Fletcher Flora

The Brass Bed

1

“Maybe,” she said, “we should call it quits.”

“Sure,” I answered over the telephone. “It would just make things a hell of a lot worse.” But I knew she didn’t mean it. “What do you want anyway?” I asked her.

So she told me. “YOU.”

I hadn’t seen her in six weeks, and the six weeks had been hell, especially when I knew she was right around the corner, as close to me as the telephone beside the bed where I was lying. I wanted her with me, wanted her badly, but there was a problem. It may seem to some people that a man and a woman’s seeing each other should not be such a hell of a problem, but it was — because she was married.

And right now — right now she was probably in some other guy’s arms.

I waited for the telephone to ring.

“It’s really very simple. I want you to come over and have a drink with me.”

“Having a drink with you is not a simple matter. It leads to excesses.”

Then she said it: “Are you afraid to see me?”

I took a deep breath. “That’s right,” I said. “I’m afraid.”

And that summer there was plenty to be afraid of. More, even, than I knew when I talked to her then. And a more terrifying summer than I could have imagined...

The summer that all this happened, I taught a course in medieval history that had something in it about goliards. I didn’t know much about goliards to start with, but I got interested in them. After a while I got the idea that you might be able to write a novel about a goliard that would sell to a lot of people and a book club and maybe to the movies, and so I started on the novel, but it didn’t go very well. It was hot in June and hotter in July, and the students in the class were either very bright kids who wanted to earn a degree in two or three years instead of four, or school teachers who had come in from various places to get revived intellectually and possibly to get also a small raise on next year’s salary for having gone to school in the summer, and all in all, if you want the truth, it was pretty terrible.

The goliards helped a little. They were very interesting, as a matter of fact. I imagine that most people don’t know anything about goliards, which is no great loss either to the goliards or to the people, but anyhow they were mostly twelfth century students and clerics who wrote some nice poetry that you can still read if you’re interested. They also did other things. Some of the things they did best were drinking and shooting craps and making love and raising hell in general, and it was for these reasons that I got the idea that one of them might go well in a novel. There is a prevalent feeling that clerics do not have the same rights in hell-raising as folk who are not clerics, and this would certainly cause a feeling of prejudice against the goliards in certain quarters, but as for me, I found them helpful in a hot summer and quite a relief from bright kids and school teachers.

But even the goliards were no relief from Jolly. I do not intend this as criticism, for you can expect only so much from anyone, even goliards, and I kept thinking about Jolly and wanting to see her, but I didn’t. That was the trouble, of course. Wanting to see her, I mean, and not doing it. Something like that can be very troublesome. I tried to build up a feeling of pride in me about being strong and doing the right thing and all that kind of stuff, but it was pretty sour business and was not successful. I felt more miserable than proud, to tell the truth, especially in the long evenings and at night when I lay on my bed and thought about her in more detail than the days allowed. I went fishing twice with Harvey Griffin and got drunk three times, once with Harvey and twice alone, but I kept right on thinking about Jolly even when I was drunk or fishing, and so I gave up temporarily on both of them. I didn’t try fishing and drinking at the same time, but I doubt if it would have worked any better.

I don’t know why she was called Jolly. I ought to know, but I don’t. I knew her well and had made love to her once, which was in the spring before this summer, but I never learned why she was called Jolly, and I consider this, thinking about it, a very odd thing. Jolly is not a name you would encounter commonly, and it seems like one of the first things you’d find out about a woman would be why she was called that, but I never did, and I can’t explain it. Of the things I did learn about her, some are easy to say, and some are hard, and some are impossible. It is easy to say that she had brown hair and brown eyes and a warm and slender and responsive body, but it would be hard to say why she was so much lovelier than she was, and it would be impossible to say why it broke your heart to look at her. Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had learned to understand the hard things and the impossible things about her. A man is very vulnerable to things he doesn’t understand.

I had not seen her since the first week in June, and here it was the third week in July, and it is reasonable to assume that not seeing someone will get easier as time goes along, but in this case it didn’t. I wondered if she wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see her, and I hoped that she did and knew very well that I ought to be hoping that she didn’t, because if one of us hadn’t given a damn, everything would have been simpler and different.

Ordinarily the marriage thing would be a problem that could be solved in one way or another, though there may be certain unpleasantries in the solution, but when it is complicated by peculiar attitudes like those Jolly was addicted to, it becomes both unsolvable and confusing. She was married to a man named Kirby Craig, and he was a big guy with blond hair that waved, and he played golf and tennis and handball and would have been quite difficult for anyone to whip, and impossible for me. I didn’t want to fight him, anyhow. Whipping him wouldn’t have solved anything, and getting whipped by him would have solved even less from my point of view. I don’t know exactly how he felt about it, but I suspect that he felt otherwise. He sold real estate and was very good at it and had made a lot of money, which was something I had never been able to do because goliards do not pay as well as real estate unless you can put them in a novel with a sexy duchess or something, and even then I doubt seriously that they would pay as much. I might as well admit also that Kirby was pretty handsome, and I could understand how Jolly might have once loved him enough to marry him, so there it is, and I admit it, but I won’t dwell on it.

So there was a problem, and I hadn’t seen her or even telephoned her and was trying to kid myself into feeling good about it. I talked about goliards and other things to bright kids who were in a hurry and to schoolteachers who might possibly get a small raise out of it, and it was no good wanting to see someone and not seeing her, and then all of a sudden I did. It was in the afternoon, and it was hot, and it was, as I said, the third week in July.

I was going upstairs to my apartment, which was a bedroom with a large closet that was euphemistically called a kitchen because it had a small stove and a sink and a refrigerator in it, and on the stairs on the way up I could hear the telephone ringing. I went through the bedroom and into the euphemistic kitchen and got a drink of water at the sink. After drinking the water, which was tepid, I went back into the bedroom, and the telephone was still ringing, so I decided I might as well answer it. I picked it up and said hello, and it was Jolly. I hadn’t heard her voice for a thousand years, not since way back in early June, and it was very good to hear it in one way, and in another way it was very bad, because it wiped out the thousand years in an instant, and everything that had been accomplished in them.

“Hello, hello,” she said.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and said hello again.

“Is that you, Felix?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“I’ve been ringing and ringing.”

“I know. I could hear you on the way up.”

“Did you just get in?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that the luckiest thing? I mean, getting in just in time to answer and all.”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“Well, it’s like destiny or something. Don’t you think so? Like it’s meant for us not to miss each other.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t think it’s like destiny or something.”

“Really? It seems very much like it to me. You know perfectly well that things just sort of happen to us, Felix. Like that night in early June. Do you remember how things just sort of happened?”

“Yes, I remember, but I don’t want to think about it.”

“Is that so? Really so? I think about it quite often myself.”

“Well, I do too, as a matter of fact, but I don’t want to.”

“Whyever not?”

“I just think it’s better not to.”

“I suppose you’re right, under the circumstances. It’s very tiresome, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. It’s tiresome as hell.”

“Poor darling. Maybe it would be less tiresome if we quit fighting it.”

“Oh, sure. Less tiresome, maybe, but a hell of a lot worse.”

“You swear so much. Is it necessary to swear?”

“Yes, it is. I’m a little man with glands and an unsolvable problem, and swearing is my only relief. What do you want, Jolly?”

She didn’t answer right away. She said something at the other end of the line, and I could tell that she had turned away from the mouthpiece and was calling to someone there. I couldn’t understand what she said, so I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to the unintelligible and strangely vibrant huskiness of her voice, and after half a minute she turned back to the mouthpiece and me.

“Felix?”

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked you what you want.”

So she told me. “You.”

“I don’t mean that,” I said, lying in my teeth.

“Well, it’s really very simple, darling. I want you to come and have a drink with me.”

“Having a drink with you is not simple, Jolly. Seeing you for any reason whatever is not simple. It is complicated and difficult and involves emotional excesses that I do not wish to cope with ever again.”

“Are you afraid to see me?”

“That’s right. Where you are concerned, I am the most miserable coward.”

“We would be very conventional, darling. We would have a drink and talk about impersonal things and maybe shake hands when you leave.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think we would be conventional?”

“I don’t think I’ll come.”

“Darling, you must come. It’s absolutely essential.”

“Is it? Why?”

“Because Sid and Fran are here drinking martinis, and I am positively unable to stand it any longer.”

“Sid Pollock and Fran Tyler?”

“That’s right. Fran insisted on martinis, and I told her she would have to make them herself, because I’m no good at it. That was her I was speaking to a minute ago. Did you wonder?”

“Not much.”

“Well, it was, anyhow. She had run out of olives and wanted to know where to find some more, and I was telling her. Wouldn’t you like to have a martini?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Darling, are you going to be stubborn?”

“I hope so.”

“Would you like to know how it was that I suddenly decided that I couldn’t stand it any longer?”

“I’d rather not.”

“What I mean is, I was just sitting here with Sid and Fran, and we were drinking these martinis that Fran had made, and Sid was saying something perfectly ridiculous about just having one to be sociable, and all of a sudden it came to me that I couldn’t stand it any longer. It must have been some kind of insight or something, because I’ve been trying very hard not to think about you too much or let it disturb me because of the way you’ve been acting all nasty and virtuous about the way things are, about you and me and the way we really feel and all, and then I had this sudden feeling that I simply had to see you or die. You know?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Have you ever felt that way, darling? About me, I mean. That you simply had to see me or die?”

“Yes. It was an illusion. I didn’t see you, and I didn’t die.”

“Are you trying to make me unhappy?”

“By not dying?”

“You mustn’t joke with me, Felix. I’m much too miserable to be joked with.”

“I’m not joking. I don’t feel at all like joking.”

“Will you come have the martini?”

“No.”

“You may have something else if you’d rather.”

“I’d rather not have anything at all.”

“It would be very proper, darling. How could it be anything but proper with Sid and Fran all over the place?”

“It would not be proper. I’d sit and look at you and listen to your voice and what I’d be thinking would not be proper at all.”

“Thinking doesn’t count. What a person thinks doesn’t make any difference.”

“On the contrary, it makes a great deal of difference. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. That’s in the Bible.”

“Really? Well, even if it is, it’s a terrible thing to believe. If we really believed something like that, where would we all be?”

“I don’t know. Just where we are whether we believe it or not, I guess.”

“Wouldn’t you like to see me?”

“Yes, I would like very much to see you.”

“Will you come, then?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“If I came and saw you, I would have to start all over again getting used to not seeing you, and that is something I want to avoid.”

“Perhaps I’ll die after all, even if you don’t think so.”

“You won’t die. You’ll have another martini instead.”

“If I were to die, would you be sorry?”

“Goodbye, Jolly.”

“Really? Really goodbye?”

“Really.”

“All right. Goodbye, then.”

Her voice sounded very small and sad. I hung up and lay back across the bed and wanted to cry. It was hot in the room. It was a very hot July. Third week in July. I tried thinking about goliards in general and about the goliard I was trying to write a novel about in particular, but goliards seemed very dull, whether in general or in particular, even with a sexy duchess thrown in, and after a while I sat up and reached for the phone and called Jolly back.

“Are you dying or having a martini?” I said.

“Right now I’m having a martini,” she said, “but later I may die.”

“Dying is sticky business. You are wise to settle for a martini, and I’ve decided that I would like to have one too.”

“With me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not at all sure that I still want you.”

“Well, do you or don’t you?”

“I do.”

“In that case, I’ll be right over.”

I hung up again and got off the bed and went downstairs to my Chevvie. The Chevvie was old and tired, and sometimes it ran, and sometimes it didn’t. This time it did, and I drove to Jolly’s in it.

2

She lived on a place. I don’t know why it is that a private street is almost always called a place, but I’ve noticed that it’s true, and it was true of the street that Jolly lived on. You entered the street through a stone gate with fancy ironwork added here and there for effect, and the street itself was a long ellipse. You drove down one side and made a U-turn and came back the other side, and on both sides were houses with a parking between. There were a lot of flowers and shrubs growing on the parking, and in the center was a white stone statue of a naked boy playing a flute, and from the holes in the flute came thin streams of water that went up into the air and down into a wide stone basin that the naked boy was standing in. The water sparkled in the sun and was quite pretty, but all in all the statue made very little sense so far as I could see. All the houses on both sides of the ellipse were big, and the house that Jolly lived in was bigger than some and not so big as others. It was a phony Tudor, with timbers and stuff, and had cost a lot of money.

The front door was open, and the screen was unhooked. I opened the screen and walked down the hall to the entrance to the living room, which was on the left, and I could hear Jolly’s voice in the living room. She sounded angry. I turned through the entrance into the room, and there were some dark beams overhead that probably didn’t support anything, and facing me in a chair was Fran Tyler with her legs crossed and a martini in her hand and an absorbed expression on her face. She had a lot of leg, and it was all good. This was very fortunate, because her face was long and mulish with prominent teeth, and so the legs had quite a bit to make up for. They did a pretty good job of it though. On the strength of her legs she got along extremely well, and there were times when her face didn’t seem to have much importance one way or another.

She was looking at Jolly and Sid, and Sid was standing so that I could see his face over Jolly’s shoulder, but all I could see of Jolly was her back, which was very much worth the seeing, so far as that goes. She was wearing a white sheath dress without any shoulders, and her skin was brown from the sun, and her legs were just as good as Fran’s, if not better, and it was pretty obvious that she didn’t have much, if anything, under the dress. I couldn’t see her face, as I said, but I remembered from other times that it was a good face with eyes a little long and cheeks slightly hollow, and as a matter of fact it wasn’t good at all, it was perfect, it was the loveliest face in the world. That was one big difference between Jolly and Fran, among others. On legs they may have been in a dead heat, depending on your prejudices, but when it came to faces, Jolly was way out in front and no question about it.

This was more than you could say for Sid’s face, even if you were a woman and had a bias toward men’s faces as opposed to other women’s. At its best it was only so-so as faces go, and at this moment it was not at its best. It was red and glossy, as if he’d been working up a sweat in a steam bath, and I could see that he was angry and had been hurt by something Jolly had said to him, which is just another way of saying that he was sullen. Whatever it was Jolly had said, he was doing his best to take it like a gentleman, and he was practically certain to succeed in this because being a gentleman was very important to him, and whenever his Id and his Ego got to raising hell with each other, you could count on his Ego coming out on top every time.

Fran saw me and smiled and waved her martini glass at me.

“Sid says he’s a social drinker,” she explained, “and Jolly says social drinkers are pigs.”

Jolly had a black eye. When she turned around I could see it, and it was probably the most beautiful black eye I had ever seen up to that time or have seen since. From a deep blue-black, it shaded outward to a shining purple on her cheek bone.

“So they are,” Jolly said. “Social drinkers are pigs.”

“Why?” Sid said reasonably. “Tell me why in God’s name social drinkers are pigs.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to know myself. Why are social drinkers pigs?”

“They are,” Jolly said. “They’re absolute pigs.”

“You just keep repeating it,” Sid said. “You don’t say why.”

“It should be perfectly apparent why.”

“Well, it’s not apparent. It’s not apparent at all.”

Jolly walked over to me suddenly and kissed me, which meant nothing much in itself, because she frequently kissed all kinds of people.

“Hello, darling,” she said. “I was so upset by this pig that I almost forgot.”

“I am not a pig,” Sid said.

“Of course you’re a pig. You just said so.”

“I didn’t. I said I’m a social drinker, that’s all I said.”

“It’s the same thing. A social drinker is a pig.” She appealed to me. “Darling, don’t you think a social drinker is a pig?”

“Well,” I said, “I came in late and may have missed something. Why don’t you just explain it to us?”

“Certainly. I’ll be happy to explain it. A social drinker is someone who drinks your liquor when he doesn’t even like it or really want it, and he thinks he’s doing you a big favor by being compatible or something.” She glared at Sid, and her black eye gave her a very ferocious look. “Fran likes liquor. Felix does too. And here you are with your damn sense of sociability drinking it up from someone who would enjoy it. Who the hell do you think you are to be taking the liquor right out of Felix and Fran’s mouths? The truth is, you’re not a who at all. You’re a what, that’s what. You’re a pig.”

It was a devastating display of logic, and I was very relieved because now I could be on Jolly’s side logically as well as emotionally. Sid looked at her with his mouth open, and Fran looked at her with a kind of awe, and after a moment Sid lifted the martini he was holding and poured it into his open mouth.

“By God, that was wonderful!” Fran said. “Besides all that other nice stuff, this girl has brains!”

“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes it frightens you a little.”

“Just the same,” Sid said, “I am not a pig.”

“Oh, please don’t be so stubborn,” Jolly said angrily. “It has been explained to you quite clearly that you are a pig, and you just keep saying that you’re not.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “I’m sorry I drank the God-damn martini.”

“You needn’t swear,” she said. “It isn’t necessary to swear.”

“You swore. You said I have a damn sense of sociability, and you asked me who the hell I think I am.”

“That’s different. I had sufficient provocation. I only swear when there is sufficient provocation.”

“Don’t you think I have any provocation, for God’s sake?”

“Provocation! You? You behave like a pig and persist in denying it, and for some strange reason you seem to think this gives you the right to swear at other people. I simply can’t understand how your mind works, Sid. You must be paranoid or something.”

“Well, I give up. I absolutely give up.”

“That’s a sensible attitude. Now you are being reasonable. Why don’t you just pour yourself another martini and behave decently?”

“No, thanks,” he said bitterly. “I have no wish to be a bigger pig than I’ve already been.”

“Oh, I have no objection to your being a pig. I just don’t want you to deny it. It’s for your own good, you know. Everyone should face reality. That’s what all the psychologists say, and it’s true. If you persist in denying things, you wind up with a lot of repressions and things, and it’s very bad for you.”

“How about me?” I said. “Do I get a drink?”

“Darling, I’m so sorry.” Jolly was contrite. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“If you will give me the drink, I’ll see about it,” I said.

“Of course. Is there some left in the shaker, Fran?”

“Yes,” Fran said, “there’s quite a lot left.”

She uncrossed her legs and stood up and began to pour a martini for me, and I went over to get it. Jolly turned on Sid again.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said. “You’ve positively made me forget all my manners.”

Sid opened his mouth to say something, but then he must have considered the possible consequences, and he closed his mouth again and came over to get another martini for himself. I had the feeling that he wasn’t getting this one just to be sociable.

“The trouble is,” Fran said, “Sid’s in love with Jolly. He subconsciously enjoys having her give him hell about things. It’s a pleasure to him, I mean. I wonder if it’s a sexual pleasure. I’ve been wondering about that, and I’d like to know. Is it a sexual pleasure, Sid?”

“Cut it out, Fran,” Sid said.

“I’m only asking for information. I really feel very clinical about it. Sort of like Kinsley.”

“Kinsey,” Jolly said.

“Really? Is it Kinsey? I thought it was Kinsley.”

“No, it’s Kinsey. I’m quite sure of that.”

“Well, anyhow, I’d like to know. Is it, Sid?”

“Cut it out,” Sid said.

Fran poured another martini for herself and drank some of it. While she was drinking, she stared at Sid judicially.

“You know,” she said, “I believe this is significant. Your refusing to answer, I mean. I ask you a scientific question, and you refuse to answer. It shows that, under all that pretense of drinking to be congenial and everything, you are really quite antisocial. It is the duty of every good citizen nowadays to be scientific, and anyone who refuses is surely antisocial.”

Jolly was looking at Sid with interest. She looked as if she might be inclined to forgive him a little for being a social drinker.

“Are you in love with me, Sid?” she said. “It simply never occurred to me.”

“Of course he’s in love with you,” Fran said. “He’s simply wallowing in the filthy stuff. Couldn’t you tell? Actually couldn’t you? Even from the way he keeps looking at you and following you around and everything? It’s really rather disgusting, if you want to know the truth. Take the way he got so angry and all about your black eye. Didn’t you think that was really rather disgusting?”

“Speaking of the eye,” I said to Jolly, “I’ve been wondering about it.”

She smiled happily and touched it proudly with finger tips.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It certainly is. It’s the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. Where did you get it?”

“Kirby gave it to me. We were discussing something, and all at once he hit me right in the eye.”

She turned up a palm and made a fist and smacked the fist into the palm. “Pow!” she said.

“What were you discussing?” I said.

“I don’t quite remember. It must be that it sort of knocked it right out of my head when he socked me. Anyhow, it was apparently something that annoyed him.”

“Apparently. Did he knock you down?”

“Yes, he did. On the bed, that is. If the bed hadn’t been there, I’d have gone right down on the floor. I didn’t lose consciousness, though. I’m rather proud of that. It shows I’m pretty tough. I dare say lots of women would have simply blacked out.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Oh, it hurt, all right, but I didn’t cry. I believe that annoyed Kirby even more than what I must have said to make him do it. Are you angry about it?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t seem to be.”

“I don’t know that I like that. I think I would prefer that you be a little angry. Nothing excessive and disgusting like Sid, of course, but maybe just a little.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll keep thinking about it, and maybe after a while I’ll begin to get angry.”

“All right. All I ask is that you do your best.”

“It was beastly,” Sid said. “No one but a beast would hit a woman like that. He ought to be thrashed.”

Fran and Jolly turned on him simultaneously.

“Oh, please don’t start being disgusting again,” Fran said.

“Who the hell do you think you are,” Jolly said, “to be wanting my husband thrashed? Don’t you think a husband has the right to hit his wife in the eye now and then without having you try to interfere?”

“Besides,” Fran said, “why couldn’t you say beat up or kicked in the teeth or something sensible? Thrashed, for God’s sake! It makes you sound like a fairy or something.”

“When I want you to thrash Kirby for hitting me in the eye, I’ll let you know,” Jolly said.

“All right, all right,” Sid said.

Fran tried to pour another martini, but there wasn’t any left, and so she started putting gin and vermouth into the shaker. She was very good at it. She had gotten so good that she could measure the proportions with only her eye. It was her right eye that she used. She closed her left one and used the right one somewhat as if she were looking through a telescope.

“This conversation is getting dull,” she said. “Every time you get into a conversation, Sid, it immediately begins getting dull. I think it would be exciting to talk about Felix for a change. What have you been doing with yourself, Felix?”

“I’ve been teaching bright kids and schoolteachers about goliards,” I said.

“Seriously? I’m afraid that doesn’t sound so exciting after all. You are being a big disappointment to me, Felix.”

“Well, the kids and the schoolteachers aren’t much, I’ll admit, but the goliards are pretty exciting.”

“Do you mean it? Really exciting? What are they?”

“Not are. Were. They were mostly twelfth century clerics and students in the universities.”

“What’s so exciting about students in universities? What I’d like to know is, why should twelfth century students be more exciting than twentieth century students? You just said your own students aren’t so much, and it seems very unlikely to me that twelfth century students were any better.”

“From the standpoint of being interesting, they were much better. They wrote poetry about drinking and gambling and having love affairs.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? I’ll agree that this puts a different light on the matter. Why are they called goliards?”

“They were supposed to have had a leader named Golias, but it is generally understood that Golias was a mythical figure. Some of the poetry is pretty good.”

“Is it all about drinking and love and stuff like that?”

“Mostly. They wandered around a lot, and there are some about how nice it was out on the open road and all that, and there are a few parodies of sacred hymns.”

“You say some of these goliards were clerics? Doesn’t that mean priests or something?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought, and it seems to me very odd that they should have written that kind of poetry. I’m not at all sure that they should have done it.”

“I don’t agree,” Jolly said. “I think it’s very nice that they wrote poetry about drinking and love, especially if it has turned out to be interesting to Felix, but what I think was wrong is that they wrote parodies of sacred hymns. I’m very reverent myself, and I don’t think it was right to write parodies of sacred hymns.”

“Some of them are pretty vulgar,” I said.

“You see? Vulgar parodies of sacred hymns. That wasn’t right.”

“Could you recite one of the vulgar parodies?” Fran said.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jolly said.

“Oh, come on, Jolly, be a sport,” Fran said. “Let’s hear it.”

“You needn’t argue about it,” I said, “because I don’t remember any of the parodies.”

“Good,” said Jolly. “I’m glad you don’t remember any. I’m very reverent, and I wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“Since when have you been so reverent?” Fran said.

“I’ve always been reverent,” Jolly said. “Didn’t you know that?”

“It isn’t very apparent,” Fran said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “I have been, just the same. I’m reverent by nature.”

“How about one about love?” Fran said. “Do you know one about love, Felix?”

“Yes,” Jolly said, “I wouldn’t object at all to hearing one about love.”

“I know one called The Pretty Fruits of Love,” I said. “It’s about a pregnant girl whose lover has run away.”

“That doesn’t sound very interesting to me,” Jolly said. “I don’t believe I care to hear a poem on that subject.”

“I must say you are being quite difficult, Jolly,” Fran said. “It seems to me that a poem about a pregnant girl would be unusual and interesting.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jolly said.

“Would you please explain why? Perhaps you are sensitive or something. Have you ever had an unfortunate experience along that line?”

“Not at all. The truth is, it would be quite impossible. Didn’t you know that? Kirby and I tried and tried, but nothing came of it, and Kirby was very depressed because he thought he might be the one, but we went to this doctor, and he said no, it was me. Poor Kirby was extremely relieved, but I couldn’t understand what difference it made. I mean, it takes two to accomplish anything, you see, and I couldn’t understand that it made any particular difference which one of us it was that couldn’t.”

“It’s psychological,” I said. “Men are peculiar that way.”

“Really? I absolutely can’t see the sense in it.”

“What I can’t see,” said Fran, “is why you continually don’t want to hear Felix recite a poem. Perhaps you could think of one that would please her, Felix.”

“Well,” I said, “there’s a good one about a university student who decides he should quit studying and have some fun, but I can only remember a few lines.”

“What kind of fun?”

“Fun with girls mostly.”

“How about that one, Jolly? Would you like to hear a poem about a university student who decides to have some fun with girls?”

“That one sounds quite charming, and I am willing to hear it.”

I recited one of the verses, and then Fran went around with the shaker again, pouring martinis into glasses. Sid shook his head and wouldn’t have any. His feelings were still hurt, and he looked out the window and pretended that he was indifferent to everything that happened. Jolly sipped her martini with a small smile on her lips. I liked her black eye, after getting used to it. Besides making her look ferocious at times, it also gave her a rather dashing look.

“I concede that it’s nice,” Fran said about the poem, “but I was hoping for something hotter.”

“I like that part about down among the maidens and the dancing feet. That has a very nice sound,” Jolly said.

“I’m dubious about the part about white limbs, though. Limbs has a kind of nasty sound. Prudish, you know. Why couldn’t he just say legs?”

“Well, maybe he didn’t mean just legs. Maybe he meant arms too.”

“Arms? Are arms limbs? I thought only legs were limbs.”

“Oh, no. I’m positive arms are also limbs. What do you say, Felix? Are arms limbs?”

“Yes,” I said, “arms and legs are both limbs.”

“In that case,” Fran said, “why couldn’t he have said arms and legs?”

“It wouldn’t scan,” Jolly said. “A poem has to scan.”

“Nevertheless,” Fran said, “I wish it had been hotter.”

“There is a whole book of them,” I said, “and some are as hot as you could want. Why don’t you read the book?”

“What’s the name of it?”

“It’s called Carmina Burana.”

“Really? What a strange name.”

“It’s a rather strange book, so far as that goes.”

“Perhaps I’ll read it.”

“It’s the truth that those goliards must have been pretty interesting,” Jolly said. “I can understand your finding them interesting, Felix.”

“I thought I might be able to write a novel about one,” I said, “but it hasn’t been going very well.”

“I’m so sorry. I don’t like it when things don’t go well for you.”

“Things frequently don’t go well for me.”

“I’m so terribly sorry. It makes me want to cry when things don’t.”

“Would there be any money in a novel about goliards?” Fran said.

“Not as much as there is in real estate,” I said.

“Oh, well,” she said, “there’s not as much money in anything as there is in real estate. That’s axiomatic or something.”

She sat down and crossed her legs again, looking up at Sid, who was still looking out the window.

“Why don’t you behave?” she said. “Why do you have to just go on and on sulking?”

“I’m not sulking,” Sid said. “I’m not sulking at all.”

He sat down on the arm of her chair, and they began to talk quietly. Jolly came over and took one of my hands in both of hers.

“Aren’t you glad you came?” she said.

“No,” I said.

“I was certain you’d be glad. Why aren’t you? Doesn’t it make you feel good to see me again?”

“It makes me feel terrible.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Yes, I know, but tell me anyhow.”

“Because it’s an aggravation.”

“Do you think of me and want me when we’re apart?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“When is it worst? The thinking and wanting, I mean.”

“At night. When I’m lying in bed.”

“That’s true. I knew you’d say that because it’s worst then for me too. Is it any satisfaction to you to know that I’m lying in bed and wanting you too?”

“Very little. I try not to think of you lying in bed.”

“Oh. I see. Because Kirby’s there with me, you mean. Yes, I can see that it wouldn’t be pleasant for you to think of that.”

“Well, let’s quit thinking of it, then.”

“I’m quite sure I’d be miserable if it were the other way around and someone was lying with you.”

“No one’s been lying with me.”

“I expect that someone will, though, sooner or later, and I’ll be perfectly miserable about it. Do you think I ought to quit sleeping with Kirby?”

“It’s none of my business. I would like, please, not to think about it at all, one way or another.”

The front screen opened and shut. Footsteps approached in the hall, and Kirby Craig came into the room. He was wearing a white suit and white shoes, and he looked very rich and handsome and genial. Probably he was quite nice in his own way, and it was remarkable how much I hated him.

“Hello, you folks,” he said.

