Ice-Cream Headache (13 page)

He had just lit them both cigarettes while she poured them both coffee when he saw the headlights turn off the asphalt and heard the car pull in grindingly and then the voices of Russ and Arky on the path in through the trees.

They appeared in the doorway suddenly, as if conjured there in mid-stride without warning, although they had both heard them coming. Everything seemed to stay that way a long time. Then they were at the table without having walked there and unloading the bottles whose necks seemed to stick out from all over them like spokes from the hub of a rimless wheel.

He never did see the two women come in. They were just there, standing grinning inside the door, once when he looked.

It was as if he and Norma were moving in one time and the four of them in another so that the two only got their gears meshed now and then. Then he recognized what was causing it. He had had that experience before, in combat. It was because he was scared, frightened stiff, so full of fear it was running out of his ears and gumming his reflexes. Men had been killed in combat, doing that. Norma knew who they were. She had never met them, had not wanted to meet them, but he had talked about them enough so she could recognize them: Arky tall, sway-backed, hanging-bellied, wearing the pallor of a badly sick man who lives under too high a strain too long a time and the semi-western style hat that was to remind people he was no native of Illinois but had come here from Arkansas. Russ short, stocky, bullnecked and going to fat, but still with that natural coordination of incredible speed that was a family trait and had made him one of the best basketball forwards the U of Chicago had had in the ’20s, up to the time he flunked out and disappeared without trace until he suddenly showed up at home after the war. Both of them fog-headed and indistinct-eyed from drunkenness and wearing the haphazard civilian clothes they always looked out of place in, just as they must have always looked out of place in any uniform but a six-weeks-unwashed field uniform, because whenever they did happen to stop long enough to think of clothes it was always too late, an afterthought.

“Where’d you get this stuff at, Syde?” Arky sneered to Sylvanus. As a gambler Arky always sneered, like the wife of a Methodist minister always smiles. “You been holdin out on us. This stuff aint from around home. Hey, hey,” he sneered friendlily to Norma, “where’s old Syde been hidin you at, pretty thing?”

“And to think,” Russ said pontifically, “I ate Arky out all over Terre Haute because he wanted to bring some for you. I even called him perverted, because he knew you werent going out with anybody but Norma. And now look at the lie you given me. Hello, sweet thing,” he said profoundly to Norma.

“This is Norma Fry,” Sylvanus said. “Norma, Arky and Russ.” But he already knew it was no good, that his fear and the time lag had cost him the split second he needed to give them the tip-off.

Arky looked like somebody had thrown a cod-lock into him on an extra big hand. Russ looked pontifical and profound, even though his eyes were two badly frayed irises burnt into red cloth. Looking pontifical and profound was a habit Russ had picked up living in Hollywood, where he had spirited himself to after disappearing into the air of Chicago, and no little case of mistaken identity was enough to cause him to lose it.

“Well, howdy, mam,” Arky said, almost forgetting to sneer. “We dint know that you—we thought that he—what I mean is we dint mean t—”

“He means,” Russ said profoundly, “we are both pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Fry. We have heard a great deal about you, Miss Fry, from Syde here, and we have heard a great deal about you.”

“All good, I hope?” Sylvanus said, trying a joke.

It did not come off. Arky was still stammering when Norma was on her feet and at the door and, looking distantly at the two women from Terre Haute still standing there grinning, turning and going out the other door through the kitchen alcove.

“We dint aim to mean—” Arky was still less than sneering.

“From what we have heard, Miss Fry; you are one of the best” Russ was still saying profoundly to the now empty chair.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Sylvanus said, and followed her out.

She was standing with her hands on a tree and her forehead on her hands.

“Listen, honey,” he said. “Please listen.”

“I’m going home,” she said to the tree.

“Ahh, dont do that.”

“And I’m not coming back.”

“You dont mean that.”

“Unless you get them out of there, and get them out quick.”

“But I cant do that to them, honey. They dont mean anything. Its just an act they put on. They didnt know who you were. They didnt mean to insult you.”

“Then I’m going home.”

“But they’re my friends, I cant just run them off. They probably feel worse about it than you do.”

“Friends,” Norma said. “And what have they ever done for you? Except get you drunk and running with women. Women like those.”

