Home is the Sailor (11 page)

Corliss had been sweet. She hadn’t denied me a thing. She loved me. She wanted to marry me. We had been married. She had been very happy about it. She had repeated her “I do’s,” with all the fervor of a drowning woman snatching at a life preserver.

It could be I was wrong. It could be she was fine and good. It could be I had been so keyed up in Tijuana that I had mistaken a desire to please me for professional practice. It could be that sex didn’t mean as much to her as it did to me, that she had to be abnormally excited emotionally before she reacted physically. That would explain her passion on the cliff the night we had dumped Wolkowysk. It could be she had an emotional block of some kind. I wiped the leather sweat band of my cap.

God almighty. What if I had to kill a man every time I wanted to really arouse her?

I flicked my butt into the night. Sparks skittered along the highway. Then I walked into the bar and sat on a chrome-and-leather stool between two tourists.

Wally set a bottle of rum in front of me. “Congratulations, Mr. Nelson. Miss Mason — that is, I should say, Mrs. Nelson — tells me you were married last night in Tijuana.”

I half filled the old-fashioned glass he’d put on the wood. “That’s right.”

Wally didn’t offer to shake hands. He didn’t hope we’d be happy. I drank my drink and poured another, wondering where Corliss was, afraid to ask.

The tourist on my right finished his chicken-in-a-basket and walked out. I lowered the bottle another inch. It was a funny feeling. I felt as if I were running, sitting still. Wally, Corliss, Wolkowysk, the Purple Parrot were shadowy figments in a dream. Only the rum was real.

I started to pour another drink and the heavy-set waitress who’d served my breakfast the morning before set a sizzling steak in front of me.

“Doctor’s orders, Mr. Nelson.”

I asked, “What’s your name?”

She smiled. “Cora.”

“Where’s Corliss, Cora?” I asked her.

“Mrs. Nelson’s in the kitchen,” she said.

She picked the chicken basket and a butt-littered coffee cup from the wood. I picked at the steak. A few moments later Sheriff Cooper came in, alone, and walked up to where I was sitting.

I scowled at him over another filled glass. “Now what?”

Cooper sat on the vacated stool, “Don’t be so touchy, Nelson. No one’s trying to push you around. A complaint was made. A warrant was sworn out. I had to make an arrest.”

I ate a few bites of the steak.

The white-haired sheriff lighted a cigar. “In fact, I just dropped in to tell you that I’ve located one of the avocado ranchers you mentioned as witnesses to your fight with Tony Corado. A fellow by the name of Hayes.”

My drinking was compulsory. I didn’t want another drink. I poured one. “So?”

“So Hayes says that even if Tony should die, it was self-defense on your part. He said Corado came at you with a sap and all you did was defend yourself.”

“I told you and Farrell that the night you arrested me and made me make bond.”

“So you did,” Cooper agreed.

I sipped at the rum I had poured. Then, hoping my voice sounded casual, I asked, “What does the barman say? What was his name — Jerry?”

Cooper puffed at his cigar. “I haven’t been able to locate Wolkowysk yet. He hasn’t shown up for work for two days.”

I finished the rum in the glass. It failed to melt the lump of ice in my stomach. “Funny,” I said. “Funny.”

Cooper didn’t seem perturbed about it. “He’s probably on a binge. The lad who owns the Beachcomber says that Wolkowysk is a periodic drinker.”

It was a break I hadn’t expected. It could be a few days, possibly even a week or two, before Wolkowysk would be thought of as “missing.”

Wally leaned on the bar. “What you drinking, Sheriff? On the house.”

“You know better than that,” Cooper said.

Wally grinned at him. “This is a special occasion.”

“What’s special about it?”

Wally inclined his fat head at me. “Nelson and Miss Mason were married last night.” He managed to make it sound dirty. “In Tijuana.”

Cooper let Wally draw him a short beer. I poured another double. Automatically.

Cooper lifted his glass. “Good luck, Nelson. I hope you both will be very happy.”

For some reason it struck me funny. I hope you’ll be very happy. From Avarillo. From Meek. And now from Sheriff Cooper. Like so many empty-headed purple parrots. What the hell? A guy didn’t get married with the intention of being
un
happy.

I gripped my glass so hard it cracked, cutting my palm in a couple of places. I laid the broken glass on the bar and wrapped a napkin around my hand. “Another glass, please.”

