Moving On (102 page)

“Your ulcer, probably,” she said. “The price of fame.”

“What’s the word from Jim and Clara?” he asked.

“So they’re Jim and Clara now,” she said angrily, jumping up. “How would I know what the word is? I don’t even want to.”

Bill was unimpressed with her annoyance. She was standing two stairs above him and he could almost see up her skirt. Her legs were lovely and it angered him that she had never let him near her.

“Well, the man who lives with Clara won’t get much time for scholarly pursuits,” he said, looking into his glass. “Not as I remember her.”

“As
you
remember her? My god, did she screw the whole faculty and student body? That’s just great.”

“I don’t know about the student body, but I’m sure she only gave her favors to a minute portion of the faculty.” He used his gravest, most professorial tone.

“That’s great,” she said and went to the bathroom to cry. Jim had run off with the easiest girl in school. After her cry she went back to the party. Lee, looking quite happy, was dancing with the pot-smoking graduate student. Peewee and Kenny were in a corner talking motor bikes. Patsy felt very much like leaving. All the people depressed her suddenly, and she knew it would be hours before they could be expected to leave.

“Would you look after my party?” she asked Emma. “I’m going to get someone to take me to a bar.”

“Why?” Emma was a little tight, and mildly surprised.

“I feel more like being at a bar than like being here.”

“Are you going off the deep end?”

“No, I’m just going to a bar, if I can get someone to take me,” she said, getting her coat from the coat closet. “If the narcotics squad comes and arrests you tell them they can find me in a bar. I’m not trying to evade my guilt.”

She went over and asked Kenny and Peewee if they would like to take her to a bar and though both were very surprised, both said yes. They could not imagine why she wanted to go to a bar with them. Patsy realized she was not entirely sober and made Kenny drive.

“What kind of bar?” he asked.

“I don’t care. Peewee must know some bars. So must you.”

Peewee had a bad moment. It seemed to him that by some horrible quirk of fate Kenny would drive straight to the Gulf-Air, where everyone would either make fun of him or insult Kenny because of his beard or, worse, insult Patsy, so that he and Kenny would be forced to fight them. Horrible as the vision was, a tiny part of him secretly hoped Kenny
would
take them to the Gulf-Air, so they could all see he really did have a beautiful friend who went to Rice. But Kenny lacked initiative and was unused to driving cars and simply took them to Yum-Yum’s.

“I’ve been here,” Patsy said. “Is this the best bar you know?”

“Best for what? It’s safe, at least.”

“I feel maudlin,” she said. “It’ll do.”

It proved to be an excellent place for crying. They had hardly sat down when the waitress came over and asked about Hank. She was the same thin blonde who had been there the night Hank brought her. Patsy tried to remember when that had been, precisely when it had been, and couldn’t. She could barely be sure of the year. It had been a long time ago, when she was very innocent, she knew that. Kenny and Peewee had a stiff conversation about motor bikes, both of them trying hard to ignore the fact that she was crying. She didn’t seem desperately unhappy, she even talked with them from time to time, but tears kept streaming down her face. They all drank beer faster than they would have ordinarily, in hopes that she would stop crying. She herself drank four beers while she talked and cried, not exactly conscious of being sad. It was not just missing Hank that caused her to cry. She missed everybody, even some of the people at the party. Everyone was gone away, far away; they were scattered, lost, dead, all the men she liked. The music made her sadder—it was all hillbilly. There was a song about a man whose wife had just left him. He was at the airport, and it was raining:

In the early mornin’ rain . . .
Out on runway number nine
. . .

The song played over and over and the barmaid brought them more beer and Kenny and Peewee did their best to ignore her tears. Patsy drew circles on the table top and rested her lip against the cool glass of the beer mug. A couple were shuffling nearby, interrupting their dance from time to time in order to argue.

“I miss everyone,” she told Kenny in explanation of her tears. Jim more than ever, Hank almost as much as Jim. And Sonny Shanks too, and Joe Percy—they would be fun to go to a bar with. Every time she tried to speak she ended up hiccuping.

Peewee and Kenny became alarmed, for they saw that Patsy would sit there all night, crying and drinking beer and listening to hillbilly music, if she were allowed to. Kenny kept mentioning the party, hoping that she would remember she was the hostess of it. But Patsy had all but forgotten it. She drank beer without really tasting it and imagined that she was with people who weren’t there. She spied enviously on the couples dancing. She had no one to dance with, no one to fight with either.