“Well,” Sylvanus said, “they loaned me almost a hundred bucks so you and I could take this cabin.”

“I told you not to take money from them. And you promised you wouldnt. I told you I could have gotten it from Dad, if we needed it.”

“Sure,” Sylvanus said, “from your dad.”

“Doesnt your word of honor mean anything to you?”

“Listen, honey,” he said.

“Leave me alone. Just get out of my sight. I dont even want to see you. Liar! Promise breaker! I’ve never had anything so degrading happen to me in my life.” She stood up and looked at Sylvanus and Sylvanus opened his mouth. “No,” she said, “dont talk to me. I’m going home. And you can have your dear friends. And see how you like it.”

She went back to the cabin. Sylvanus stood in the dark by the tree with his arms feeling amputated, and hating himself because of the fear in him. He watched the lights of the cabin that made daylight spots on the ground, but not a sound came from it. Then she came back out, carrying her coat and her purse. She walked on the path past him. He turned and watched her. The car door slammed and the motor roared angrily and she pulled out, the headlights sweeping across like a machine gunner shooting him off at the ankles, and then she was gone, humming off down the Park asphalt into silence. In the next cabin over on the next little hillock he could hear people laughing and singing. He walked back to the house, his knees threatening him.

They were all four still standing just like he had left them as if he had not even gone out, except Arky was not stammering and Russ not talking profoundly, to the place where Norma was not any more. But they both looked like they might start in again any second.

“Sit down,” he said. “Have a drink.”

Russ was standing gravenly, nursing some dead pride in himself, staring deadly ahead at the wall. “Why thank you,” he said profoundly.

The still grinning women got themselves glasses. Sylvanus got one himself. It would be a great comfort in the coming prolonged silence of swallowing throats. Arky moved then, and took it out of his hand and set it back on the table. Then he rubbed his hand haggardly over his red-rimmed thick pallor. “Well,” he said, “I guess you had better go after her.”

“Go after her?” Sylvanus said. “What will you guys do?”

“By the time you’ve caught her and brought her back we’ll be long gone. If we known she was goin to be here, we never of come over anyways,”

“Dont be a damned fool,” Sylvanus said gallantly.

“Hell buddy, we dont aim to cause you no trouble with your woman, and you gettin married come spring. You cant expect no decent girl like her to approve of fellows like us.”

Russ turned his head slowly and stared at Arky a moment and then went over and sat down with a glass by himself.

“I dont see why the hell not,” Sylvanus said valiantly. “If you’re my friends.”

“Dont you be a damned fool,” Arky said. “Decent women dont work that way. You may be a writer but even you’re smart enough to see that.”

“Maybe decent women got lots to learn yet.”

“Now you are a damned fool,” Arky sneered. “How can a decent women be any different than decent? Answer me that. If a man wants a decent woman he got to do what she says and be decent himself.”

“Oh,” Sylvanus said. “You mean like the decent guys you play poker with at the Moose and go on stags with to Sullivan.”

“Thats differnt,” Arky said. “They already married.”

“Yeah? Then maybe a decent woman aint what I want.”

“No? What kind you want then?” Arky sneered at him. “Something like these? Whats wrong with yore head, boy? You get ready and go after her, hear?”

“If she loves me,” Sylvanus said, “she’ll come back of herself. After she’s cooled off. I can wait.”

“If she loves me,” Arky sneered. “And her thinkin’:
If he loves me, he’ll come
fetch me and prove it.
”

“I’m talking about something else altogether. If she loves me, she’ll come back herself and be willing to accept my friends.”

“Sure. And her tellin herself:
If he loves me, he’ll come fetch me and offer to give up his shady friends.
”

“Then it looks like a draw, dont it? Fifty-fifty, even-steven, kits all around.”

“Yeah,” Arky sneered. “Except that she’s decent. Wise up, Syde. You aint like us, you’re intelligent. You aint no bum, and you need a decent woman to settle down to and take care of you. Without a decent woman guys like you crack up.”

“Why all this decency stuff? I’m pretty decent myself.”

“Have you ever seen a man that was decent?”

“Sure I have. Hell yes. Lots of them.”