Jolly let go of my hand, and Sid got off the arm of Fran’s chair, and Fran stood up deliberately and set her empty martini glass on a table.

“Have you come to hit someone in the eye?” she said.

Kirby got red in the face, and suddenly he did not look at all pleasant. The red did not spread evenly under his skin, but had a kind of mottled appearance, like liver blotches, and seeing him like that gave me some satisfaction in a small way.

“Come off it, Fran,” he said. “You get fresh with me, I’ll spank your butt.”

“I believe you,” Fran said. “You are just the big, virile man to do it. I have never seen a bigger, more virile man in all this big, virile world. God, I admire you tremendously!”

“Just be a good girl, that’s all.”

“A man who would black his wife’s eye should be thrashed,” Sid said suddenly.

“Thrashed! Thrashed, for God’s sake!” Fran threw her arms up into the air and sat down again in the chair. “Why must you constantly interfere, Sid? I was absolutely confounding this big, virile man, and you have reduced the entire dramatic scene to an utter farce.”

Kirby was looking at Sid ominously.

“Who’s going to thrash me?” he said.

Sid stood up very straight and looked dignified. In spite of handicaps, he really did. He wasn’t big or impressive, but somehow he managed to look quite dignified.

“You needn’t try to terrify me,” he said. “I’m completely impervious to your brutish behavior.”

“You’re just a God-damn coward,” Kirby said. “You wouldn’t fight if I spit on you.”

“Fighting is vulgar,” Sid said. “I don’t fight.”

He walked over to the hall and turned.

“With neither men nor women,” he said.

He went out, and Fran began to laugh. On her face was an expression of mixed amazement and admiration.

“You know, that was damn good, wasn’t it? That remark about neither men nor women. I’m amazed that old Sid would think of something like that. It must have been irony or something, wasn’t it? Was it irony, Felix?”

I didn’t answer. Jolly went over and set her glass on the table beside Fran’s and then returned and faced Kirby.

“At the risk of being hit in the other eye,” she said, “I must say that Sid is right. You are very vulgar, Kirby.”

“Don’t needle me, Jolly,” Kirby said. “Just don’t needle me.”

“May I feel your muscle?” she said. “It would be a great thrill for me if I were permitted to feel your muscle.”

“All right, now,” Kirby said. “All right.”

“Hit her in the eye, Kirby,” Fran said.

Kirby turned and walked over to the table and picked up the shaker. It was empty again. He began putting gin and vermouth into it, and his hands were shaking badly. He was extremely frustrated and angry, and I could understand how it had happened that he’d lost his head and let Jolly have one.

“I think I’d better go,” I said. “Could I drop you somewhere, Fran?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll just stay here and see if anything interesting happens.”

“I’ll go to the door with you,” Jolly said.

“That isn’t necessary. I can find my way out.”

“Just the same, I’ll go with you. It’s quite time someone around here started remembering his manners.”

I went out into the hall and down to the door with Jolly following. At the door, I turned, and we stood there close together but not touching. She looked somehow small and very sad with her fine black eye.

“I love you,” she said. “Darling, darling, I love you.”

“That’s nice,” I said, “but it doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.”

“It’s because of Kirby,” she said. “It’s Kirby who keeps us from getting anywhere.”

“There is a legal and accepted way of eliminating Kirby,” I said.

“I know what you mean, and I have explained carefully that it is impossible.”

“I know you have, and so there is obviously no point in talking about it any more.”

“If only he were to die,” she said. “Everything would be so simple if he would only die.”

She said it quietly and wistfully, like a small child wishing for an impossible favor. I went on out to the Chevvie, which was still willing to run, and drove away.

3

When I got back to the apartment, Harvey Griffin was there waiting for me. He’d brought six cans of cold beer and had plugged one and was sitting there drinking it and reading the printing on the can between swallows. He was a stocky guy with freckles and sandy hair that stood erect at the crown of his head and fell over his forehead in front, and he taught mathematics at the college and had an algebra class for the summer. The algebra class bored him considerably, and as a consequence his beer consumption had increased in proportion. He said it was surprising what a support beer could be to algebra. He was a bright, ugly, likeable guy, and next to the goliards he was the best relief I had from things, and I’m not so sure, looking back on it, that he wasn’t even better than the goliards.

“Hello, Harvey,” I said.

“Hello, old boy,” he said. “I just came on in.”

“Sure. That’s the way to do.”

“I brought six cans of cold beer. The other five are in the refrigerator.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I took off my coat and tie and threw them on the bed and went into the kitchen. Getting one of the cans of beer from the refrigerator, I plugged it and carried it back into the other room. It was chilled just about right, and you could feel it drop and hit and start working for your welfare. I sat there with the cold beer working inside me and kept hearing Jolly wish quietly that Kirby would die.

“It’s good beer,” I said. “It’s good and cold.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “Every can is a good half-quart of cold beer.”

He emptied his can and sat rolling it around in his hands until I’d emptied mine and caught up with him, and then he took the empties into the kitchen and plugged two full ones and brought them back.

“How’s the algebra class going?” I said.

“To hell with the algebra class. I don’t want to talk about it. How’s the history class going?”

“I don’t want to talk about the history class.”

“I can understand your feelings, old boy, and I’ll certainly respect them. Do you suppose we could find a topic of conversation that neither of us would object to? How’s your private life these days?”

“Extremely dull. I’ve got more or less interested in goliards.”

“No fooling? How’d you happen to get interested in goliards?”

It was significant that he didn’t have to ask me what goliards were. As I said, it isn’t likely that most people know anything about goliards, and Harvey was a mathematician and couldn’t reasonably have been expected to know about them, either, but the point is, he did know about them, and he was a hell of a bright guy and knew a lot of things he wasn’t required to know.

“There’s a little about them in the history course,” I said, “and I just sort of picked them up.”

“That’s fine, old boy. It’s very good to be interested in something. Now that you’ve picked up these goliards, what are you going to do with them?”

“I’ve been trying to put one in a novel.”

“Oh, say, now. A goliard ought to go damn well in a novel.”

“That’s what I thought myself, but he doesn’t seem to be.”

“No? That’s odd. I’d think a goliard would go right along.”

“The truth is, I think it’s me more than the goliard that doesn’t go. I can’t seem to get into it the way I should.”

“I find myself very interested in this novel, old boy. Perhaps I could give you an idea or two that would shake you loose.”

“All right. What would you suggest?”

“Well, to start with, I’d suggest a sexy duchess.”

“There’s already a sexy duchess.”

“Really? And you can’t get into it? You’re in pretty bad shape, old boy.”

“Of course I haven’t actually reached the sexy duchess yet. I’m only on page fifty-four.”

“There’s, your trouble right off. No wonder you can’t get into it. All the way to page fifty-four and haven’t reached the duchess yet. You should have her in with a bang.”

“Is that a pun?”

“Damn good, isn’t it? I didn’t really intend it, though, to be perfectly honest about it. That’s the way with puns, I find. They just pop in unexpectedly. Who else is in the novel besides the sexy duchess and the goliard?”

“There’s the duke, of course. You have a duchess, you have to have a duke.”

“That’s logical. Very sound reasoning,” Harvey said.

“Then there are some university students and clerics and a fat tavern keeper.”

“Why a fat tavern keeper? Why fat, I mean.”

I said, “I don’t know. Fat tavern keepers are the usual thing.”

“Exactly. That’s my point. That’s exactly what you ought to avoid. The usual thing, that is. Make your tavern keeper lean, old boy. He’ll be a big hit.”

“Maybe you’re right. I can make him lean as easily as fat.”

“You working in any other sexy women?”

“No. Just the duchess.”

“That’s bad. You ought to work in another sexy woman.”

“I thought I’d make the duchess sexy enough to meet all reasonable requirements by herself.”

“It won’t do. The point is, you have to have competition, to say nothing of a little variety. You could have this goliard torn between these two women, and that keeps everyone reading along just to see which way he’s going to jump, if for no other reason.”

“Come to think of it, I believe you’re right.”

“Sure, I’m right. You need some contrast too. You could make the other sexy woman a lowly tavern wench. What do you think of a lowly tavern wench as the other woman?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Sure. The duchess and the lowly tavern wench. You could have this goliard try them both out for a while and then light on one for keeps. You can put a lot of suspense and sex into a situation like that, old boy. Of course you’d have to make up your mind which one you wanted him to light on. It would require pretty delicate handling, you know, to keep from offending everyone who had decided in the meanwhile that he should land on the other one.”

“Which one would you suggest?”

“Well, I go for the tavern wench myself. That’s because my heart is with the lowly. You’d be surprised how lousy lowly I am in my sentiments.”

“I expect you’re right. Most people would certainly be pulling for the lowly wench. Besides, I could make her single, and the duchess, being a duchess, would almost have to have the duke around somewhere for a husband, and it would simplify things not having the husband there to mess things up in the end.”

“That’s true,” Harvey said. “However, come to think of it, you might turn something like that into a pretty good thing. You could have this goliard land on the duchess, and it wouldn’t work out because of the duke, and then you could end it up with a lot of sad stuff by having the goliard renounce the world and go off to a monastery to be a monk or something. People really go for these tear-jerkers. Sad stuff is almost as good as sex, and when you throw in a little of both, you’ve really got something.”

“It seems like it. But I think I’d rather have him go for the tavern wench.”

“Why? Do you insist on a happy ending?”

“I wouldn’t say that I insist on it, but I think a happy ending might be permissible. In addition, it would be much simpler. Husbands can become quite complicating, you know.”

Harvey smirked. “That last remark had a bitter sound, old boy. Almost as if there were a certain amount of personal feeling in it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, what I mean is, how’s Jolly these days?”

“Jolly is fine, but I don’t believe I care to talk about her.”

“Pardon me, old boy. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended.”

“It would probably be good for you to talk about her. A kind of catharsis or something.”

“Do you think so?”

“I really do. Would you care to tell me if you’ve seen her recently?”

“I have. I saw her this afternoon.”

“You don’t tell me. I thought you were resolved to stay away from her.”

“So I was. I was resolved, and for a long time I kept my resolution, and then she called and wanted me to come over and have a drink. I said I wouldn’t go, but then I called her back and said I would, and I went. In the end, I was a weakling.”

“Weakness is sometimes a great satisfaction. Was it good to see her?”

“No, it wasn’t good. It was bad. Sid Pollock and Fran Tyler were there, and everyone talked nonsense, and then Kirby came in, and everyone insulted someone else. Jolly has a black eye. Kirby hit her in it.”

“The hell he did! That’s pretty rough treatment even for Jolly, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m positive if I were married to Jolly that I’d frequently want to hit her in the eye, and now and then I might actually do it.”

“I can understand that, all right. You can’t deny that Jolly certainly has a talent for making you want to hit her in the eye. Among other talents.”

“Yes,” I said. “Among others.”

On the way to Nick’s Steak House, I thought about Irene. Irene was Nick’s daughter. She was tall for a woman, and she had a big, exciting body. I said as much to Harvey.

“Yes,” he said. “What a pity she’s married to that bricklayer.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Bricklayers are generally quite prosperous. On the whole, I’d say, somewhat more prosperous than mathematics teachers. Maybe you ought to take up laying bricks.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’d want to lay bricks, even for the additional income, but I sure wouldn’t mind Irene.”

“In this case, the two operations seem to be associated.”

“I concede that, but I find the thought repulsive. Don’t you find it repulsive?”

“Not particularly.”

“That’s only because you’ve got Jolly on your mind.”

“Forget it.”

“All right. I’ll forget Jolly and think about Irene, and you forget Irene and think about Jolly. Is it agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“You’ll have to confess, however, that I have all the better of it. Thinking of Jolly quite obviously makes you miserable because she’s all messed up with your nobler sentiments, as well as your baser ones, while Irene is with me strictly glandular and entails no pain. I feel sorry for you, old boy. I really do.”

“Oh, go to hell,” I said.

We walked on under the trees and cicadas in the stirring air and came pretty soon to Nick’s. We went inside and sat down at a table covered with a red-checked cloth, and Nick was behind the counter, and so was Irene. Nick’s friendly, fat, Greek face split and opened and exposed shining teeth, and he raised a hand in greeting.

“Hello, professors,” he said.

He always called us professor. We weren’t actually, not full ones, but he called us that, anyhow. To him it was a title of dignity and worth, which is something it usually isn’t to most people, and in response to this welcome esteem we were convinced in our minds that he was certainly the greatest Greek since Homer, and probably before. We said hello and sat at the table, and Irene came from behind the counter and across to us. She was truly beautiful in a large and lush fashion, and she had this nice movement Harvey had mentioned, but none of it meant anything to me. I was capable of being quite objective about it.

“Hello, Irene,” Harvey said. “You are very beautiful, and I love you.”

“Oh, you,” she said.

“No, really. You are truly beautiful.”

“I am pleased that you think so.”

“Only now I was telling Felix what a pity it is that you’re married to that bricklayer.”

“George? George is nice. A very fine husband.”

“Honestly? I’m sorry to hear it. Have you ever considered being unfaithful to him?”

“Only when I see you. You are the only temptation.”

“Now you are kidding me.”

“So now we are kidding each other.”

“You should take me seriously.”

“But I do. I take you very seriously. I take it seriously that you want to order something to eat, and for that reason I am here to serve you.”

“Well, if you ever decide to be unfaithful, you let me know, will you?”

“Yes, yes. At once.”

She was obviously quite pleased by all this, and maybe old ugly Harvey was just a little bit of a temptation to her, at that, but the truth was, he was a great respector of marriage and wouldn’t have had her at any price under the circumstances. Not, of course, that he didn’t want her, and probably if the circumstances had been different, he could have worked it out with her and his conscience.

“In that case,” he said, “I’ll have the Salisbury steak, provided it’s ground beef and not hamburger.”

“The best ground beef,” she said.

“I’ll have that too,” I said.

“And two bottles of beer,” Harvey said.

She went away with her nice, large movement and came back with the beer and two glasses. Harvey picked up a bottle in his right hand and a glass in his left hand and poured from the bottle into the glass, holding the glass at an angle so that the beer ran down the side and did not build up too big a head. I poured my own beer and began drinking it, and we sat there drinking the beer and not saying anything more, and after quite a while Irene brought the Salisbury steaks. They were really superior beef and well prepared, and besides the steaks there were golden french-fried onion rings and a tossed salad, but I was not hungry and had difficulty in eating.

“I’ve been thinking that I might go fishing in the river again,” Harvey said.

“When did you think you might go?” I said.

“Well, tomorrow is Friday, and I thought I might go out tomorrow afternoon and come back Sunday. Do you have anything planned for this weekend?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Would you care to come fishing in the river with me?”

“Now that you’ve asked me, I believe I would.”

“That’s wonderful, old boy. I’ll buy a case of beer, and you can buy one, and we’ll have a very good time.”

“All right. A very good masculine time.”

“To be sure. There is no good time quite so good as a very good masculine one.”

“Are you ready to go now?”

“You haven’t finished your steak. Is something wrong with it?”

“Not at all. It’s an excellent steak, but I’m not hungry.”

“That’s too bad. I’ve been meaning to tell you that you look rather under the weather. Peaked, if you know what I mean. What you need is to go fishing in the river and have a good masculine time, and it may be Providence that I was sent around to suggest it. Do you believe in Providence?”

“Not much. Do you?”

“As a mathematician, I can’t believe in it seriously, but sometimes I believe in it for convenience.”

“Why can’t a mathematician believe in Providence?”

“Come to think of it, I don’t really know. It just seems to be contrary to general practice. Shall we go?”

We got up and went over to the counter and paid for the food and said goodbye to Nick and Irene.

“Don’t forget our arrangement,” Harvey said to Irene.

She showed her many good teeth and said she would be certain not to forget, and we went out and walked back along the street toward my place, and at the corner above it Harvey stopped, and I stopped with him, and we stood there listening to the cicadas and thinking that it would now very shortly be dark. That’s what I was thinking, and I’m sure Harvey was thinking the same small thing, because there is a feeling about such matters at such times.

“Well, goodbye,” he said.

“Aren’t you coming up to the apartment?” I asked.

“No, I think not. I think I’ll go along home.”

“You’d better come up and help me drink the two cans of beer that are left.”

“You drink them both. They’ll relax you and make you sleep well.”

“All right.”

“Don’t forget about the fishing tomorrow.”

“I won’t forget.”

“If you see Jolly, tell her hello for me.”

“I won’t see her.”

“Well, just in case you do.”

“In case I do, I’ll tell her, but I won’t.”

“Goodbye again, old boy.”

“Goodbye.”

He walked away, and I watched him for a minute, and I felt very affectionate toward him, in spite of his calling me old boy so much, and then I went on to the apartment.

I turned on the light and sat down in front of the typewriter and tried to think of a way to make the novel go, but I couldn’t, and it came into my mind that I had a great deal of trouble making many things go, and this seemed to be one of my faults. I got up and turned off the light and lay down across the bed. I could see Jolly quite clearly with her fine black eye, and I could hear her small and wistful voice saying softly that everything would be so very simple if only Kirby would die. The cicadas were sad sounding, and I was lonely, and it got dark.

4

The next day I had another try at the novel, and this time it went a little better. I got the duchess in and livened things up considerably, and I worked along until sometime between noon and one o’clock, and altogether I must have done a couple thousand words or more. Then I decided I’d better get some food to take to the river fishing, and so I walked down to a grocery store a couple blocks away and bought some bread and beans and coffee and some cornmeal to fry the fish in. A few minutes after I got back to the apartment, the telephone rang in the other room. I went in and answered it, and it was Harvey.

“Hello, old boy,” he said. “This is Harvey.”

“How are you, Harvey?”

“Oh, fine. And you?”

“I’m all right. I just went down to the grocery store and bought some stuff for the fishing.”

“Did you buy the beer?”

“No. I thought we could stop and pick it up on the way.”

“Good. We can do that, all right. I’ll bring the ice chest. I have a very good one, you know. We can also stop on the way and have some ice put in it.”

“What time do you want to leave?”

“Well, that’s actually what I called to tell you. I won’t be able to get away until after five o’clock. Do you consider five o’clock too late?”

“It doesn’t matter, Harvey. Any time you can make it.”

“I’ll probably be at your place about five-thirty. Is that all right?”

“That will be fine, Harvey.”

“That’s settled, then. I made some dough balls after I left you yesterday. I did an exceptionally good job of it this time, if I do say it myself.”

“Good for you.”

“You’ll remember we had trouble with them last time. They wouldn’t stay on the hook.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“They’re excellent this time, though. Springy. You can bounce them just like a God-damn pingpong ball.”

“That’s the way they need to be. Good and springy.”

“They’re very tempting to catfish, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’ll see you about five-thirty, then.”

“Right. Five-thirty.”

“Goodbye, old boy.”

“Goodbye, Harvey.”

I got my box of fishing stuff out of the closet in the other room and started looking at the trot line to see if it was in good shape, and it seemed to be. Crossing to the window on the other side of the room, I looked down into the side yard and began watching the activities of a red squirrel down there on the grass. Squirrels were plentiful and quite tame on the campus of the college and in the neighborhoods all around, and pretty soon another one came along and joined the one I was watching, and so I started watching both of them. They were lively and quick and seemed to be in high spirits, and I thought that the life of a squirrel must be an unusually good life in spite of being short by our standards. I was aware that I ought to be thinking instead about the goliard and the duchess on the chance that they might bring me in a little money, but I was now reluctant to think about them, the fine inspiration of the morning having passed, and this delinquency was beginning to make me uncomfortable and somewhat depressed when someone knocked on the door. I turned around and said that it was all right to come in, but then I wasn’t so sure that it was all right after all, because it was Jolly who came.

She closed the door and walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “I walked all the way, and I’m quite hot, and I would like very much to have a drink.”

She was wearing a straw hat with a wide brim and a pale blue dress and pale blue shoes that matched the dress exactly and were apparently made of exactly the same material, except for the parts that were made of leather, and what the material looked like to me was a kind of very fine denim, but it was probably something much better and more expensive.

“All I have is a can of beer,” I said. “It’s a full half-quart that Harvey Griffin left here yesterday.”

“That sounds good,” she said. “I’ll have that.”

I got the beer and took it to her, and she took a long drink from the can.

“It’s quite a long walk,” she said.

“From your house?”

“Yes.”

“About three miles, as a matter of fact. Why didn’t you drive?”

“I just felt that I preferred to walk. You know how it is? Every once in a while you get the feeling that it would be good to take a long walk. It’s very hot, however. I didn’t realize that it was quite so hot. Did you say this is your only can of beer?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like some of it?”

“No, thank you.”

“I feel quite bad about drinking your only can.”

“It’s all right. I had a can with my lunch.”

“Have you had lunch, then? What did you have?”

“A sandwich. I fixed it here.”

“That’s no kind of lunch. It’s apparent to me that you are not eating properly. You are much too thin.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I worry about it. It is natural for a woman to worry about someone she loves.”

“Please don’t start that again.”

“About my loving you? Why not?”

“Because it’s no good. It doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, about its not getting us anywhere, and I’m exceedingly unhappy about it.”

“Are you really? So am I, I confess, but that doesn’t seem to get us anywhere, either.”

“It’s very difficult, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. It is certainly difficult.”

“Are you wondering why I’ve come?”

“Naturally.”

“I’ve come because I couldn’t stay away. I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t.”

“Your black eye is a little better today,” I said. “It is still beautiful, but not quite so striking as yesterday.”

“It’s the makeup. You can do wonders with such things with the proper makeup. Does it mean anything to you that I simply couldn’t stay away?”

“How is Kirby?” I said. “Did he hit Fran in the eye after I left?”

“He didn’t say he was going to hit her in the eye. He said he was going to spank her butt. I think Fran stayed around just in the hope that he actually would. Fran enjoys the most peculiar things. Are you happy that I’m here?”

“I thought he was sure enough going to clobber old Sid,” I said, “and I can’t say that I’d have blamed him if he had.”

“Sid is noble. Did you notice how angry he was because Kirby blacked my eye? He is much nobler than you.”

“I concede that. I am hardly noble at all.”

“Would you like to kiss me? I am most willing to have you kiss me.”

“Sometimes, between the times I’m hating him, I feel a great deal of sympathy for Kirby,” I said.

She took another swallow of the beer and stared sadly at the can. She didn’t say anything and kept looking at the can, and after a minute I saw that she was quietly crying, the tears moving slowly and without sound down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“All right. I can see that you are determined to avoid the subject.”

“Please don’t cry.”

“I’ll be finished soon. I seldom cry for very long at a time.”

I stood watching her wishing that I could kiss her safely without consequences or ramifications, which was something that would not have been possible to me, and it was my opinion, held strongly and with pain, that she was earth’s most tempting woman in a way that was peculiarly her own, and that she was the one I would want so long as I lived, and never, never another. She finished with the crying and drank some more of the beer and saw at that moment the tackle box on the floor by the closet.

“What’s that?” she said.

“It’s a tackle box.”

“Fishing tackle?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going fishing?”

“Yes. I’m going with Harvey Griffin. He’s coming by for me about five-thirty. We’re going to the river.”

“Will you be gone long?”

“Until Sunday.”

“Where on the river are you going?”

“Why do you want to know?” I asked her warily.

“I just like to know where you are and what you are doing. Whenever it’s possible, anyhow. When I know these things I am able to see you clearly in my mind, and it is a pleasure to me.”

“We’re going to a place about a mile north of the bridge,” I said. “You drive out the highway to the bridge and turn north on a narrow dirt road at the far end. It’s hardly more than a couple of tire tracks in the grass, and it leads to this old cabin where we always go. We don’t sleep in the cabin, however. It’s very run down, and the floor is broken through in two or three places. We sleep outside.”

She hesitated. “I wish I could go with you.”

“It would be impossible.”

“It would be fun to go and stay with you. I would enjoy it greatly.”

“It would be fun, but it’s impossible,” I said gently but firmly.

“I know. Kirby would wonder where I’d gone off to, of course.”

“That’s not the only reason.”

“You are very moral, darling. Do you know that you are sometimes almost depressingly moral?”

“Sure. I’m depressingly moral, and you are depressingly contradictory.”

“Are they independent, do you think? Can one be moral and not contradictory, and the other way around?”

“It seems that one can.”

Her face brightened. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? That’s a very interesting idea. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before.”

She took off her wide straw hat and leaned over and placed the hat and the beer can on the floor and then lay back across the bed.

“Will you come and sit beside me?” she said.

“I don’t think I’d better.”

“Are you afraid of what might happen?”

“No. I’m afraid of what would almost certainly happen.”

“If you will come sit beside me, I will tell you an idea that I have. It’s an idea of how we might get somewhere.”

I went over and sat down on the edge of the bed, and she reached down along her side and took hold of my hand.

“It’s quite awkward looking at you from this position. Perhaps it would be better if you were to lie down too.”

“Perhaps it would be better if you were to sit up.”

“I have had a long walk here, and it is an equally long walk home again, and it is necessary that I rest for it.”

“I’ll be glad to drive you home.”

“No. I walked here alone, and I insist on going back the same way. It is satisfying to be independent, I find. If you will lie down beside me, I promise to behave. We will lie here and hold hands and feel a communion of spirits.”

“All right,” I said, “since you agree to keep it spiritual.”

I lay back beside her, and we held hands between us, and there was really something spiritual in it, some kind of communion or something, but there was something else there too, and it was this something else that I had to be careful about. Once I had not been careful about it, and the result had been fulfilling but unfortunate. We lay there for a long time without speaking, and it was warm in the room in spite of a slight breeze that came in through the open window, and I could hear outside the occasional chattering of the high-spirited squirrels against the soft, sleepy total of summer sounds. Eventually I turned my head and looked at her to see if she was asleep, but she was lying with her eyes wide open staring up at the ceiling, and I could see on her cheeks below her eyes the faint stain of her tears.

“What was the idea?” I said. “The one that might get us somewhere.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That one. Kirby is going away next month. The third week. He is going away on some kind of business, and I had the idea that you and I might go away too.”

“So simply? Just go away?”

“I thought we might go to a lake or a nice river or somewhere like that and stay in a quiet hotel or a cabin or something, and we could swim and dance and loaf around together, and best of all would be seeing each other the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning. Do you think that would be exciting?”

“Yes, I think it would be wonderfully exciting.”

“Will you go with me, then?”

“Are you serious?” I had an impulse to sit up.

“Oh, yes. I am perfectly serious.”

“But you can see, of course, that we can’t go.”

“No, I can’t see at all that we can’t go. Why can’t we?”

“Perhaps it would be better if I didn’t try to explain it. You are quite difficult to explain things to.”

“It seems to me that just the contrary is true. It seems to me that you are the difficult one. You say we don’t get anywhere, and I suggest a perfectly reasonable way to get somewhere, and now you don’t want to go. As I see it, that’s a very difficult attitude to understand.”

“You see things in a rather peculiar way, Jolly. Do you mind my saying that?”

“I don’t mind your saying it, but I don’t understand it. I seem to me to be reasonable.” Her tone suggested slight injury.

“I’m sure you do. I’m positive that you seem reasonable to you.”

“In what way am I unreasonable?” she wanted to know.

“Well, you are quite ready to have an affair, for instance, but a divorce is unthinkable.”

“Yes, it is. It is absolutely unthinkable. I explained carefully that Kirby would never agree to a divorce. It’s contrary to his principles — and also his vanity.”

“You could get a divorce whether he agreed to it or not.”

“I have also explained that it is contrary to my principles as well as his.”

“But adultery is not.”

“That’s different because I love you. Love purifies things.”

“Why couldn’t love purify a divorce?”

“Divorce is another matter altogether. Surely you can see that.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t see it at all.”

“That’s because you aren’t principled. You will have to take my word that it is another matter altogether.”

“All right. I take your word for it. And now I would like to start all over forgetting about it, and I would appreciate it if you would go home, or at least somewhere else.”

“Would you like to kiss me now?” she asked.

“I’d like to, but I won’t.”

She said, “Won’t you try to understand about the divorce?”

“Do you want to know what I really think about the divorce?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You won’t like it,” I warned.

“Nevertheless I would like to know.”

“I think the real reason you won’t get it is because Kirby is lousy with money, while I am not.”

“Really? Do you really think that?”

“That’s what I think.”

“That this business of principles is merely a kind of rationalization or something?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s possible that you may be right. I’m actually quite a greedy person, and you are almost terrifyingly poor. You’ll have to admit that.”

“I will indeed. I admit it.”

“Do you think there is the remotest chance that you might come into quite a lot of money pretty soon?”

“I can’t see any.”

“How about the goliard? Do you think he might earn you a lot?”

“I doubt it very much. I doubt that he ever earns me any at all.”

“That’s unfortunate. Now that you’ve clarified the point, I’m certain that I could bring myself to accept the divorce if you were only quite a lot richer.”

“I apologize for my poverty.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

She cleared her throat. “I should also mention that Kirby, despite his other faults, is a very reverent person, and divorce is contrary to his religious beliefs.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You believe me, don’t you?” she asked wistfully.

I shrugged.

She raised herself up onto one elbow and twisted her body and looked down at me. I wanted at once to reach up and take hold of her, and so I shut my eyes to elude the temptation.

“Do you really want me to leave?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you still refuse to kiss me?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, do you mind if I kiss you?”

“You may do as you like about it.”

She kissed me then, and her lips were soft and sweet and leisurely. After the kiss, she got off the bed, and I continued to lie for a minute with my eyes closed. When I opened them, she had put on her hat and moved to the door and was standing there looking back at me.

“Will you reconsider going somewhere with me?” she said.

