“Boy, mat’s sure as hell the truth,” he said.
He gave me the address of the packing plant where they’d process the deer for him, and I told him that Jack and I would get it over there for him that afternoon.
About noon, Claudia came in.
“Hello, Dan,” she said in her deep voice.
“Claudia,” I said. She still gave me goose bumps.
“How many cigarettes, Calvin?” She wasn’t badgering; she was just asking.
He mutely held up three fingers.
“Truth?” she asked.
“Ask Dan,” he said.
“He’s only had one since I got here about ten thirty,” I said. “Cross my heart and hope to turn green all over.”
She laughed, and her hand touched my arm affectionately.
“And how many nips from your hide-out bottle?” she asked him.
“What bottle?”
“The one on the top shelf in the storeroom.”
“How’d you find out about that?”
“I’ve always known about it,” she said.
He stared at her for a minute and then started laughing. “I give up,” he said. “What the hell’s the use anyway?”
“How many?” she repeated.
“Not one. I gave Dan a belt, but I haven’t touched a drop.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m not nagging you, Calvin. This is for your own good.”
“I know, dear,” he said. It was the first time I’d ever heard him use any term of endearment to her.
“You’d better run on along home now,” she said. “I put a big bowl of salad in the refrigerator for you.”
“I’m startin’ to feel like a damn rabbit,” he complained. “I got lettuce comin’ out of my ears.”
“But you’ve lost weight, haven’t you?” she said.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said grudgingly.
“And take your nap this time,” she commanded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I said good-bye to him, and he went on out. I’d been ready to leave, too, but Claudia had given me a quick signal to stick around. After he left she turned to me, her face serious.
“Just how bad was he up there, Dan?” she asked me.
“He was pretty sick,” I told her. “He couldn’t seem to get his breath, and there were a couple times when he couldn’t keep anything down. We all figured he’d snap out of it, but he just couldn’t seem to get adjusted.”
“Why didn’t you send him down earlier?” she asked.
“I don’t think any of us really knew how sick he really was,” I told her. “A couple times it seemed like he was getting better. He’d go on out hunting and things seemed to be coming along fine, but then he’d conk out again. We were all watching him pretty closely, but he kept telling us that he’d be all right in just a little bit.”
She shook her head. “Men!” she said. “You’re all just a bunch of overgrown children.”
“I’ve been finding that out,” I told her.
“I’d die if I lost him, Dan.”
Sloane?
I guess it must have shown on my face.
“You don’t understand, do you, Dan?”
“It’s none of my business really,” I told her.
“I know,” she said, “but I want to tell you anyway.”
Why me, for God’s sake? Why always me?
“I think I’m as happy now as I’ve ever been in my life,” she said, looking out the window. “For the first time, Calvin-needs me — not just the fact that I can keep his books or pick out furniture or any of that. He needs me. When he came home, he was frightened — terribly frightened. He came to me for the first time without making it some kind of deal — you know, TU do this for you if you’ll do that for me.’ It was the first time he didn’t try to buy me. You have no idea what that means to a woman.”
“I think I do,” I said quietly.
“I suppose maybe you would,” she said. “You seem to see a lot of things that other people don’t.” She looked steadily up at me for a minute. “You see, Dan,” she said finally, “I can’t have any children. I did something pretty stupid when I was about seventeen, and I had an abortion. It wasn’t even a doctor who did it, and of course I went septic. I wound up losing everything.” She passed her hand across her lower abdomen. “Calvin and I decided not to adopt children — I suppose we could have, but we just decided not to. So Calvin is my baby. That’s the way it’s always been.”
I nodded.
“But this is the first time he’s ever turned to me this way. Maybe it really isn’t much of a basis for a good marriage but —” she shrugged.
“It’s probably as good as any,” I said, “and better than a lot of them.”
She smiled at me. “Thank you,” she said, “I thought you’d understand.”
We talked a while longer, and then I took off. She was one helluva woman.
I picked up Clydine after her last class, and we went on back to my place. She’d told me quite emphatically that morning that she was going to spend every spare minute with me until I left for Seattle. I wasn’t really about to argue with her.
35
I didn’t see Stan until the next weekend. I’m not sure why, but I think I was avoiding him. When I called to make sure he was home, I got the distinct impression that he’d have preferred to keep it that way, but it was too late then.
He was growing a mustache, and it made his face look dirty. Stan didn’t have the kind of face you’d want to put a mustache on. And instead of one of the usual sober-colored, conservative sport shirts I’d always seen him in, he was wearing a loud checkered wool shirt — outdoorsy as all hell, and on him about as phony as a nine-dollar bill.
“Well, Dan,” he said with a nervous joviality, “how the hell have you been?” As if he hadn’t seen me in ten years, for God’s sake.
“Fair, Stan. Just fair.”
We went on into his tidy little living room.
“How’s old Cal?”
“He’s coming along. His doctor’s got him on a short schedule and cut him off on booze and cigarettes.”
“He gave me a damn bad scare up there, the poor bastard.”
What the hell was all this?
He fidgeted around a little, and our conversation was pretty sketchy. I wasn’t sure what this he-man role he was playing was all about, but I desperately wanted to tell him that it wasn’t coming off very well.
“Oh,” he said, “I’ve been fixing up the den. I wanted you to see it.” He led me back to the room he’d identified as the study the last time I’d been there.
He’d redone the place in early musket ball. The rifle and his shotgun were hanging on the wall where they could collect dust, and there were hunting prints hanging all over the place. I could see copies of Field and Stream and The American Rifleman scattered around with a studied carelessness. The place looked like a goddamn movie set.
“I’m having that buck’s head mounted,” he said. “How do you think it would look right there?” He pointed to a place that had obviously been left empty for the trophy.
“Ought to be OK, Stan,” I told him.
We went back into the living room and I listened to him come on like the reincarnation of Ernest Hemingway for about a half hour or so.
Then Monica came in and suddenly it all fell into place.
“Did you pick up the beer like I asked you to?” he said to her, his voice cocked like a gun.
“Yes, Stan,” she said — rather meekly, I thought.
“Why don’t you open a couple for Dan and me?”
“Of course,” she said and went on back out to the kitchen.
I watched Stan, who had never smoked, light a cigar. I wanted to tell him that he was overplaying it, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it.
I sat around for another half hour or so, listening to him swear and give Monica orders, and then I’d had a gutful of the whole thing. I made an excuse and got away from them.
I suppose that what made the whole thing so pathetic was the fact that it was all so completely unnecessary. After her little misjudgment with McKlearey, Monica would have been pretty docile even without his big hairy-chested routine. Stan was saddling himself with the necessity of playing a role for the rest of his life. He’d get better at it as time went on. In a few years he might even get to the point where he believed it himself, but I don’t think he’d ever really be comfortable with it.
I picked up Clydine and told her about it as we drove back on across town to my place.