Wally gave me another glass. “Hadn’t you better go easy, fellow? You’re drunk as hell right now.”

I felt nasty. I talked the same way. “You telling me how to run my life?”

“Far be it from me,” Wally said. He moved off down the bar to serve a customer.

I poured rum in the fresh glass. I knew what would happen if I drank it with only three bites of steak in my stomach. I drank it.

Sheriff Cooper pushed his white Stetson back on his head. “You’re a pretty heavy drinker, aren’t you, son?”

“When I’m ashore.”

“How long are you staying ashore?”

“From now on.” I meant it to sound funny. “Why should I work? I own half of a prosperous tourist court now.”

It came out flat. With nothing funny about it. Cooper said, “Oh, I see.” His tone was disapproving.

The rum was taking a good bite now, magnifying the clatter of dishes and the voices in the bar. The stool was beginning to revolve. I started to set him straight. In no uncertain language. But before I could, Corliss came out of the kitchen. She looked cool and fresh and sweet in a white nylon uniform like Cora’s, with a big purple parrot embroidered on her left shoulder.

Standing beside the stool, she squeezed my arm. “Hello, honey. The steak all right?”

I said the steak was fine. “What you doing in the kitchen?”

Corliss said, “One of the girls quit without notice. So I’m giving the cook a hand.”

Cooper took off his hat. “I hear you and Nelson were married last night. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” Corliss said.

There was a slightly breathless quality to her voice. The white uniform hugging her body made her look innocent and untouched.

Sheriff Cooper hoped Corliss would be happy. He hoped we both would be happy, and left.

Corliss sat on the stool beside me.

I said, “I’m sorry about last night.”

Corliss played with one of my fingers. “Forget it, Swede. You were just emotionally overwrought.” Her eyes were worried. “But you’ve got to stop this drinking. We’ve too much at stake. What did Sheriff Cooper want?”

I tried to tell her, my tongue thick in my mouth. “He said he jush—” I backed off and tried it again, slowly. “He said—”

The rum hit me then. In the back of the head. Like the smash of a winch handle. My tongue filled my mouth. The bar tilted at a crazy angle. I was afraid the rum bottle was going to slide off and spill on Corliss’ uniform. To keep that from happening, I made a wild grab for the bottle and the stool went around and around and I wound up flat on my back on the floor with the blue-nosed tourists in the booths
tch-tching
and Corliss sobbing:

“Oh, Swede. Oh, my darling!”

I was lying in a mixture of broken glass and rum. I tried to get up and couldn’t. Wally came around the bar, apologetic. “I should have refused to serve him.” He got an arm around my shoulders and lifted me to a sitting position. “Geez. He drank a pint in ten minutes. On an empty stomach.”

Corliss continued to cry.

Then Meek crawled out from somewhere, out of the baseboard, possibly, and he and Wally and Corliss walked me out of the bar.

Sheriff Cooper was kicking one of his tires thoughtfully. As we passed him, Cooper said, “I was afraid that was going to happen.”

“Where do you want him, Mrs. Nelson?” Wally asked.

Corliss sobbed, “In my cottage.”

She opened the screen door. Wally and Meek carried me inside and dumped me on her bed.

Meek gave his opinion as he unlaced my shoes. My shoes thudded to the floor. “You know something, Mrs. Nelson? Mr. Nelson acts to me like a guy with something on his mind.”

Corliss said fiercely, “Get out of here. Both of you.”

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Nelson,” Wally said.

The spring on the screen door screeched, then twanged. I could hear water running in the bathroom. Then Corliss sat down on the edge of the bed and wiped my face with a towel that had been soaked in cold water. She unloosened my tie. She unfastened the top button of my shirt, her fingers trembling.

“I love you, Corliss,” I told her.

Corliss cried even harder. “Then why are you doing this to me?”

I tried to explain. I couldn’t. All that came out of my mouth was words, while the hurt stayed locked inside me. How explain hunger, a hunger for something you’ve never known?

You’re born in a small inland town. Both your parents die when you’re a kid. You run away and go to sea when you’re fifteen. You’re big for your age. You lie. When you’re twenty you’re six feet two with hands like picnic hams. You weigh two hundred pounds, every ounce of it muscle and leather. You’re blond, with light blue eyes. Eyes that go back to some big Swede in armor.