“I hope not.”

“Then I don’t suppose there is much use in our seeing each other again, is there?”

“I don’t suppose so.”

“Between the impossible divorce and your depressing attitude, it seems that we have absolutely nothing to accomplish.”

“That seems to be the case.”

She looked down at the floor.

“If only he were to die,” she said.

“Don’t say that,” I said. “You said it yesterday, and I wish you wouldn’t say it again.”

She looked up at me and then beyond me to the open window through which came the faint chattering of the squirrels.

“There is an odd thing about Kirby that has been put into my mind by the fact that you are going fishing,” she said. “In spite of his being very athletic and everything, he can’t swim a stroke. In fact, he is quite afraid of water.”

I thought that it was surely part of the death-wish, perhaps an oblique reference to a technique for murder, and it was very strange to lie there in the hot room filled with soft and common sounds and consider this uncommon probability. But then I looked at her sad and lovely face with the eyes still soft from recent tears, and it was no longer a tenable probability, or even possibility, and I was ashamed and sickened and wanted to ask her to forgive me, but I couldn’t.

After a while, she sighed and said, “Well, thank you very much for the beer.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I hope you enjoyed both the beer and the spiritual communion.”

The sadness was in her face, but she was not going to cry again. She went out and closed the door behind her, and I kept lying there across the bed after she was gone, and pretty soon I remembered that I had promised to tell her hello for Harvey and had forgotten to do it.

5

Harvey got around a little before five-thirty with a flat-bottom boat on a trailer behind his car, and we got on out to the river about an hour later. The river was called the Newawah, and it wasn’t much of a river, as rivers go, but at this place we went it ran deep in its banks, and the trees grew thick and tall on the banks along it, and it was as fine and comforting a river for fishing as a reasonable person could want. The old cabin sat high on the bank in a clearing among the trees, and in front of it a path went down to a wide gravel bar, and right there the river was narrow and shallow and quite swift between the bar and the bank opposite, and with a rod you could take out of it sometimes those sleek and shining channel catfish which are as good as bass for fighting and better for eating. Below the bar, the river widened and deepened and darkened, and that was where we stretched our trot line across from bank to bank and caught with dough balls the fat and sluggish bullheads. The bullhead is also a catfish, not sleek and shining and full of fire like the channel cat, but he makes a very satisfying weight on a hook and line, and he is very satisfactory, too, wrapped in cornmeal in a skillet.

Harvey and I unloaded the boat from the trailer and carried it down the bank and across the gravel bar to the water on the deepening side below the shallow channel. We left it there and returned for the oars and the dough balls and trot lines, and then we came back once more to the boat and got in and rowed down the river a way. Harvey handled the oars, and I sat in the stern of the boat with the lines and dough balls. The water was cool and dark green, almost black in the long shadows of the trees, and it was pleasant to hear it lapping against the boat and the banks, and to hear above the soft sound of its lapping the many, unidentifiable sounds of small life in and around it. The best book I know about a river is Huckleberry Finn, which is actually a book about a river and a boy, and one of the best things about this best book is the way the author makes you feel the river the way the boy must have felt it, but this river in the book was a great river, a river of historical dimensions, and I have often thought there is also much to be said for the small river, the Newawah type river, and I wish I could say it here, but I can’t.

Pretty soon Harvey stopped rowing and rested on his oars and said, “This is a good place. We caught a lot of good bullheads here the last time.”

“I remember,” I said. “It’s as good a place as any.”

He swung the boat around and rowed across current to the bank, and I grabbed the drooping branch of a willow and pulled us in close. There was a stout root of a tree projecting from the bank just above the waterline, and I tied one end of the trot line to this root, and then Harvey rowed across the river to the other bank, bearing slightly downstream at an angle, and I let the trot line out into the water behind the boat and tied the remaining end to another root on the other side when we got there. After it was tied, we started back again more slowly along the line while I baited all the hooks with dough balls. Every couple of feet along the line, there was a drop line with a hook on it, and I put a dough ball on each hook. Three of the drop lines, spaced along the trot line, had weights on them instead of hooks. This was to keep the entire line well down in the water so the bullheads could get to the dough balls without too much trouble.

“Shall we set another line?” Harvey asked.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Well, let’s see how the luck runs. If the luck runs good, one’s enough, and if the luck runs bad, we can set another tomorrow.”

“That’s a good idea. We’ll see how the luck runs tonight.”

He rowed back to the gravel bar, and we pulled the boat up out of the water and went on up the path to the old cabin. We got the ice chest out of the back of the car and broke open the two cases of beer and put the cans into the chest on the ice, and it was by then getting pretty dark, so we gathered up some wood and made a fire. Sitting on the ground near the fire, we watched the darkness grow thick beyond the perimeter of light, and listened to the small river go by below us between its high banks.

“Are you hungry?” Harvey said.

“I’m pretty hungry,” I said, “but what I’m hungry for is a nice bullhead fried crisp in a skillet.”

“Do you want to wait and see if we get something? Maybe we’ll have something in an hour or so.”

“We’ll go run the line in an hour, and if we don’t have something then, we’ll eat something else.”

“All right. That sounds like a good idea. I wish the beer was cold, though. We should have put it on ice when we had the chest filled. If we’d done that, it would be good and cold now.”

“That’s true. I don’t know why we didn’t do it.”

“How about some coffee? We could have some coffee while we’re waiting for the beer to get cold.”

“All right. I’ll make some coffee.”

“No. Let me make it. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, old boy, but I must say that my coffee is superior to yours.”

“You make it, then.”

“I haven’t hurt your feelings, have I?”

“Of course not. I take practically no pride at all in my coffee. You are quite welcome to whatever glory accrues from superior coffee-making.”

“That’s a sensible attitude, old boy. It’s understood that these little gifts are passed around among us. I have a superior gift for making coffee, and you no doubt have superior gifts in other lines. If so, you are more than welcome to the fruits of them.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He got up and got some coffee and a pot from the back of the car and began to measure coffee into the pot. There was no water around, except the river water, but he had brought three gallons from town in a can, and he measured some of this into the pot with the coffee and set the pot on some coals that he raked out of the fire.

“Now I’ll have to watch this very carefully,” he said. “It is important to let the water boil only for the proper length of time. I have an idea that this may be where you go wrong on your own coffee-making, old boy. I think it’s quite likely that you let it boil too long.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes, I do. I think it’s quite likely.”

“I’ll have to be careful about that in the future.”

He squatted by the pot and watched it, and I lay back on the ground and folded my arms up under my head and watched the stars in the sky above the trees beyond the river, and there were a hell of a lot of them up there. After a while I started thinking about Jolly and me, and wondering if we were ever going anywhere, which didn’t seem likely, and the coffee started smelling very good. It was quite saddening to lie there looking at the stars and hearing the river and smelling the coffee and thinking of Jolly, and I wished there was something to be done to simplify things, but there didn’t seem to be anything. Then I thought of Jolly’s wistful death-wish, which was something that could not be thought of with serenity, and so I sat up and tried to quit.

When the coffee had boiled the right length of time by Harvey’s standards, he got up and went into the old cabin and came back with two tin cups. We kept a few things like that in there so that we wouldn’t have to bring them out from town every time, tin cups and plates and things like that, and now Harvey poured coffee into the cups and handed one of them to me. I drank some of it, and it was good and strong and very hot in the throat.

“Is it good?” he said anxiously.

“Yes, it’s very good.”

“Do you think it’s strong enough?”

“It’s exactly right. You certainly have a gift for coffee-making.”

“It’s damn decent of you to say so, old boy.”

“Not at all. I’m only acknowledging a truth.”

“I know, but a lot of people wouldn’t say it, just the same. You know how it is. Some people simply won’t admit that someone else has a gift that they lack themselves.”

“I’m perfectly happy to concede that your gift for coffee-making is superior to mine.”

“Thanks, old boy. I appreciate it.”

We finished the cups of coffee, but there was an emptiness in my stomach that the coffee didn’t fill.

“Are you hungry?” I said.

“Yes, I am. I’m damn hungry.”

“Has it been an hour since we set the line?”

“I think so. Just about an hour.”

“What do you say to running it?”

“All right. Let’s go.”

I got a flashlight, and we went down the path onto the bar and across the bar behind a thin yellow projection of light that somehow made the objects it touched seem strange and different from the way they seemed in the day. In the boat, we rode down at an angle to the starting of the line, and I was hoping we’d have a couple of good bullheads hooked, and I could tell by the feel of the line, the weight and the resistance of it when I lifted, that there was certainly something on it somewhere between the banks. We moved along the line checking the hooks, and the turtles had already been at some of them, and they had to be rebaited, but pretty soon, about the middle of the river, I brought up a big bullhead and got him off the hook into the boat and put the light on him.

“Say,” Harvey said, “he’s a pretty good one, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” I said.

“How much does he weigh, do you think?”

“About three pounds.”

“I’d guess nearer four myself. He’s certainly a good one.”

After rebaiting the hook, we went on along the line and took off another bullhead near the bank, a smaller one, and that was all we got the first run, which was plenty for a meal, so we rowed back to the bar and went up to the cabin. When we got there, Pete the River Rat was sitting by the fire waiting for us, and he had helped himself to a cup of coffee.

His name may have really been Pete, or it may not have. It was just a name we got started calling him by, and after we’d got started it didn’t seem worth while asking him his real one and having to start all over again with something else in case we were wrong. He lived down the river about a half mile in an old cabin set up on high stilts, and he was very dirty and very happy and altogether a first-rate bum. Every so often he would go off to one of the farms in the vicinity and work for a day or two in order to get enough money to buy some cornmeal and beans and stuff like that to eat, plus a few plugs of Horseshoe chewing tobacco for pleasure, but mostly he lived in the cabin and caught fish and watched the river. He was always doing one thing that I’d never do if I never caught another fish in my life, and what he’d do was noodle them. Noodle is a word that may not have common currency, and it means to go along the bank in the water, usually at night, and get down where the big cats lie in the mud and catch them with your bare hands by the gills. Some of the cats get damn big, and noodling them is something I wouldn’t have any part of myself, but Pete did it all the time, and he told Harvey and me that he’d once got on the back of a cat six feet long, but I personally put this down as a tall tale, or a damn lie, whichever you prefer to call it. He was pretty interesting and unusual, however, and that’s the only reason I’m making so much of him, because he doesn’t have a hell of a lot to do with what I’m telling about, and actually nothing at all.

Harvey stopped in front of him and said in a nasty voice, “Have some coffee, Pete.”

I could tell that he was sore at Pete for helping himself, and it was certain that Pete could tell it too, but he didn’t give a damn. He was absolutely impervious to insult. He opened his mouth and made a gusty sort of sound that was the closest he ever came to the sound of laughter.

“I got some,” he said.

“Well, so you have,” Harvey said. “I guess you knew you’d be perfectly welcome to it, so you just went ahead and helped yourself.”

“That’s what I did. I helped myself.”

“Sure. God helps him who helps himself. You and God must get along pretty good, Pete.”

“We get along all right.”

“That’s fine. That’s just mighty damn wonderful. How do you and God like the coffee?”

“We think it’s too weak. We like our coffee stronger.”

Harvey turned to me and lifted his arms and let them fall and slap against his sides.

“Did you hear that? Pete and God don’t like the coffee. Isn’t that a crying shame?”

“I think I’ll go clean the bullheads,” I said.

“All right, old boy. You clean the bullheads, and I’ll get everything ready here. It’s too bad we only have enough for two. If we had enough for three, for instance, we could invite Pete to stay for chow, but I guess it doesn’t really matter, after all, because he probably wouldn’t like our bullheads, anyhow. He doesn’t like our coffee, and I consider it very probable that he wouldn’t like our bullheads, either. Pete, of course, is a man with very particular tastes. He’s a regular God-damn gourmet, as a matter of fact.”

I got some pliers and a hammer and a large nail and took them with the bullheads down to the river bank. After setting the flashlight to shine on a cotton wood tree, I took the bigger of the two bullheads and nailed him to the trunk of the tree, driving the nail through his flat head. With my pocket knife, I cut through the skin all the way around the base of his head and on a perpendicular line down his back. Using the pliers, I peeled the skin off and then took the bullhead down and gutted him and afterward did the same things with the smaller one. When I was finished, I carried the pair of them down across the bar and washed them in the river. The sounds of the river were a kind of music, and it was nice there on the bar in the darkness.

6

I was thinking about her, about Jolly.

Harvey had the skillet and the cornmeal ready and was waiting for the fish. He took them from me and rolled them in the cornmeal and put them in the skillet, and they began to sizzle immediately and shortly began to smell about as good as anything can smell.

“They’re fine fat fish,” Harvey said. “Very good bullheads.”

“Where’s Pete?” I said.

“He got sore and left.”

“No wonder. You were a little rough on him, Harvey.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Maybe you wanted him to hang around and hog some of the bullheads and tank up on our beer.”

“Say, that reminds me that the beer ought to be good and cold now. Shall I plug a couple of cans to go with the bullheads?”

“Maybe you wanted him to stay on and on and simply spoil everything for us.”

“Not at all, Harvey. I’m glad he’s gone.”

“Then why did you criticize me for being rough on him?”

“God-damn it, Harvey, I wasn’t being critical. You sound like your conscience is hurting you or something.”

“I dare say that’s true. I have a very tender conscience. Having a tender conscience is quite a heavy burden sometimes, old boy.”

“You are to be commended for having a tender conscience. It’s extremely rare.”

“Is that your honest opinion? Thanks, old boy. You’re making me feel a great deal better. I knew I could count on you for understanding.”

“Not at all.”

“If only the son of a bitch hadn’t said the coffee was too weak.”

“Well, I’ll plug a couple of beers.”

“What? Oh, yes, you do that, old boy. It ought to be good and cold now, and it will go wonderfully with the bullheads.”

I plugged the beers and opened a can of beans and set it at the edge of the fire to warm, and we sat there and drank the beers and listened to the bullheads sizzle and enjoyed ourselves. Pretty soon the fish were brown and crisp, and the beans were warm, and we ate the fish and the beans with bread and had two more cans of beer with them and two after them. After we were finished with the last two beers, we got blankets and spread them on the ground and lay down on them in our clothes, except for shoes, which we removed.

“Are you sleepy?” Harvey said.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “I’m pretty sleepy.”

“I’m quite sleepy myself. It’s the fresh night air that does it. There’s nothing like fresh night air to make you sleepy.”

“That’s true. The sound of the river and the sound of the air stirring in the trees are helpful also. Don’t you think so?”

“Very helpful. Lulling. They’re lulling sounds.”

“Of course it doesn’t hurt anything to have your belly full of bullheads, either.”

“Now you’re being rather coarse, old boy. I was hoping we could keep it romantic.”

“I’m sorry. I’m very partial to romance myself.”

“I know about that. However, I must say that it doesn’t seem to be working out just right for you.”

“I think probably you’re speaking of something else. I was thinking of romance in the literary sense.”

“Do you object to speaking of it the other way?”

“Not generally, but I object to speaking of it specifically.”

“You mean you don’t want to talk about you and Jolly, old boy?”

“Well, that’s specific.”

“Yes, it is. I admit that. I only refer to your romance because I have developed an intense interest in it. It’s a fact that I have your welfare very much at heart,” Harvey said.

“Thanks. However, you needn’t concern yourself any longer. In the first place, it could hardly be called a romance, and in the second place, whatever it was, it isn’t any longer.”

“Pardon me for being cynical, old boy, but I rather doubt that.”

“It’s true, just the same,” I said.

“I hope not. I sincerely do. I always found you and Jolly a charming pair. I was all for you.”

“I appreciate your support, but there were things against us. Principally, we were illegal.”

“There’s no denying that, and I consider it regrettable. Did you find it a great handicap?”

“I found it a very great handicap indeed, and now I wish to quit speaking of it.”

“Immediately? I was hoping that you would be willing to tell me how it got started. In thinking about it, it has occurred to me that I’ve never known.”

I hesitated before I said, “It was pretty ordinary.”

“Ordinary? With Jolly involved? I consider that incredible, old boy.”

“Well, I’ll admit that it didn’t stay ordinary very long. The truth is, she got the notion that she was ignorant and needed to know more than she did, so she came out to the college to take some classes, and one of the classes was one I happened to be teaching.”

“I don’t find that ordinary at all. In fact, I find it exceptionally romantic. I’m very pleased.” He sounded almost smug about it.

“I’m glad that it pleases you.”

“Did she stay in the class all term?”

“No. She only stayed a little while.”

“That’s too bad. Was it because she didn’t learn anything?”

“So far as I could judge, she learned practically nothing at all. In her case, I was an utter failure as a teacher.”

“Perhaps she found you a distracting influence. It’s pretty hard to concentrate on history when your glands are kicking up a fuss, you know.”

“Yes, I do know. There is probably no one in the world who knows it any better.”

“But I wouldn’t feel too bad about your failure, old boy. You may not have been able to teach her anything, but I’m positive something was accomplished the other way round, and it is my opinion based on observation that she has taught you plenty.”

“I concede that and merely wish to qualify it by saying that I would certainly be better off if I’d never learned it.”

“It hurts me to see you so bitter.”

“All right, Harvey. And now I believe I would like to go to sleep.”

“Immediately?”

“As quickly as possible,” I said.

“Shall we run the line at midnight?”

“Yes.”

“Will you wake up, do you think?”

“I’m certain to wake up. I always wake up at midnight when we are out here. It’s a habit.”

“That’s good, then. Just give me a shake, will you?”

“All right.”

“I’ll be very grateful,” Harvey said.

“It’s all right, Harvey. I’ll be glad to give you a shake.”

“Goodnight, then, old boy.”

“Goodnight.”

He rolled over on his side with his back to me, and after a while I could hear him breathing deeply and evenly in sleep, and I continued to lie awake on my back, hearing besides his breathing the sounds of the river and the trees and all the other sounds that occurred in the night. Finally I went to sleep, and a long time after that I woke up again, and sure enough, it was then just a few minutes after midnight by my watch. I shook Harvey awake, and we went down to the river and ran the line and took off four fat bullheads and a carp. We put the fish on a stringer and went back and lay down on our blankets again, and Harvey went right off to sleep, but I didn’t. I started thinking about Jolly and told myself that I had better quit, but I didn’t do that, either. The river kept running, and the trees kept stirring, and I kept thinking. The last time I looked at my watch before sleeping, it was three o’clock.

7

The next morning we ran the line again and had breakfast, and after breakfast I took a rod down to the gravel bar and started casting for channel cats, but I didn’t have any luck. I enjoyed it down there, though, between the high banks with the water running swiftly through the narrow channel between the bar and the bank opposite, and I stayed on in spite of having no luck, and I was still down there casting when I heard a car come along the narrow dirt road from the highway and stop beside the cabin up on the bank behind me. It was then, I guess, about the middle of the morning.

I could hear Harvey’s voice sounding surprised and a little excited, and Fran Tyler’s voice saying something shrilly in response to Harvey’s voice, and I brought in my line and cast it upstream again and watched it float down past me with the current, and someone came to the edge of the bank at my back and down the path with a slithering of dirt and a small rattling of dislodged stones. I knew it was Jolly because I could feel her and smell her, and the feeling was quite disturbing to my equanimity, and I understood that whatever developed in the fishing from this time on, the peace and comfort of it were gone.

“Hello, Felix,” Jolly said.

“We just said goodbye,” I said.

“That was yesterday. Eons ago.”

“It was supposed to be for eons. It was supposed to be forever.”

“Forever is such a long time. Don’t you find it so?”

“What do you want, Jolly?”

“I guess what I want is you. That seems to be the simple truth of it, and it is constantly making me humble myself.”

“I suggest that you go away.”

“You haven’t even looked at me yet,” she said. “Why don’t you look at me?”

“Go away, please.”

“Can you look at me and tell me to go away? If you can do that, I’ll go.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

It was the old thing that kids say when they’re trying to convince someone that they’ll keep their word about something. At least they used to say it, and I guess they still do, and I’ve said it myself a thousand times. Once I said it and later broke my word and was in a sweat for days about it, and saying it now brought it all back to mind, the kid stuff, and made her sound somehow small and sad and terribly appealing. After bringing in my line, I turned and looked at her, and she was wearing white shorts and a blue-and-white-striped jersey and a pair of blue sandals with flat heels, and the shorts and the jersey were quite snug.

We stood and looked at each other, and my resolution was all shot to hell, and pretty soon she said, “I promised, and I will keep my promise. Are you going to tell me to go?”

“No.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

“I think you were damn sure I wouldn’t.”

“No. That isn’t true. You sounded very determined.”

“Why in God’s name did you come out here?”

“Well, Kirby and I were out on the back terrace at home and were quite bored, which is a terrible thing to be so early in the day, and pretty soon Fran and Sid came along and stopped, and we all got to talking about what we might do that would be interesting for a change, and I just happened to remember about Harvey and you being out here fishing, and I mentioned it, and immediately everyone thought it would be a good thing to drive out and see how you were getting along.”

“We were getting along very well.”

“And now it’s ruined. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m truly sorry. I never wanted to ruin anything for you. All I want is to make you happy. Is there anything at all I can do to make you happy?”

“Sure. Let’s go up and join Kirby and be happy all together. We’ll make a nice cozy little triangle, and it will be just like in a God-damn fairy tale or something. We’ll all live happily in a triangle ever after.”

“You’re bitter, and I wish you wouldn’t be. It makes me miserable when you’re bitter.”

“I know it’s unreasonable of me.”

“Kirby has changed. I think his conscience must be bothering him, and he’s decided that he ought to be pals with me. You know what I mean. That we ought to do things together and all like that. He’s being very congenial.”

“That’s fortunate, isn’t it? Now you need have practically no fear at all of being hit in the eye.”

She didn’t even wince. “That’s true. Kirby’s quite sorry about hitting me. Quite penitent really. It’s absolutely touching to see how penitent he is.”

“I’ll bet. Anyhow, now that you and Kirby are being pals, it will no longer be necessary for you to wish he would die.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Kirby being reconciled and all. Fine pals and everything.”

“Well, I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“You still consider him an impediment?”

“Certainly. It is obvious that he is a handicap to you and me.”

“That’s true, but don’t you think it’s a sort of dirty way to feel about a guy when he’s working so hard at being congenial?”

“I don’t understand why you keep going over that, as if it would be any different one time from another.” She scowled at me.

“Honestly? You honestly can’t see that it would be any different?”

“No, I can’t. I absolutely can’t. I must say, Felix, that you have the strangest way of looking at things. You seem to see everything distorted or something.”

I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. She stood and looked at me with a tiny crease of puzzlement between her eyes and a small smile on her lips, and it crossed my mind that starting to laugh and not being able to stop, especially when you didn’t feel like laughing at all, was a bad sign of something happening to you. I wasn’t sure just what it was, but it was apparently psychological and had something to do with Jolly and goliards and nothing ever getting anywhere, and after a while I managed to stop the laughter with an effort that was painful and left a kind of constricted feeling in my throat.

“What’s funny?” Jolly said.

“Nothing. There is nothing funny at all.”

“Then why were you laughing?”

“Merely to exercise my laughing muscles. I laugh so seldom any more that I find it necessary to exercise the muscles periodically.”

“It sounded to me like maybe you were hysterical,” Jolly said.

“Really? The idea is fantastic.”

“Well, I’m glad you weren’t, because I don’t believe I could stand a hysterical man. Not even you. There is something so sickly about it.”

“There is indeed. Sickly is the word, and I don’t blame you at all for your attitude.”

Up on the bank by the cabin, Fran squealed happily about something that had been said or done, and Harvey invited everyone in a loud voice to stay for a lunch of good fried bullheads and in the meanwhile to have a beer.

“If you were to kiss me,” Jolly said, “I wonder if anyone would see us.”

“That would depend on whether anyone walked over to the edge of the bank and looked down at us,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “I don’t consider it likely that anyone will do that in the immediate future, do you?”

“I don’t know. It seems to me to be something that might or might not be done, depending upon circumstances.”

“I consider it unlikely myself, and in any event I am perfectly willing to take the chance.”

I had turned down an invitation yesterday, and it was entirely too much to expect that I should be so resolute two days in a row, so I took a step across the bar and put my arms around her and kissed her for a long time without stopping, and we were in close and extensive contact that would have left no question of our enthusiasm in the mind of an observer. I know this is true because it didn’t, the observer being Fran, and I will say for her that she was at least considerate enough not to interrupt, but stood watching us politely until we had finished and stopped of our own accord, and as a matter of fact we didn’t even know that she had come over to the edge of the bluff and seen us until a minute or two later.

“That was very pleasant,” Jolly said. “I admit that I enjoyed it a great deal.”

“I’m glad I was able to give satisfaction.”

“You did, Felix. You really did. It was a very satisfying kiss.”

“Would you care for another?”

“Yes, I would. I was just about to ask you.”

I kissed her again, and Fran remained polite and silent for the duration of this one also, but then she decided that she had made sufficient concession to courtesy, short of going away and not looking, so she cleared her throat, and we stepped apart and looked up at her.

“Hey, you guys,” she called, “we’re all about to have a beer. You better come up.”

“All right,” I said. “We’ll be right up.”

Fran turned and disappeared and we could hear her telling the others that we were coming and that Harvey might as well plug two more cans.

“I guess we’d better,” I said.

“Go up? Yes, I guess we had.”

“Fran saw us kissing, you know. Does it matter?”

“Oh, no, not at all. Fran knows all about how it is between us. She’s very loyal, and I tell her positively everything.”

“Everything? Even things like what happened that one night in the spring?”

“Do you mind?”

“Strangely enough, I believe I do,” I said.

“I consider that rather odd, Felix. I had no idea you were so reticent about things. If anything like that happens again, I promise not to tell her about it.”

“Thank you for respecting my reticence. However, I’ll try to see that it doesn’t happen.”

“Is your mind definitely made up on that point? Personally, I think it would be rather pleasant if it did.”

“The pleasantness of it is beside the point, and my mind is definitely made up. Shall we go have a beer?”

“Perhaps you’d better wipe off the lipstick first.”

I wiped it off on my handkerchief, and she went up the path ahead of me to the top of the bank and across to the cabin. Fran was wearing bright red shorts that showed off practically all of her good legs, and Kirby and Sid were wearing slacks and T-shirts and canvas shoes. Kirby looked disgustingly virile, and when he lifted his can of beer to take a swallow, the muscle made a hard knot in his arm. He was a great one for active stuff, as I said, playing a lot of handball and things like that, and he was a guy who could wear a T-shirt and get away with it.

“Hello, Felix,” he said.

“How are you?” I said.

“I’m fine. Feeling great. This is a mighty nice spot for fishing you fellows have here.”

“Well, it’s pretty good. About all we catch is bullheads, though.”

“No channel cats?”

“Once in a while you can get one down by the gravel bar, but not very often. I was just down trying, but I didn’t have any luck.”

“I’d like to try myself. Would you consider letting me use your rod a little later?”

“Sure. Any time.”

He was being very friendly as a part of his new policy, and I didn’t like it. It is no pleasure at any time to hate a man who has done you no harm deliberately, but it is especially no pleasure to hate a man like that when he is practicing a policy of being friendly. I went over and got a beer and sat down on the ground beside Fran. She was sitting Indian fashion, with her feet crossed at the ankles in front of her and her good legs displayed effectively. After being in the ice chest all night, the beer was extremely cold and made my teeth ache with the first swallow.

Kirby got a beer from Harvey for Jolly and carried it to her and remained beside her with his left arm around her waist. She looked up at him and smiled, and I was exorbitantly pleased to notice that her lipstick was a little smeared from the kissing on the gravel bar. Fran was looking up sidewise at Sid.

“Sid,” she said, “why don’t you get yourself a sociable beer?”

“No, thanks,” Sid said. “I don’t care for beer.”

“What do you mean, you don’t care for it? Are you too good to drink plain beer like the rest of us? Maybe you think Harvey and Felix ought to shake you up a martini or something.”

“Oh, cut it out, Fran. I just don’t like beer, that’s all. Is there any law against not liking beer?”

“That’s not the point, Sid. You are absolutely incapable of seeing anything clearly. The point is, here are Felix and Harvey sharing their beer with us, which is the very most they have to offer, a kind of widow’s mite or something like that, and there you are adopting the perfectly disgusting and snobbish attitude that beer is something you just don’t happen to like.”

“God-damn it,” Sid said, “it’s not an attitude at all. It’s my taste, that’s all. Taste is not an attitude.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Harvey and I are sorry that Sid doesn’t like beer, but it’s quite all right if he doesn’t.”

“No, it isn’t all right.” Fran shook her head. “You are only being courteous, Felix. I don’t know why you should bother being courteous with someone who only bothers to be rude and snobbish about your beer. As for me, I like your beer very much, and I intend to drink several cans of it at least.”

“You are more than welcome to all you want.”

“Thank you. I knew I could expect you to be courteous and generous. There are some people you can always count on for courtesy and generosity, and there are other people you can only count on for rudeness and snobbishness.” She had switched her eyes from Sid to me, and now switched them back again. “You have made a great issue yourself, Sid, about being a social drinker, and now you refuse to drink beer and be sociable. What are you, a stinking apostate or something? Haven’t you the courage of your convictions? I would like to remind you that you are committed to drinking for the sake of sociability, and it is your moral obligation to do so.”

Sid appealed desperately to me. “Tell her it’s all right, Felix. For God’s sake, tell her.”

“I’ve already told her,” I said, “and it didn’t seem to do any good.”