“Sonny’s dead,” she said to Peewee. “Had you heard?”

“Aw, yeah,” Peewee said. “Heard all about it. That’s the way it goes.”

“Yep, that’s the way it goes,” Patsy said.

“Quit talking like Hemingway characters,” Kenny said. “This isn’t
The Sun Also Rises.”

“Why’d you break up with your girl friend?” Patsy asked.”

“Oh, because she was hung up about fucking,” Kenny said.

“Live fast, love hard, die young, and leave beau-ti-ful mem-o-ries . . .” Peewee quavered. Patsy and Kenny were startled. He seemed about to sing. But that was all he sang. Sonny had been his idol, and mention of his death had reminded him of that old song. “Won’t be no more like him,” he said, feeling for a second like he might cry.

Patsy patted him on the hand in sympathy. “There were no more like him, anyway,” she said.

Peewee controlled himself, but his near breakdown alarmed Kenny. He was not drunk and he didn’t relish the prospect of two drunks on his hands. He demanded they go back to the party. Peewee was not really drunk, and he was just as glad they were going. But Patsy didn’t want to go. She was at a clear stage of drunkenness where all she knew was what she didn’t want. She went outside with them but then she became petulant and childish and sat down on a curb. She wouldn’t talk to them. She just sat down. Peewee was getting a bad feeling. It was going to be the scene in El Paso all over again, only Jim wouldn’t be there to handle her. Fortunately Kenny was a man of small patience and he saw no reason why he should bother to be patient with Patsy.

“We’re going,” he said. “If you don’t come you can walk.”

“Okay,” Patsy said.

Kenny started the Ford. She was still sitting on the curb. Peewee stood uneasily by the car.

“You’re stealing my car,” Patsy said. “You’re a cruel bastard. I think you’re both car thieves. Cruel beasts too.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Kenny said. “We want to go to the party. Get in, Peewee.”

Patsy got up. It surprised her that she could walk.

“Take me to your place,” she said. “It’s too early to go back to the party. It will look suspicious.” She squeezed into the back seat and began to giggle.

“Why
will it look suspicious to go back now?” Kenny asked. “Let me know if you need to puke.”

“Why
would I need to puke?” she said, mocking him. “Let’s go to your place. I like dingy places. We could smoke pot. I’m sure you’ve got some hidden.”

“As drunk as you are you don’t need to be high,” he said. “Besides, we could do that at your place.”

Peewee’s apprehension deepened. Marijuana was an ominous possibility. He didn’t know much about such matters, but he feared the worst. He saw himself hooked on heroin. He saw himself spending years in the Huntsville prison. He was a little drunk and Patsy and Kenny were scaring him slightly.

Patsy felt very odd. Anything to avoid the party. “You could read us your poems,” she said, leaning over the front seat.

“You’re putting me on,” Kenny said.

“Nooo,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that. I hate parties. I want to hear poems. Peewee’s probably never heard a poem.”

Though Kenny got back to within a block of the party, Patsy had her way. She leaned over into the front seat and insisted, and since she had stopped crying and seemed to feel happy they both quickly became enchanted with her again. On the curb she had seemed difficult but in the car she only seemed pleasantly drunk and she smelled good. Kenny thought, Why not, and Peewee forgot his visions of the needle.

They went to Kenny’s place, which had grown even dingier since the departure of his girl friend. It was only two houses down from the building where Hank’s apartment had been, an unfortunate proximity. Walking in, Patsy stopped on the cold lawn and looked at the other building, two houses away, where she had had so much pleasure. The bottom suddenly fell out of her pleasant mood. There was no more pleasure. There, almost next door, her pleasure had ended. She hadn’t been touched in two months.