Women like you. And all the women you meet are the same. In Lisbon, Suez, Capetown. In Mozambique, Kimberly, Leopoldville. In Colón, Rio, Lima. In Boston, San Pedro, Seattle.

“Hello, sailor. Lonely?”

Three little words. A password and a passport. Drop your anchor and climb aboard. You’re always welcome, sailor. As long as you have money. An escudo, eight shillings, ten pesos, a few francs, a handful of kopeks, a Hershey bar, a package of cigarettes, five dollars.

And sometimes it’s for free. A few laughs. A few drinks. A good line. With married dames, cheating on some guy who loves them.

But all the time you know there’s another facet to sex. You stand watch with your thoughts on a bridge. Under the stars. Night after night. For years. On oceans all over the world. Just you and God and the helmsman awake. In the middle of a phosphorescent sea stretching out to all hell and Judgment Day.

Somewhere there is one woman. A woman who’s fine and clean and good. The woman who is going to be the mother of your children. And her love is going to wash the slate. Her love is going to make you as clean as she is. Maybe you’ll live on a farm. Maybe you’ll live in town. Maybe you’ll run a highway tourist court. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but that you’re together.

You meet her. The woman. The dream. Under adverse circumstances. But you know her the moment you see her. You’ve come into port at long last. The sailor is home from the sea. You marry the dream. It’s yours now, for keeps.

Then there’s a certain look in her eyes, a certain false enthusiasm when she comes into your arms, a certain professional adeptness. And you begin to wonder.

Which is it? Your own goddamn dirty mind? Or her?

Corliss sobbed, “Have I done or said anything to hurt your feelings, darling?”

It was difficult for me to breathe. The rum had undermined the front legs of the bed, making it tilt at an angle. “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

Corliss lay down on the bed and pressed her body close to mine. “Is it because of Jerry? Because of what he did to me?”

“No.”

She whispered in my ear. “Because of what we had to do to him?”

“No.”

My left hand was resting on her hip. Corliss played with my fingers a moment. “Don’t you like the way I make love? Don’t you like to love me?”

I raised myself on one elbow. I said, “For God’s sake, Corliss. Please.”

Corliss kept on playing with my fingers. “I asked you a question.”

I pressed my face against hers. “Yeah. Sure. You know I’m crazy about you.”

“Prove it,” Corliss said. “Prove it.” Her mouth hovered over mine. “Prove you love me, Swede. Or are you too drunk?”

“I never get
that
drunk,” I said.

The walls of the cottage faded out. We were back on the cliff again, all the mad magic of the night intact, Corliss no longer pretending, every bit as passionate as she’d been the first time.

She had reason. I’d just killed another man for her. The man I’d hoped to be when I’d told Ginty good-by and bought a ticket for Hibbing, Minnesota. I loved her. I’d never loved any woman as much as I loved Corliss. I would always love her. It was Corliss and Swede from now on.

But no one needed to tell me. I knew. So she drove a green Cadillac. So she owned a two-hundred-thousand-dollar tourist court named the Purple Parrot on U.S. Highway 101, just north of San Diego. It wouldn’t change a thing if she owned the highway.

My love was a high-class tramp.

It was two o’clock the next afternoon when Sheriff Cooper dropped in again. He had Harris and a third man with him, the third man a stranger to me.

“Hi, mate,” Cooper said.

I touched the visor of my cap. “Hi. Don’t tell me Corado had a relapse.”

“No. I’m not here on his account,” Cooper said.

Wally turned the radio on the back bar to a whisper. The sudden silence hurt my ears.

Cooper pushed his white Stetson back on his head. Then he took it off and wiped the leather sweatband with his handkerchief. “No,” he repeated finally. “As I told you last night, the chances are you won’t even have to stand trial on that score. Or were you too drunk to remember that, Nelson?”

I said, “I remember it distinctly. That’s why I was a little surprised to see you again so soon.”

The five of us were alone in the bar. Harris sat on a bar stool facing me. “Yeah. Corado is doing fine. We’re more interested in Wolkowysk.”

I played it dumb. “Wolkowysk?”

“You don’t remember him?”

I looked at Sheriff Cooper. “Oh. You mean Jerry, the barman up at the Beachcomber. He came back to work, huh? He confirmed what the rancher told you.”

Cooper returned his hat to his head. “No.”

I asked, “No what? He didn’t come back to work or didn’t confirm it?”