“No you aint. And I aint neither. Because there aint a decent man ever been born. Its the decent women make the men decent. Smarten up, kid. You better go after her. The longer you wait the harder she’ll make it on you. And I cant rightly say I blame her none.”

“You dont mind if I have a drink first before I go, do you?” Sylvanus said.

“She’ll smell it on your breath,” Arky said.

“Jesus Christ!” Sylvanus protested.

“Okay, but its true.”

“Arky the gambler,” Sylvanus sneered. “Arky the cocksman. Hell, you’re a worse of an old maid than any librarian I ever heard of.”

“Listen,” Arky sneered patiently. “One sniff and she’ll imagine you out on a wild party with us and these pigs, cant you see that? Then she’ll really make it tough on you, before she lets you back in.”

Sylvanus looked at him and did not say anything. Quite suddenly he knew he was right. It had happened before. But somehow, he thought, I cant quite see myself living that kind of life for fifty years, just to get my picture in the
Daily
News
for a golden anniversary write-up.

The picture of it made him go suddenly sick inside. And it was then he made up his mind he was not going after her, that if she came back on her own it would be a sign, an omen that this time it was different and would not end up like the others. Then the thought that maybe she would not come back hit him again and made his knees go unstable again.

“Another time, it would be differnt and she wount care for you having a drink,” Arky sneered patiently. “You go after her now, and we’ll haul ass, and she’ll come back lookin so sweet sugar wouldnt melt in her mouth. We’ll see you later, we understand how it is.”

When he said haul ass, like that, then so sweet sugar wouldnt melt in her mouth, Sylvanus Merrick’s ear automatically caught the inflection and recorded it. He liked that kind of talk, he liked being able to reproduce it on paper. Norma’s parents, and her friends, never talked like that. They were always watching their words. Maybe he had been in the army too long. It seemed he wanted to write the wrong things.

“You going to go after her?” Arky sneered.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

“You got to understand the way women work,” Russ said like a pope from the table. “Good women, that is.”

One of the women from Terre Haute laughed. Russ shut his mouth like a clam and stiffened his neck and his face went into that deadness again.

“Shut up, you,” Arky sneered. “What the hell do you know about decent women?”

“Well,” she said. “I like that.”

“Get out,” Arky sneered at both of them. “Take off.”

“Take off where?” the other one said. “I’d like to know. In this wilderness.”

“Anywheres,” Arky said. “Out. Go sit in the car. Go walk in the woods and lissen to the little birds. We got talkin to do.”

“You dont have to go if you dont want to,” Sylvanus said angrily. “To hell with him.” Arky always made him mad when he acted like that.

“I guess we’d better,” one of them said. “Come on, Clarisse.”

“Good women are nervous,” Russ said profoundly, starting right where he had stopped, in the same tone of voice, as soon as they were outside. “They’re high-strung, like horses. Especially before they are married. You got to kind of nurse them along. Give them their head and they’ll slow down of themselves. But you dont ever checkrein them. You go along with them.”

“Thats it,” Arky agreed. “Agree with her. Even go her one better, about how rotten we are. Lay it on thick. Make it good.”

“I’m not going after her,” Sylvanus told them.

“Hell Syde, you cant hurt us any. If you dont invite us down to your house after you’re married, we aint going to be hurt. We’ll see you around.”

“What house?” Sylvanus said.

“Aw, be sensible,” Arky said. “This is serious. We dont care what he tells her about us, do we, Russ? You tell him, Russ.”

Russ didnt say anything. His face went back into that deadness again. “No,” he said after a while, from inside the deadness. “Why should we care? We’ve got nothing to lose, have we?”

“There. You see?” Arky said. “We telling you this for your own god-damned good.”

“I’m not going after her,” he said.

“The fact is,” Russ said heavily, “you cant tell her anything worse than the truth. When I think—”

“Oh for god sake,” Sylvanus said. “Dont start telling me about your own lost great love and your subsequent failure in life.”

“The kid’s right,” Arky said. “This is no time to get on no crying jag.”

“I could tell you both many things,” Russ said stiffly.

“Sure you could,” Arky sneered. “Look at him,” he sneered to Sylvanus. “He was a writer once, too, you know, out in Hollywood. He wrote on plenty scripts for the movies. And he had a great love, too. And now look at him. You want to end up like that?”