Marijuana Girl (4 page)

It hadn't been very good. None of it had been good. You had both been frightened and unsure and worried, and Joy had screamed that once, and then, after you'd stopped in front of the house, she'd talked about her father--in a way that didn't quite make sense, talking as though her father were to blame for her being kicked out of school.

Tony couldn't figure that part out. After all, she was the one who had got up from her seat in the auditorium and gone up on the stage. Of course, there had been some kidding and horseplay going on before that, but nobody had thought anything about it when she'd got up. And then, suddenly, there she was on the stage, walking back and forth in long strides that stretched out the flare of her light dress, and everybody was watching her. After a moment or so, she had caught the mood perfectly--exactly like the girls in that burlesque show in Union City.

Suddenly she had deftly done something with a zipper, so that with each stride one slim, nylon-clad leg poked into view almost to the thigh. Then, faster and faster, she had whirled in a wild dance.

He remembered how the infection had suddenly caught up the other kids. How they had applauded and whistled, stamping feet to give her a throbbing rhythm for her dancing. Then she had begun a mock "grind", weaving and contorting her body! No one had seen the teacher watching from the back of the auditorium. The whole huge auditorium rang with yelling.

Then unexpectedly Harry Reingold was up on the platform calling, "Come on kids, break it up. You want old pussyfoot in here? Come on, break it up!" And Ruth Scott, tubby little Ruth, was pulling Joyce offstage. Then, as silence descended once more, and the students went back to their books, you had caught a sound from the rear of the auditorium and turned to see a door swinging closed. And you had known, then, that Joyce was in for it ...

"Tony! What on earth is the matter with you?" Tony looked up at his mother. "What ails you, Tony?" His father put in. "Have you been drinking?"

"I just don't feel so good. I don't think I want anything to eat now. Excuse me, Mom? Dad?" He deserted the table and went into the living room, where he tossed himself upon the couch. This hadn't been the way he'd expected it to happen at all. He had always thought that the first time--well, there would be an exaltation, as well as a tremendous feeling of having achieved adulthood. And it wasn't like that. Not a bit like that. Instead he was terrified, feeling as guilty as though he had stolen money. He was frightened because Joyce had not called, because he had not been able to find her. Supposing she had--well, maybe not that. But you never knew. She had been a little drunk yesterday, and now perhaps she regretted so much that she had been driven to ... to what? How could you think like that? But after all, wasn't Joyce different? Didn't she have those funny moods, where she did odd defiant things. And if Joy had ... done something like that, it would be his fault, because he, Tony Thrine, should have had more self-control!

He remembered his father saying: "Tony, the most important thing you must learn in the process of growing up is to exercise self-control." How long ago had the old man said that? A year? Two years? Anyway, it didn't matter, because when the time came that was just what he hadn't done. And now Joyce? What had happened to her? What would happen? Would she--uh--become interested in other boys? Rumor suggested that this was inevitable. But he didn't want her to. He wanted her for himself. She belonged to him. She was his girl ...

The telephone rang, faintly, as though troubled with timidity. He leaped up from the couch and started toward it, calling, "I'll get it, Dad."

He snatched the instrument from the hall stand. "Hello?"

"Tony?"

"Joyce? I've been going out of my mind. What happened to you?"

"Oh, don't be like that, Tony."

"I've been calling and calling your aunt!"

"How could you be so stupid? I told you not to call there. Do you want her to find out about me?"

All the pent-up worry and fear in his mind turned to anger. "You promised to meet me right after classes. I waited over an hour for you."

"Maybe I didn't feel like meeting you. Maybe I had something more important to do."

"More important! Listen to me, damn you. After last night ..."

"Last night," her voice was cold, "doesn't mean you own me. I had things to do today, and I couldn't spend the afternoon thinking about some silly boy ..."

"Joyce," he said, filled with a cold rage, "do me a favor. Drop dead!" He slammed the receiver into place and started back to the living room.

Then, suddenly frightened by his own anger, his own presumption, he ran back to the phone and hastily dialed Joyce's number. Her aunt picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hello, this is Tony. Let me speak to Joyce, please?"

