel drunk again.
Hoop's rag is steaming in vigorous circles on the teak.

"
Doesn't come over here that he don't wash the
friggin
bar," Mary is suddenly
whispering in my ear. I have the sensation that some time has passed
that I missed. Hoop is furiously twisting a dish towel inside a
glass.

"
It's his
past
,"
Mary says. She rolls her eyes. Virginia comes in with flowers,
looking for a vase, her perfect teeth apologetically out front.

Hoop squeaks the rag in his glass and holds it to the
light. "
That's
a
clean glass," he says. "Something about a
really
clean glass,
eh,
Chief?"

Virginia passes through the room again, still looking
for a vase.

I had the feeling that time was lurching and braking
and bouncing me around within it. Ray Conniff and His Singers, for
one thing, were suddenly very much with us, and I seemed to be
swaying along with Mary to them.

"
Always use your twist on these," Hoop
said, grinding a lemon rind around a glass rim. "People never
follow their friggin
recipes
?

I jumped because of breath in my ear. "How's
your clutch?" Mary said, inches from me.

" '
Ere you go, Chief." Hoop plunked three
new drinks squarely on fresh cocktail napkins in front of us. "From
the bar, where they ought to be," he said I proudly. Mary blew
smoke at him and took a stool next to mine. She put a finger into the
waistband of my putter pants.

"
Hoop," she said, "you're a goose."
She was tugging at the waistband in rhythm to Ray Conniff and His
Singers. Hoop squinted at her. She shook ice at him.

"
Excuse me," I said.

On my way to the bathroom I saw Virginia's spray of
shrimp-colored gladiolas on a marble stand and was drawn to them like
a huge, clumsy bee. My face went in--lipstick corals and green leaves
as delicate as nylon. Virginia was, I then saw, taking a nap on a
daybed a few feet away. She looked patient, flat on her back, serene,
her teeth concealed.

When I got back to the bar, Hoop and Mary were
squared off about something I got the feeling was well rehearsed.

"
If it had sunk it would still be all right,"
Mary was saying.

"
Sunk?" Hoop boomed. "Aboard the
U.S.S.--"

"
Too much that should sink never does!"
Mary intoned, slapping the bar with a flat-palmed crack that made
Hoop jump. She put her arm around my shoulder.

Hoop winked at me.

I said, "Hi, Poop. Hoop."

He tried to take my glass.

"
Have you gathered," Mary said, again
inches from my ear, "that my old man and Hoop won the Second
World War holding hands?"

"
Sort of."

"And I imagine a young man like you has been
around, too."

"
I've not been a man named Drown." Looking
back, I see this remark could have been tasteless--I still don't know
that her husband didn't drown--but it was innocently said.

"
Funny," Mary said.

"
Do you do that stuff for a living?"

"Ha," Mary said, motioning for Hoop to
light her cigarette. "That's community theater. I do to get out
of the house."

Hoop lit her up and she blew a big spiral at the
ceiling, watching it as if she had forgotten us for a bit.

"
My point is, the world doesn't go around on
biographies. Remember that and we'll get on fine. No bio."

"
I will." I had to recall the Orphan.

"
Act!" Hoop suddenly shouted. "That's
about
right
. Chief
knows more than he looks. She
acts
,
all right."

Mary looked at Hoop. "Ensign Hooper here
believes in quartering on board while in port." She held her
cigarette near her ear, smoke swirling irregularly up around her
hair.

She looked at me with low eyelids. "What do you
intend to
do
about
Mother Nature?" she said.

*Hoop stopped his fussing with bar things.

"
I'm not sure yet," I said.

"
Mush!" Hoop said. "We're out of ice."
He went to the kitchen.

Mary leaned toward me, as if falling, and pressed her
forehead to mine, holding me behind the neck with her cold drink
hand. She rolled our foreheads together.

"
How do these work?" Hoop stood in the door
with a blue plastic tray of ice cubes. "There's no arm."

"
Twist them, Hoop," Mary said.

"
There's no arm," Hoop said again.

"
They don't make arms on them anymore," I
offered.

Hoop looked at me. "Yeah, I see."

I took it for a slur. "You torque them, Hoop,"
I said, trying to somehow slur him back.

"
Yes, Hoop," Mary said. "
Torque
you ice trays
."

She made the sense I couldn't. She was holding some
liquor. She laughed.

Hoop turned and retreated. We heard ice cubes popping
loose and hitting the floor.

"
Friggin torque is right." Hoop came back
and fitted the new cubes into the glass-lined ice bucket. As soon as
he settled them in and achieved a tight fit with the lid, Mary held
her glass in the air to him, tapping out her cigarette. I started to
swivel away from the bar, but she got me by the waistband and tugged
me back around.

Hoop hurled the ingredients of another drink toward a
fresh glass. He scrubbed the rim with lemon rind. "Always your
friggin twist on these," he said again. Mary looked at the
ceiling. Ray Conniff was skipping. "Goddamn, Connie," Hoop
said suddenly, leaning toward her over the bar. "You don't
respect--"