Desperate Times (32 page)

Then that something moved.

“Hi Jimmy,” whispered Paula, pulling the
sleeping bag down from over her head to reveal a pair of bare
shoulders. “I’ll bet you’re tired.”

“Paula?” whispered Jimmy. “What are you doing
in here?”

“What do you think I’m doing in here?” she
asked, coyly. “This
is
our tent, right?”

“Sure it is,” whispered Jimmy. “But I’m
exhausted and Patty’s cooking breakfast. You should go inside and
get something to eat.”

“Who said I was hungry?”

Jimmy groaned. He hadn’t expected this. Paula
rolled over onto her side and pulled the sleeping bag down even
further. “Snuggle with me, Jimmy,” she cooed.

For a moment, Jimmy seriously considered
doing just that. He was tired and Paula’s offer was indeed
tempting. They had lived together, hadn’t they? He had crawled into
bed with her hundreds of times. Still, he paused.

“Hurry up, Jimmy. My butt’s getting
cold.”

He looked down at her blonde hair and her
smooth skin. It all looked so inviting. He could simply undress and
slide next to her. He even started to unbutton his shirt, giving in
to the temptation. Then he paused. This was exactly what Paula
wanted him to do. She would take him into her arms and reclaim him
like a piece of lost luggage. There would be no turning back from
there. He suddenly realized that he couldn’t do that. Not yet. Not
now. He knew he still loved Paula, but everything had changed
between them after she left him to stay with her parents.

“I’ve got to use the bathroom,” Jimmy lied.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Hurry up,” whispered Paula, seductively.
“I’ll be waiting.”

Jimmy quickly unzipped the door and emerged
from the tent. He looked up to the house and wasn’t surprised to
see faces pressed against the many windows that overlooked the back
yard. They quickly turned away in unison. Jimmy groaned. He felt
trapped inside the walls of the compound. His life seemed to be an
open book that everyone wanted to pick up and read. He felt the
anger rise in his chest. Where could he go? He just wanted to get
some sleep. He needed to be rested before they returned to Ely.
Then, just as he began to wander away, Jon’s arm waved at him from
inside his own tent across the yard. Jimmy jogged over to him.

“Need a place to crash?” asked Jon,
quietly.

“You know it,” whispered Jimmy.

“I saw her go into your tent,” Jon whispered,
as Jimmy crawled inside and zipped up the door. “I half expected
you to stay with her. She’s beautiful… it must’ve been tough
walking out on that. Did you tell her?”

“I told her that I had to use the
bathroom.”

“She’s going to be pissed,
”
chuckled
Jon. “You can sleep on the floor. There’s another sleeping bag next
to my gear. Sorry, I’ve only got one pillow.”

“Thanks, I couldn’t do it, man. I don’t know
what to do. I still love her, but it’s different now. I can’t
explain it.”

“I can,” said Jon as he crawled back into his
sleeping bag. “It’s Julie. You might as well quit fighting it.”

Jimmy unrolled the sleeping bag and crawled
inside. He thought about what Jon had said and was soon fast
asleep.

He was so tired that he slept through Paula’s
tirade as she searched for him.

Twenty
-
Four

Congress formed the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation in 1932. The main objective of the corporation was to
funnel two billion dollars into the banking and insurance sectors.
The railroads and agriculture industries also benefited from the
RFC.

They slept until one in the afternoon, but
even with the screens open the inside of Jon’s tent was as hot as
an oven. Jimmy’s eyes felt puffy and bloodshot. He fought the heat
and tried to somehow catch another hour of rest; it was no use. He
looked over at Jon and his eyes were open, staring up at the
glowing orb through the vinyl ceiling.

“Damn it’s hot,” said Jimmy.

“I’m dying in here,” said Jon. “Did you get
some sleep?”

“I did. I could’ve slept all day. You need an
air conditioner in here, man.”

“Tell me about it.”

Jimmy sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t
want to go out there,” he said, gloomily.

“Me either,” said Jon. “Imagine what
everyone’s going to think when we crawl out of here, together?”

Jimmy began to chuckle and soon they were
both laughing to the point of hysterics. They giggled like a couple
of school boys and it felt good to do so.

“Stop,” said Jimmy. “I’m going to wet my
pants.”

Jon laughed harder at this. He fell onto his
back and held his stomach. “Okay,” he said, finally. “Okay… Oh God,
that was funny.”

Jimmy really did need to make a trip to the
outhouse. He dreaded what he’d find once he emerged from the tent.
Paula was going to be furious. He combed his hair with his fingers
and crawled over to the door.

“Good luck,” said Jon. “You’re going to need
it. I’ll be in the kitchen. I’m starved.”

“Thanks. I’ll meet you there. I think I could
eat a horse.” Jimmy said as he unzipped the door and crawled
outside. He was happy to see that the back yard was deserted and he
sprinted for the outhouse. He tugged on the door and found it
locked.

“Somebody is in here!” shouted a familiar
voice from behind the wooden door. That somebody was Bill.

“Hurry up, man,” said Jimmy. “I’ve got to get
in there.”

“Is that you, Jimmy? Okay, just give me a
minute.”

Jimmy moved back from the door, shifting his
feet from one foot to the other. He could hear activity coming from
all sides of the walls. From somewhere, Jimmy could smell charcoal
smoldering in a grill. His stomach growled. He looked to the door
of the outhouse and silently cursed his luck. “Come on,” he hissed
at the door. “I’m going to bust out here.”

“Just a minute,” said Bill. “I’m almost
done.”