“That’s the trouble,” he said. “Nothing seems to do any good. Absolutely nothing has any effect on her. She’s irrational, that’s what’s the matter with her. Sometimes I think she’s really unbalanced.”

“Mentally, you mean? Do you mean mentally?” Fran fixed him with a scornful gaze. “You are merely trying to avoid justified criticism by making wild counter-accusations, Sid. There is far too much of that kind of thing being done these days, and I consider such tactics to be beneath contempt, if you want my honest opinion. I will add in fairness, however, that I am surprised to find you resorting to them. In spite of the weakness of your character, of which I am well aware, I honestly didn’t think you would stoop so low.”

“Didn’t you hear Felix say it was all right? Didn’t you hear him?”

“You needn’t appeal to others to defend you, either,” Fran said. “That’s cowardly. The more you talk, Sid, the worse impression you give of yourself. I’d advise you to quit talking altogether. The truth is, you are obligated to drink a beer and be agreeable, and you are trying to shirk your obligation, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Damn it to hell, Jolly said I was a pig for drinking something I didn’t really want, and now you say I’m an apostate and a coward and God knows what because I don’t drink something I don’t want. What kind of sense is that?”

“Oh, don’t be childish, Sid. I simply can’t understand why you persist in trying to confuse the issue.”

“All right, all right. All right, God-damn it. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll drink a beer if it kills me.”

“That’s better. I don’t know why you couldn’t have been reasonable to start with.”

Sid went over and got a beer and stood holding it, and Fran looked across at Kirby and Jolly and saw how he was standing with his arm around her.

“Isn’t that cute?” she said. “Had you heard? Kirby’s being pals with Jolly, and everything is perfectly rosy. It’s almost like a honeymoon or something.”

Kirby smiled at her pleasantly and pulled Jolly tighter against him with the arm around her waist.

“Go to hell, Fran,” he said. “You know better than to try that hocus-pocus with me.”

Fran turned to me and said, “It’s true. It’s very difficult to make any progress with Kirby because he’s so virile and crude. If you make him angry, he just hits you in the eye, and that’s all there is to it.”

“The fact of the matter is,” Kirby said, “you’re just a crazy dame. You’re nuts. That’s what Sid meant by all those fancy words, but he was too soft to come right out with it.”

“Well, you’re not too soft. I admit that. You’re big and tough and can black any woman’s eye in the world without half trying. I will concede, however, that there’s been a very agreeable change in you for the moment, you being palsy and just too God-damn compatible and everything, but it’s my opinion that the change is against your nature and won’t last.” She turned to me again. “That’s another thing that’s making Sid so sulky, you know. Had you noticed how sulky he is, being contrary about the beer and all? It’s because Kirby is being pals with Jolly and is forever putting his arm around her and kissing her publicly. Sid is end-over-elbows in love with Jolly himself, and he resents it.”

“For Christ’s sake, Fran, shut up,” Sid said.

Kirby laughed and waved his beer can magnanimously.

“Forget it, Sid. Forget the crazy dame. You don’t think I pay a damn bit of attention to anything she says, do you?”

He knew perfectly well, however, that Sid was in love with Jolly. It was quite apparent, and his attitude was not really one of generosity, but of contempt. He just didn’t take any competition from old Sid seriously, considering it a kind of joke, and Sid knew that he was being treated with contempt, and it made things very bad for him. His face went white, and he stood looking down at his can of beer without saying anything.

“Just look at him,” Fran said. “Isn’t that disgusting? Sometimes I think it’s simply ridiculous of me to concern myself with him or ever try to help him solve any of his problems at all. It’s depressing, that’s what it is. Well, I’ve done all I can to make him behave properly, and now I’m going to put him completely out of my mind. What lovely whiskers you have, Felix! I must say that I find them admirable.”

“They’re not really whiskers yet,” I said. “They’re just stubble.”

“They’re very luxuriant, however, and show a lot of promise. I suggest that you let them grow.”

“I don’t think I’d care for whiskers on myself. Anyhow, Harvey’s are much superior. His are light and don’t show up so well in the early stages, but they are actually thicker and of finer quality.”

“Is that so?” She leaned forward and peered closely at Harvey, who had sat down on the ground by himself a little way off. “Is he telling the truth, Harvey?”

“I’m sorry to say that he isn’t,” Harvey said. “I’m bound to say that I don’t consider my whiskers exceptional at all.”

“Do you mind if I inspect them a little more closely?” Fran asked.

“Not at all. Feel free to conduct any kind of inspection you like.”

She got up and went over and sat down beside him on the ground. She inspected the stubble on Harvey’s face closely and finally rubbed a hand across it several times.

“I’m unable to come to any conclusion,” she said. “Felix’s whiskers are nice, but yours are also nice. Do you know that I get a most peculiar sensation from rubbing them? The reason is, I’ve always had an abnormal desire to be kissed by a man with whiskers, and I’ve never managed to accomplish it. Would you consider kissing me just to satisfy an abnormal desire? I admit that I have a face that does not ordinarily incite one to kissing, but my legs are good. Don’t you agree that my legs are good?”

She stretched them out for Harvey to look at, and I could see that old Harvey was a little puzzled as to what good legs had to do with kissing, but after a moment he obviously abandoned the whole line of thought as being one that might lead to a serious confusion of functions.

“Your legs are extremely good,” he said gallantly, “but I don’t see anything wrong with your face, either.”

“It’s very kind of you to say so,” she said, “but it isn’t necessary to lie. As between legs and faces, I will take excellence in the former every time.”

“Well,” said Harvey, “so will I, so far as that goes.”

“In that case, are you willing to fulfill my desire to be kissed by a man with whiskers?”

“I’m willing to fulfill the desire, all right, but I’d rather do it sometime when I can put a little more into it.”

“What do you mean? Because Jolly and Kirby and Felix and Sid are here? What incredible shyness. Are you really that shy?”

“Yes, I am. I’m painfully shy.”

“Don’t you find it rather a handicap?”

“To tell the truth, I do. It’s a positive curse.”

“In a way, however, I find it rather appealing. Quite charming. I think I am liking you better and better all the time, and I am grateful to Felix for calling my attention to your whiskers.”

“You can always count on Felix to come up with a good idea. He does it instinctively.”

“I agree with that. Felix is a remarkable fellow. However, I am more concerned with you at the moment than I am with him. Although I find your shyness charming, I also find it a nuisance. Do you think you would be less shy if we were alone?”

“I think it quite likely,” Harvey said.

“Perhaps we could slip away together a little later. I am most anxious to have you kiss me.”

“I guess it could be arranged.”

Fran smiled. “It’s agreed, then, that we’ll slip away. In the meantime, I suggest that we all have another beer. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“I certainly do. It’s as good an idea as Felix himself could have.”

He got up and started plugging cans, and Kirby took his arm from around Jolly’s waist but captured her free hand in his and stood there holding it.

“That’s a crazy woman,” he said. “She’s got the morals of an alley cat.”

“Fran?” Jolly said incredulously. “You mean Fran?”

“Certainly I mean Fran,” Kirby said. “Didn’t you hear her practically begging the poor guy to kiss her?”

“Well, I never heard such nonsense in my life. What on earth has a kiss got to do with morals?”

“It’s not the kiss. It’s her begging him that way in front of all of us.”

“Oh, don’t be so vulgar, Kirby. I accept you as a pal, but I can’t permit you to slander poor Fran that way. Besides, she merely suggested that he kiss her. She didn’t beg at all.”

“Sure, sure. Next thing, she’ll merely be suggesting that he lay her.”

“I’m sure she won’t suggest anything of the kind. Fran is my very best friend, and I know her better than anyone else in the world, and I’m sure she’ll leave any suggestion like that entirely up to Harvey.” Jolly jerked her hand out of Kirby’s angrily. “You have made me simply furious, Kirby, and I don’t believe I care to hold hands with you any longer.”

She went over and sat down on the ground with her back against a tree. Kirby flushed and seemed to be savoring the anticipation of a black eye or two, but then he remembered that he was a pal and began to laugh.

“I confess that I’m a simple fellow,” he said, “and can’t understand these fine distinctions. If no one has any objection, I think I’ll go down and see if I can land a channel cat. May I borrow your rod now, Felix?”

“Certainly.”

“You may be down there quite a while,” Harvey said, “so you had better take several cans of beer with you. There’s an extra opener that you may take also.”

“Thanks,” Kirby said. “That’s a good idea.”

He got the rod and three cans of beer and the opener and went down over the bank to the gravel bar. Harvey served beer around, and everyone took a can except Sid, who hadn’t yet made much progress with his first one. When he had finished serving, Harvey went back and sat down beside Fran, and they began to talk. Sid lay down on his back and curved one arm up over his eyes and didn’t move for a long time. I looked at Jolly, and she looked at me, and I wanted her.

8

Quite a few empty beer cans accumulated in the passing of quite a bit of time, and at some point in the passing of the time, Jolly came over and lay down on the ground with her head in my lap. Sid lifted his arm from his eyes and looked at us and lowered his arm again and entered another period of not moving. Fran and Harvey kept talking with each other, and every once in a while Fran would rub a hand over Harvey’s whiskers for the sensation it gave her.

“I was just thinking that it’s been five years,” Jolly said.

“What’s been five years?” I said.

“Since Kirby and I were married. Would you believe it?”

“Five years is a long time, but not incredibly so.”

“Not nearly so long as forever, of course.”

“Not nearly.”

“That’s how long it’s been since you and I have not been married, I mean. Forever.”

“That’s not incredible, either. Lots of people have not been married since forever.”

“I fail absolutely to see what lots of people have to do with it. Speaking of you and me specifically, I certainly consider it incredible that forever should have passed without our being married sometime or other. Do you suppose we could have been married in some previous life or something?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t suppose anything of the kind.”

“Do you believe in previous lives?”

“I confess that I don’t. I’m not even sure that I believe in a subsequent life,” I added.

“That’s because you’re not religious. Sometimes I think you’re an absolute heathen, in fact. I regret it very much, because it prevents you from understanding me as you should. It’s quite difficult, of course, for a person who is not religious to understand another person who is.”

“I’m sorry that I’m a heathen and don’t understand you.”

Jolly’s eyebrows went up very slightly. “There is no necessity to apologize. One cannot be blamed for the way he thinks about such things.”

“Thank you. I’m glad to learn that your religion does not exclude tolerance.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I am very religious, but I am also very tolerant. In my opinion, if more people were tolerant, everything would be much simpler for everyone.”

“You certainly have something there. Take Kirby, for instance. If Kirby were more tolerant of certain things, it would be much simpler for you and me.”

“Well, perhaps that’s too much to expect. I must say that Kirby shows very few signs of being exceptionally tolerant.”

“That’s the impression I get myself, and consequently it might be a good idea if you were to take your head out of my lap.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that for the moment. As you know, Kirby is trying to catch a channel catfish, and he will consider it a great point of pride to succeed. Such things are extremely important to him, and unless he is fortunate enough to catch one quickly, he will be down there trying simply forever. Do you think he will catch one quickly?”

“I doubt it. I tried half the morning and was unable to catch one at all.”

“You see? So there is no need for the time being for me to take my head out of your lap.”

“Yes, I do see. Your point is, I believe, that it is unnecessary for him to be tolerant of things he doesn’t know anything about.”

“Well, that seems to me to go without saying. It is clearly obvious.”

“It is at that. You certainly do go straight to the crux of a problem.”

“I’m a very clear thinker. I really am.” A smile played at her lips.

“I’m convinced, however, that you were not thinking with your usual clarity when you were talking about our being married in a previous life. That seems rather foggy to me.”

She said, “I didn’t actually say we were married. I just asked if you considered it possible.”

“Nevertheless, the mere presence of the thought indicates an element of fogginess.”

Jolly pursed her lips. “Perhaps you’re right. The truth is, I don’t believe myself that we were ever married in a previous life, because if we had been married, I’m quite sure that I’d remember it. I wouldn’t be likely to forget something like that.”

“True. Now you are thinking as clearly as ever.”

“Thank you. Would you like to kiss me again?”

“In the presence of others?” I asked lamely.

“I really don’t believe they’d notice.”

“In this position, I don’t believe I could bend over for it. I’m not limber enough.”

She said, “I would be glad to come up to meet you.”

“In that case, we might accomplish it.”

We accomplished it, and apparently no one noticed, and afterward she let her head down into my lap again.

“Do you ever wonder how it happened?” she said.

“About you and me? I know perfectly well how it happened.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean about me and Kirby.”

“Oh. Well, I used to wonder, but I quit. I found it unpleasant.”

“I am willing to tell you, if you’d like to know,” Jolly said eagerly.

“Let me guess. He was handsome and gay and had a lot of money, and you were very young, and you fell desperately in love with him.”

“It was not like that at all. If I was ever in love with him, it was not desperately, and I have since gotten completely over it.”

“Perhaps it was mostly the money,” I said.

“That’s true. I’m sure it was mostly the money that appealed to me. I had never had any money, you see, and it seemed very desirable. Anyhow, it was not at all with him like it is with you. What I mean is, I am now all souped up and painful inside and cannot possibly live without you. Tell me, do you think I will someday get over being in love with you?”

“I’m certain of it,” I said firmly.

“That’s very sad. It makes me want to cry.”

“However sad it is, it is certainly true, and there is no use crying about it, however much you may feel like it. It seems to me that it would be much more sensible to do as I have tried to do more times than I can remember, and that is to start getting over it right now instead of waiting for it to start later and drearily by itself.”

“Sensible?” Her voice was shrill. “Do you call that sensible? I am utterly unable to follow you, Felix. I should think it would be much more sensible to make the most of the way we now feel while we still feel this way and the making is good.”

“There you go, thinking clearly again.”

“Well, it is a good thing for us that one of us manages to think clearly, or there would be absolutely no hope for us at all. I can’t understand why you get so befuddled.”

“Possibly it’s the beer. We have drunk quite a lot, you know.”

“You are right. We have. As a matter of fact, I am feeling rather giddy. Are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“It’s pleasant, though. Truly a pleasant feeling. Don’t you think so?”

“In spite of associated befuddlement, I do.”

“In that case, in order to insure its continuance, I suggest that you get us a couple more cans.”

“I’ll be happy to,” I said. “Could you just lift your head enough for me to slip out from under?”

She raised her head, and I got up and went over to the ice chest. When she heard me open it, Fran turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder.

“Are you getting more beer, Felix?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Would you please get some for Harvey and me?”

“It will be a pleasure.”

“In my opinion, beer is quite good enough for any reasonable person. Of course, it is impossible to expect some people to be reasonable.”

She glared briefly at Sid, but he didn’t move. I plugged four cans and distributed them and sat down again under Jolly’s head. She took her can in both hands and set it on her stomach and lay looking at it.

“It will be difficult to drink in this position,” she said.

“Yes, it will,” I said.

“I’m not at all sure that I can accomplish it.”

“I doubt it myself. I’ve tried it in the past and have always found it sloppy.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Well, you might try sitting up.”

“That’s a solution, of course, but I hate to resort to it.”

“I can’t think of any other, unless you want to use a straw.”

“Do you have a straw handy?”

“I don’t have a straw at all.”

“That’s out, then. I suppose there’s nothing to do but to sit up.”

“It looks like it.”

“You will understand, won’t you, that I do it with regret?”

“I’ll try.”

“I truly love to lie with my head in your lap and would not give it up voluntarily for anything less than this good cold beer.”

“There is no disgrace in being deserted for a beer. I won’t be offended.”

“It’s only temporary, of course,” she added quickly.

“That makes it all the easier to bear.”

She lifted the can of beer off her stomach and sat up. We sat there drinking the beer, and once in a while, if I listened closely, I could hear the whine of Kirby’s line on the gravel bar. All of sudden, without speaking or looking at us, Sid got up and walked off into the trees. Fran watched him go and shook her head sadly.

“He’s still sulking,” she said. “Besides being disgusting, he’s really rather pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Sid’s all right,” I said. “You oughtn’t to ride him so hard.”

“Ride him? Me ride Sid?” Fran looked shocked. “What in the world are you talking about, Felix? It’s positively Christian the way I look after that man, and I must say that I rather resent your accusation. The truth is, I’m practically exhausted most of the time looking after him and trying to improve his manners and all things like that, but I suppose it is far too much to expect of anyone that my kindness be recognized or appreciated.”

“I confess myself in error,” I said, “and I apologize.”

“Your apology is accepted.” She took a swallow of beer and rubbed her free hand automatically over Harvey’s whiskers. “I understand that you spoke without reflecting, Felix.”

“What time is it?” Harvey said.

“Almost two o’clock,” I said.

“Really? This day has certainly flown.”

“Yes, it has. It seems only an hour ago that it was the middle of the morning.”

“It’s the company,” Fran said. “Time always goes faster in good company.”

“Why did you ask the time?” Jolly said. “I wish you hadn’t done that. It’s rather depressing to think about time passing and all that. You know what I mean. Gone forever and no regaining it and everything.”

“I was just thinking that I promised to fry up some bullheads,” Harvey said, “and somehow or other I haven’t got around to it.”

“I don’t believe anyone wants any fried bullheads at this time,” Jolly said. “I suggest that you wait until around five or six o’clock.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Harvey said.

“No, I’m not. I’m quite full of beer and not hungry at all.”

“How about you, Fran?”

“I am equally full of beer, and equally not hungry. I support Jolly’s suggestion that we wait until five or six o’clock and reconsider the bullheads at that time.”

“Speaking of bullheads,” I said, “it is long past time that we should have run the line again.”

“That’s right,” Harvey said, “I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“So had I until just now. Do you think we ought to run it?”

“It should be run, all right, but I admit I’m not in the mood.”

Jolly said, “I think it might be amusing to run the line.”

“Why don’t you and Felix go run it, then?” Fran said. “Harvey is not in the mood, and I am not interested, so I can see no objection to your amusing yourself in that way if you choose.”

“Will you permit me to run the line with you, Felix?” Jolly said.

“I don’t think Kirby would approve of it,” I said.

Her eyes were suddenly deep and dark and very quiet, and I tried to see what was in them, in the depths of them, but it was impossible.

“You are right,” she said. “Kirby would certainly disapprove and might even kick up nasty about it. However, perhaps he himself will be willing to go with me.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You’ve had quite a lot of beer. Do you think you could stay in the boat?”

“Certainly. Do you think I am drunk? I assure you that I am not. I am only a little giddy, which is not the same thing.”

“All right. I’ll go down and fish with the rod while you and Kirby are running the line.”

“That would be a satisfactory arrangement, I think. It will give Harvey a chance to kiss Fran and show her how it feels with whiskers.”

“I was thinking about that,” Fran said. “Please don’t feel impelled to hurry. Harvey is in fact exceptionally shy, which is an unusual and charming virtue but imposes difficulties.”

“I’m sure you will be able to handle the situation competently,” Jolly said. “I have absolute faith in you, and you must let me know how you come out. Come along, Felix. Now that I have decided to run the line, I am becoming quite anxious to get started.”

We went down the path to the gravel bar, and Kirby had just got a strike. The rod was bent far over and the line from the rod to the water was as taut as a fiddle string, and we stopped to see if he would land the cat or lose it. I admit that I was rather hoping that he would lose it, which was a very small way to feel, and I admit that also, but it was nevertheless the way I felt. He would pump the rod back with his biceps bulging, and then he would let it fall forward and quickly take in the slack line, and he did this very efficiently, as if he knew just how it should be done, and he slowly brought the cat in, and we kept standing there watching until it was all over. He lifted the fish out of the water and turned and held it up hanging from the end of the line for us to see, and it was truly a beauty, about twenty inches long and sleek and slim and shining.

“What do you think of this one?” he said.

“It’s a beauty,” I said. “Truly a beauty.”

“Yes,” Jolly said. “I admire the way you did that, Kirby. The way you brought him in and everything was really admirable. You are to be congratulated.”

“It’s just a matter of knowing how,” Kirby said. “Of course, there’s actually a kind of knack to it besides. Some people have it and some don’t.”

“I dare say that’s true,” Jolly said. “And now that you have succeeded in catching a catfish, perhaps you will be willing to take me in the boat to run the trot line. Felix has given us permission to do it.”

“Where is the trot line set?”

“Just downstream a way,” I said. “About half way to the bend. You can see the line where it comes out of the water.”

“Oh. Well, okay. I can’t see the fun in running a trot line, however. This is the kind of fishing that is really sport. It requires skill.”

“Sure,” I said. “A kind of knack as well as knowing how.”

He kneeled down on the gravel and started to take the shining cat off the hook, and Jolly and I went over and got the boat in the water, and I held it steady while she walked out carefully to the stern and sat down. I kept holding it until Kirby came over and sat down on the center seat between the oarlocks and pushed off with one of the oars. He didn’t do much about the rowing, using the oars mostly just to guide the boat, because the current took them along fairly fast, and pretty quickly they were quite a way downstream. It was cool on the river, and shady, and very quiet and pleasant.

I turned and went across the gravel bar to where Kirby had left the rod. I picked it up and started casting, and when I looked back downstream again, they had angled into the bank where the line was tied and had started working slowly along the line toward the opposite bank. Kirby pulled up the drop lines and checked them and had to replace the bait on several of the hooks, but this time there was no luck at all, not a single bullhead. I went back to casting and did not look at them again for quite a while, and when I looked at last, they were going on downstream in the boat and were by that time on the bend and almost out of sight. In one place the sunlight slanted down through the trees and across the water in a wide strip, and as they passed through the strip the light made a kind of pale blaze of Kirby’s yellow hair.

They moved on around the bend and out of sight, and I was afraid. I thought at first that I would go after them along the bank, but then I decided that I wouldn’t, and I went instead up the bank and back to where Fran and Harvey were still sitting on the ground near the old cabin. Harvey had a bright smear of lipstick on his mouth and was looking quite pleased about the way things had been going.

“Where are Jolly and Kirby?” he said.

“As you know,” I said, “they have gone to run the trot line.”

“Well, it seems to me that they have had more than enough time to do that. It only takes a little while to run the trot line.”

“The truth is, they have gone on around the bend of the river.”

“Really?” Fran looked suddenly interested. “Why do you suppose they’ve done that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to take a boat ride. Or maybe Kirby is a guy who always wants to look around the next bend. Some people have an insatiable curiosity about such things.”

“Frankly, I consider both possibilities extremely unlikely,” Fran said. “I consider it much more likely that Kirby has decided to push his current program of compatibility a step beyond the pal stage.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, “and it is none of my business.”

I got another can of beer and sat down. Fran looked at me with a frown, and then went back to her smooching.

Everything seemed very quiet and desolate. I felt as if I were sitting in the midst of a vast ruin, and what I kept thinking was that the water of the river was very deep around the bend, and the current very strong. I sat there thinking this for a long, long time, and I couldn’t quit thinking it, although I wanted to, and after a while my head began to ache, and I put it in my hands and held it. I didn’t look up again or take my head out of my hands until I heard someone coming up from the river, and I knew even before I looked that it was Jolly and that she was alone. Her jersey and shorts were wet and adherent in the way of wet clothes, and although there was practically nothing to them when dry, there now seemed to be even less.

“What happened to you?” Fran said. “Did your clothes fall into the water?”

Jolly said breathlessly, “Kirby fell out of the boat, and I jumped in to try to save him, but it was no use. I’m very much afraid that he has drowned.”

“Fell out of the boat!” I said harshly. “Out of a flat-bottomed boat? What the hell were you doing, wrestling?”

She looked at me directly with the deep and dark and quiet eyes in which I could see no grief or shock or any emotion whatever, and I thought her lips moved briefly in the slightest smile, but I couldn’t be sure, and at that moment Sid walked out of the trees and across the clearing.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

No one answered immediately. Harvey got up off the ground and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped the lipstick off his mouth without really being conscious of what he was doing. He returned the handkerchief to his pocket and reached down and gave Fran a hand and helped her to her feet also.

“It seems that Kirby has fallen into the river and drowned,” he said.

Jolly said, a little harshly, “I tried to save him, but he was too heavy for me, and besides he was very frightened and kept fighting me, and he got away from me in the current and was gone.”

“Well, God-damn it,” Harvey shouted, “shouldn’t we be doing something?”

“I guess we should,” I said, “but I don’t know what.”

“Listen to me,” Sid said suddenly.

We all looked at him and waited for him to continue, and there was about him the same strange and rather pathetic dignity that he had displayed the time Kirby had abused him in the quarrel over Jolly’s black eye. That’s what I felt at first, anyhow, but after a minute I could see that it was more than that with him this time. It was a kind of cockiness, an odd assurance bordering arrogance, as if he had tapped in the last few minutes a source of strength no one had suspected.

“It is imperative to notify someone,” he said, “and I am sure that the county sheriff is the one to notify. I will go in Kirby’s car to do it, and in the meantime Felix and Harvey can go have a look to see if maybe Kirby managed to get out onto the bank farther downstream.”

“He is drowned,” Jolly said. “He was very heavy, and he kept fighting, and he got away in the current and was drowned.”

“That is almost certainly so,” Sid said, “but it will be expected of us to have made sure. I’ll go for the sheriff now and will be back as quickly as possible.”

He went over to the Caddy and got in and started it and turned it and drove away down the narrow road. Fran went over to Jolly and put an arm around her and began to cry. She was not crying in grief for Kirby, but in a kind of shock. I had never seen her cry before for any reason at all, and it did something strange and disturbing to her ugly face. I didn’t look directly at Jolly again. It was impossible for me to do it. I crossed the clearing and walked into the trees along the river and could hear Harvey coming steadily behind me.

9

We followed the river to the bend and around the bend and on for quite a way until we finally found the boat where it had drifted in close to the bank and got caught in some submerged brush under the drooping branches of a willow, but we didn’t see anything at all of Kirby or what was left of him. I waded out and pulled the boat in to the bank so that it wouldn’t get loose and drift on with the current, and then I sat down and lit a cigarette and sat there smoking and looking at the river. Harvey sat down also and began picking up small stones and sticks and throwing them out into the water. He did it slowly and methodically, with just so much time between each stick and stone, as if he were measuring the time carefully in his mind.

“I guess there’s no use walking any farther,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“It surely looks like he’s gone, all right.”

“Yes, it does. That’s the way it looks.”

“I just can’t understand how he happened to fall out of a flat-bottomed boat that way.”

“Maybe he tried to stand up and lost his balance.”

“It must have been something like that. Just the same, however, it would be pretty hard to fall out of a flat-bottomed boat.”

“He’d had quite a lot of beer. You remember that he took two or three cans down to the gravel bar with him.”

“That’s right. It could have been the beer, of course.”

“We shouldn’t have let them go. I had a feeling about it at the time.”

“Oh, nonsense. Let’s not start blaming ourselves, old boy. That won’t get us anywhere.”

“No. It was just an accident. No one’s to blame.”

“Even allowing that he fell out of the boat because he stood up under the influence of beer, I still can’t understand why he wanted to stand up. A small boat is a very unlikely thing to want to stand up in, you’ll have to admit that.”

“Maybe he stood up to hit Jolly in the eye.”

“Really? You actually think so?”

“No, I don’t. I was just joking.”

“Oh? It’s rather a hell of a time to be joking, don’t you think, old boy?”

“Yes, it is. It’s a hell of a time.”

He kept on throwing the sticks and stones into the river, and I finished the cigarette.

“Why didn’t he just swim out?” he said. “It’s not a very wide river. Do you suppose he hit his head on the boat or something?”

“He couldn’t swim.”

“No? Not at all?”

“Not a stroke.”

“That’s odd, isn’t it? He was such an athletic bastard and all.”

“He was afraid of water.”

“You don’t say so. How do you know all this, old boy?”

“Jolly told me. Only yesterday, it was.”

“It makes it all the worse somehow, doesn’t it? It’s bad enough to die at all, but to die of something you’re afraid of, that seems to be the worst thing that could happen.”

“I don’t know. You generally die pretty fast, I think, once you get started, and I don’t suppose it made much difference in the end.”

He picked up a small stone and turned and looked at me without throwing the stone immediately into the river, and it broke the rhythm of his picking and throwing, which seemed somehow to make an enormous and overwhelming change in the established order of things.

“That’s a very neat way to look at it, old boy,” he said, “and it is apparent to me that you’re quite a philosopher about these things. You will surely be a great comfort to Jolly.”

I turned my head to meet his eyes, but he had already tossed the stone into the river and was reaching for another, and I was pretty certain that he hadn’t meant anything in particular by what he’d said, nothing ironical or anything, and I told myself that it was surely the same with what Jolly had said and repeated, that she had not really meant anything by wishing that Kirby would die, that it had been only like a child wishing it in anger about a parent or a sibling or a friend, not really meaning it or wanting it and certainly not planning to make it come true.

“How long do you suppose it will take Sid to bring the sheriff?” Harvey asked.

“Not long if he’s in his office. It’s only a short drive to the county seat.”

“Maybe he’s already back.”

“I doubt it. He might be, however.”

“There’s a funny guy. That Sid. Did you notice how he started giving orders and everything? He sort of took over, I mean. It was rather surprising in a guy who regularly takes all that snotty talk and all from Fran. He must be in love with her.”

“He’s not in love with Fran. He’s in love with Jolly.”

“Is that so? I thought it must be Fran.”

“No, Jolly’s the one.”

“Well, I can understand that. I admit that Jolly’s much the prettier.”

“Yes, she is.”

“That Fran’s passionate, though. She’s extremely passionate.”

I didn’t answer, and we were silent again, and pretty soon he sighed and stood up.

“I suggest that we go back now, old boy. How do you feel about it?”

“We might as well.”

