On the Loose (19 page)

Naked between the sheets, they warmed each
other and kissed as they had at the pond. Her
thighs parted lazily to accommodate his hand,
which was not aggressive. Patient and precise, he
had the finger of a jeweler nudging a stone in and
out of place, which would have brought her about
had he continued. Instead, to her annoyance, he rose over her. She was not fully confident she
could enjoy him but soon found herself arching
her spine. There was no frantic heaving. They harmonized, savored, and held off until the effort became overwhelming.

He rolled away and played dead. Speaking from
the grave, he asked if she knew the time.

"I can't tell. My eyes are still crossed."

"Mine must be on the floor," he said.

She raised a reluctant wrist. "It's after five. Will
you be in trouble?"

"I'm the boss."

His eyes stayed closed, but she knew he was
awake. His breathing belonged to the living.
"What do men want from women, James?"

"I don't know about other men."

"What do you want?"

"I no longer expect anything. Women I know
have a habit of wandering off with me, vanishing."
He shifted an arm and touched her. "I take what's
given me. Gratefully. No questions asked."

She returned to the Heights and, famished, made
herself a thick sandwich, Polish ham on rye, German mustard, kosher pickle on the side. She drew
a bottle of Mexican beer from deep in the fridge
and snapped off the cap. "You should see the
house. Tiny. More Gothic than Victorian."

"Sounds quaint," Trish Becker said.

"Sears decor. Funny wallpaper in the bedroom."
She swigged from the bottle, hard. "The things I
do for you!"

"I didn't ask you to go that far."

She took a big bite from the sandwich and
chewed angrily. "I never should have met him."

Trish looked at her knowingly. "You telling me
you-didn't- enjoy it?"

"I'm telling you he got to me, but I'm three husbands too late."

Trish went to her. "Jesus, Gloria. I'm sorry."

Bobby Sawhill was playing Ping-Pong, slapping
the ball back and forth, his opponent a newcomer
from Dormitory B. They seemed equally matched
until Bobby began exerting himself. Dibble had
taught him the moves. When he chose to put spin
on the ball his returns were deadly. Mr. Grissom
was watching, waiting until the game was over.

"C'mere, Sawhill. 1 -want to talk to you."

They went out into the passageway and ambled
down to the soft-drink machine, where Mr. Grissom bought him a Pepsi, none for himself. Mr.
Grissom was wearing new sweats, black with blue
stripes running around the chest and a single one
down each leg. He had grown a mustache.

"This is our world here, Sawhill. Out there's a
different one, nothing to do with us unless we let
it. What goes on here should stay here. And what
goes on in your head should stay in it unless you're
talking to me. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Another thing, which I've told you before. Dibble did wrong, so don't you make him into something he wasn't."

"I still see him, sir. Him and Duck. Duck doesn't
like the way the new kid's doing the toilets,
thought I should tell you."

"You keep that kind of talk in your head. Even I
don't want to hear it. Where'd you get that T-shirt,
Martin Luther King on it?"

"It was Dibs's. I got all his stuff."

"Get rid of it. Fellas not your race don't like you
wearing it." Mr. Grissom took the Pepsi cup out of
Bobby's hand and drank from it. "Too sweet," he
said and gave it back. "I have news about one of
our alums. Ernest. Some guys in the big place
taught him manners. Went to work on him with a
knife. He's alive, but he's not the same."

"Good," Bobby said. "I'm glad."

"I thought you would be," Mr. Grissom said.

Bobby removed the T-shirt in his room. His
roommate was a scared skinny kid named Jason,
thirteen years old, with a face as dark as a coffee
bean. "You want it," Bobby said, "you can have it."

"Gee, man, thanks."

"Don't call me man. Call me Sawhill." Bobby
slipped on another T-shirt, plain, one of several his
uncle had sent him. "You know who Martin Luther
King was?" he asked, and Jason shook his head.
"You come to the library tomorrow, I'll give you a
book. I don't want a dummy rooming with me."

Jason quickly nodded. He was seated on Bobby's
old cot. Bobby had Dibble's. Jason said, "Why
can't we have a radio in the room, Sawhill?"

"You want a radio, go live in the dorm. Plenty of
them there."

