Girls In 3-B, The (10 page)

Running hand in hand, Pat and Jackson caught the last train on the p.m. schedule, the one that left Windsor Park at 11:41. It was almost empty. Sober working people were at home in bed by this time, and carousers hadn't started to think about breaking up. They scrambled on board and selected a seat from a whole row of empty seats, across from a sleeping Negro woman with a bundle in her lap, somebody's maid carrying her uniform home after a dinner party. Jack stood back to let Pat sit by the window. "Hot in here.”

"Mmh."

"Wasn't much of a party, did you think
?
"

"Oh, I don't know. It's all right if you like that kind of thing
--
I guess"

"Seems like a silly way to spend an evening," Jackson said. "I haven't got anything against artists, or even fake artists. I bet the real ones don't go to these brawls. I bet they're home working, composing music or writing or whatever it is they do."

"Yeah."

"But if Annie thinks it's fun, I guess the least I can do is trail along." He looked down at his hands, arguing the matter out with himself. "What bothers me is, I sort of hoped Annie might feel like going steady with me. We've only been out together about four or five times, but I know I like her enough to want her to really be my girl."

Pat opened her eyes. "You're a nice boy, Jackson. Annice doesn't have any right to treat you the way she does."

"That's all right. She's smarter than I am, I know that."

"You're smart enough."

"I tell you one thing though, I don't like to have her running around with that Alan. A lot of fellows talk the way he does, but they're just showing off. He means it. He plays for keeps."

She wanted to say
, oh, go away and let me die, don't sit here and bore me to death with all this stuff, can't you see my heart is broken?
Instead, she listened politely.

Jack said, "I mean, he really does all the things he talks about, as near as I can tell. I know a lot of kids that have been around with him. He drinks a lot, and smokes tea, and he doesn't have any scruples where women are concerned."

"Do you, Jackson?"

"What?"

"Have scruples about women."

He blushed. In the dim light from the ceiling fixtures, reflected back from the shiny orange paint of the car, she could see the color rise. "I've been around," he said, not meeting her eyes. "A fellow isn't going to turn it down if it's available, we're not built that way. I've never done anything with a girl I didn't really like though, and I've never pressured a girl. She has to really want to."

"That's nice."

"I mean, I wouldn't take advantage of a girl because she had too much to drink or something like that."

"You'll make a nice husband for some lucky girl."

He grinned. "Don't know how lucky she'll be, but I sure enough figure to do my best."

"Jackson?"

"Huh?"

"Do you think it's possible for a man to be in love with two women at the same time?"

He considered, solemnly. "Not if it's real love. That just comes once in a lifetime. That's why you want to be sure before you get engaged.”

"I guess you're right."

"Another thing. If I got involved with a girl, I'd be damn sure nothing happened. You know." He was really embarrassed now. She looked down at her lap, avoiding his gaze in order not to embarrass him. "A fellow's a heel who gets a girl in trouble, that's what I think. But if I did get a girl in a jam I'd marry her. I wouldn't send her to some quack."

This kid is a gentleman,
Pat told herself, feeling more like her old flippant self than she had in weeks. She said gravely, "Jackson, if I ever decide to get in trouble with anybody I'll give you first pick."

"What!"

"Relax, boy."

He couldn't drop the subject of Alan. Bright in his mind was the image of Annice, little and light-footed, innocent-eyed and childishly freckled. He wanted to protect her. He was warm with wanting to protect her. Sickly, he remembered a bit of conversation with one of the fellows in his physics class, a guy who had double-dated with Alan. The boy said admiringly, "Jesus, does he make time with women! He started with women when he was thirteen
--
no kidding, he'll tell you the names and dates. He won't use a safe either. Says it spoils things for him. He says people should make love the natural way."

"But what if the girl gets caught?"

"Then he thinks she should go ahead and have the baby. That's nature." The fellow had shrugged. "Nice for the girl, huh
?
I can see my old man's face if my sister came walking in with a basket, being natural."