“What shall we do about the boat? Do you think we ought to leave it here?”

“Why should we leave it here?”

“In cases like this, aren’t you supposed to leave everything alone or something?”

“That’s in cases of crime. An accident is no crime.”

“That’s so, of course. I must say, though, it will be a hell of a job rowing it back upstream.”

“We’ll take turns.”

“That’s fair, old boy. I’ll take first turn if it’s all right with you.”

We went down and got into the boat. Harvey sat between the oars and started rowing back upstream, and I twisted around and watched the dark water split on the bow and wondered if Sid was back yet with the sheriff. The bend in the river was about half way back, and when we reached it Harvey and I changed places, and I rowed on up to the gravel bar. We got out and pulled the boat up onto the bar and went up the path to the clearing, and Jolly and Fran were sitting close to each other on the ground among the empty beer cans, and Sid was just coming down the narrow road in the Caddy with someone following him in a Ford.

“Did you find anything?” Fran said.

“Yes,” I said. “We found the boat and brought it back.”

Jolly looked at me and didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say anything, either. Sid got out of the Caddy, and a tall, thin man with very round shoulders got out of the Ford, and they walked over to us together. The tall, thin man was wearing a beautiful cream colored hat with a wide brim. I was certain from this that he was the sheriff, because it seems to be imperative that sheriffs wear hats with wide brims.

He was the sheriff, all right, and it turned out that his name was Logan Pierce. He had an unpleasant, reedy voice, and his shoulders were so stooped that, in spite of his height, he gave the impression of looking up at everyone from under his brows in a sly way, and this was rather disconcerting after a while. When he spoke, Jolly got up off the ground and brushed off the seat of her shorts.

“Which one of you is Mrs. Craig?” he said.

“I am,” Jolly said.

“I’m sorry about Mr. Craig. I guess it must have been quite a shock.”

“Yes, it was. It was a shock.”

“Do you think you could tell me about it?”

“Of course. I can tell you exactly how it happened.”

No one said anything for a while, Logan Pierce just standing there looking at Jolly with this appearance of slyness, and then Jolly said, “Do you want me to go ahead and tell it?”

“Yes,” he said, “just in your own words the way you remember it.”

I thought afterward, thinking back on it, that this remark could have been interpreted to imply something pretty unpleasant, because Jolly could hardly have told it in any words other than her own unless she’d been coached ahead of time like a witness in a trial, and this suggested that there was something involved in Kirby’s drowning that she had to be careful about, to lie about or tell in just a certain way, but I doubt that he meant the implication at all, and it was probably just a sloppy way he had of expressing himself.

“Well,” Jolly said, “we went in the boat to run the trot line, but there weren’t any fish on it, and then Kirby wanted to go on around the bend for a ride, but I didn’t want to go. I told him I would rather come back here, but he said he was determined to have a ride around the bend after having come as far as the trot line, and so we went. When we were around the bend, he stopped rowing and stood up and for some reason started to walk down to where I was sitting, and that’s when he fell out of the boat.”

Logan Pierce lifted a big hand with the palm turned out in a gesture that meant to stop, and Jolly quit talking.

“That bothers me a little, I got to admit,” Logan Pierce said. “I been trying to figure the odds against a man’s falling out of a flat-bottomed boat, and the way I got it figured, they would be terrific.”

“He fell out,” Jolly said. “He fell right out into the water.”

“Okay. That’s established. But what made him fall? Can you explain what made him?”

“He just seemed to lose his balance, that’s all. The boat started to tip to one side, and he went over.”

I could see that she hadn’t answered the question to his satisfaction, and he stood looking at her with the slyness that was probably only an effect and not real. All at once he began to pop the knuckles of his right hand one at a time slowly.

“He had drunk quite a lot of beer,” I said.

Logan Pierce transferred his gaze from Jolly to me.

“Who are you?” he said.

I told him who I was, and how Harvey and I had come here fishing, and that I was a friend of Kirby and Jolly’s, which wasn’t precisely true in the case of Kirby but did no harm so far as I could see, and he nodded his head two or three times and started looking around at the empty beer cans.

“Seems to me you all been drinking quite a lot of beer,” he said.

“That’s true,” I said. “We’ve all been drinking quite a lot.”

He finished his survey of the cans and turned back to Jolly.

“What happened when he fell out?”

“Well,” she said, “he came up, and the boat had drifted away from the place he came, and I jumped in to help him, but he was obviously terribly frightened and unreasonable, and he fought me and was too strong to handle. He got away in the current and was gone, and I swam over to the bank and came back here after waiting long enough to make sure he didn’t come up again anywhere that I could see.”

“He didn’t come up again?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“All right. There’s something else that bothers me, though. After he fell in, why didn’t you just stay in the boat and stick out an oar for him to get hold of, or why didn’t you row the boat over so he could crawl back in? Seems to me either of those things would have been easier and maybe better than jumping in after him.”

“I don’t know. I suppose I was a little excited and merely did the first thing I thought of to do.”

“I can see that you might have been excited, and it’s nothing I can blame you for. The truth is, I’ve been admiring your self-control. You aren’t hysterical like you might expect a woman to be after she’d watched her husband drown, and as a matter of fact you don’t look to me like you’d even been crying any. Personally, I admire a woman who can keep herself in hand.”

It was another one of those comments that might have implied more than its literal meaning, or on the other hand maybe no more at all, and it was impossible to be sure about it from his looks or inflection one way or another. He was pretty good at that, to be truthful about it, saying things that left you wondering, and it made you very uncomfortable. No one said anything, and he looked around at the empty beer cans again and popped five knuckles.

“I guess I’d better go down to the river and look things over,” he said, “but I don’t suppose there’s anything much to see. I’ve got a crew coming out here soon, and we’ll start working to recover the body. That may take a long time, though, and in the meanwhile you people may as well go back to town if you want to.”

By this time he had followed the cans with his eyes until he’d come around to Jolly again, and he lifted his eyes and looked at her directly.

“I’ll get in touch when I’ve got any news,” he said. “I’m sorry for what happened, but I can’t help it, and I hope I haven’t distressed you any because of the questions I had to ask.”

He turned and went across the clearing and into the trees. Fran got up slowly from the ground where she had been sitting all this time.

“No one introduced me,” she said. “Why didn’t someone introduce me to the sheriff?”

“Never mind,” Sid said. “What I think is, I had better take Jolly home.”

Jolly didn’t seem to hear. She came over to me and took one of my hands and held it against her cheek. Her own hands were cold.

“I always seem to get you into trouble,” she said.

“It’s not my trouble,” I said. “It’s yours.”

“Nevertheless, you are somewhat involved, and I’m sorry.”

“As for me, I think Sid’s idea is a good one. I think you had better let him take you home.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“Yes, I do.”

She took her cheek off my hand and looked at me, and it was remarkable but true that even after jumping into a river and being badgered by a sheriff she was still incredibly lovely and somehow untouched and possessed of a kind of pathetic dignity.

“If that is how you feel,” she said, “I suppose I will have to go.”

She walked over to the Caddy, and Sid followed her. Fran turned to Harvey and shook her head regretfully.

“Under the circumstances,” she said, “I will have to go also.”

“It looks like it,” he said.

The Caddy left. I sat down on the ground, and Harvey sat down beside me, and the cabin and the clearing and the river were no longer the familiar features of a fine and comforting place to fish, but the strange and threatening remnants of an ugly, ending world.

“Do you mind my saying that I think you were pretty rough on Jolly under the circumstances, old boy?” Harvey said.

“Yes, I do. I mind.”

“Well, you are upset, and I must say it’s no wonder. I guess this place will never seem the same again, will it?”

“I guess it won’t.”

He looked off across the river and thought about something for a while. Then he stood up. “I think I’ll pick up a few of the cans,” he said.

10

We returned to town that evening, and it was dusk when Harvey let me out in front of the house I lived in. The street lamps were on, and the lights in the houses, and there were live things making noises in the trees. “Won’t you come up?” I said.

“No,” he said, “I think I had better get along if you don’t mind.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry for what happened, old boy.”

“I’m sorry too, but it can’t be helped now.”

He drove away with the boat on the trailer behind the car, and I went upstairs to the apartment. I opened the windows, and the dead air stirred, the cooler night air moving into it from outside, and I undressed in the dark room and put on a robe and went down the hall to the bathroom and had a shower. When I returned, the room was already considerably cooler, and I put on a clean pair of shorts and sat on the bed in the shorts in the dark, feeling the air move on my skin and staring at a white blur in the corner of the room which was a blank sheet of paper in my typewriter. I wondered if the novel about the goliard would ever get finished, which didn’t seem at all likely the way things were going, and I wondered if it would ever get published, even if it got finished, and this also seemed very unlikely in the general run of luck as it was.

It is possible that it happened just the way she said, I thought. It is entirely possible. Perhaps he stood up in a spirit of anger or of amorousness and started toward her and simply lost his balance and fell. Perhaps the boat had drifted far enough away by the time he came up so that he could not reach it, and perhaps, as she said, the first thing that occurred to her was to jump in after him and try to save him, and if that is what she thought and tried to do, it was really a brave and commendable thing, though possibly mistaken. He was very big and strong, much too big and strong for so slight a woman, and if he was terrified and fought her, as frightened people are supposed to do in the water, it is certain that she could not have held him or helped him or prevented his slipping away.

This is what I thought. I lay on my back on the bed and tried to hold the thought in my mind until it became strong and secure and sure of itself, but I began to think in spite of myself of how she had wished that he would die, and how she had said that he was afraid of the water and could not swim, and how right afterward in time that seemed far too short he had in fact died, as she had wished, of drowning, as she had mentioned. I closed my eyes, and at once behind my lids I saw her bend forward in the boat and say something to him and motion him to come to her, and he stood up precariously and moved toward her in the boat, and when he came very near she rose suddenly and pushed him, and he went over into the dark water. I opened my eyes to erase the sight, but the figures only moved out into the darkness of the room above me, and they seemed somehow to be illuminated so that the darkness did not obscure them, and he was in the water reaching for the boat, and she took one of the oars and struck at him, and he disappeared and was gone.

It was impossible to lie there and see these things and to think of what she had said and what had happened, and so I got up after a while and decided that it would be helpful to listen to some music. I had always listened a great deal to music, though I had no musical talent myself, but lately I had got out of the habit because of various things that interfered, and now I went over to the automatic phonograph in the dark and got out the albums of Beethoven from memory. The symphonies were in numerical order, and I selected by touch the odd numbered ones, the third and the seventh and the ninth, excluding the fifth, and I played these softly in ascending order, and this took quite a long while, especially because of the ninth, which is a very long symphony even as symphonies go. I was right in thinking that they might be helpful, and by the time the ninth had finished playing I had decided that there was something that I would do. I thought at first that I might do it right then, that night, but then I decided that I would do it instead in the morning, and what I thought I would do was to go to Jolly and ask her directly how it had happened, and whatever she told me was what I would always believe afterward. After deciding this, I felt relaxed and much better, and I lay down on the bed again and was able after a while to go to sleep.

When I awoke in the morning, which was the morning of Sunday, it was just beginning to get light, even though the days were still long, and so I knew it was very early. I dressed and made some coffee and drank it and thought about going to Jolly’s. Since it was so early, I decided that I would walk in order to give time a chance to pass, and I went downstairs and started. It was quite a long way and took quite a long while, but when I got there it was still very early to be getting anywhere on a Sunday morning. I rang the bell and waited, but no one came. There was usually a maid around, but she only came in during the day, and chances were she didn’t come in at all Sundays, and at any rate she certainly wasn’t there at this time. Trying the door and finding it unlocked in keeping with Jolly’s fine attitude of indifference toward such things, I opened it and went into the hall and upstairs to the hall there and down the hall to Jolly’s room.

To that time, I had never been in the room, though I had received a couple of invitations, and I stopped inside the door and looked at things. There were some sleek, low pieces of furniture nestled in the deep pile of a white carpet, and across the room between two windows, as incongruous as an old-fashioned spittoon in a modern lounge, was a high brass bed with a high polish, and in the bed, an orchid growing in the spittoon, was Jolly asleep.

I went over and sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her, and she looked like a small girl, a child, and very lovely. I wanted to kiss her, but I didn’t, and she must have felt me there, a feeling that penetrated sleep and drew her slowly to awareness, because after a while her eyes opened and widened as she looked up at me, and she smiled slowly and lifted her arms.

“Darling,” she said.

“I was just sitting here wanting to kiss you,” I said.

“Did you do it?”

“No.”

“Why not? You know very well that I am always more than willing. Would you like to kiss me now?”

“Yes.”

“Then I suggest that you do it at once.”

I did. I leaned over and kissed her and sat up again.

“I’m very happy that you’ve come,” she said.

“Are you?”

“Yes, I am. Very happy. Would you like to come to bed with me?”

“I would like to, but I won’t.”

“Why are you here, then? It must be very early.”

“It’s pretty early, all right. I came because I wanted to see you and couldn’t wait any longer.”

“That’s nice. It gives me pleasure to know that you want to see me. Have you been here before? I can’t quite remember.”

“No. This is the first time.”

“Well, it is good that you are getting used to it immediately now that things have changed for the better. Do you like my room?”

“I like it fine, but there is something about it that I can’t understand.”

“What is it?”

“This bed. It’s old-fashioned and ugly and doesn’t fit.”

“It is not ugly. As I see it, it is beautiful.”

“Really? How do you see it?”

“What I mean is, it has significance and stands for something.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”

“Do you want to? Are you sure you actually do? I’ll explain it if you do, because I love you and will tell you anything, but perhaps it is something you should simply quit wondering about.”

“No. I would rather understand about it.”

“All right, then. It is necessary to tell you that I was very poor as a child. Do you know what poor means? Sometimes it means not having anything but what is necessary, but other times it means not even having the necessary things, and that is what it meant in my case. I didn’t have any father that I can remember, you understand, and my mother worked around at things but was unable to earn much money. This was her bed. I bought it for her when I was quite young. All her life she had wanted a bright brass bed, because it was to her a symbol of luxury and amounting to something, and it’s rather pathetic to think that such a thing could be such a symbol, and maybe that will make you understand how bad it was with her. She got sick and was dying, and it didn’t look like she was ever going to have the brass bed, so I went out and got it for her. Fortunately, I was very pretty, and once I had got the idea of how to do it, it was not difficult. I went out and met this man who had quite a lot of money, and he gave me some of it when he was finished with me. He was not a bad sort of man, quite generous and considerate, and I remember him kindly. With the money he gave me, I was able to buy the brass bed, and my mother slept in it for almost a year and died in it, and it made her happy.”

She stopped telling me about it, and her eyes were deep and quiet and did not seem to mirror pain or regret or any particular pride, and I felt sick, and I loved her, but it was an afflicted love.

“All right,” I said. “You don’t have to tell any more.”

“Well, there really isn’t anything more to tell. Do you mind a great deal that I got the bed the way I did?”

“I think I can understand it.”

“Honestly? Do you also understand why I have kept it and why it is significant?”

“Yes. It is a symbol of having plenty instead of nothing or very little. As things developed, it became the symbol of Kirby’s money. I told you two days ago that you would not divorce him because of the money, just as you will not give up this bed as the symbol of it, and that is now more apparent to me than ever.”

“I concede that it’s true, and the part about the religion was only something I tried to believe. Fortunately, however, it is now not necessary either to divorce Kirby or to give up the money. Everything has suddenly become quite simple.”

“Has it?”

“Yes, of course it has. Surely you can see that.”

“I was wondering if everything hasn’t become hopelessly complicated.”

“Oh, nonsense, Felix. Why do you want to talk like that? It is apparent that we can now get married comfortably, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Don’t you think we had at least better wait until after Kirby’s body has been found?”

She took a deep breath and held it for a moment, and a little color came out in spots above the bones of her cheeks, and I thought at first that she was angry, but then I saw that she was only puzzled and perhaps a little hurt.

“Why did you say that?” she said. “Do you think that I should be sorry that Kirby is dead?”

“It’s not a small thing for a man to die. Maybe we should all be sorry.”

“I can’t follow that, Felix. I really can’t. It is quite obvious that he was an impediment and that everything is much better now that he is dead. Why on earth should we be sorry?”

“I know. I’m befuddled again. I don’t think clearly.”

“That’s true. You don’t. I love you very much and all that, but I am bound to say that you permit yourself to become confused by the most transparent things.”

“Not you, though. You not only think very clearly, but it seems that you have some kind of power to influence events by it.”

“It is simply impossible for me to know what you are talking about, Felix.”

“You wished he would die, and he did.”

“Lots of people wish other people would die, and eventually they do.”

“You said he was afraid of water and could not swim, and almost at once he died of drowning.”

Again she took a deep breath and held it and after a moment said a little sadly, “Do you think I did it deliberately? Do you think I drowned him?”

“Did you?”

“Would it change things between us if I did?”

“It would change things a great deal.”

“Do you mean that you would not love me any longer?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think I could quit loving you for any reason whatever, but I would probably never look at you or touch you or have anything to do with you again.”

“In that case, I had better tell you nothing at all.”

“Don’t you even deny it?”

“I do not wish to deny it. I have told you that I love you, and whatever has happened has been for our good, and now it seems that you have no faith in me and only wish to persecute me without reason.”

“I do not wish to persecute you. If you say you didn’t do it, I will believe you and never mention it again.”

“No. Truly, Felix, I am quite angry with you now, and I will not say anything one way or the other. You must make up your own mind about it, and if that is impossible for you to do, I guess it is something you will always have to wonder about.”

“It would not be pleasant to wonder always about something like that.”

“Then you had better come to a decision and quit wondering. Why is it that you must simply try your hardest to spoil everything just when it should be so fine for us? I confess that I am finding you rather depressing.”

“Are you? I’m rather depressed myself, to tell the truth. I think I’ll go away and be depressed alone,” I said.

“Perhaps that is a good idea. Please come back when you are more cheerful and inclined to be cooperative.”

I got up and walked to the door through the deep white pile. I opened the door and turned to look back at her, and suddenly her small face seemed very taut, and in her eyes, I thought, were the shadows of a great despair and a greater need.

“I love you,” she said, “and I am determined to have you, and now you must never desert me for any reason on earth.”

I wanted to go back to her, and I almost went, but instead I left her alone in her significant brass bed and went downstairs. In the hall, I heard voices in the living room, which was rather surprising under the circumstances, and one of the voices was Sid’s, and the other one seemed to be the voice of Logan Pierce. I stopped and listened to the voices but could not understand what was said, and after listening for a few seconds I went over and looked into the room and saw Sid sitting comfortably in a chair and Pierce leaning against one end of the sofa. They had heard me cross the hall to the entrance and were staring in my direction and had suddenly stopped talking.

“Hello, Felix,” Sid said. “Where did you come from?”

“I’ve been upstairs talking to Jolly.”

“Is that so? I had no idea you were here. How is Jolly?”

“All right. She’s still in bed.”

“I should think so. It’s still quite early, and I’d have gone up myself, but I didn’t want to wake her. You remember Logan Pierce, of course. He has come to tell Jolly that Kirby’s body has been found.”

Logan Pierce was tired and glum and had a gray stubble of beard on his face. He nodded and pursed his lips as if there were a sour taste in his mouth.

“You’re around pretty early, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “And so are you, for that matter.”

“Sure. That’s so. I been up all night, having come into town with the body after we found it, and now I’d like to see Mrs. Craig and get on home to bed.”

“When did you find it?”

“The body? About one o’clock this morning. It got hung up in the branches of a tree that had fallen over into the water downstream a way. We were lucky to find it so soon. Sometimes it takes a long while to find a body in a river.”

“You say you brought it into town?”

“That’s what I said. It’s in the morgue.”

He paused and blew his lips out and sucked them in and stared at me from under his brows in that way which made him appear to be looking up at a person even though he was actually taller and looking down.

“He’s got a place on his head,” he said. “Looks like he might have been hit pretty hard with something.”

I saw Jolly, as I had seen her last night, rising in the boat and swinging the oar, and it was something a man should not be required to see a second time, even in his mind and knowing it’s only imagination. I closed my eyes and opened them, and this time the trick worked, and she and the river and Kirby in the dark water were all gone in an instant.

“He was in the river a long time,” I said. “It’s a wonder he hasn’t got a lot of bad places on him.”

“True enough. All in all, considering everything, he was in better shape than we had any right to expect. Well, like I said, I want to see Mrs. Craig and get on home. I met Mr. Pollock here on the way in, and he said she was probably still asleep and shouldn’t be disturbed yet, but since you’ve been up talking to her, I guess she’s awake after all and can see me right away. I’m dog tired and don’t want to wait around if I don’t have to.”

“See here, Sheriff,” Sid said. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want Jolly to know, and I can tell her when she comes down. She’s had a pretty bad shock, as you know, and I don’t think it’s such a good idea to talk to her so soon about things like this.”

“No?” Logan Pierce shifted his gaze to Sid, the sour look becoming more pronounced around his mouth. “I’d think it would be a kind of relief to her to learn that her husband’s body is out of the river. Anyhow, I got a few more questions on my mind I’d like to ask, so I guess I’d better talk to her personally even if it might be considered an imposition.”

He was clearly unsatisfied and unhappy because there were things he couldn’t understand, and I think what bothered him most was the awareness that, as things stood and were likely to stand, there was little or no chance of his ever understanding them any better, no matter how hard he worked at it.

“All right, then,” Sid said. “I’ll go up and ask her to come down.”

“As for me,” I said, “I don’t think I’ll stay if I’m not needed.”

“You’re not,” Logan Pierce said.

So I went back into the hall and down to the front door, and Sid followed me to the door instead of going immediately upstairs. He still had that odd assurance about him that Harvey had noticed at the river after the drowning, and I wondered why the hell he was at Jolly’s so early, and I resented his presence a little, as a matter of fact, but not much. It seemed to be impossible to resent Sid very much at any time.

“It’s very difficult for Jolly,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “She will undoubtedly miss being hit in the eye occasionally.”

“Well, no one but a brute would do something like that to a woman, but just the same it’s a very traumatic experience for her, and she will certainly need a great deal of love and comfort to alleviate it.”

“Is that so? Are you prepared to minister the love and comfort as it is required?”

“I admit that I intend to make myself available,” he said. “Jolly and I have always been very close, and I think it is quite likely that she will turn to me at this time.”

That’s what he said, and the way he said it was pretty smug. I thought for a second that it would be fun to hit him in the mouth, but I knew at the same time that it wouldn’t be really, so I only laughed about it and said, “Sid, Jolly told me only recently that you are very noble, and I can see now that it’s true. You are truly a noble character, and you give me a great big noble pain in the neck.”

I went down the walk toward the naked boy, and the clear water ascended, sparkling, into the morning sunlight and fell with a musical splashing into the basin below.

11

They had Kirby’s funeral, but I didn’t go. The morning of the day the funeral was held, Harvey came into my room at the college and asked if I was going, and I said that I wasn’t.

“You actually aren’t?” he said. “I’d have sworn that you’d feel compelled to go.”

“Why?”

“Well, because of Jolly, of course.”

“I can’t see that Jolly has a damn thing to do with it. It isn’t Jolly who’s being buried.”

“I know that, old boy. However, when you come right down to it, it’s more her show than Kirby’s because she’s chief mourner and all. Don’t you think she will be depending on you to come see it?”

“No, I don’t. And if I were there, she’d probably never see me.”

“With all the people and relatives around, that would probably be so. I see your point, Felix, and there is certainly little sense in your going. Moreover, even if Jolly learns that you didn’t attend, I doubt that it will distress her much. I’m convinced that her role of chief mourner is a routine part that she doesn’t really have her heart in.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh, well, we may as well be honest about it. With all due respect for the dead, you’ll have to agree that Kirby wasn’t exactly the type that anyone would be likely to mourn excessively.”

“How about you? Are you going to the funeral?”

“I? By no means, old boy. What I intend to do this afternoon, to tell the truth, is to go to a French movie which is supposed to be quite lively and funny. Would you care to come along?”

“I don’t believe I would.”

“No? I’m sorry to hear it because it would be a pleasure to have you. Well, perhaps another time, old boy. Goodbye, now.”

“Goodbye, Harvey.”

He went away, and I did some work on some papers, and the papers had been written by the students in my class and were mostly pretty bad. It took quite a long time to finish them, and it was about two in the afternoon when I left. I went outside and down the steps to the walk, and Fran was sitting there on a stone bench in the shade of a high hedge. I was surprised to see her and stopped in front of her.

“Hello, Fran,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“If you want to know,” she said, “I’ve come to see you.”

“I was certain you’d be going to Kirby’s funeral.”

“No. I’m not going. Why were you certain that I would?”

“I thought Jolly might want you to be with her or something.”

“Oh, nonsense, Felix. Jolly will manage perfectly well without me, and it is only a matter of going through the accepted formalities with Kirby and getting them over with.”

“I was talking with Harvey a couple of hours ago, and he seemed to have the same impression.”

“Well, it is surely apparent to you above all people, Felix, that Jolly did not consider Kirby essential to her happiness.”

“She considered his money essential.”

“That’s something else altogether. Jolly is a very sensible person and naturally recognizes that it is imperative to be comfortable. However, as I say, Kirby and his money were two entirely different matters and have now been separated.”

“Yes, they have. They certainly have.”

“That remark had quite a nasty sound, Felix, and I would like to know what you mean by it.”

“Just what I said. Kirby and his money have been separated.”

“Oh, well, if you are determined to be sly and deceptive, I’m sure there is nothing I can do about it, and I didn’t come here to quarrel with you but to ask you to please do something at once about Jolly.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Must you be obtuse, as well as sly and deceptive? Of course you know what I mean. You know perfectly well that Jolly loves you; she would now like to resume her relationship with you without the handicap she previously had. I won’t go so far as to say she may have given old Kirby a push out of the boat, but regardless of that, I must say frankly that you have been a failure at taking advantage of the opportunity that has resulted.”

“Am I a disappointment to you?” I asked her.

“Yes, you are, and that is what I have come to talk with you about.”

“How did you know I wouldn’t be going to the funeral?”

Fran shrugged. “I thought it likely that Kirby wouldn’t be much of an attraction for you. I went around to your place and was told that you were here at the college so far as anyone knew, so I came here and waited outside your building on this bench, as you see, and now, in order that we may talk comfortably, I suggest that we go down to the Kernel on the Corner.”

“The Kernel on the Corner? What’s that?”

“Why it’s a place where you can buy beer and have all the popcorn you can eat given to you in a bowl. It’s right on a corner, as the name implies, and it’s quite a nice place if you like beer and popcorn. Hadn’t you ever heard of it?” she asked incredulously.

“No, I hadn’t. Never.”

“Perhaps, being a teacher and interested in things like poems by clerics, you don’t get around much. As for me, I go many places, and this is one of the places I’ve gone. Will you take me there and talk with me?”

“If you like. I’ll even buy you some beer and popcorn.”

“It isn’t necessary to buy the popcorn. It’s given to you in a bowl.”

“Is the place far from here?”

“About two miles, I think. Do you have your car here?”

“It’s down there at the curb.”

“Then there is no problem. We will drive down there and talk about what I have on my mind, and I will warn you in advance that I am rather angry with you for permitting Sid to become jeopardized.”

“Permitting Sid to become what? What the hell are you talking about?” I said.

“Never mind. I’ll explain it very carefully when we have reached the Kernel on the Corner.”

She stood up, and we went down to the Chevvie and got in. After a little coaxing, the Chevvie began to run, and I drove to the Kernel on the Corner according to directions supplied by Fran. It was a clean, plain place, and it was true about the popcorn. A man brought a bowl of it and put it on the table between us, and afterward brought cold draught beer in very large schooners.

“Do you approve of the beer?” Fran said.

“Yes. It seems to be excellent.”

“It seems so to me too. I have recently developed quite a taste for beer, as a matter of fact. I think it began developing when we had so much at the river.”

“We almost had a good time that day, didn’t we? It’s unfortunate that it was spoiled by what happened to Kirby.”

“Kirby was always spoiling something. It was part of his character.”

“Are you prepared now to tell me in what way I am permitting Sid to become jeopardized?”

“Certainly. You are permitting him to become jeopardized by doing absolutely nothing constructive about Jolly.”

“What am I supposed to do in your opinion?”

“Felix, I am positive that you are not so stupid as to need to ask that question seriously, and I consider it further evidence of your determination to be sly and unreasonable. It is clearly apparent that Jolly is not only end-over-elbows in love with you but also quite eager, now that the way is clear, to have you start doing something about it. The trouble is, you have done absolutely nothing and do not show any signs of beginning.”

“Even if I were inclined, it’s a little early, isn’t it? Unless they’ve pushed things pretty fast, Kirby hasn’t even been put away yet.”

“That’s very interesting, Felix. To hear you say that, I mean. It reveals a great deal about your character and explains why it is so seldom that you ever get anywhere with anything.”

“All right. I’m weak.”

“I’m sorry to say it, Felix, but that’s what you are, at least in this matter, and I would never have suspected it up to this time. On the other hand, Sid, of whom no one ever expected anything but foolishness, is behaving with a decision that is admirable, I have to admit, even though he is making a damn fool of himself in the process.”

“In what way is Sid behaving with decision?”

“Don’t you even suspect? Not at all? Well, it’s a fact that he has been silly about Jolly forever and is now making quite a bit of hay with her while you are procrastinating and doing little or nothing.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Nevertheless it is true. I am certain that he has been to bed with her at least once, and what bothers me about it is that Jolly does not love him and will only permit it a few times at most out of kindness and gratitude for Sid’s being so faithful and devoted and all.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious, Felix,” she said sharply. “Do you think I am talking only to hear my head rattle?”