"Tony? She's not here. She just called and said she wouldn't be home for dinner; that she was meeting you."

"Did she say where she was calling from?"

"No. Is something the matter?"

"No. Nothing." He started to put the telephone down, then raised it again. "I just got something mixed up. Thanks very much." He hung up. For a long moment he stood there, hating himself for his stupidity, for his meaningless anger. But she must be downtown somewhere. Maybe he could find her. He went to the doorway of the dining room. His father and mother were still sitting at the table. The crystal chandelier over the table cast little glints of light on their faces.

"I'm going out," he said. "Maybe to a movie or something." He went through the butler's pantry and the kitchen and out to the garage, started his car and was passing into the driveway when he heard the telephone ringing again.

He stopped, got out of the car and ran into the house, reaching the hallway just in time to hear his mother say, "No, Joyce. He just said he was going out and he just went out the driveway this minute ... Wait, here he is now. Joyce? Joyce? Oh ..." She put the receiver in its cradle, and turned to Tony. "You just missed her. She hung up."

He went back out to his car, got in, and drove through the elm-shadowed streets in the gathering dusk. There was a great lump of self-pity in his throat. It was mixed with anger at himself, at Joyce, at his mother--meaningless anger at them--and a very reasonable anger at the sequence of events.

He drove down Howard Street, braking sharply at the traffic lights, and racing the engine to leap forward as they changed. She must be somewhere downtown. Everything was on Front Street--everything and everybody.

He turned at the corner of Howard and Front. The traffic was heavy. It was Friday evening and the shops were open and people were downtown for the movies. He had to wheel slowly through the jam. Just as he reached Park Avenue, he saw Joyce standing on the curb about to cross. Her slender figure drew his eye like a magnet, and be felt a wave of affection for her. He called to her--though he was on the other side of the street. "Joy! Joy!" She turned, looking about without spotting him. Then she said something to the man standing beside her. He nodded his head and smiled. Together they started across the street, the man--an older man--taking her arm.

"Joy!" Tony screamed again, but the wild honking of blocked cars behind him drowned his voice. Desperately he tried to pull the car close to the curb and get out, but a traffic policeman blew his whistle and the cars behind him honked louder.

He started up, perforce, and drove down the block, at last finding an opening in which he parked. Then he ran along Front Street, panting with anger and disappointment and jealousy. Hs ran all the way along Front as far as Howard, but there was no sign of Joyce.

4 ~ Frustration

For long moments after Tony had slammed the receiver on the hook, Joyce stood with the earpiece still dangling from her hand. It had been so important to tell him, so necessary, so vital to share her good news with someone who loved her. It would have been like going to her father--who was not around to be gone to, who was never around to be gone to. She replaced the telephone instrument. She felt unduly disturbed without knowing exactly why. Yet she had some inkling of it; knew she was terribly frustrated at not having reached Tony, talked to him, rejoiced at the news with him.

The whole purpose of getting the job was defeated. What did it mean if there was no one to understand its importance, no one to take pride in her? But Tony hadn't even allowed her to tell him the good news, hadn't even allowed her to say there was good news. He acted as though he owned her--as though she must always do his bidding, and if he told her to meet him after school then that was what she had to do--and what right had he to demand that?

And then she thought: But I did promise to meet him, and he does love me. Doesn't he? He's supposed to love me. That's what giving yourself to a man means, isn't it? When you sleep with him you love him, don't you? And that makes him love you, too? Doesn't it?

There had to be someone to love you--really love you, want you, possess you, the way your parents were supposed to. And sex was just love, wasn't it? It was love carried to the nth degree. Then she thought about last night, trying to understand herself, trying to get some kind of grip on the fleeting impressions which had shot through her mind, leaving quickly fading traces like fast-falling stars. She thought about the strength with which Tony had carried her to the car, the tenderness of his embrace yet the impassioned need implicit in it--a need no less urgent than her own--the terrible, terrible need to be cherished, to be protected within a warm shield of affection.

You couldn't let Tony misunderstand about this afternoon. You had to put him straight, and then he would come and hold you in his arms and understand and kiss you and tell you how wonderful you were.