“Come in, it’s cold,” Kenny said, and she moved reluctantly. The other apartment was in her mind—the time she had spent there, the night she had spent there that had ruined everything. Kenny’s room was a mess. The bed wasn’t made. But the bad thing, suddenly, was Kenny and Peewee. They were enchanted with her again. They looked at her when she came in as if she were the angel of beauty. She felt queasy and soured and bad and faithless and pleasureless and sordid, and their worshipful looks infuriated her. She glared at them, but they didn’t understand. They kept looking at her as if she were someone she wasn’t, someone virtuous, ethereal, kind, and chaste. It was hateful. She was different from what they thought. She was no better than the women in the bar, who were probably at that moment getting screwed by the men who had been dancing with them. It was insulting for two little boys like Kenny and Peewee to look at her as if she were pure. They wanted her themselves and were always giving her the eye, and yet they thought she was chaste and virtuous. It was hateful. She churned with resentment and pain.

“Stop looking at me that way,” she said. “I didn’t come here to be stared at.”

It was an unfortunate command. They saw that, inexplicably, she had become furious at them, and it scared them both. Even Kenny, who usually became sullen and stolid when women were angry with him, was made nervous by Patsy’s look. She looked wild, like she might start smashing things, including him. When she told them not to look at her they both stared at her the harder.

“Oh, why do you keep looking at me?” she said, gasping with anger. “Turn and look at the wall if you can’t stop looking at me like that.”

Kenny shrugged. “Like what?” he said. “We weren’t giving you the evil eye or anything.”

“The evil eye,” she said. “Of course you weren’t. I didn’t say anything about evil eyes. It’s worse, what you’re doing. I can’t stand either of you.”

“Well,” Kenny said, trying to assume sullenness as a defense. “How come?”

“Because you don’t look at me right,” she said, advancing on them a step. Peewee was shaken. He didn’t know what was happening or how to look at her. He was for turning to face the wall.

“Well, how come?” Kenny said again in the same sullen tone.

“Oh, shit!” Patsy yelled. “If you say how come to me again I’ll hit you! You don’t know me and you look at me wrong. You look at me like you want to sleep with me but you think I’m too good or something. You think I’m the sort of woman who doesn’t sleep with anybody, I know you do.”

“Aw, you’ve got a child,” Kenny said.

“I
know
I’ve got a child,” she said. “Don’t mention my child. You think I’m untouchable and that I’m virtuous and that I never do anything bad, that’s what you think. I’m not so goddamn virtuous. I do the same things other women do. I slept with someone, and I chased my husband off. What do you know about how virtuous I am? I don’t want to be on any goddamn pedestals. If she can screw everybody in the goddamn English department I can screw people too, anybody I want to.”

“Okay, okay, you’re not so good,” Kenny said.

“Don’t talk to me,” Patsy said. “Just shut up. I could sleep with both of you if I wanted to. I don’t know why we don’t. She slept with everybody. You always want to, both of you always want to, every time you’ve looked at me for years. I’m sick of you looking at me like that, I’d rather do it right now than see you looking that way. Then you wouldn’t think I was so precious.” She stumbled past them, taking her coat off, and to their mutual consternation dropped her coat on the floor and began taking off her sweater.

“Hey, no, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Kenny said, grabbing one of her arms. “You’re just drunk.” He tried to motion Peewee into the fray, but Peewee hung back; he wanted no part of it. Patsy had her sweater hiked up, showing her slip, but Kenny held on to her wrist so she couldn’t get the sweater off.

“Let me go,” she said. “I want to take it off . . . I want to take it off . . .” But her breath grew short, the fierce anger went out of her voice and out of her eyes. She twisted and pulled, trying to make Kenny let go her wrist. She began to cry, and suddenly the liquor and the beer came up in a rush. She barely had time to bend over. Kenny didn’t even try to guide her to the bathroom; he got her to kneel over a wastebasket. She coughed and heaved. Some got on the floor but he didn’t care. She wasn’t the first girl to barf on his floor. He knew it was all over and was vastly relieved.

Peewee, once he saw that that was really it, Patsy was sick drunk and not any longer possessed of her terrible frenzy, became able to act. He found the bathroom and got a washrag and helped Kenny clean up the mess while Patsy rested, braced on her hands, her head over the wastebasket and her eyes closed, crying, quietening, occasionally still heaving. When she finished and sat back she started automatically to brush back her hair with her hand, but Kenny caught the hand and wiped it clean so she wouldn’t get vomit in her hair. With drunk females he was an old and confident hand. They helped Patsy over to a chair and cleaned off her sweater and skirt as best they could.