“That’s carrying kindness rather far, even for Jolly, don’t you think?” I asked her.

“No. Not for Jolly. Jolly is definitely one of the kindest persons I have ever known, and most people would not believe how kind she can be.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Well, I called Sid very late the other night, which is something I often do because I am always worrying about him and looking after him, and he wasn’t at home, so I then called Jolly, and he was there. I talked to him and gave him hell for being out so late without letting me know where he was going and all, and the significant thing is that he was in his pajamas at that very time.”

“In his pajamas? How could you tell by talking to him on the telephone?”

“That’s very simple. There is always something in a person’s voice on the telephone that tells you whether or not he is in his pajamas, and I have found this to be infallible.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” I banged down the schooner on the table.

“You may scoff if you like, Felix, but it’s true just the same, and out of consideration for your feelings I will not tell you what I learned from Jolly’s voice as to what she was or was not wearing.”

“Thank you for sparing me.” I tried to sound indignant.

“Well, the point is, as I said, it is only kindness on Jolly’s part, but Sid is a greedy little devil and will not be happy with a temporary thing, and it breaks my heart to think how miserable he will be when Jolly decides that he has been sufficiently humored, and he might even do something desperate, for he is far more sensitive than many people think. I am convinced, however, that he will suffer less if it is over sooner rather than later, and it is for this reason that I wish you would quit procrastinating and start making hay with Jolly yourself. You are the one she loves, and she is only being kind to Sid while she is waiting for you to do something.”

“With me it would be more than kindness. Is that what you think?”

“That goes without saying, Felix. Surely you understand that.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t understand anything or anyone. I don’t understand Jolly or you or Sid or even myself, and the only thing I do understand vaguely is that we are surely all crazy.”

“Nothing of the sort, Felix.” She shook her head, looking at me across the popcorn. “Jolly has told me that you don’t think at all clearly, and I must agree with her. As I see it, this is a very simple problem that can be solved very simply by your doing something instead of nothing.”

Not long ago I had stood on the gravel bar at the river and laughed because I couldn’t help it, and now I felt the same way and wanted to laugh the same way, but I prevented it by taking three grains of popcorn and chewing them slowly and swallowing.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t feel that I can do as you ask.”

“Why not, Felix? It’s for your own good as well as Sid’s.”

“Is it? Anyhow, I can’t do it.”

“Very well. I can see that it’s no use insisting, and I won’t.” She looked into her schooner and saw that it was empty. “Will you have some more beer to go with the popcorn?”

“No, thank you.”

“The beer and the popcorn are both quite good, but they are even better together. Don’t you agree?”

“I agree, but I don’t feel like having any more.”

“In that case, it isn’t necessary for you to remain unless you want to. I have given up getting you to cooperate and now have nothing more to say.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“No. I was angry in the beginning, but now I’m not. I have merely given up.”

“Would you like me to take you somewhere?” I inquired tentatively.

“I think not. I intend to stay here until I’m sure Jolly is home from the funeral, and then I intend to go to her place in a taxi.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you later,” I said.

“Possibly,” she said. “It’s not at all unlikely.”

I left her. But I was going to see her again....

12

The second week of August, which was the last week of the summer session at the college, was much cooler than is usual in August, and there was rain every day for five days. The mornings broke clear, but always before noon the thunderheads would boil up over the edge of the sky and come scudding across before a wind, and it would rain very hard. The gutters of the streets ran full, and after the rain was over, and sometimes before it was over, the kids in the block would be out racing stick boats on the swift water, and it was pretty good to sit in the window with the cool, rain-washed air coming in and watch them and listen to them and remember how it was when I was a kid myself.

Monday evening of that week Jolly called, and I hung up quietly as soon as I heard her voice, and Tuesday evening she called again, and I hung up again, and Wednesday evening she didn’t call. I sat at the window and watched the kids racing stick boats in the gutter and waited for the telephone to ring, but it didn’t. It seemed to me then that it was surely over between us, and I was very glad that the summer session was practically over too, and in a few days I would get out of town, and after a while, with the passing of a little time, life would perhaps be sensible and acceptable and all right again.

This feeling was abortive, however, because she called again Thursday evening, and the first thing she said after I’d said hello was, “Please don’t hang up, Felix,” and I was weak and didn’t. This weakness was not admirable, which I admit, but perhaps it was excusable by reasonable standards of behavior, because it is a rare man, I believe, who can be strong two times in succession without taking the third time out for a rest.

“All right,” I said.

“Are you willing to talk with me?” she said.

“Willing is not quite the word. Let’s say that I’m prepared.”

“Well, I dare say that’s more than I have a right to expect. I’m very grateful to you for not hanging up.”

“Please don’t mention it.”

“Have you been enjoying the cool rain?”

“Yes. The rain has been pleasant.”

“I think so too. Do you know what I’ve been wishing all week? I’ve been wishing that we could go for a walk in it.”

“In the rain?”

“Yes. Walking in the rain is very romantic, and I love to do it. Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Honestly? Don’t you honestly like to walk in the rain?”

Lying through my teeth, I told her, “I honestly don’t. I detest it, in fact. When it rains, I prefer to sit inside and watch it through the window.”

“I enjoy it through the window too, so far as that goes, but not so much as walking in it.” She sounded unsure of herself.

“You are lucky to find so many things so enjoyable. It must make life exceedingly agreeable to you.”

“The truth is, in spite of the rain, I have not been finding life agreeable at all. Would you care to know why?”

“I don’t think so,” I lied again.

“It’s because of what you think of me and our not being together and all that. Have you been lonely for me by any chance?”

“Yes, I have.” No more lies.

“Would you like for me to come over and look through the window with you in case it rains again?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Truly? It would be no imposition, I assure you. I would love to come.”

“I don’t want you to come, Jolly, rain or no rain, now or ever.”

“Is it that you have decided that you don’t love me?”

“On the contrary, I do love you,” I said evenly.

“In that case, I’ll come immediately.”

“In that case, you won’t.”

“You are beyond my power of understanding, Felix. It seems to me that you are constantly befuddled.”

“I know. We’ve been over it before. I’m befuddled and you’re a clear thinker, and neither of us can understand the other, and possibly it’s because I’m a heathen and you’re religious.”

I hung up and went back to the window and watched the kids racing stick boats along the gutter in the street below, and after a while it began to rain again, and the kids all ran for home and disappeared, and it rained all the rest of that day and into the night. The next day was the fifth or sixth day of the second week of August, depending on whether you counted from Sunday or Monday, and it was the last day of the summer session. When it was over I came home and packed a bag, and around six o’clock Harvey came along with six quarts of beer.

“Hello, old boy,” he said.

“Hello, Harvey,” I said.

He sat down on the bed and looked at the bag I’d packed. “Going away?” he said.

“Yes. Aren’t you?”

“I guess so. Tomorrow, I guess.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home. Back to the farm,” he told me — a little dismally, I thought.

“Do your folks live on a farm? I didn’t know that.”

“Oh, yes. In my family, we are all simple rustics, and I’m still a country boy at heart. Would you ever have guessed it?”

“I admit that I wouldn’t have. You certainly fooled me.”

“It’s the truth. I go back every summer, and some day I’m going back and stay and to hell with this God-damn picayune teaching racket.”

“You’re just feeling sour. It’s always like that at the end of a summer session.”

“Sure. And at the end of a fall and winter session, and at the end of a spring session, and at the end of any kind of God-damn session you care to mention. It’s a pick-penny profession, and you’ll have to admit it. Back on the farm, I’ll work a little around the place and swim in the cool creek when the work’s done, and in the evenings I’ll sit under a tree and eat cold watermelon that has been lying all day in the well.”

“You make it sound delightful, Harvey. Quiet and restful and really enchanting. I especially like that part about eating cold watermelon that has lain in the well. I read a story once about some people who sat around eating watermelon like that. As I recall, there didn’t seem to be anything to the story but that, just some people sitting around eating watermelon.”

“I read the story myself. It’s by Erskine Caldwell. However, I must say that my folks are not exactly Caldwell characters. I wouldn’t want to lead you to expect too much, old boy.”

“Even so, it sounds wonderful. I envy you, Harvey.”

“It’s a nice life. Bucolic heaven. There’s only one thing wrong with it.”

“Yes? What’s wrong with it?”

“The simple truth is, it bores the hell out of you after a while.”

“Well, anyhow, it ought to be wonderful for about a month.”

“That’s true. For about a month it’s bucolic heaven. Would you care to come along with me this time? You’d be most welcome, old boy.”

“I’m truly sorry, Harvey, but I can’t. I’ve already made other arrangements.”

“Oh, that’s quite all right. I’m sure that you’d be bored before the month was up, anyhow. Do you object to telling me where you are going?”

“Not at all. I’ve rented a cabin down in the southern part of the state on the Blue River.”

“Really? Isn’t that rather expensive for a pick-penny teacher?”

“Not very. It’s just a simple place with a few cabins and things. Mostly it’s for people who want to fish in the river.”

“Are there trout in the river?”

“I don’t think so. Bass and channel cats, I think, but no trout.”

“Oh, well, bass and channel cats are as fine fish as anyone could want. In my opinion, they are definitely the equal of trout any day of the week.”

“I agree. However, I don’t think I’ll do much fishing myself. What I have in mind is to try to get going with the goliard.”

“Is that so? I admire you tremendously, old boy, for sacrificing your vacation to creative toil. Have you decided definitely to follow my advice regarding a lowly tavern wench and a lean tavern keeper as opposed to a fat one?”

“Yes, I have. I believe the advice is sound, and I intend to follow it.”

“That’s good. I don’t believe that you will regret it.”

He didn’t say anything more for a while, and neither did I, and he sat there on the bed looking down at the six cans of beer, and I could tell by the moisture on the outside that they had been chilled.

“I see you have brought a quantity of beer,” I said.

“Yes.” He looked up at me and down at the beer again. “As a matter of fact, old boy, I debated bringing it because of our recent unfortunate association with the noble brew. I hope I haven’t made a serious mistake.”

“Not at all. It will give me great pleasure to help you get rid of it.”

“You have not been turned against it, then? No psychological twist or anything like that?”

“None whatever.”

“I’m delighted to hear it, old boy. Delighted and relieved. And now that you have set my mind at rest on that score, I’m happy to turn these over to you for opening, and I suggest that we begin disposing of them immediately.”

It began to rain outside, and a breeze came up and through the window, and we sat there in the cool breeze drinking the cold beer. We drank most of it without speaking, and we were pretty well along with the last couple quarts when the rain stopped and the kids came out with their stick boats.

“I have been thinking,” Harvey said, “that a celebration would be in order.”

“Celebration? For what?”

“The closing of school. The sweet reprieve, old boy. What could be more worthy of celebration?”

“Now that you’ve called it to my attention, nothing. What kind of celebration do you have in mind?”

“I was thinking of something rather ripsnorting and hellraising. To tell the truth, I am in the mood for something exceptional. I am aware, however, that such deviations from the routine, even when conducted modestly, are apt to run high. Be honest with me, old boy. Do you have a bit laid by that you would be willing to squander in riotous living?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. My interest in this celebration is increasing, and I’m prepared to make an investment in it.”

“Good for you. It gives me pleasure to see you exhibit this fine spirit. How substantial an investment are you prepared to make?”

“I regret that it must be limited, but I am willing to go as high as twenty-five dollars if necessary.”

“Quite acceptable, old boy. The returns on an investment of that amount should be quite solid, especially if you are willing to drink simple highballs instead of fancier concoctions.” He spoke with fastidious enunciation.

“It’s agreed, then, that we will purchase a little loose living in the amount of twenty-five dollars apiece in celebration of being temporarily out of employment. Where shall we start?”

“I don’t want to dictate the program, so I suggest that we go down to Nick’s for a steak and come to an agreement at our leisure.”

“That’s a good idea, and I go along with it. As a matter of fact, the mention of steak reminds me that I’m hungry. My appetite, in spite of recent disasters, has picked up considerably the last few days. It’s because of the rain and cool air, I think.”

“I’ve noticed the same improvement in my own appetite, and you are almost certainly correct in your diagnosis. Rain and cool air will invariably work wonders,” Harvey said very solemnly.

We finished the last two cans of beer and went downstairs and stood on the sidewalk looking at our cars parked at the curb.

“We must decide which car we are going to take,” Harvey said.

“Which one would be less likely to break down, do you think?”

“I don’t want to malign your car, old boy, but mine has recently had a ring job and new spark plugs. Does yours have anything that would entitle it to equal consideration?”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said, perhaps a little thickly. “I concede that your car must be considered the more reliable.”

“That’s extremely honest of you, old boy. Fair’s fair, and I can always count on you to recognize it, and my car is the one we will go in.”

13

We drove to Nick’s and went inside and sat at one of the tables with red-checked cloths. Nick waved and nodded and smiled, and Irene came over to the table with her nice, large movement and looked down at us with an expansive display of remarkable teeth.

“Hello, you two,” she said.

I said hello, and so did Harvey.

“How’s George?” Harvey added.

“George is fine. Fine and faithful.”

“Is that so? It makes me sad to hear it. I was hoping that you had embarked on separate careers of infidelity.”

“No, we keep the faith. In spite of temptation, we adhere to our vows.”

“In that case, I don’t suppose you would be interested in participating in a ripsnorting celebration?”

“With whom and why?”

“With Felix and me, because school is out and we are happily unemployed. We have allotted ourselves twenty-five dollars worth of frivolity apiece, and we would be happy to cut you in for a full third without monetary remuneration.”

“What kind of remuneration would be expected?”

“That is something we could work out together at the proper time.”

She patted Harvey on the head and showed her remarkable teeth.

“Oh, you are a temptation to me. You are a constant temptation.”

“Is it agreed, then, that you will go?”

“No, it is not agreed. I must decline your very kind invitation with thanks,” Irene said.

“Do you understand that we are going away tomorrow? Are you perfectly aware that it will be a full month before you will see us again?”

Irene sighed. “My heart is heavy with the knowledge, but I must still decline the invitation.”

“That being so, you may offer my regards to George and bring me a filet with mushrooms.”

“I’ll have a filet too,” I said.

“Filets yet,” she said. “We really are celebrating, aren’t we?”

“And a baked potato with sour cream sauce,” Harvey said.

“As for me,” I said, “I will have butter on my potato instead of sour cream.”

“And beer to begin,” she said. “Naturally you will have beer.”

“Naturally,” Harvey said.

She moved largely and nicely away, and Harvey watched her and sighed.

“That George,” he said. “He is a great nuisance.”

“He certainly is,” I said.

“I can’t understand it. It seems to me to go against the laws of nature.”

“Perhaps it is more a matter of the laws of economics.”

“I see what you mean, and you have surely made a pertinent point. These days, a brick layer has all the advantages over a mathematics teacher.”

“Especially a brick layer with an Olds Ninety-Eight convertible.”

“That’s true. It is almost impossible to compete with an Olds Ninety-Eight.”

“It is certainly difficult, anyhow. An Olds Ninety-Eight is only slightly less formidable than a Cadillac.”

“May I take that remark to be a specific reference?”

“As a friend and good companion, you may.”

“Thanks, old boy. I only wanted to ask if you have seen Jolly since the recent lamentable episode at the river.”

“I have seen her, and I have talked with her on the telephone.”

“Is that all? I thought that the pair of you would now, perhaps, make a little better time.”

“You were mistaken. We are not making any time at all.”

“Really? I’m astonished and puzzled. Would you care to explain why it is that you’re making no time?”

“I have just decided that it would not be a good thing, that’s all.”

“Well, I can only say that it seems a damned peculiar time to make such a decision. Just when the way has been cleared for you and everything, I mean.”

“However peculiar it may seem, that’s what I have decided.”

“Look here, old boy. You aren’t letting this thing mess you up, are you? You know what I mean. Guilt feelings and all that? Some idea of giving her up to pay for your sins or something?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure? If it’s something like that, I happen to know a damn good psychiatrist over at medical center who could straighten you out in jig time.”

“It’s nothing of the sort, I tell you. I’m perfectly all right.”

“I’m very fond of you, you know, and I wouldn’t want to see you develop one of these nasty mental things that people are always coming up with for one reason or another.”

“Thank you, Harvey, but it is unnecessary for you to worry about it at all.”

We drank some beer, and Irene brought the steaks and things. The steaks were thick and of large size and covered with an excellent mushroom sauce. In placing Harvey’s plate in front of him, it was necessary for Irene to reach across his shoulder, and he turned his head to look at the closest part of her.

Irene left, and we ate. We also talked about the possible advantages of going to Sylvester’s.

Harvey said, “I can’t think of anyplace where we could be relieved of fifty clams with more dispatch than at Sylvester’s.”

“True. Sylvester has made a fine art of cutting throats. However, there will be compensation. Gloria Finch is singing at Sylvester’s this week, and I have it from an eye-and-ear witness that she is always well oiled for the late shows, at which times she gets dirty and frequently removes an article or two of clothing. This is all the more interesting because an article or two is all she wears to start with, and never more than three. Do you think we could stretch our clams to the late shows?”

“Well, teachers are of necessity about as good at stretching clams as it is possible to be. If we can’t do it, it can’t be done.”

“You have expressed yourself tersely, lucidly and with truth, and it is a pleasure to be in your company. Shall we go to Sylvester’s? It is now seven-thirty, and it will take us a good half hour to get downtown.”

“In your car, it may even take longer.”

“That’s true. I admit that even with a ring job and new spark plugs, my car is capable of no more than an adequate performance.”

“It was rude of me to mention it.” I waved a finger at him.

“Not at all. Truth is truth, and adequate is adequate. I understand that you meant no offense, and none is taken.”

We got up and went over to the cash register and paid for our steaks and said goodbye to Nick. He said he was sad to see us go and would be looking forward to our return. Irene was busy waiting on a man and two women at a table and did not see us leave.

“Tell Irene goodbye for us,” Harvey said. “Tell her it was much easier this way.”

Nick laughed at the little joke and held his sides.

“Much easier,” Harvey said.

We went out to Harvey’s car and got in, and it performed adequately and got us downtown to Sylvester’s in forty minutes. It was getting dark, and the lights were on, all the neons and fluorescents and incandescents, and there wasn’t really much to what we were doing or intended doing, but there was a kind of excitement in it nevertheless.

14

“Having had two of them,” Harvey said, “I am prepared to say that the drinks are adequate.”

“At a clam per,” I said, “they can afford to be adequate.”

“That’s true,” Harvey agreed. “There is no question that we are paying dearly for reputation and atmosphere, to say nothing of the possible improvisations of Gloria Finch.”

“Diddle Gloria Finch,” I said.

“Well,” Harvey said, “I’ve heard that it can be done, but it would undoubtedly cost more than the fifty clams we have agreed to spend between us.”

We sat at the bar, which was a very fancy bar with extremely efficient bartenders, and all around us was a lot of glass and leather and stuff that may have been made of bronze, and there was a kind of period effect to it all, lush and regal and sort of modified Victorian or something, and the report was that Sylvester was a guy who prided himself on not going too far over on the modern side. This distaste for the modern did not extend, however, to modern prices, and Sylvester’s was a poor place to go looking for a two-bit beer or a four-bit shot, and in fact you would have grown old and gray and eventually quite dead before you ever found them.

There had not been many patrons there when we first came, but we had nursed the two drinks over a considerable period of time, which is only good economics at a clam per, and people had kept coming in and dispersing along the bar and among the tables, and now there were quite a few of them. There was a small orchestra that played smoothly and softly and without distinction, and a number of the men patrons danced with an equal number of women patrons on a small dance floor that required minimum movement and maximum contact. I watched the dancing patrons in the mirror behind the bar, and I began remembering the poem I had recited to Jolly and Fran and Sid at Jolly’s house, the one about the medieval university student who had gone down among the maidens and the dancing feet, but there was a gaiety and abandon in the poem that was lacking in the present reality, and all in all the comparison was unfortunate and did little or nothing to support the spirit of celebration. I ordered third drinks for Harvey and me and kept watching what went on in the glass, and there all of a sudden, was Fran getting closer and closer.

“There’s Fran,” I said.

“Where?” Harvey said.

“In the glass behind the bar.”

He looked and found her and nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s certainly Fran. Do you think she’s seen us?”

“I do.”

“Would you say that she is merely approaching the bar, or would you say that she is approaching us specifically and the bar incidentally?”

“Us specifically.”

“That’s what I thought myself,” he said. “What a shame that I’ve shaved off my whiskers.”

We continued to watch her, and she got up to us and put one arm around Harvey’s neck and the other one around mine.

“Hello, you guys,” she said.

“Greetings,” I said.

“And salutations,” Harvey said.

She turned her head one way and kissed Harvey on the right cheek, and then turned it the other way and kissed me on the left cheek.

“It’s impossible for me to say how happy I am to see you,” she said.

“We are happy to see you too,” Harvey said. “At least I’m happy, and I’m sure I speak truthfully for Felix also. Is it true that you are happy to see Fran again, Felix?”

“I’m happy and delighted,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “I must say that you guys seem very gay.”

“We are,” I said. “We resolved to be gay, and that’s what we are.”

“In fact,” Harvey said, “we are celebrating the temporary termination of bondage.”

“Bondage?” Fran said. “Are you out on bail or something?”

“Not at all.” Harvey spoke with dignity and drained the glass that had contained his third drink. “What I mean is, school is out, and this is a happy occasion that is generally celebrated one way or another by all concerned. When I was a kid, I used to celebrate it by taking off my shoes. Now I celebrate it in the company of a true friend by submitting my throat to Sylvester’s painless butchery.”

Fran snorted, “Well, come and submit it across the room. Jolly’s waiting for us there.”

“Do you mean that you and Jolly are here at Sylvester’s by yourselves?” I asked her.

“Of course not, Felix. It wouldn’t be proper for Jolly and me to come here unescorted, and moreover Sylvester wouldn’t permit it. Sid has come with us, and I can’t understand, anyhow, why you have to be so curious. The point is, you are invited to come and sit with us at our table, and I am here to deliver the invitation.”

“We accept with pleasure,” Harvey said.

“Speaking for myself,” I said, “I decline with regret.”

“Well, that makes no sense whatever,” Fran said. “If you decline with regret, why decline at all?”

“It may have slipped your mind,” I said, “that Jolly has only recently buried a husband, and it is my opinion that a new widow is no asset to a celebration.”

“But you are absolutely mistaken,” she said. “As you surely remember, Kirby never contributed much to a party, and things are likely to go much better and livelier without him.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Isn’t it? Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what the point is.”

“I’ll be happy to. The point is, it seems damn indecent for a live widow to be cavorting around so soon after burying a dead husband.”

“As one who may himself become a dead husband in the future,” Harvey said, “I am inclined to be rather sympathetic to that view.”

“Oh, poop!” Fran said. “I’ve never before heard such nonsense in all my life. If you want my opinion, Kirby has had all the mourning he deserves, and I myself urged Jolly to come out on a party and be gay.”

“Come to think of it,” Harvey said, “Kirby was certainly a fellow who went around hitting far too many people, and I am now in sympathy with your point of view, Fran, as opposed to Felix’s. I am definitely in favor of joining Jolly and Sid.”

“There you are, Felix,” Fran said. “Although you are supposed to be Harvey’s friend, you are depriving him of a simple pleasure because of a perfectly ridiculous personal feeling. What kind of friend is that, I’d like to know.”

“Would it give you pleasure to go?” I said to Harvey.

“It truly would,” he said. “In fact, I see the prospect of an exciting time. I have not shaved since morning, and if the celebration extends itself sufficiently there’s a chance I may be able to produce discernible whiskers before it’s over.”

“Oh, say,” Fran said, “that would be exciting! Felix, you are simply obligated to come, and that’s all there is to it.”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll come in order to give pleasure to Harvey, but first I must have another drink.”

“I’m agreeable to that,” Harvey said. “I wouldn’t at all object to another drink myself.”

“I confess that I wouldn’t, either,” Fran said. “We’ll all have one together to prepare ourselves for others that will come later.”

We had the drink and then went over to the table where Jolly was sitting with Sid. Jolly was wearing a black dress that was cut quite low between her small breasts, and she looked very young and a little tired, and this appearance of youngness and tiredness was somehow paradoxical, or at least unusual, and made her strongly appealing.

Sid stood up and made a business of shaking hands. He seemed to have forgotten all about the last thing I’d said to him the morning we last saw each other at Jolly’s.

“How are you, Felix,” he said.

“I’m very lonely,” I said, “and longing for love and comfort.”

“They’re actually celebrating,” Fran said.

Sid scowled briefly at Fran’s remark, and then he signaled a waiter to bring two more chairs, which the waiter did, and we sat down. While the waiter was there, everyone ordered a drink, and Harvey started telling how he was a country boy and was going back to the farm to eat watermelons. I was sitting next to Jolly, and she put one of her knees against one of mine and held it there.

“Isn’t it odd,” she said, “how we just happened to come here the same night and all, especially when neither of us hardly ever comes here at all?”

“It is,” I said. “It’s destiny or something.”

Fran was talking with Harvey, and now she looked at him with an incredulous expression.

“Naked?” she said. “Actually naked?”

“Certainly naked,” Harvey said. “It’s only a lousy little creek with no one around for miles.”

“Nevertheless,” Fran said, “I find it incredible and fascinating that a grown man would swim in anything whatever with absolutely nothing on.” She turned to me. “Tell the truth, Felix. Have you ever swum naked in a creek?”

“As a boy,” I said, “I regularly swam naked in a creek, and as a man I have done it off and on as the opportunities presented themselves.”

“It’s a common practice,” Harvey said.

Sid observed that the conversation was silly, and that started an argument between him and Fran. As usual.

“I suggest we all have another drink,” I said.

“That’s a good idea,” Jolly said. “Let’s all have another drink, as Felix suggests, and then go somewhere else where it’s a little more exciting. I must say that I find Sylvester’s quite dull and disappointing. It’s overrated, that’s what it is.”

“Everyone knows that,” Fran said. “Everyone knows it’s overrated, but everyone keeps coming here just the same. Isn’t that odd?”

“It’s a habit,” Harvey said. “People are creatures of habit.”

Sid had got the attention of a waiter, and everyone began saying that he would have the same as before, and eventually the waiter got it straight as to what it was that everyone had had.

“Does everyone consent to going somewhere else where it is more exciting?” Jolly asked.

“Well,” Harvey said, “I was rather counting on catching Gloria Finch in a late act.”

“Don’t bother, Harvey,” Jolly said. “Gloria Finch is a cow.”

“Is that so?” Harvey said. “She doesn’t look like a cow in her pictures.”

“Her pictures are deceptive. It’s the way they use lights and things. It’s downright criminal the way they use lights and things to make women like Gloria Finch look like they aren’t cows.”

“Is it true that she sometimes improvises on the act in the way of discarding articles of clothing?”

“I understand that it’s true, but I maintain that it is no particular pleasure to see a cow without clothing.”

“That would depend on the cow,” Harvey said, “and I still think it might be interesting to see it.”

“Oh, come on, Harvey,” Fran said, “give it up. Perhaps I can arrange something for you a little later in the evening.”

“In that case,” Harvey said, “I’ll give it up.”

“Well, I’ll be God-damned,” Sid said.

Fran looked at him and started to say something, but at that moment the waiter brought the drinks, and everyone started drinking instead of talking.

“Since it’s agreed that we will go somewhere else,” Jolly said after a while, “it is now necessary to decide where it will be. Does anyone have an idea?”

“I have an idea,” Sid said.

Fran lowered her glass and stared at him for a moment with wide eyes.

“Really, Sid? Is it actually true that you have an idea?”

“I do,” Sid said with dignity. “It is my idea that we should go to Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House.”

“Hallelujah House?”

“That’s what it’s called. The reason it’s called that is because it’s a bar in front and a kind of tabernacle in back. There’s a preacher there who keeps exhorting about the evils of drink, and the thing to do is to drink in the front part and then go back and listen to the preacher, and after the preacher has worked up a good sweat sending you to hell for drinking, it becomes a kind of moral obligation to go back and drink some more in the front room so that he can have another whack at you, and all in all this keeps going on and on, and it’s very good for business. Besides the money he takes up in collections, it’s reported that the preacher gets a weekly salary from the till at the bar.”

“Sid,” Fran said, “you’re drunk on sociable drinks, and there isn’t a word of truth in you.”

“It’s true,” Sid said. “It’s true, and I can take you there to prove it.”

“Yes,” Harvey said, “it’s definitely true. I remember hearing of the place myself, now that Sid has mentioned it, and I admit that I am anxious to go.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Fran said. “Imagine old Sid knowing about a place like that.”

“I propose that we leave for the Hallelujah House immediately,” Jolly said. “Do you have your car, Felix?”

“No. We’re in Harvey’s.”

“Well, anyhow, we will have to divide into two groups, and Sid will have to go in the first car in order to guide us.”

“I’ll go with Sid and Fran,” Harvey said, “and Jolly and Felix can follow in my car.”

We finished the drinks and went outside and across the street to the garage where we had left the cars. Jolly and Fran and Sid had come in the Caddy that had been Kirby’s and was now Jolly’s, and Fran and Sid and Harvey got into it. Jolly sat very close to me in the front seat of Harvey’s old crate, and we followed the shining Caddy out into the country to the place that Sid had told us about.

