We pulled in beside his trailer about ten minutes later and went on in. Margaret came over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. She seemed a little self-conscious about it. I got the feeling that the “cousinly” kiss or whatever wasn’t just exactly natural to her. “Hi, Civilian,” she said.
“That’s the nicest thing anybody ever said to me,” I told her, trying to keep my eyes off the front of her blouse.
We all had another drink — whiskey and water this time — while Marg finished fixing dinner. Then we sat down to the steaks. I was hungry and the food was good. Once in a while I’d catch myself looking at McKlearey. I still didn’t have him figured out, and I wasn’t really sure I liked him. To me, he looked like a whole pile of bad trouble, just looking for someplace to happen. Some guys are like that. Anyway, just being around him made me feel uncomfortable. Jack and Margaret seemed to like him though, so I thought maybe I was just having a touch of the “first day out of the Army squirrelies.”
After dinner Marg got the kids up from their naps, and I played with them a little. They were both pretty young, and most of the playing consisted of tickling and giggles, but it was kind of fun. Maybe it was the booze, but I don’t think so. The kids weren’t really talking yet, and you don’t have to put anything on with a kid that age. All they care about is if you like them and pay attention to them. That hour or so straightened me out more than anything that happened the rest of the day. We flopped around on the floor, grabbing at each other and laughing.
“Hey, Civilian,” Jack said. “Let’s dump your gear over at your trailer. I want you to see how we got it fixed up.”
“Sure,” I said. “Uncle Dan’s gotta go now, kids,” I told the girls. Marlene, the oldest — about two — gave me a big, wet kiss, and Patsy, the baby, pouted and began to cry. I held her until she quit and then handed her to Marg. I went to the door where Jack was waiting.
“You guys go ahead,” Lou said. “I got my shoes off. Besides, I want to watch the ballgame.”
I glanced at the flickering TV set. A smeary-looking baseball game was going on, but I’d swear he hadn’t been watching it. I caught a quick glance between him and Margaret, but I didn’t pay much attention.
“You guys going to be down there long?” Margaret asked.
“We ought to unpack him and all,” Jack said. “Why?”
“Why don’t you put the girls out in the play yard then — so I can get the place cleaned up?”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Dust McKlearey, too — since he’s a permanent pan of that couch now.”
Lou laughed and settled in a little deeper.
“We’ll take the jug,” Jack said.
“Sure,” Lou answered. “I want to rest up for tonight anyway.”
Jack and I put the little girls out in the little fenced-in yard and drove his Plymouth down the street to the trailer I’d rented. We hauled my duffle bag out of the back seat and went in.
It was hot and stuffy inside, and we opened all the windows. The trailer was small and dingy, with big waterstains on the wood paneling and cracked linoleum on the floor. Jack had been able to scrounge up a nearly new couch and a good bed, as well as a few other odds and ends of furniture, a small TV set, dishes, and bedding. It was kind of a trap, but like he said, it was a place to flop. What the hell?
“Pretty good, huh?” he said proudly. “A real bachelor pad.” He showed me around with a proprietary attitude.
“It’s great,” I said as convincingly as I could. “I sure do appreciate all you’ve done in here, Jack.”
“Oh, hell, it’s nothing,” he said, but I could see that he was pleased.
“No, I mean it — cleaning up the place and all.”
“Margaret did that,” he said. “All I did was put the arm on Clem for the furniture and stuff.”
“Let’s have a drink,” I said. “Christen the place.”
“Right.” He poured some whiskey in the bottom of two mismatched glasses and we drank. My ears were getting a little hot, and I knew I’d have to ease up a bit or I’d be smashed before the sun went down. It had been a real strange day. It had started at six that morning in a mothball-smelling barracks, and now I’d left all of that for good. Soon I’d be going back to the musty book-smell and the interminable discussions of art and reality and the meaning of truth. This was a kind of never-never land in between. Maybe it was a necessary transition, something real between two unrealities — always assuming, of course, that this was real.
We hauled my duffle bag and my civvies back to the tiny little bedroom and began hanging things up in the little two-by-four closet and stashing them in the battered dresser.
“You gonna buy a set of wheels?” he asked.
“I guess I’d better. Nothing fancy, just good and dependable.”
“Let’s see what we can finagle out of Sloane tonight.”
“Look, Jack,” I said, “I don’t want to cash in on —”
“He can afford it,” Jack interrupted. “You go to one of these two-by-four lots on the Avenue, and they’ll screw you right into the wall. Me and Lou and Sloane will put you into something dependable for under two hundred. It may not look too pure, but it’ll go. I’ll see to it that they don’t fuck over you.”
I shrugged. Why fight a guy when he’s trying to do you a favor? “OK,” I said, “but for a straight deal — I want to pay for what I get.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said.
“Where’s the big blowout tonight?” I asked him.
“Over at Sloane’s place. Man, wait’ll you see his house. It’s a goddamn mansion.”
“McKlearey going to be there?”
“Oh, sure. Lou’ll show up anywhere there’s free booze.”
“He’s an odd one.”
“Lou’s OK. You just gotta get used to him is all.”
“Well,” I said, depositing my folded duffle bag in the bottom of the closet, “I think that’s about got it.”
“Pretty good little pad, huh?” he said again.
“It’ll work out just fine,” I said. “Hey, you want to run me to a store for a minute? I’d better pick up some supplies. I guess I can’t just run down to the friendly neighborhood mess hall anymore.”
“Not hardly.” He laughed. “But, hell, you could eat over at my place tomorrow.”
“Oh, no. I’m not fit to live with until about noon. Marg and I get along fairly well, and I sure don’t want to mildew the sheets right off the bat.”
“What all you gonna need?”
“Just staples — coffee, beer, aspirin — you know.”
“Get-well stuff.” He laughed again.
We went out and climbed into his car.
“Hadn’t you better let Marg know where we’re going?” I asked him as he backed out into the street.
“Man, it’s sure easy to see you’ve never been married. That’s the first and worst mistake a guy usually makes. You start checkin’ in with the wife, and pretty soon she starts expectin’ you to check in every five minutes. Man, you just go when you want to. It doesn’t take her long to get the point. Then she starts expectin’ you when she sees you.”
The grocery store was large and crowded. It took me quite a while to get everything. I wasn’t familiar with the layout, and it was kind of nice just to mingle with the crowd. Actually, I wound up getting a lot more than I’d intended to. Jack kept coming across things he thought I really ought to have on hand.
“Now you’ll be able to survive for a few days,” he told me as we piled the sacks in the back seat of his car.
We drove back to my trailer, unloaded the groceries, and put the stuff that needed to be kept cold in the noisy little refrig beside the stove. Jack picked up the whiskey bottle, and we drove his car back up to his trailer. We got out and went up to the door. The screen was latched.
“Hey,” Jack yelled, rattling the door, “open the gate.”
Lou got up from the couch, looking a little drowsy and mussed. “Keep your pants on,” he said, unlocking the door.
“Why in hell’d you lock it?” Jack asked him.
“I didn’t lock it,” Lou answered. “I dropped off to sleep.”
“Where’s Marg?”
“I think I just heard her in the can.”
“Marg,” Jack yelled, “what the hell’d you lock the front door for?”