He glanced nervously at Pat. He couldn't tell her that; he didn't know her well enough
--
besides, she was a nice girl. There were some things you couldn't talk about with nice girls, just as there were things you couldn't discuss with your dad or anybody older. He said weakly, "Anyhow, I wish she wouldn't see so much of the guy. He's poison. You tell her I said so."

"Sure will."

They were the only passengers to get off at 55th; the long wooden platform that ran two full blocks looked longer than ever, the planking more full of cracks, the white stripe along the edge almost invisible. Pat's heart contracted with an old childish dread
--
suppose she fell off? She grabbed Jack's arm. They went silently down the enclosed wooden stairs, their steps echoing. Jack looked around nervously. "Be a good place for a holdup. Or a murder."

"Don't say such things."

Traffic was at a minimum; there was no one in the corner drugstore except the prescription clerk in his white jacket, sitting bored and sleepy-looking in his little glass cage. She had never seen the drugstore closed before. They walked past the empty lot where the condemned houses had been torn down. Scattered bricks still lay dark against the ground. Buildings were lighted sparsely, with here and there a strip of light under a pulled-down shade or a row of yellowish stripes behind a Venetian blind.

"Is this a safe neighborhood?"

"Safe enough. One of the girls in my office was stopped by a hood on the way home from work the other night," Pat said. "She lives a couple blocks west of here. But you're likely to run into that most anywhere."

"Is she all right?"

"Betty? Sure. She gave him the old knee, and he let her loose in a hurry. A girl who gets raped is simply asking for it, that's all," Pat said, bored. "You have to take care of yourself."

They stood at the front door of her house. "Shall I come up?"

"Don't bother, I have my keys right here. Thanks a lot, Jackson."

He gave her a ritual kiss, a polite touching of lips to cheek. "Look, don't say anything to Annice. I don't want her to think I'm worried about her, or butting in or anything."

"All right. You're a nice boy, Jackson. Annice ought to grateful to have you think about her."

"Yeah. Well, good night."

He walked home slowly, his head bent.
Shouldn't have said anything. If Pat tells her, it'll only make her mad. She's such a spunky little piece. Gee, I hope Pat doesn't say anything to her. I want her to feel friendly to me anyway, even if she doesn't want to be my girl.

He intended to lie awake and worry, but he had been short on sleep for a few nights. He fell asleep almost before pulling up the covers and switching off the light. It was ten o'clock on Saturday morning when the telephone waked him. He stumbled to the corner table and answered it, too groggy with sleep at first to take in what Pat was saying, then jarred awake by the hysterical tone of her voice. Annice hadn't come home at all, and would he please come over and tell them what to do
?

Barby was sure that the basement room would come back her in nightmares and in fever as long as she lived, whenever her defenses were down. The tossed bed, scene of so many defeats
--
she tried vaguely to count back, but failed because reconstructing those scenes nauseated her and blurred her thinking. She looked at the zigzag crack the plaster ceiling and listened to Rocco's voice cracked with tenderness at her ear.
Why does he always have to get sentimental?
she thought. She wanted to burst into hysterical laughter at the first syllable. He thought he was being gentle and affectionate. He thought
--
she stuffed the corner of the pillowcase into her mouth to keep from screaming with laughter
--
that she was enjoying this! Maybe even that she loved him.

Fool, fool,
she thought, tightening her arms around his neck because he expected her to and because the ritual had come to be a reflex.

She would surely remember this as long as she remembered anything. The sudden entry, awaited, dreaded, almost welcomed because it would soon be over now. It was no use to object, to say no. You might as well get it over with. She shut her eyes because the dark intense face was too close to her own, the bristles of beard hurt her cheek. His eyes, dark brown, were fixed in hypnotic pleasure. She tried not to remember Frank Stewart's hungry eyes or compare the excited panting at her ear with the quickened breathing of that first time.

There. Roll off. For one exquisite second of relief she felt nothing but the bliss of drawing a free breath. Then the misery settled down on her again and she lay waiting for him to take his hand off her and gather his strength and get out of bed. Only then would she be free to go back to the apartment. She saw herself crawling, slinking to her hole like the other basement animals, the mice that came out at night to feed from the garbage can?, the slick quick roaches and the scuttling thousand-legged worms.