15

It was a big wooden building that looked like a barn, except that the roof wasn’t hipped as a barn’s usually is, and all around it was a gravel parking area with a lot of cars parked in it. We stopped our own among the others and got out and went inside, and the interior was divided almost equally by a partition into the front room, which was the bar, and the back room, which was what they called the tabernacle. The bar ran along the partition side of the front room, and apparently the pulpit in the back room was also right against the partition, and sometimes when the preacher was going good and loud, it was necessary to bellow at the bartender in order to make him understand what it was you wanted. The entrance to the tabernacle was at the right end of the bar as you faced it, and this arrangement was deliberately contrived so that those at the bar could catch a few words of exhortation if they cared to listen and slip easily around behind the partition to be personally threatened with hell’s fire if the spirit moved them.

There was a huge and gaudy juke box in the room, but it was disconnected at night when the tabernacle was open, because it interfered with the singing of hymns. The bartender was a massive black man with a completely naked scalp and a high shine and an incredible number of glittering gold teeth which were constantly in evidence, and it turned out that this bartender was no one but Prince Sam himself. The patrons were light and dark, about evenly divided, and they sat at the bar and at tables in a sea of sawdust. The sawdust was shaped to form a narrow path around the end of the bar and through the door into the tabernacle, and there was a big sign with a flaming arrow pointing toward the door, and printed in red block letters below the arrow were the words: THE SAWDUST TRAIL.

“This is obviously an interesting and busy establishment,” Jolly said, “and it is my opinion that it would greatly simplify matters if we were all to order the same thing to drink.”

“I agree, Jolly,” Fran said, “and I am also convinced that we had better keep the drink itself on the simple side, for I have a feeling that Prince Sam would be impatient with such things as martinis and manhattans and similar elaborate mixtures.”

“True,” Jolly said. “Prince Sam, in spite of his passion for gold teeth, is obviously a simple fellow, and I have an idea that he might take it as an insult if we were to order anything more complicated than a highball. I require a little sweetness with my whiskey, and I therefore suggest bourbon in ginger ale.”

“Is bourbon and ginger ale satisfactory to everyone?” Fran asked.

“Hell, no,” Harvey said. “There’s a very popular theory that people who put ginger ale into whiskey drinks ought to be shot. I want soda.”

I asked for soda too, and murmured that I subscribed to the shooting theory. Nobody seemed to hear me.

There were no waiters or waitresses, and it was clearly the custom for people at the tables to go to the bar for their own drinks, so we found a table and sat down, all of us except Sid, and Sid remained at the bar to deliver the order. The preacher behind the partition was exhorting loudly at the moment about the evils of hard liquor, and it was his position that it was the devil’s drink, which was not in my opinion a particularly original position among preachers, and every once in a while the exhortation would be punctuated by someone in the congregation shouting amen or hallelujah, and one penitent kept disturbing the sermon by shouting that he was nothing but a bum and had always been nothing but a bum from an early age but that he had now seen the light and was resolved to do better in the future, and this penitent made such a nuisance of himself that he was finally ejected forcibly from the tabernacle. He returned to the bar and started drinking again, and at that time Sid came over to our table with the five bourbons in ginger ale on a tin tray. He sat down and spread the glasses around, and Fran looked at him sternly.

“Sid,” she said, “you sneaky little bastard, you’re always talking about being a sociable drinker and turning up your snotty nose at honest folk who drink for sensible reasons, and all the time you knew all about this Hallelujah House and have obviously been coming here regularly, because you call Prince Sam by name and are clearly acquainted with him.”

“I come here now and then to study human nature,” Sid said.

“Did you hear that?” Fran appealed to the rest of us. “I have absolutely devoted years of my life to establishing a spirit of confidence and trust between me and this little sneak, and now I discover that he has the effrontery and ingratitude to lie to me in a perfectly brazen manner.” She turned and concentrated on Sid again. “What’s the matter with you, Sid? In what way have I failed you? Why is it that you can’t simply confess that you’ve been an underhanded alcoholic all this time you’ve been trying to act so virtuous and everything?”

“Damn it,” said Sid, “I am not an alcoholic. I come here to study human nature, and take an infrequent drink in the process out of deference to Prince Sam’s business. I am a very serious student of human nature, to tell the truth, and you have simply never understood me.”

“I certainly concede that,” Fran said. “I concede that I have not fully understood you, and I don’t mind admitting that I am positively stunned. I really can’t understand how you could have been a confirmed alcoholic all this time without my even suspecting it.”

Sid gulped some of his drink desperately, and Fran drank some of hers sadly, and the rest of us drank some of ours in our own ways for our own reasons. In the tabernacle, someone banged out a few chords on a piano, and the congregation began to bawl out the words of a hymn.

Jolly contacted me with a knee and said, “I find that quite appealing, Felix, I really do. Don’t you find it appealing?”

“It’s good and loud,” I said.

“The thing about it is,” she said, “it just shows what can be done in the matter of getting along with each other when people only try. I consider Prince Sam truly noble to permit the tabernacle to exist in his back room.”

“He is not only noble but also very shrewd, and I would bet dollars to dimes that this combination is one that results in a fat bank account.”

“Are you being cynical, Felix? I wish you wouldn’t be cynical.”

“I am not being cynical. I am only pointing out that those who have repented and received salvation are apt to have a drink in their rejoicing, and those who have been convinced of their damnation are apt to have several in their despair.”

“Well, I confess that it may be incidentally true, but I can’t accept it as Prince Sam’s calculated purpose. His brow is far too noble for it. I am tremendously impressed by his noble brow. Have you noticed it?”

“I am of the opinion that the nobility of his brow is exaggerated by the baldness of his head.”

“Felix, darling, you depress me. This is because I love you and am vulnerable where you are concerned, and it disturbs me to see the deterioration of your character. I have noticed this deterioration especially in our personal relationship.”

“Is that so? I was under the impression that my character had lately become irreproachable in our relationship.”

“That’s because you are chronically befuddled, Felix, and can’t tell the difference between nobility and simple pig-headedness.”

“Do you feel, perhaps, that I should take turns with Sid?”

“What?”

“Never mind. I concede that I’m a degenerate in order to end this discussion.”

We had by this time finished the first round of drinks, and Sid gathered the glasses and put them on the tin tray and returned to the bar for refills. Fran watched him go and made a tch-ing sound with her tongue against her teeth.

“I absolutely cannot comprehend the monstrous deception of that little devil,” she said. “It is terribly disconcerting to think that you know someone like the palm of your own hand and then to discover suddenly that you have been deceived all along.”

“Perhaps you haven’t been deceived after all,” Harvey said. “Maybe he was telling the truth about being a student of human nature and all that. Sometimes these small quiet guys turn out to be something you’re least likely to suspect.”

“I accept your final remark as being incontrovertible,” Fran said, “and what Sid has certainly turned out to be that I didn’t suspect is a barfly at best. This is evident from his confession that he has been frequenting Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House for some time, and anyone who has even an infrequent drink from the hands of Prince Sam must have a powerful taste for whiskey because, except for a couple of ice cubes, that’s practically all the drinks consist of. Have you noticed that?”

“I certainly have,” I said, “and I’m wondering how he can make any profit serving such drinks.”

“It’s because he doesn’t hire any waiters or waitresses,” Harvey said. “Except for the preacher, he doesn’t hire anyone at all, which amounts to a large saving in overhead, and he is able to share this saving with the customers in the form of whiskey.”

“Which is truly noble of him,” Jolly said. “If we are honest, we will all admit that Prince Sam is a noble man of color.”

Sid came back with the second round of drinks, and the service ended in the tabernacle, and the congregation came out going the wrong way on the sawdust trail and lined up two deep at the bar. One of the men came past our table, carrying his glass, and Jolly reached up and took him by the arm and stopped him. He stood looking down at her politely, his mouth stretching in a great smile, white within crimson within chocolate.

“Have you been to the service?” Jolly said.

“Yes,” he said. “It was a fine service. Brother Shark is in exceptionally fine form tonight.”

“I especially enjoyed the hymns. We could hear them quite clearly on this side of the partition.”

“Thank you very much.”

He was extremely polite, concentrating on it and making a great effort so that no one could possibly think that he had been in the least otherwise.

“Is anyone permitted to attend the services?” Jolly said.

“Oh, yes. It is not only permitted, it is expected. It is considered a courtesy to Brother Shark.”

“Brother Shark is the preacher?”

“Yes. Brother Shark is the preacher’s name.”

“When does the next service begin?”

“There is a thirty minute interval between services.”

“Thank you.”

She took her hand off his arm, and he nodded and stretched his smile a little wider and went away.

“He was quite charming, wasn’t he?” Jolly said. “Don’t you think he was charming, Fran?”

“Yes, I do,” Fran said. “He was charming and polite.”

“As for me,” Jolly said, “I am determined to attend the next service out of courtesy to Brother Shark. Will anyone attend the next service with me?”

“Not I,” Sid said. “I consider it sacrilegious to have services in the back room of a tavern, and I don’t intend to go.”

“The trouble with you, Sid,” Jolly said, “is that you have no imagination and no spirit of cooperation whatever.”

“Nevertheless,” Sid said, “I don’t intend to go.”

Jolly shrugged and turned to me. “How about you, Felix? Will you attend the next service with me?”

“I’m willing to go,” I said, “but I confess that it is more out of curiosity than out of courtesy to Brother Shark.”

“As a scientific teacher of mathematics,” Harvey said, “I am personally of the opinion that Brother Shark is an unmitigated rascal whose only interest is in the till.”

“Well, never mind, Jolly,” Fran said. “Felix and Harvey, as you know, are confirmed heathens and cannot be expected to behave in a Christian manner.”

“I suppose,” Sid said to Fran, “that you count yourself among the Christians?”

“Certainly,” Fran said. “I am not so religious as Jolly, who will not even tolerate a vulgar parody of a sacred hymn, but I am nevertheless a true Christian in my own way.”

Sid said a dirty word and drained his glass. The strong drinks of Prince Sam on top of the medium drinks of Sylvester were making him exceptionally independent. They also seemed to be making him rather sleepy. His eyes looked foggy and the lids hung down over them about half way. He sat slumped in his chair with his arms stretched out straight in front of him and the empty glass in his hand and his eyes focused on the glass.

“I suggest that we all have another drink,” Harvey said.

Sid roused himself and gathered the glasses and carried them off to the bar. Because of his previous contacts with Prince Sam, he had assumed the right to act as waiter and would not relinquish the job to anyone else. After a while he came back with the third round, and we started working on it, and we finished it in good time and somehow got started on another, and about that time someone started playing the piano in the tabernacle again, and it was time for the service that Jolly and I were going to.

We decided that it would be a good idea to take a fresh drink to service with us, since it would probably be quite a while before we would have an opportunity to buy another, so we stopped at the bar and got the drinks and carried them down the sawdust trail into the tabernacle and sat down on a hard bench. There was a small pulpit standing near the partition, and Brother Shark was standing behind the pulpit, and about six or eight people came to the service besides Jolly and me, but Jolly was the only woman. Brother Shark was very tall and thin and had enormous ears and a conspicuous and active thyroid cartilage, and at first I thought it was only because I was drunk and inclined to see things in a grandiose way, but Jolly said afterward that she was of the same impression, and I am prepared to swear that Brother Shark was in fact seven feet tall if an inch.

This was really rather alarming under the circumstances because he kept weaving back and forth and was prevented from falling only by the presence of the pulpit, and it was pretty obvious all in all that he had taken advantage of the intermission between services to bend his elbow several times. It was my opinion, in fact, that he was as drunk as a lord, and I recall that I expressed this opinion in good faith and was called a heathen by Jolly, who expressed the belief that Brother Shark was merely exhausted from his labors, and I wish I could recall the sermon, what was said and all, but the truth is, all I can remember clearly is finishing my drink immediately after the invocation and putting a dollar in the collection plate when it came past just before the benediction. Jolly told me that I shook hands with Brother Shark at the end and introduced myself as a scout for the Harlem Globe Trotters, but I consider this unlikely, though I can’t actually deny it.

We went back into the tavern and found a couple of empty stools at the bar and spent some time on them, and it was actually quite a bit of time, I think, which encompassed the consumption of several of Prince Sam’s good strong drinks, and then we went on back to the table and found Fran examining Harvey’s cheek to see if the whiskers were yet discernible and Sid sitting slumped over with his head on his arms on the tabletop. Every once in a while, he would shudder and make a strange bubbling sound, something like a death rattle, and it was pretty terrible to hear but did not seem to be in the least disconcerting to Fran and Harvey.

“What’s the matter with old Sid?” I said.

“He sounds as if he might be dying,” Jolly said.

Fran looked up at us and patted Sid’s head without shifting the direction of her gaze.

“Nothing of the sort. He has simply passed out, and I am quite relieved about it, to tell the truth, because now it is certain that I accused him unjustly of being an alcoholic.”

“I agree that it’s unlikely that an alcoholic would have passed out so quickly,” Jolly said.

“Yes,” Fran said, “that must be accepted. As he tried to tell us, he is actually no more than a simple sociable drinker and student of human nature. I did him a grave injustice, and no one will ever know how terrible I feel about it.”

Tears began running down her cheeks, and Harvey said, “Don’t cry, Fran, don’t cry,” so she quit and began rubbing a hand over his cheek.

“I think I feel something,” she said.

“What I think,” I said, “is that we had all better go home.”

“I’m willing to go home,” Fran said, “but I insist upon going with Harvey.”

“I insist upon that too,” Harvey said.

“As for me,” Jolly said, “I am responsible for Sid’s being here, and now that he has made a nuisance of himself and passed out, I will assume the responsibility for getting him home.”

“Perhaps I had better go along with you to help,” I said.

“No.” Jolly shook her head. “Sid lives quite near me, and it will not be much if any out of the way, and if you came along I would have to make a long drive to your place, and I am in no condition for it.”

She seemed quite determined about it for some reason or other, that I shouldn’t go, and so I didn’t press it, but I couldn’t understand it.

“Perhaps you and Fran wouldn’t mind dropping me off,” I said to Harvey.

“Not at all, old boy,” Harvey said. “We will be happy to drop you off, won’t we, Fran?”

“Yes,” Fran said. “You can depend upon it, Felix, that we will be happy to drop you off as quickly as possible.”

“In that case,” I said, “I’ll just get Sid into Jolly’s Caddy.”

He didn’t weigh much, and Harvey helped, and we got him out and into the car. Jolly got in under the wheel beside him.

“Are you certain you are capable of driving, Jolly?” Fran said.

“Certainly,” Jolly said. “I am perfectly capable.”

She backed the Caddy and turned it and drove out of the parking area, and she seemed to do everything efficiently in spite of Prince Sam’s strong highballs. Fran and Harvey were already in Harvey’s crate, and I got in with them, and they took me home.

16

The telephone was ringing and ringing and wouldn’t quit. I got up slowly and went over to it, and my head expanded and contracted with a painful rhythm, and my tongue felt dead in my mouth. Sunlight entered the window from the east and crossed the floor in a broad swath.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello,” Jolly said. “Is that you, Felix?”

I stood for a moment and watched dust particles moving lazily in the slanting shaft of light.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m very glad you’re home, because I need you quite desperately, and you must come over at once.”

“Must I? Why?”

“I told you, Felix. I need you.”

“I need you too. I admit now that I need you like the devil, but I am determined nevertheless to survive without you.”

“Oh, Felix, please don’t be contrary. Something terrible has happened, and I don’t know what to do about it, and you simply must come at once.”

“What’s happened?”

“Well, it’s difficult to talk about, but Sid is here, and he seems to be dead.”

I thought about this briefly without any particular feeling because it seemed to me wholly incredible, there being a heroic dimension and dignity to dying that was surely beyond Sid’s attainment.

“Sid?” I said. “Sid dead?”

“Yes.”

“Are you certain?”

“He is quite cold and everything, Felix, and he doesn’t move, and I am certain that he is dead.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

I hung up and stood there feeling the rhythmic pumping of my head. The dust particles moved in the shaft of light. The idea of Sid’s being dead still seemed fantastic, and I was not inclined to believe it. I moved through the light and the dust and began to dress and after a while was down in the Chevvie in the street. The Chevvie didn’t want to run, but I insisted, and it finally did. It was a few minutes after ten when it started, and it took me twenty minutes to get it to Jolly’s. I left it at the curb and went inside and found Jolly in the living room. She was sitting in a chair with her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes in the dusk of drawn drapes looked abnormally large and darkly luminous.

“Thank you for coming, Felix,” she said.

Her voice was small and handled the ridiculously formal little expression of gratitude as if it were extremely precarious business. I didn’t say anything in response, just staring at her, and she got up unhurriedly and put her arms around me. Her body was quiet against mine, only her breasts moving softly in the act of breathing, and I could feel her warm breath on the side of my neck. I let her hold me and submitted passively to the pain of wanting her, but I did not touch her with my hands.

“Where’s Sid?” I said at last.

“He’s in the garage,” she said.

I put my hands on her then, on her shoulders, and pushed her away.

“In the garage? What the hell’s he doing there?”

“He isn’t doing anything, Felix. Being dead, he’s just lying there and doing nothing at all.”

“Damn it, Jolly, that’s not what I mean. I mean, why did he go to the garage in the first place?”

“Well, it’s very reasonable, and I’m perfectly willing to tell you all about it, but first I think we had better go look at him and decide what we are going to do about him and all that. Don’t you think so?”

I didn’t want to go or see him or have anything at all to do with him, but it was necessary to go and see him and do something with him just the same, which was a necessity I could recognize in spite of not wanting to, and so I went. I turned and went out into the hall and back through the kitchen and out into the back yard and down across the yard to the garage, and Jolly came after me. We went into the garage through a small side door, which was standing open, and the big Caddy sat there gleaming and quiet in the interior dusk. Sid was lying on the floor behind the car with his head directly under the exhaust pipe, and the heavy, jointed garage door had been pulled down from overhead and fastened on the inside. He was lying on his side with his face turned so that he seemed to be staring along the floor under the car, and one arm was extended on the concrete as if he had been stretching it out for something that he had wanted and desperately needed and had not reached. I knelt beside him and looked at him closely, and he seemed somehow very small and shrunken and terribly isolated and immune, and I didn’t bother to touch him because he was obviously dead and had been dead for a long time. Standing, I went back along the side of the Caddy, the shining, impersonal murderer, and looked in through the glass of the front door and saw that the ignition was on and the gas gauge registering empty. Jolly was watching me from her position near the small door through which we had entered, and I could hear quite distinctly in that quiet place the measured sound of her breathing. The gas was still heavy, and my head was beginning to hurt, and I went on past her and outside.

She followed me and said, “You see? As I told you, he is dead.”

“Why didn’t you call a doctor?” I said.

“Doctor? Why on earth should I call a doctor, Felix? It is impossible for a doctor to help anyone who is dead.”

“Nevertheless, calling a doctor would have been appropriate under the circumstances. It’s what almost anyone would have done to start with.”

“Well, it didn’t seem appropriate to me, and the truth is, I didn’t even consider it after discovering that he was dead.”

“That’s because you think clearly, I guess. You don’t seem to lose the facility even under the greatest stress, and I really envy you. Now perhaps you will tell me why he came into the garage.”

“Surely that is obvious, Felix. He was putting the car away for me, of course. He lives only a short distance from here, and he said he would put the car away and walk on. I told him that it was unnecessary to put the car in the garage at all, because we often left it outside and it didn’t matter, but he was quite stubborn about it and insisted on doing it, so I said all right and went on upstairs to bed, and that’s all I know about it.”

“He was dead drunk.”

“What?”

“Sid was. When you left Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House last night. He was dead to the world in the front seat.”

“That’s true. He was quite drunk, as you say. However, on the way home the cool air revived him, and he sat up and talked quite sensibly. When we got here, he got out in the drive and walked with me to the door, and it was then he said he would put the car in the garage, and I said it was unnecessary, but he insisted.”

“And you went right upstairs to bed.”

“As I told you, yes.”

“Didn’t you hear anything?”

“Hear anything? I simply cannot understand what you are trying to get at, Felix. What on earth would I have heard?”

“The car must have run quite a while before it ran out of gas and died. A lot longer than it took Sid to die.”

“Don’t be foolish, Felix. An idling Cadillac makes practically no noise at all. Besides, as you see, the garage door was closed quite tightly. In addition to this, which is quite enough in itself, I had drunk quite a lot and probably would not have heard any noise even if there had been any.”

“I see that the door is closed. It was one of the first things I noticed.”

“Of course. It would be quite difficult not to notice a closed door.”

“True enough. The police will notice it also.”

“The police? What do you mean?”

“Well, stop and think about it with your usual clarity. Have you ever put the Caddy in the garage yourself?”

“Yes, I have often put it in the garage.”

“What was the first thing you did after getting the car inside?”

She was silent then, except for the soft and aspirate sound of her breathing, and all the scant light in the dim garage seemed to gather and glow in her luminous eyes.

“Oh,” she said after a moment. “I see what you mean. The first thing I always did, naturally, was turn off the engine.”

“Yes. Naturally. But Sid didn’t. He got out of the car, leaving the engine running, and closed the door. You must admit it seems peculiar, and the police will think so too.”

“Is it necessary to call the police?”

“What?”

“Aren’t you listening to me at all, Felix? I asked if it is necessary to call the police.”

“That’s what I thought you asked, but I couldn’t believe it. There’s Sid, Jolly. Look at him. He’s dead. He’s dead in your garage of carbon monoxide gas. The police like to know about things like that. As a matter of fact, they insist on it.”

“I still think it might not be necessary to call them.”

“Do you? What, in that case, do you propose to do with the body?”

“That would be a problem, of course. I thought that we might be able to take it somewhere else. We could take it to his own apartment or somewhere like that.”

“Oh, sure. Very simply. It’s done every day by all kinds of people, and if someone just happened to see us with the body it wouldn’t mean a thing.”

“Please don’t be sarcastic, Felix. It is difficult for me to love you when you get sarcastic. It would be essential to take Sid home at a time when we would not be likely to be seen, of course, and I am of the opinion that it is entirely possible to do it successfully.”

“Are you, really? And what happens when they do a post-mortem? How does a man die of carbon monoxide gas in his own apartment?”

“Can they tell about things like that? Actually? Just exactly what anyone died of and everything?”

“In most cases, they can tell. They wouldn’t have any trouble at all in this one.”

“That complicates it, as I can see. However, I can’t see that we need to let it deter us. After all, the idea is merely to move Sid somewhere else in order to avoid the inconvenience of having the police all over the place. If it creates a problem as to how Sid died, that is beside the point. Moreover, I consider it possible that they might decide that he had merely died of something or other and not bother to do a post-mortem at all.”

“Are you serious?”

“Certainly I’m serious. It seems to me, Felix, that you are trying to act like some kind of detective, and I can’t understand why you are making things difficult for me.”

She sounded, as she said it, deserted and miserable and all alone with her monstrous trouble. I wanted to go to her and put my arms around her and tell her that it was all right, that everything was perfectly all right, but that would have been a long way from true, and I couldn’t say it, and there was obviously no use in talking with her any longer about anything at all. I turned and walked away from her and back to the house.

In the hall outside the living room, I picked up the telephone and stood holding it without separating it from its cradle. Jolly came after me into the hall.

“So you are going to call them, then,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I thought you would surely help me.”

“I want to help you if I can, and I will, but it would be no help to try to deceive the police. We would only be found out, and then we would both be in very serious trouble.”

“I am still convinced that it would probably work.”

“It would not. There is not the slightest chance of its working. Besides, I can’t understand why you are so concerned about calling the police. It was an accident. Sid was drunk, and he passed out behind the car in the garage. That’s the way it happened, isn’t it?”

For several seconds she did not breathe, her small breasts rising and holding and falling with a long sigh after the seconds had passed.

“Yes, of course. That is the only way it could possibly have happened. Call the police, then, if you must. Call them at once.”

She turned abruptly and went into the living room, and I called the police and told them the situation and where to come. Then I went into the living room myself and found Jolly sitting in the same chair she had been sitting in when I arrived. She did not look at me and said nothing.

“It will be all right,” I said.

She shook her head and folded her hands and sat looking down at them.

“No. It will not be all right. It will be terrible. They will ask me questions, and persecute me, and treat me as if I were a criminal or something, and I am not at all sure that I can bear it.”

“Why should they do that?”

“Please don’t be evasive, Felix. You know very well that it will look extremely peculiar so soon after Kirby. The sheriff who was here that morning was very sly and disturbing, and it was perfectly plain that he did not believe that it happened with Kirby the way I told it, and now, under the circumstances, it is not likely that the police will believe that it happened with Sid the way it appears.”

“If it was an accident, it will be all right. It will not matter about Kirby or anything else.”

“Is that so? Are you sure that it’s so?”

She looked up from her hands slowly, sat looking at me with eyes in which the light had gathered, and then she stood up and put her arms around my neck and pressed closely against me, and her flesh was cold, and she was trembling.

“The truth is, Felix, I am very frightened.”

“You must not be frightened. It would be a bad mistake to let them know that you are frightened.”

“You will simply have to stay with me, Felix. You must always stay with me now, and there must never be anything more about surviving without me and such foolishness as that.”

“Is that your decision?”

“Yes, it is. And I would like you to put your arms around me now.”

“All right, if you wish it.”

“That’s good. I like very much to have your arms around me, and I am feeling better already. Would you care to kiss me also?”

I kissed her, and her lips were cold and remained cold under mine, but the trembling of her body ceased slowly. Afterward she sat down in the chair and folded her hands again in her lap.

“Do you think it will take them long?” she asked.

“No. Not long.”

“I hope they will come quickly now that it’s settled.”

“Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you. I don’t believe I care for anything at all.”

I sat in another chair, and we waited together for them to come.

17

There were three of them in the beginning, and they spent quite a long time in the garage. Eventually, however, one of them came into the house and through the kitchen and into the living room from the hall. He was the one who was obviously in charge and had come through the house and out the back way to the garage originally, after learning that Sid was there, while the other two had waited in the police car in the drive and had gone directly to the garage from there without coming into the house at all. His name was Jason, the one who came in. His first name was Henry, but we referred to him as Jason only, and he was a lieutenant of detectives. He was short and broad and looked very powerful physically, but he looked at you mildly, and he spoke politely. He took his hat off inside the house and kept turning it around and around by the brim in his hands.

“I hope you don’t mind if I ask some questions,” he said. “You understand, of course, that it is necessary.”

“Yes,” I said, “of course.”

He stopped turning his hat around and laid it on a chair and took a little notebook out of one pocket and looked around through the others until he found a short pencil. He opened the notebook and held the pencil poised above it but, as I recall, he never made a note about anything that was said, and I suppose the notebook and pencil were only parts of a habit, just as the hat was.

“First of all,” he said, “who found him?”

“It was I who found him,” Jolly said, “but before I answer any more questions I would like to be assured that you are actually a policeman.”

He looked surprised for a second, but no longer, and he held the notebook and pencil together in one hand while he got out identification and showed it to her and put it away again with the other.

“I assure you that I am actually a policeman,” he said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “I was uncertain because you are not wearing a uniform.”

“Not all policemen wear uniforms,” he said.

“No?” Jolly said. “I was of the opinion that all policemen were required to wear them.”

I was of the opinion myself that she hadn’t been of any such opinion at all, and I couldn’t understand why she was immediately needling him this way, and it’s the truth that I never understood half the things about her.

“Now,” he said, “what time was it that you found him?”

“As to that, I’m not sure,” Jolly said. She frowned a little and appeared to be thinking. “I believe that it was around ten o’clock. Do you think it must have been around ten o’clock, Felix? I called you very shortly afterward, and perhaps you can remember when it was that I called.”

“That’s right,” I said. “It was about ten.”

He turned toward me but didn’t look at me. He was looking instead at the watch on his wrist.

“You mean that you were not here when he was discovered?”

“No,” I said. “Jolly called me, and I came right over, but I was not here.”

“You should feel honored. Usually when someone finds a body, they call the police first, or at least first thing after a doctor, and after that they may call a friend if they are frightened and feel the need of company or something. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you turned out to be the first person who ever got called into a thing like this ahead of a doctor or the police.”

It was sarcasm, of course, but it wasn’t said like sarcasm, but very mildly and in all apparent innocence, and the funny thing was, it gave it a kind of deadliness that it wouldn’t otherwise have had.

He turned back to Jolly.

“Why didn’t you call a doctor?” he said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “Felix asked me the same thing and he seemed to think it was important, but I must say that I can’t see the importance. Sid was quite dead, and I knew he was dead because I felt him and all and made sure of it, and I could see absolutely no sense in calling a doctor to look at someone who was dead.”

He watched her and nodded slowly and seemed very impressed with what he saw and heard.

“Logical,” he said. “Strictly logical. I hope you had as good a reason for not calling the police.”

“Certainly,” she said. “One does not think of the police all the time or when just anything happens, and it did not occur to me that the police were necessary in the case of an accident.”

“In accidents like this one,” he said, “they’re necessary.”

He looked down at the little notebook as if he were reading what he’d written there, but he hadn’t really written anything at all to read, and pretty soon he looked up again.

“Why don’t you just tell me about it?” he said. “How he happened to be in the garage and all about it.”

“I’ll be happy to do that,” Jolly said, “and it all started last night when I was out with Sid and Fran.”

“Who’s Fran?”

“Fran Tyler. She’s a friend of mine, and we often go out places together.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Well, we went to Sylvester’s, and it just happened that we met Felix and Harvey there, who were celebrating the end of school for the summer.”

“Who’s Harvey?”

“Harvey Griffin,” I said. “He teaches mathematics at the college.”

“Oh. I see. What happened next?”