From directly behind, Jimmy heard the slap of
the screen door. He groaned and turned his head. There was Paula
and she was marching straight for him.
Oh God,
thought
Jimmy. He tried to muster a smile. Paula’s face was set into a deep
frown, her eyes were furrowed and her arms were swinging at her
sides. She walked directly up to him and stopped a foot away.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed in all of my
life, Jimmy Logan. Never! What? Was it something I said? Are you
ashamed of me? Is that it, Jimmy? Aren’t I good enough for you
anymore? Go ahead and spit it out. I can take it!”

“Listen, Paula… I’ve really got to use the
bathroom.”

Paula’s eyes glowed red. “Again?” she
shouted. “I’ve heard that before, you son of a bitch! How could you
have done that to me?” Paula began to weep and quickly turned and
sprinted back to the house.

The outhouse door opened and Bill emerged.
“That didn’t sound good,” he said. “She was really mad this
morning. You should’ve seen her. She was going crazy. I’ve never
seen her like that before. She was totally whacked out.”

“Can I just get in there?” Jimmy asked. “I
really gotta go.”

“You might want to wait a few minutes,” said
Bill, who was quickly walking up to the house. “My stomach has been
giving me trouble. I’m serious. I think it’s all the stress.”

Jimmy groaned. What did Bill know about
stress? Bill should try standing in his shoes for a minute. Jimmy
eyed the door. He couldn’t wait a second longer. He bravely opened
the door and went inside.

Relieved, he cautiously returned to his tent.
He unzipped the door and gasped. It looked as if a tornado had
swept inside. He sifted through his belongings and managed to find
his shaving kit, a towel and a clean change of clothes. He laid
them out on top of a pile of his jumbled things. He then stripped
down and slipped into his swimming trunks. He hung the towel around
his neck, picked up his shaving kit, stepped into his tennis shoes
and made his way down to the lake.

The gate was open and he jogged down to the
water. The temperature was somewhere in the eighties and the sky
was a perfect shade of blue. Children splashed in the lake with
their mothers watching them from the shoreline. Jimmy removed his
bar of soap and his bottle of shampoo and waded out into the water.
The water near the shoreline was warm, but grew cooler the further
out he ventured. He didn’t care; it felt wonderful. When the water
reached his waist he ducked completely under. He stood next to the
dock and soaped himself and washed his hair. He noticed that the
women seemed more interested in him than they were in watching
their own children. He wondered what they were thinking and decided
that he really didn’t want to know. He took a quick swim to rinse
off and returned to the shoreline where he toweled himself dry. He
quickly shaved and flossed and brushed his teeth, using the water
from the big red jug of fresh water. He then jogged back to his
tent and quickly changed.

He then went to see Julie. He walked along
the side of the house, ducking under windows as he went.
Thankfully, he found the deck deserted and he climbed the stairs
and quietly entered the front porch.

“Hey Jimmy,” said Julie, in a voice that
seemed a little stronger. “You should still be sleeping.”

“It was too hot. We baked in there,” Jimmy
said, taking the chair next to her. Julie did look better and her
eyes were clear and bright. She had even managed to brush most of
her hair and was now dressed in a clean pair of shorts and a
T-shirt. She was lying on her back, looking bored and listless.

“I heard you slept in Jon’s tent? What’s up
with that?”

“Who told you that?” Jimmy asked, remembering
how he and Jon had laughed about that earlier.

“Oh, you know. Word travels fast around here.
I heard that somebody wasn’t too happy about it, either. I can’t
blame her. I’d have gone nuts.”

“Have you talked to her? Was she in here this
morning?”

“No. She hasn’t said a word to me since she
arrived. I did see her, though. She’s beautiful. You sure know how
to pick ‘em.”

“Listen, Julie. You need to understand
something here. Paula and I were together for a long time.”

“I get it, Jimmy. You don’t have to spell it
out for me.”

“Stop interrupting me. I’m not finished.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. What I’m trying to say here is
that I’m not sure what to do. I’m really torn up about this, about
everything. A few weeks ago Paula and I were living together as a
couple. We had some problems and she was talking about going back
home to live with her parents. They had a lot of money and didn’t
want her to be with me. They even cut her off of her allowance.
They just wanted better for her, somebody from their own class of
people. She stuck with me for a long time, but they continued to
bribe her to come back to them. Well, when things got bad, she
decided to go back to them. That hurt me. She knew that I was
coming up here.”

“And here she is,” said Julie, ruefully,
“ready to forgive and forget. How nice.”

“Julie, don’t. Please? This is hard enough to
say to you.”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is. The truth is that I really
don’t know how I feel. I was in love with her. We’d talked about
marriage, kids, everything. We lived together and she went from
living in a mansion to living with me in a trailer house. That
meant something. We got along great for a while and she got used to
living like the rest of us. That was hard for her.”

“Oh, the poor baby.”

“Hey.”

“Sorry,” said Julie, rolling her eyes.

“Toward the end, things started to get bad.
Her folks were calling her all the time, asking her to come home.
She was all they had and they really put the pressure on her.”

“Why didn’t they just accept you into the
family? If they were so well off, they could’ve taken you in. You
could’ve lived the high life, gone to balls and played golf and did
all that other stuff that rich people do. Maybe that’s part of what
attracted you to her in the first place?”

“No, it wasn’t. That wasn’t it at all. That’s
what her parents thought, though. That’s why they cut her off. No,
making me a part of their family was never an option for them. They
never stopped over for a visit, not even once. We went there, of
course. I knew they didn’t like me, but Paula forced me to come
along. I hated it over there. They have no idea what the real world
is like—none. Her parents both came from big money; they even met
at Harvard. Stanley hasn’t worked a day in his life. Not one single
day. His idea of work is spending a few hours in the garden. I’m
serious. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. I just
thought you should know.”

“I don’t know, either,” said Julie, without
any expression on her face. “Her parents sound like quite the
couple though; I don’t like them already.”