She pressed down on the hook of the phone, heard the coin collected, inserted another and dialed Tony's number. There was a busy signal.

She tried again a moment later. Still busy. Now the importance of reaching Tony had assumed the dimensions of panic. She had to reach him. Had to. She tried her own number. "Hello, Aunt Priscilla? ... Has Tony called? ... Just now ... I'll be home later ... Bye." Then, feverishly, she dialed Tony's.

"No, Joyce. He was here for a while, but said he was going out. He left just this minute."

Joyce said, "Thanks," and let the receiver fall on the hook. He hadn't waited, hadn't wanted her enough to wait for her to call him back. She couldn't hold anyone. Not her parents, who didn't care enough about her to stay with her or take her along with them. Not Tony. Not anyone. Everything was such a mess. Anybody had to be important to somebody. Anybody was worth something.

She opened the door of the booth, feeling the tears welling up in her eyes, and tense agony in her knees and stomach. She had counted so much on Tony's love, on giving herself as the means for assuring love.

She realized, then, that she hadn't eaten since morning. Getting the job on the Courier had been so exciting, and the instructions for working so wonderful, and the immediacy of obtaining the job so surprising that the idea of food had vanished entirely from her mind.

She went to the lunch counter across from the telephone booth end ordered a sandwich and milk.

She was trying to reconcile her vast appetite with her emotional anguish when a voice beside her said, "Joyce?"

She swung around on her stool. "Oh, hello, Mr. Burdette. Gee, I didn't expect to see any more of you today."

Burdette was the city editor of the Courier. He was young--thirty-one--for the job, since most of the men over whom he held dominion were his seniors. But the staff was a homegrown product Burdette had been lured from the hustle and bustle of a huge Manhattan daily by an advertisement in Printer's Ink that promised "fine future and rapid advancement to the right man." Moreover the canyons of concrete and the dying lawns of Central Park had never satisfied an earthy passion within him that cried out for greenery and small homes and suburbia.

He had brought with him to Paugwasset his wife, a small son, a passion for jazz amounting to a religion (which he kept reverently concealed from Vail Erwin, his managing editor and immediate supervisor, who believed there should be no religions before the First Church of Christ Scientist). He had also brought an automobile which would have been legally outlawed fifty miles to the west where Jersey state laws protect the citizens from mayhem on the highway and, finally, he also brought the cult of the weed--marijuana.

He was conscious of no wrongdoing in indulging himself in a smoke now and then, though in Paugwasset he kept its use secret from everyone but Janice, his understanding wife. She knew that it was an almost inescapable part of his background, a product of formative years spent largely in the company of musicians, entertainers and others who took "tea" smoking as much for granted as others take tobacco smoking. She knew also that Frank took pride in the fact that he could take the stuff or leave it alone, deliberately resorting to it on occasion for the pleasure it gave him, rather than smoking it willy-nilly by virtue of habit or addiction.

Certainly it did not interfere with Frank's home or his life. But sometimes, as now, he found himself lonely for the highways and byways of New York. As he often pointed out to Janice, whom he had married some years ago in a sudden fit of domesticity, suburbia was fine for commuters who could leave it every morning and return every evening, but it was damned dull if you had to stay there all day long. His heart was in Harlem, and Jimmy Ryan's, and Nick's, and Eddie Condon's. His heart was on Fifty-second Street where small bands and trios and quintets were writing history in marijuana smoke and music. His heart was in these places--and Janice at the moment was away for a week before going to Maine for the summer, where she would take Frank, Jr. to be admired by his maternal grandparents.

This was an annual event, and one to which Frank Burdette could never fully accustom himself. There was something unsound about the idea that toward the end of May, as spring was turning to full summer, his wife packed up herself and her off-spring and went away for three months. As the summer grew and reached its full height he had always, so far, managed to become adjusted to the idea, and even to enjoy it. Nothing, for example, compelled him to sleep at home of nights--or to spend his evenings alone, for that matter. But the first week or so of this annual departure, which reminded him of salmon heading for their spawning grounds, left him with a feeling of tremendous loneliness.