“Sylvester’s was extremely dull,” Jolly said, “in spite of being expensive and having Gloria Finch, so everyone wanted to go somewhere else, except Harvey right at the beginning, and Sid suggested that we go out to Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House. It was decided to go, and we went, and owing to the fact that Prince Sam makes his drinks exceptionally strong, everyone got somewhat drunk, especially Sid, who had passed out when it was time to leave. Harvey and Felix and Fran left in Harvey’s car, and I took Sid in mine because he was rather a bother at the moment and more my responsibility than anyone else’s. On the way here, he became revived by the cool air and sat up and talked quite sensibly about several things. He wanted to come in with me, but I wouldn’t permit it, and so he said that he would just drive the car into the garage for me and walk on to his own place, which is not far. I told him that it was not necessary to drive the car into the garage, but he was bound to do it, and he did. I went on upstairs to bed, and all I know about it from then on is how I found him this morning when I came down and went out to the garage for the car, and the truth is, I was rather annoyed because he hadn’t left it in the drive where I could get to it without all the trouble.”

“You were up rather early, weren’t you, after such a big night?”

“Not at all. I recover very quickly from such things.”

“I wish I did. Do you mind telling me where you were going this morning?”

“I was going to pick up Fran, and we were going downtown and have lunch and look at things in shops. However, since she has not called to find out why I haven’t arrived, I assume she is still sleeping and wouldn’t have wanted to anyhow. Perhaps Harvey is with her. Do you think Harvey may be with her, Felix?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, “but he may be.”

Jason said abruptly, “Why did he leave the engine running?”

“Felix also asked me that,” Jolly said, “and I couldn’t say, and I still can’t, because it is apparent that I have no way of knowing. However, he was quite drunk, as I explained, and it is entirely possible that he did not know precisely what he was doing or not doing.”

“That’s something to think about, I guess, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been thinking about the times I’ve got out of a car and left the engine running because I’d had too much to drink, and so far as I can remember there weren’t any. It seems to me that turning off the engine of a car is such a habitual thing that it would be done reflexively without thinking, even by a drunk.”

“I can only point out that in Sid’s case it wasn’t.”

“You’re right. It wasn’t. I can’t deny that. Another thing I’m thinking about, though, is that you said he revived and talked sensibly on the way home.”

“Oh, that. Well, it’s a fact that he revived, but you are surely aware of how that often occurs with someone who has passed out, and I admit that it has even happened to me a time or two. What I mean is, you come around and feel pretty good and ready to go, and then all of a sudden you simply pass out again very quickly and probably do not wake up again for a long time.”

“I see. You are certainly very sharp about these things, Mrs. Craig, and I’m thankful that you are willing to help me out this way. Let’s see now. We concede that he got out of the car without turning off the engine. He then goes around behind the car and pulls the overhead door down and fastens it securely. After that, he immediately passes out again and lies down on the floor and unfortunately is killed from breathing carbon monoxide gas. The car keeps on running until all the fuel is used up and then quits. Is that the way you think it must have happened?”

“I think it is quite obviously the way it happened.”

“It does seem like it, doesn’t it? I’m a little bothered, however, by how he pulled down that heavy door and even took the trouble to fasten it and then collapsed immediately. If I hadn’t seen the evidence of it in this case, I wouldn’t have thought something like that was at all probable, or even possible.”

“Sid was peculiar. All sorts of odd things happened to him.”

“Well, that may explain it, of course. I suppose it might have happened to someone who was peculiar.”

“In addition, perhaps the exertion of pulling down the door precipitated his collapse. Do you think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know. It’s something else to think about, anyhow, and I will admit that you have given me more to think about than anyone else that I can remember from a long time back.”

He was silent, again reading the blank page in his little notebook. It took him longer than before, there now being a greater accumulation of nothing, and it was at least a minute before he raised his eyes.

“I hope you don’t think I’m unsympathetic,” he said. “It seems to me that you have been having more than your share of trouble lately.”

This was something I had been expecting and waiting for, and I’m certain that Jolly had too, and I thought that it might have a bad effect on her, but it didn’t. Not visibly, anyway.

“Because of Kirby’s drowning and all?” she said.

“Yes. I read about it in the papers, of course. It must have been a pretty bad experience for you, and now this thing on top of it. I will have to say that I admire the way you are accepting it. I hope you don’t get any foolish ideas that you are bad luck or something. You understand what I mean. Having two men so close to you die almost in your presence in so short an interval. Some people would begin to think they brought bad luck or some such nonsense, and I hope you don’t get to thinking anything like that.”

“Not at all. So far as I can see, I am in no way responsible, and I am not inclined to blame myself, however bad I may feel.”

“That’s the spirit. I knew I could depend on you to be sensible. I imagine that you and your husband were still in love with each other, weren’t you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t want to embarrass you, of course. What I should have asked is, were you amicable?”

“Frankly, I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t have asked anything about it at all, because it clearly has nothing to do with Sid’s dying in my garage. In spite of that, however, I am willing to tell you that Kirby and I were amicable enough in our own way.”

“Your own way? Was that different from the usual way?”

“I don’t know what the usual way is, and I doubt that there is such a thing, because I am sure that everyone is anything in a way that is a little different from other ways. As for Kirby, he was very virile, and frequently offensive, and it was not long ago that he hit me in the eye and blacked it.”

“But you were amicable in your own way, even though he hit you in the eye and blacked it.”

“It is necessary to be tolerant in such matters. As anyone can tell you, he was almost always hitting someone in the eye or something.”

“I admire tolerance. If there’s anyone in the world I admire, it’s the person who is willing to allow the other fellow his idiosyncrasies. ” Jason turned his head and looked levelly at me. “As I understand it, you are merely a friend. Is that so?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s so.”

“You must be a pretty special friend, as a matter of fact. I’m sure a person who gets called in a case like this even before the doctor and the police must be pretty special.”

“All friends are special,” Jolly said, “but Felix is more special than most.”

“Yes. I thought that must be the way of it. And a special friend is very good to have around at certain times, I’ll admit that. Now a little more about Mr. Pollock. Sid, as you call him. Since you have not mentioned them or called them, I assume that he has no relatives in the city.”

“No. So far as I know, he has only a mother and father who live in a small town named Clearvale. It’s about a hundred miles northeast of here.”

“I know the town.”

He wrote the name of it in the little notebook, which was the first and only thing he wrote during all the time we talked, and then closed the notebook and put it into a pocket with the pencil.

“I want to thank you for answering my questions,” he said, “and chances are I’ll want you to answer others later that I’ve forgotten to ask now. In the meanwhile, I’ll go back out to the garage and see that things are progressing in order.”

He turned and went out into the hall, and a moment later we heard the kitchen screen door bang behind him, and another moment later a car came into the drive and stopped. In her chair, Jolly smiled at me quietly, but I was unable to smile back.

“In my judgment, I got through that very well,” she said. “The truth is, I am quite proud of myself.”

“Yes, you did,” I said. “You were in perfect control of the situation.”

“Do you think so? When it came down to it, I was not frightened after all.”

“I could see that you weren’t.”

She sat looking at her hands and smiling at them. After a while the car that had stopped in the drive started up again and left, and I knew that it had come for Sid and got him.

I left then, and Jolly went silently upstairs — to her brass bed.

18

“You know something?” Harvey said. “That story sounds a hell of a lot like a stretcher to me.”

I had gone down to Nick’s, having nothing else to do, and Harvey was there and demanded that I tell him the whole story of Jolly and Sid.

I nodded at Harvey’s remark. “I thought it would,” I said, “and that’s one reason I was reluctant to tell it to you. Jason also thought it sounded like a stretcher.”

“Jason? Who’s Jason?”

“He’s the policeman who came out and investigated it. He asked a lot of questions and didn’t seem to be satisfied.”

“I can’t say that I blame him. No offense, old boy, but since I am not satisfied myself, I can hardly blame someone else for not being, can I?”

“No, you can’t. What do you consider most objectionable about the story?”

“It just seems unlikely in several ways.”

“It’s only hypothetical, of course. Can you think of a better way to explain how it happened?”

“None that I would care to offer seriously.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing, old boy. Just forget that I said it. Do you think this Jason will make heavy weather for old Jolly?”

“I don’t see how he can do it, but I think he may try.”

“As a policeman, he is obligated to poke into things, I suppose. You’ll have to admit it looks rather peculiar coming so soon after Kirby.”

“He mentioned that. It seems to be on his mind.”

“Just between the two of us, old boy, I’ve done a little wondering myself about the handy way old virile Kirby zoomed off. Just in an academic sort of way, I mean. I don’t think really that Jolly actually pushed him out of the boat or anything, but I couldn’t blame her much if it turned out that she didn’t try her level best to haul him out.”

“That’s crazy, Harvey. I wish you hadn’t said it.”

“Really? Well, at any rate she had absolutely no reason that I can think of to chuck little old Sid under an exhaust pipe, so I can’t see that it matters whatever about Kirby and how she might have had better reasons in his case.”

“Cut it out, Harvey. If you must have academic thoughts, please do me the favor of not expressing them.”

“It’s just between the two of us, old boy. Absolutely no harm in it.”

He sat and thought, and I thought too, and what I thought was that Sid had been off among the trees along the river when Kirby drowned and had not returned until Jolly herself had come to tell us about it. This was one of the thoughts I had been trying not to think, and although Harvey had been helpful all summer, along with the goliards, he was now no help whatever.

“Unless she’s schizzy or something,” he said.

“What?”

“Schizophrenia, old boy. The truth is, old Jolly’s always been pretty damn dippy in lots of ways. If you’re fair about it, you’ll have to concede that. I’ve read a little about these schizzy characters, and you can’t always tell off hand just how far gone they are, and sometimes one or another of them will go off the deep end and get all crafty and violent, and the funny thing is, they seem to think whatever they care to do is perfectly justified. Do you think something like that would be worth considering relative to Jolly?”

“No, I don’t think so, Harvey, God damn it. What the hell are you trying to do?”

“You’re pretty vehement about it, aren’t you, old boy? I can see clearly that you’re not inclined to be objective in the matter, so there is no use in discussing it further.”

He was silent and a little sulky, and I tried to drink some more of the coffee, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to offend Harvey, and I tried to think of something to say that would make things all right.

“Did you have a pleasant time last night?” I said.

“Yes, I did.” The sulky look left his face, and it was apparent that he was remembering things that had happened. “That Fran knows how to make things as pleasant as you could want.”

“I know,” I said. “She’s passionate.”

“That’s right. She certainly is passionate.”

“You’ll probably miss her while you’re on the farm.”

“I’ll miss her, all right, but it will also be pleasant to be on the farm for a while.”

“I’m sure it will, and I hope it is an exceptionally good year for watermelons.”

“Thanks, old boy. The truth is, however, I am now wondering if I shouldn’t stay on for Sid’s funeral. I don’t want to do it, to be honest about it, but perhaps it should be considered a kind of obligation, especially since I missed Kirby’s.”

“I don’t think so, Harvey. I’m sure it would be all right for you to go on to the farm.”

“Good. I consider your judgment on these things to be sound. On your advice, I’ll just go on to the farm tomorrow as I planned.”

He stood up and counted some money onto the counter in payment for what he had eaten.

“Are you going back to your place?” he said. “If you are, I’ll walk with you to the corner where I turn.”

“I’m going,” I said.

We went out together and walked along and once he said, looking down at his feet, “Old Sid. Just imagine something like that happening to old Sid,” and he sounded suddenly rather sad, and I didn’t answer. At the corner we shook hands and said goodbye, and I went on alone to the apartment and got through the night and most of the next day, and in the afternoon Jason came around to see me.

He came up into the hall and knocked on the door, and I thought at first that it might be Jolly, but when I opened the door it was Jason standing there waiting. He said hello and came into the room, and I invited him to sit down, and he did, laying his hat on the floor beside his chair and looking for a while without speaking at the typewriter on its table in the corner.

“You’ve been doing a lot of typing,” he said at last.

I looked at the thin stack of paper beside the machine, and it might have looked like a lot to him, but it was actually only about sixty pages, and it wasn’t much.

“I’ve been trying to write a novel,” I said.

“Is that so?” He shifted his eyes from the typewriter to me. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about a goliard and the things that happened to him.”

“I never heard of a goliard before. What is it?”

“Goliards were twelfth century poets.”

“Oh. In that case, it’s no wonder I never heard of them. It must take a lot of education to write a novel, especially one about someone like a goliard. I never had much education myself.”

“Lots of people without much education write novels.”

“I find that hard to believe, and probably you’re just saying it. Anyhow, I’ve gotten to be a pretty good reader, what with having a lot of time to kill and all, and I’ll make a point of reading about the goliard when the book gets published.”

“It may never get published. It may never even get finished.”

“That would be a shame after all the work you’ve done. Actually, however, not intending to knock the novels or anything, I mostly read books about what makes people do things. Crazy things, you understand. I get a lot of odd balls in this lousy work, and I thought it might pay me to know what makes them tick, if possible.”

“Abnormal psychology, you mean? That kind of thing?”

“Yes. That’s it. I don’t always understand all about it, but it’s pretty interesting trying. The characters who get me are the ones who act one way part of the time and another way the rest of the time. They used to call them split personalities, but now they got a fancier name for them. You know what I mean?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, it seems like a lot of people have got killed by other people like that, and mostly it’s been because no one ever got the idea, until it was too late, that these split characters had anything like that in them.”

“What the hell are you driving at?”

“Me? Nothing at all. I was only trying to explain how the books say these things happen. To be truthful, I guess I was just trying to show off that I’ve done a little reading. That’s the trouble with us guys who started late. We can’t get over being proud of it, and I guess what I’d better do now is get down to business.”

He stopped and gave me a chance to say something, but I didn’t have anything to say, and so he went on.

“Come to consider it, though, I guess I don’t really have any business. I just thought I’d drop around and talk about things I’ve been doing. Mostly I’ve been poking around and talking, and one of the people I’ve talked to is Logan Pierce. You remember Logan?”

“Yes, I remember him.”

“I didn’t learn much from him. All he could tell me was how this fellow Kirby Craig got drowned, and that didn’t amount to any more than what someone else had said about it. Only thing I learned that was very interesting was about this little fellow Sid who got drunk and killed by carbon monoxide night before last. Logan said he was around the day of the drowning, this Sid was, and that he was off in the trees by himself when the drowning happened. You were there too, weren’t you? Is it true what Logan said?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Sid may have been off in the trees, but I didn’t pay particular attention.”

“Well, no matter. I guess Logan would have the story straight about something that simple. What I really had in mind when I decided to come around here was that you, being such a special friend and all, might be able to tell me something that would make me feel all right about all this. I admit that I’ve got a peculiar feeling about it and don’t like it much, but maybe that’s just because I’ve been a cop so long and have developed a perverted view.”

“What do you mean, a peculiar feeling?”

“Oh, you can see how it is. Sid did all these things that you keep thinking he surely wouldn’t have done unless he was crazy as well as drunk, and he just happened to do them right after a big strong guy you’d have thought had better sense simply fell right smack out of a flat-bottomed boat and drowned, and these crazy things happened to guys who were with, or almost with, your special friend Jolly. Mrs. Craig, I guess I ought to say. You know what’s actually got into my mind about it? It’ll just show you how warped a mind can get. It’s got into my mind that maybe she deliberately drowned her husband, or at least permitted him to drown, and was seen doing it from among the trees by Sid. I understand this Craig left quite a lot of dough. You think Sid was the kind of fellow who would have tried to cut himself in for some of it?”

“I think you’re crazy, that’s what I think.”

“Do you? I could be, at that. This job is enough to drive a guy crazy, and I’ve been working at it too damn long. Anyhow, that’s what’s in my mind about it, and I’ve got what’s called a tenacious mind. It gets something in it, it’s hard as hell to make it let go, and it worries the hell out of me and makes me feel peculiar.”

“Why should she have wanted to kill her husband?”

“I don’t know. I was told that he cut up rough now and then, and Mrs. Craig herself told me that he hit her in the eye and blacked it.”

“You don’t kill someone for hitting you in the eye. Not a long time afterward, anyhow. You might do it right at the time by hitting him with something or shooting him or some way like that, but you don’t plan it and do it afterward in cold blood.”

“I thought of that myself, and it’s true. In the case of an ordinary person, that is. Of course it might be different in the case of one of these odd balls I’ve read about in books. The way it’s told in the books, these people sometimes get all festered up around something, and you don’t even realize it until something’s happened that may be pretty bad and all out of proportion to what caused it.”

“In my opinion, you’ve been reading too many books about odd balls.”

“That could be, and I admit it. It isn’t good for a person to read too much of that stuff. As a special friend of hers, could you offer a more natural and acceptable reason why she might have wanted to get her husband out of the way?”

“As a special friend, I couldn’t offer any reason at all, and if I did I wouldn’t be a special friend.”

“That’s a fine loyal response. I admire loyalty.”

“I’m not being loyal. I’m only being sensible.”

“That’s even more admirable. There are too few sensible people in the world these days, and sometimes I’m afraid I’m not one of them. I get these peculiar feelings, you see, and I’ve got this tenacious mind, and I seem to keep worrying at things in the hope of getting to feeling better.”

He put his hands on his knees and sat looking at the floor, and after a while he sighed and retrieved his hat and stood up.

“I guess I’d better be going,” he said. “Maybe if I quit bothering you, you’ll be able to write a little more about the goliard. I imagine a writer considers it quite a nuisance to be bothered when he might be writing.”

He went over to the door and opened it and stood looking back at me.

“She killed them, all right,” he said. “I’d bet dollars to dimes on that, but what I can’t make up my mind about is whether you’re what we call an accessory, before or after, or just a guy who’s too special for his own good.”

He went out then and closed the door, and I was cold. I sat there quietly feeling the coldness, and I knew perfectly well that he was right, that she had killed Kirby for a brass bed, and had killed Sid in order to keep him out of the place in the brass bed that she was saving for me, and I wondered why I didn’t feel a great revulsion in thinking of her, but I didn’t.

I felt only the coldness. And that’s the way it was.

19

They took Sid home to Clearvale to bury him, and I went out there the day of the funeral with Fran and Jolly in Jolly’s Caddy. She asked me to drive, and I did. Fran sat alone in the back seat and didn’t say anything, and Jolly sat over against the door in the front seat and said very little, and we drove all the way out there, about a hundred miles, almost in silence.

Clearvale was in a long, narrow valley, and the highway went down the length of the valley with the fields rising gently on both sides, and it was quite pretty. The town itself was also pretty. It had wide, quiet streets with a lot of elms and oaks and maples growing around everywhere and spreading their branches over everything, and what you got in the streets and on the lawns was this dappled effect of light and shade, which is about as pleasant as anything can be on a summer’s day.

The first part of the funeral was in the home of Sid’s parents. His mother is someone I can’t even remember, and I suppose she had dimension and quality and everything that makes a woman what she is instead of something else, but even so I can’t remember her in the slightest, and not even her loss and her grief were enough to make me. I can remember his father, however, because he looked exactly as Sid would have looked if he had lived three or four more decades instead of dying drunk under an exhaust pipe. He was small and gray and drying on his bones, and he watched and listened to the things that were said and done as if he were trying to understand what had really happened to Sid and what was now really happening to him.

Two rooms of the house were used for the funeral, and we sat on folding chairs that were supplied by the undertaker. It was hot in the rooms, and the chairs were very uncomfortable, and after a while there was constantly this uneasy rustling and creaking that meant that everyone was tired of it and wanted it to stop. A woman with a big bosom sang Beautiful Island of Somewhere, and she sang it much too loud for the small rooms, and I got the impression from her professional approach that she too, like the chairs, was supplied by the undertaker.

After the minister had finished talking and had prayed a little for Sid’s good, everyone filed by the casket to look at Sid for the last time on earth, and I was caught in the movement and couldn’t get away and had to go. I looked at his face quickly, but it didn’t look like a face I had ever seen before, and I went on past him and out onto a porch and down into the yard. Outside, all the people were getting into cars to go out to the cemetery for the final part of the service.

It was a pleasant little cemetery with many small white stones, and I thought that it was probably as nice a place as you could find to be dead in. There was a mound of raw earth beside the hole they had dug for Sid, and on the other side of the hole there was a striped awning over some chairs for the mourners to sit in. The rest of us stood up behind the chairs and watched and listened while the minister went through the ashes and dust recitation, and after that the service was finished, and it was all over with Sid. Fran turned and walked away and got by herself into the back seat of the Caddy, and Jolly and I followed and stood outside looking in at her. She didn’t pay any attention to us, but sat looking instead across the green grass and intervening stones to the open hole they had put Sid into.

“Well, there the sneaky little devil is,” Fran said. “There he is, and he’s dead, and I never would have believed it. I always tried to look after him and take care of him and teach him what was right to do, but in spite of that he was always doing something that wasn’t, and now I’m damned if he hasn’t gone off and died and got completely away from me. I guess that was the most wrong thing he ever did among all the others, going off and dying that way, and it was all so useless and had no sense in it whatever. He was pretty hard to understand, I’ll admit that, and lots of times I thought I understood him when I didn’t, and I’ll admit that too, but anyone would have thought there was a limit to his duplicity, and I truly never dreamed that he would carry it this far. You know yourselves that I always thought of him and took him places and made all kinds of sacrifices for him and was heartbroken when I thought erroneously for a little while that he had become an alcoholic behind my back. Could any reasonable person have expected more? Is it fair that he should now have returned my kindness by dying in this foolish manner? Could I have anticipated that he would lie down behind Jolly’s car after drinking too many of Prince Sam’s highballs? Well, there he is in that hole over there, and there is no use in blaming myself or in thinking about it any longer in any way whatever, for he’s dead, that’s certain, and all I know is that I keep wishing and wishing that he wasn’t.”

All in an instant her ugly face crumpled and blurred, and she began to cry, and I couldn’t stand to see it. Turning, I walked across the grass and under a tree and stood by the trunk with my back to the Caddy. Jolly came up behind me and stopped.

“Why is she taking it so hard?” I said.

“Because she loved him,” Jolly said, and her voice sounded quite surprised. “Didn’t you know that?”

“Fran loved Sid?”

“Certainly. Surely it was perfectly apparent.”

“No, it was not. I would never have thought it in the world from the way she talked to him and kept fooling around with Harvey.”

“Oh, well, that didn’t mean anything, of course. She loved Sid, all right, and for that reason it was too bad that he didn’t love her instead of me.”

“I agree with that. It was too bad.”

“Because I love you, naturally, and therefore could not love Sid, and consequently nothing turned out right for either of them.”

“No more for you and me.”

“I don’t see that. Everything is now in a position to turn out right for us from this time on.”

“Now that Sid is out of the way, as well as Kirby? Is that what you mean?”

“Sid? Are you certain that you are feeling well, Felix? What on earth does Sid have to do with it?”

“Never mind. Tell me something, though, Jolly. Fran is your good friend, almost as special as I, and I would like to know what you feel when you see her grieving for Sid and wishing that he were not dead.”

“I feel quite bad. It is exceedingly touching to see her.”

“Touching? Yes, I suppose you could say at least that it is touching.”

“What’s the matter with you, Felix? I must say that you are acting and speaking very strangely, and I am becoming rather disturbed about it.”

“Are you? I am also becoming disturbed, if you want the truth, and perhaps that is why I’m behaving strangely.”

She didn’t respond at once, and I could hear her breathing as I had heard her in the garage where Sid had died, the slow and regular drawing and release of her breath.

“I cannot understand why you should be disturbed,” she said.

“Can’t you? It may be unreasonable of me. If I ask you a question, will you answer it?”

“I’ll try to answer.”

“If you do, you must tell the truth.”

“You will have to judge for yourself whether it is the truth or not.”

“I doubt that I’m a very good judge of the truth. However, I’ll ask the question because it’s necessary. Did you kill Kirby and afterward Sid?”

“Why do you ask such a question?”

“I told you. Because it’s a question that needs asking and answering.”

“Is it your belief that I did?”

“Yes, it is. It’s a belief I don’t want and tried to avoid, but it is one that is reasonable under the circumstances. I believe that you drowned Kirby, though I don’t know how you managed it exactly, and I believe that you killed Sid because he saw you do it from among the trees on the bank. Mostly it’s thinking about Sid that disturbs me. How about you, Jolly? Does it disturb you also? Does it bother you at all to remember how you drove the car yourself into the garage and left him alone on the floor under the exhaust pipe and then went into the house and upstairs to bed? Did you sleep, Jolly? I keep wondering if you slept.”

“Why does it please you to abuse me?”

“It doesn’t please me to abuse you. I am only telling you what I believe, as you asked me to, and I will tell you that Jason believes it also. In some details, however, he is mistaken. He thinks that I may be an accessory, which is not true, and he thinks that Sid was killed because he tried to blackmail you for money, which is also not true. He was killed, as I am certain, because he tried through his knowledge of the drowning of Kirby to make a place for himself in your fine brass bed.”

“I can see now from the way you are talking to me that you do not love me after all.”

“On the contrary, I do love you after all, and it is enlightening and not pleasant to learn what one can love and continue to love in spite of everything.”

“In that case, it’s all right. If you continue to love me, it’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. It’s all wrong, and I would rather be as dead as Kirby and Sid than ever to assume the place in the brass bed that you intended me to have.”

“Are you deserting me, then?”

“If that is the way you care to put it.”

“If you desert me now, it will be the end of me.”

“Go away, Jolly. This time for good. Go get into the car with Fran and go away.”

“I refuse to do it. How would you get back to town?”

“That’s a minor problem.”

“Don’t you care what happens to me?”

“I care, but I can no longer do anything about it.”

“I love you, Felix.”

“I doubt it.”

“It’s true. I will love you all the rest of my life, but that will only be a short while because I will soon die without you.”

“I doubt that too.”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t do the things you say I did?”

“I don’t know.”

“You see? It is clear to me now that you have made up your mind, and nothing I could say would change it in the least, and so there is absolutely no use in my answering your question. Perhaps after a while, when I have died because of you, you’ll begin to wonder if you were wrong, and it will be something you’ll always have to wonder about.”

I started to walk then, and I intended to walk right away without looking back, but I couldn’t do it. I stopped and turned and looked back at her over the small white stones, and she stood without moving beside the tree in a pattern of sun and shade, slender and suffering and somehow betrayed, about her still the air of fragile dignity.

20

I went on up into the hills to the cabin on the Blue River. It was one of a group that was called the Blue River Camp, and I had been there about two weeks when I got the letter from Jolly. It was addressed to me in care of the camp, and the owner brought it out one evening from the postoffice in the town where he went for supplies. I took it down to the river and opened it and read it, and this is what it said:

Felix darling:

I am in my fine brass bed, which is what you called it, but you are not here with me and will never be, and the house is very quiet, and on the little table beside the bed is this bottle of bright green pills. There are quite a few of them, over a dozen, and when I have finished this letter and sent it by the maid to be posted on her way home, I will take them all. It is my understanding that you go to sleep and do not ever wake up if you take so many at once, and this seems to me a simple and satisfactory thing.

The truth is, now that you have deserted me and will not have me, I cannot seem to care about anything. Besides, I am frightened, and this is because that policeman Jason has been to see me twice since you left, and it is apparent that he does not believe anything I tell him and is determined to cause me trouble. I do not think that I would be frightened if you were here, and I would also still care about things, and I simply cannot understand why you felt compelled to spoil everything at the last moment, and I wish you hadn’t. As it is, there seems to me to be absolutely no sense in anything that has happened or can happen from now on.

Do you truly believe that I killed Kirby and Sid? Do you believe it beyond question? If you do, there is no point in my confessing it or denying it. If you don’t, I will not confess it or deny it either, and then you will always wonder and think about me and never forget me.

Goodbye, Felix. I hope the goliard goes well and earns you some money.

I didn’t think she’d go through with it, but she did — or at least she tried to, and she ended up being a good deal worse off than if she’d succeeded with the pills.

The maid — I’m told that personal maids are sometimes not to be trusted, particularly when personal mail is involved, and even more particularly when the mail is going from a female to a male, or vice-versa. Anyhow, Jolly’s maid was not one to let a letter get out of her hands before she’d conducted an investigation into its contents, and she did just that downstairs in the kitchen while Jolly was climbing into her brass bed with the bottle of green pills.

And so the maid saved Jolly’s life — for a time, anyway. The maid telephoned the police who in turn telephoned for an ambulance. The maid went back upstairs and fiddled around for ten minutes, thus preventing Jolly from commencing with the pills and at the same time plunging Jolly into something of a rage.

The newspapers had it right on page one, and they made quite a bit of it, partly because of its happening right after Kirby and Sid in such a peculiar way and partly because of the uproar which Jolly caused when the police arrived.

Jason bounded up the stairs, followed by assorted detectives and doctors, and the instant Jolly saw him she snatched a long nail file from the night table and screamed at him not to come any closer.

It must have been quite a fracas, because the newspaper photographers were outside the house by the time Jason was able to take Jolly away. The pictures were pretty grim, and judging by her torn clothing and the hysterical expression on her face, Jolly had put up a terrific fight.

The way Jason told it, there was a lot of trouble getting at Jolly because they couldn’t back her into a corner. She just crouched, on her knees, on the brass bed and slashed out with the file in every direction. She wouldn’t get out of the bed.

Even after they’d got hold of the weapon and pinned her arms, she didn’t want to get out of that damned brass bed. They had to drag her out of it and she screamed for it all the way to wherever it was that they took her.

But they’ll never really get Jolly out of that brass bed. She’s in it for good.

She’ll even take it to hell with her.

Content

Fletcher Flora
The Brass Bed

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