The Naked and the Dead (82 page)

            And Mrs. Brown nods her head. I allow Jim to show me the way for those political things. She does not add the business about keeping up her home, but you can guess. Nice people, nice family, church on Sundays of course. Mrs. Brown's only violent opinion is on the New Morality. I don't know, people aren't Godfearing any more. Women drinking in bars, doing God knows what else, it isn't right, isn't Christian at all.

            Mr. Brown nods tolerantly. He has a few reservations, but after all women somehow just are more religious, really religious, than men, he will say in a confidential talk.

            Naturally they're very proud of their children, and they'll tell you with amusement how Patty is teaching William to dance now that he's in high school.

            We were worried about sending them to the State University what with the depression and all, but I think we can see our way clear now. Mr. Brown, she'll add, always has wanted them to go, especially since he missed it.

            The brother and sister
are
good friends. In the sun parlor where the maple sofa is flanked by the vase (which had been a flower pot until the rubber plant died) and the radio, the girl makes him lead her.

            Now, look, Willie-boy, it's easy. You just don' have to be afraid of holdin' me.

            Who's afraid of holdin' ya?

            You're not such a roughneck, she says from the vantage of senior year in high school. You're gonna be dating soon.

            Yeah, he exclaims with disgust. But he feels her small pert breasts against his chest. He is almost as tall as her. Who's gonna date?

            You are.

            They shuffle along the smooth red stone of the floor. Hey, Patty, when Tom Elkins comes around to see you, lemme talk to him. I wanna know if he thinks I'll be big enough to get on the football team in a coupla years.

            Tom Elkins, that ol' fool.

            (It's sacrilege.) He looks at her in disgust. What's the matter with Tom Elkins?

            It's all right, Willie, you'll make the team.

            He never does get quite big enough, but by his junior year he is the head of the cheer leaders, and he has talked his father into buying him a used car.

            You don't understand, Pop, I really need the car. A guy's gotta get around. Like last Friday when I had to get all the crew together to practice for the Wadsworth game, I wasted all the afternoon just running around.

            Are you sure, Son, it won't be a wanton extravagance?

            I really need it, Pop. I'll even work summers to pay you back.

            It's not a question of that, although I think you oughter to keep you from getting spoiled. I tell you what, I'll just talk it over with Mother.

            The victory is his and he grins. Far back in his head, quite beneath the surface of his sincerity in this conversation, is the memory of many others. (The youths talking in the locker room after gym period, the profound discussions in the cellars converted to club-rooms. )

            Folklore: If you want to make a girl, you got to have a car.

            His senior year is fun. He is a member of SG (Student Government) and he manages the School Dance. There are all the dates on Saturday night at the Crown Theatre and once or twice in the road-house out of town. There are the parties on Friday night at the girls' houses. He even goes steady for a part of the year.

            And always the cheer leading. He squats, does knee-bends in the white flannel pants, the rough white sweater not quite warm enough in the fall winds. Before him the one thousand kids are yelling, the girls in their green plaid skirts jumping up and down, their knees red from the cold.

            Let's give a Cardley for the team, he shouts, running up and down with the megaphone. There is the pause, the respectful hush while he extends one arm, swings it over his head, and brings it down.

            CARDLEY HIGH. . . CARDLEY HIGH.

            HIIIIIIIIIII SCORE HIIIIIIII SCHOOOOOL

            YAAAAAAAAY TEAM!

            And the kids are yelling, watching him as he does a cartwheel, comes up clapping his hands, his body turned toward the playing field in an attitude of devotion, of pleading. It's all his. One thousand kids awaiting on him.

            One of the glory moments that you pull out later.

            In the lag between basketball season and baseball, he takes his car apart, installs a muffler (he is tired of the sound of the exhaust) greases the gear housing, and paints the chassis a pale green.

            There are important conversations with his father.

            We have to be thinking seriously of what you want to do, Willie.