Sunlight poured in through the street-level window, dangerously unshaded. It crossed her mind, not for the first time, that any passerby could look down through that glass and see them twined in this monstrous and horrible act. Children, maybe, taking a shortcut across lots. He didn't care. On other occasions, when it happened at night, he left the light on. She shuddered. Only one thing could be worse than this degradation, and that was the possibility of being caught, of standing naked and revealed before the whole world. Shamed, lost, doomed. The pleasant face of her mother rose before her, smitten with shocked unbelief, as it surely would look if she ever discovered she had been betrayed.

Rocco walked to the dresser and stood, feet apart, pouring wine into two small glasses. That was part of the total horror, that she couldn't go at once but had to stay here until the whole ritual was played out. She took the wine into her mouth, shrinking from its sharp sourness, as she took Rocco's lovemaking to herself
--
not because she wanted it, but because it was pressed upon her. Drink quick, don't breathe, and you can adjust your clothes and go.

There were people in the world who liked wine, just as there were women who found men and their lovemaking atttractive. She looked again at Rocco, his sturdy well-muscled body, his thick curly hair. And shuddered.

Her good tweed skirt was wrinkled. She sat up dizzily, trying to pull it straight. Her stockings were twisted. She fished under the bed with her toes and found one loafer, but had to stoop
--
fighting off the faintness
--
for the other. In the mirror her face was reflected dimly, a white disc that belonged to nobody. "You don't have to go.”

"Yes, I do. Somebody might come.”

 She tried to walk a straight line to the door, knowing that at this hour on Saturday the other tenants would be coming and going, carrying in groceries, taking suits and dresses to the cleaner, leaving on week-end jaunts. She opened the door a crack and looked out to be sure that nobody was going to or coming from the laundry. Ten 'clock on Saturday morning
--
what a time for it! She felt, as always after these encounters, bruised and exhausted. Not in body, although at first she had examined herself all over with the help of a hand mirror, surprised because the dark stains didn't show. Her mind, her spirit felt as though the lightest touch would stir up a pain.

Dirty.
She shrugged. She had been dirty so long now. Ruined and rotten. What difference could anything make
?

In daylight the apartment looked tired and shabby. In the morning when they left for work no one had time to be critical; at night, with the lights picking out book-bindings and colored cushions, it was homey. Barby stood in the living-room doorway, taking in the general effect of shabbiness and clutter. A pair of high-heeled red pumps stood in ballet position at the edge of the davenport. The ashtrays overflowed with lipstick-stained butts, and magazines lay in uneven heaps on the floor and table. Barby shivered. The room looked the way she felt, beat and dirty.

Pat came out of the bathroom, her forehead puckered. "Did Annice phone or anything while I was at the Hi-Lo? She still hasn't showed up."

"She probably spent the night with a girl, or something."

"Sure, but it's not like her not to call. She's the most dependable one." This was true; it was Annice who wrote down telephone messages, made out grocery lists, remembered to empty ashtrays. Insofar as the housekeeping was done, she did it. She even rinsed the breakfast cups and piled them in the sink, to be washed at night.

Barby poured herself a cup of cooling coffee and drank it standing, hoping both to relieve her headache and to kill the sour taste in her mouth. She made a face. "Ick."

"Listen to me, I'm worried. What do we do now
?
"

"She didn't get drunk or something and spend the night with Jackson, do you suppose? After he walked you home
?
"

"I called Jackson. He says he hasn't seen her, and I believe him. Anyhow, he isn't that kind of a fellow."

"They're all that kind of fellows."

"Not Jackson."

"Okay, okay, what's the difference? He says he hasn't seen her."

They looked at each other. Pat said slowly, "I keep thinking about all the scare stories in the papers. She might have been slugged and robbed. Or raped. Or run down by some drunk or something."

The city spread around them for miles, vast and impersonal. A huge honeycomb of buildings intersected with streets, alleys, parks. A human body was nothing, a small fragile thing capable of being hidden in a sewer or a broom closet. Both of them felt their human helplessness, pitted against the uncaring monster that was Chicago.