"Naw," Jason said. "I wane stay with you."

Bobby did his homework at the writing table,
none of it taxing. He read Dickens for a while and
then turned out the lights, even though Jason was
still up, reading a comic book. He soon fell
asleep, but less than an hour later, in a dream, he
heard a telephone ring and ring until it woke him
up. He thought it was his mother trying to reach
him. In the dark he heard Jason crying. "What's
the matter?"

"I don't know."

When his mother appeared in his dreams he saw
her as he remembered her, though with the texture
of age added to her face. "You a bawl baby?"

"No!" Jason said.

Sometimes in dreams she fetched up his face
and kissed his brow. "I don't like bawl babies."

"I ain't one."

He turned on his side and placed an arm outside
the covers. "You want to come over here with me?"

There was a silence. "You mean fool around?
Naw, I don't think so."

"Up to you," Bobby said. "No one's pushing
you." A number of moments passed, and then he
heard the slither of bare feet.

"I changed my mind:"

"Too late," Bobby said and shoved him away. "I
don't ask twice."

Chief Morgan did not see as much of Gloria Eisner
as he would have liked. She drifted in and out of
his life according to her moods, a situation he accepted with argument. The last time he had seen
her was when he was again a dinner guest, Trish
Becker's invitation. Ben and Belle Sawhill were
also there and seemed uncertain whether he was
Gloria's special friend or Trish's. During dinner
and after he talked more with Trish than with Gloria, who had learned that a friend of hers had fullblown AIDS. Apparently it was Trish's friend too,
but Trish seemed less affected.

During a few moments alone together, Ben said
to him, "I hope you know what you're doing,
Chief. Either one of 'em could eat you up."

"We're all just good pals."

"Is that what you call it?"

Morgan colored slightly, as if he were in unholy
complicity with both women. Casually he asked after Ben's nephew.

Ben said simply, "He's eighteen now."

At evening's end, Morgan managed a private moment with Gloria. His hand closing smoothly over
hers, he told her he missed her. Light glanced off
her metal jewelry, items she'd bought in Key West.

"Maybe you're just horny," she said.

He was on edge during intervals when he didn't
see her. At the station Sergeant Avery's chatter annoyed him and Meg O'Brien's gimlet eye got under
his skin. Meg, sensitive to his emotional shifts,
said, "When are you going to settle down?"

His spirits lifted when his car broke down. He
was cruising County Road when the overheating
motor clattered, sputtered, and went dead. Felix
from Felix Texaco towed the car away and phoned
the next morning.

"Bad news for you, Chief. It shit the bed."

"A pity," Morgan said. "I guess the town will
have to spring for a new one."

The selectmen, notoriously frugal with town
money, were not pleased but reluctantly approved
the purchase of a bare-bones Ford Escort, on
which the bright town seal looked like huge
postage. The selectmen arrived to view the automobile in the town hall parking lot. Randolph
Jackson, who was no longer chairman but continued to act as one, said, "I still think we could've
got it cheaper."

Orville Farnham, who was the chairman, said,
"Treat it like it was your own, Chief."

"It is my own," Morgan said testily. "It's part of
my salary package."

1\vo weeks later young Floyd Wetherfield, less
than a year on the force, Matt MacGregor's replacement, responded to a call from the library. Elderly and cantankerous Dora Biggs, a widow, was
causing a disturbance and flinging books around.
When Officer Wetherfield arrived she threatened
him with her cane. He drew his revolver. She
dared him to shoot, and for a surreal second it
seemed he might. Morgan arrived on his heels,
suspended him on the spot, and took the heat.

Within hours Randolph Jackson strode into the
station, Orville Farnham behind him. Morgan was
in his office with his shirt half out. He stuffed it in.
Confronting him, Randolph Jackson said, "Another officer playing with his gun. First one shoots
himself to death, and this one's ready to blow away
a little old lady. What kind of people do you hire,
Chief?"

Morgan saw no point in reminding them that
the selectmen were the final authority and had
chosen Floyd Wetherfield over his candidate.

Orville Farnham said, "She could sue you
know."

"She won't," Morgan said. "She had too much
fun."

"What if this gets in the papers?" Randolph
Jackson said.

"It's not the kind of news The Crier prints."

"I mean the real papers."

"They don't know w- we exist."

After they left, Morgan took a spin in his stillnew car. He hadn't consciously intended to drive into the Heights, but there he was. He took a sharp
turn into Trish Becker's drive.

Gloria wasn't around. Trish took him into the
kitchen and served him coffee.

"You don't usually come calling unannounced,"
she said. "What's up?"

"I've had better days. Where is she, Trish?"

"Key West. Visiting a friend."

.The one who's sick?"

"The one who's dying."

Morgan toyed with his coffee cup. "She never
told me she was going."

"Should she have?" Trish gave him a cynical
look. "You two have the same kind of relationship
I had with Harry before we married. Everything
was up in the air. Marriage is better, believe me."

Morgan sipped his coffee. Some feelings he
could not express and expected others to divine
them and, if possible, explain them to him.

"Ask yourself a question, James. Now you know
her, can you do without her?"

With Ben Sawhill's help, Trish got a part-time
proofreading job with a small Boston publishing
house that put out mostly self-help books. She did
most of the work at home. On the days she had to
go into the office she hitched a ride with Ben and
occasionally manipulated him into taking her to
lunch.

At the Maison Robert, where everyone seemed
to know him, he said, "How's it feel to be gainfully
employed?"

"I feel useful, productive," she said, "but I can't
say much for the pay." She gazed at him pensively.
"Do you know we're going to grow old together
and never so much as hold hands?"

He abruptly stuck his hand across the table. "Go
ahead, hold it."

Ignoring it, she said, "You can be cruel when
you want to."

He ate rapidly because he was short on time.
Tearing a roll, he said, "When's Gloria coming
back?"

"When her friend kicks the bucket."

He gave her a curious look. "He's your friend
too, isn't he?"

"No," she said. "Harry was my friend. I don't
want to lose another."

Gesturing for coffee, he said, "How about the
chief?"

"He's a shared friend, more Gloria's than mine,
if you understand."

"The question is whether he understands. I'd
hate to see him hurt."

"He's a big boy," she said with a tinge of resentment. "Order me a ricotta cheesecake. Screw my
diet."

At his office Ben Sawhill looked through his mail,
all of it opened by his secretary except for a gray
envelope from Sherwood. Inside the gray envelope
was a white one, addressed to his daughters, the
first in a long time, ending his hope that there
would be no more. He didn't open it. He didn't want to know what it said inside. In his secretary's
office, his back to her, he shredded it. Facing her
he told her he wanted a check drawn on his personal account, two-hundred dollars.

"Make it out to Ralph Grissom," he said. "Mark
it recreation fund."

At day's end he was glad to leave the office. He
picked Trish up at the corner of Winter and Washington, the traffic brutal, fixed most of the time.
For a long while they couldn't get on the artery,
and for a longer while they couldn't get off it. He
gave Trish a sidelong look.

As we grow older we should be less afraid of
living," he said, "but that's not always true, is it?"

"The worst time," she said, "is when we realize
we're utterly on our own."

With a slow movement, he placed a hand on her
knee and didn't remove it until the traffic began to
buck forward.

On Interstate 93 they didn't speak. He turned
on the radio for the news. A basketball player of
national note had been busted for marijuana possession. A serial killer was apprehended in Florida.
The Congressional Budget Office reported that the
richest in America were getting richer.

On the cutoff that would take them to Bensington, Trish said, "For a while there I was a port in
the storm."

When he dropped her off near her front door, he
said, "Don't read anything into it."

"Too late, Ben. I already have."

He took the family to dinner at the country club. As soon as they entered the dining room, the
twins, adorably awkward in high heels, became an
immediate center of attraction, the pink freshness
of their identical faces drawing admiring smiles.
Their appetites were big. So was Belle's. His
wasn't.

He felt a nervous exhaustion when they returned home. He soon went to bed, and Belle followed. He fell asleep fast and woke an hour later
from a dream he chose not to remember, the chill
in his chest a factor. Rolling toward Belle, he
passed a slow hand over her body and woke her.
His fingers plaited her sexual hair where it grew
the thickest.