            I've kinda set my mind on engineering, Pop. (This is no surprise. They've talked of it many times, but this occasion there's the tacit understanding that it's Serious.)

            Well, now, I'm glad to hear that, Willie. I don't want to say I've ever tried to form your opinion for you, but I couldn't ask for anything better.

            I really like machinery.

            I've noticed that, Son. (The pause) It's aeronautical engineering that interests you?

            I think it's gonna be the field.

            It is, Son, I think it's a good choice. That's an up-and-coming business. His father claps him on the shoulder. I want to mention one thing though, Willie. I noticed you been getting a little cocky, nothing to speak about, and you keep your manners with us, but it's not a good policy, Son. It's perfectly all right to know that you can do something better'n the next man, but it isn't good sense to let the other man know it.

            Never thought of it that way. He shakes his head. Listen, Pop, it's nothin' serious, but I'll watch it from now on. (An insight) Really learned something from you there.

            The father chuckles, quite pleased. Sure, Willie, the old man can still tell you a thing or two.

            You're a swell guy, Pop. The whole thing is warm between them. He feels himself coming of age, the equal ready to talk to his father as a friend.

            That summer he works at the Crown Theatre as an usher. It's a pleasant job. He knows at least half the people who come there, and he can talk to them for a few minutes before he shows them a seat. (It's a good idea to be friends with everybody; you never can tell when you'll want a favor from a man.)

            Indeed, the only dull times are in the afternoons when hardly anyone is there. Usually there's a few girls to talk to, but since he has broken up with his senior year sweetheart he is not interested. I don't want any wedding bells, he always wisecracks.

            One day, however, he meets Beverly. (The slim dark-eyed, dark-haired girl on the left with the exciting red mouth she has penciled over her lips.) How'd you like the picture, Gloria? he asks the other one.

            I thought it was a mighty sorry picture.

            Yeah, it's awful. Hello. (To Beverly.)

            Hello, Willie.

            He smiles blankly. How do you know me?

            Oh, I was the year behind you in school. I remember you from the cheer leaders.

            The introductions, the bright talk. Bridling pleasantly. So you knew me, huh?

            Everybody knows you, Willie.

            Yeah, ain't it tough? They laugh.

            Before she leaves, he has made a date.

            The hot summer nights, the languor of the trees, the leaven in the earth. After the dates they ride in his car to a park at the crest of a hill on the highway outside the suburb. Inside the car they roll and squirm, bang their knees and their backs against the gearshift, the steering wheel, the knobs for the windows.

            Aw come on, baby, I won't do a thing if you won't let me but come on.

            No, I can't, I better not.

            God, I love you, Beverly.

            I do too, Willie. (The car radio is playing when it rains it rains. . . Pennies from Heaven. Her hair has a clean root smell, and her nipple is delicately fragrant against his mouth. He feels her writhing in his grasp, sobbing-panting.)

            Oh, kid.

            I can't, Willie, I love you so much please I can't.

            I wish we were married.

            Oh, do I. (Nuzzling his hair with her mouth) Ohhh.

            The analyses: You made her yet, Willie?

            I got to third base last night, I'll make her yet. Oh, what a dame.

            What'd she do?

            She moaned. Jeez, I go for her. I made her moan.

            Aaah, if they won't put out.

            Folklore: If she won't lay she's frigid; if she does she's a whore.

            I'll make her yet. Don't forget she's cherry. (Way back is a sneaking guilt -- I love you, Beverly.)

            Talking serious: You know I dreamt about you last night, Willie.

            Me too. You know that movie we saw the other day,
Captain Blood,
I thought Olivia de Haviland looked like you. (Identification with the square of canvas in the dark cavern. His love is perfect like theirs.)

            You're sweet. (Ineffable attraction of the girl playing mother. The red bow of her lips.) If you weren't so sweet I wouldn't. . . go so far. You don't have a bad opinion of me?

            No. (Teasing.) I'd have a better one if. . . you know.

            Uh-uh, momma knows best. (Silence, her head on his shoulder.) I feel funny when I start thinking of us.

            Me too.

            Do you suppose everybody is like us? I wonder if Madge pets the way I do, she always giggles when I try to pump her. (Augury of the practical woman) Something fishy there. (The maiden again) Don't you feel funny when you start thinking about things?

            Yeah, it's all very. . . funny. (But said profoundly.)

            I feel much older since I've known you, Willie.

            I know what you mean. Gee, it's swell talking to you. (She has so many virtues; she feels so soft, and her mouth excites him so, and she's a good dancer, looks swell in a bathing suit, and besides that she's intelligent. He can talk to her. No one else had it like this. He glows with the intoxicating esteem of first love.) Oh, Beverly.

            At the State University he is accepted in a good frat, is disappointed vaguely because initiations are forbidden. (He sees himself as a senior conducting it.) But it is fine. He learns to smoke a pipe, is introduced to the rewards of college life. Brother Brown as a pledgee in good standing of Tau Tau Epsilon we will preside over the circumsional rites. In the vernacular you will lose your cherry.

            The brothel is expensive, catering to the college. He has heard of it before, is drunk enough to acquit himself without fear. Afterward in the college quadrangle he sings. Once in a While. . . Wheeeee-hooooooooh. Once in a while, get it, Father Perkins.

            Quiet.

            You're a good sonofabitch. (A new theme.)

            He never means to slip, he has the best intentions in the world, but somehow drafting, freshman trig, freshman physics, etc., etc., is a little less vital than he has imagined. He tries to study, but there are better things. A man wants to get out after spending the whole afternoon in a lab.

            The glamour of getting plastered on beers in the local tavern, the long deep conversation. I got a girl, Gert, I tell you she can't be beat. She's beautiful, look at her picture. It's a goddam shame the helling around I do, cheating on her and writing lovey-dovey letters.

            Hell, boy, she ain't missin' any bets either.

            Now, don't say that, or I'm gonna take offense. She's pretty goddam pure.

            All right, all right, just take it from my point of view. What she don't know won't hurt her.

            He considers this, begins to giggle. I gotta tell ya the truth, that's the way I feel about it. Have a beer.

            I wish I could tell you boys (slightly drunk) just what the hell this is all gonna mean to us years from now. We're storin' up memories, and that's a fact. They ain't, all right I said ain't even if I am in college, but shit I'm just plain folks, they ain't a one of you I'll ever forget, that's the goddam Lesbian truth.

            What the hell you talkin' about, Brown?

            Damn if I know. (Laughter.) Tee hell with the physics test tomorrow. I just got helling in my blood.

            Amen.

            In June, after he has flunked out, it is hard to face his father, but he comes back with resolutions.

            Listen, Pop, I know I've been an awful disappointment to you, and it's a damn shame after all your sacrifices, but I just don't think I'm cut out for that kind of work. I ain't gonna make any apologies about my intelligence 'cause I still think it's as good as anyone's my age, but I'm the kind of a fellow who needs something he can get his teeth into better. I believe I'm cut out for selling or something like that. I like to be around people.

            (The long sigh) Maybe, maybe. No use cryin' over spilt milk is what I say. I'll talk to some of my friends.

            He gets a job with a farm-machinery company, is making fifty dollars a week before his first year is out. He introduces Beverly to his folks, takes her to see Patty, who is now married.

            Do you think she liked me? Beverly asks.

            Sure she did.

            They're married in the summer, and settle down in a six-room house. He's up to seventy-five dollars, but they're always a little in debt; liquor runs to twenty or twenty-five dollars a week counting what it costs them to go out.

            Still, they don't have a bad time. The wedding night is a shambles but he recovers quickly, and after a decent interval their lovemaking is rich and various. They have a secret catalogue: