I’d dropped him an occasional postcard from Europe, and he’d responded with the beautifully written letters that seemed, to me at least, almost like my picture of Stan himself — neat, florid, and somehow totally empty of any meaning.
At least he’d be somebody to talk to.
I wheeled into a tavern parking lot, went in and ordered a beer. I borrowed a phone book from the bartender and leafed through the L’s. He was there all right: Larkin, Stanley, and right above it was Larkin, Monica. Same address, same number. I remembered that he’d mentioned a girl named Monica something or other in a couple of his letters, but I hadn’t paid much attention. Now it looked like he was married. I don’t know why, but he’d never seemed to be the type. I jotted down the number and the address and pushed the phone book back to the bartender.
I finished my beer and had another, still debating with myself, kind of working myself up to calling him. I have to do that sometimes.
“Hey, buddy, you got a pay phone?” I finally asked the bartender.
He pointed back toward the can. I saw it hanging on the wall.
“Thanks,” I said and went on back. I thumbed in a dune and dialed the number.
“Hello?” It still sounded like him.
“Stan? I didn’t really think I’d catch you at home. This is Dan — Dan Alders.”
“Dan? I thought you were in the Army.”
“Just got out last weekend. I’m staying here in town, and I thought I’d better look you up.”
“I guess so. It’s good to hear your voice again. Where are you?” His enthusiasm seemed well-tempered.
“Close as I can figure, about eighty-seven blocks from your place.”
“That’s about a fifteen-minute drive. You have a car?”
“Just got one. I think it’ll make it that far.”
“Well then, come on over.”
“You sure I won’t be interrupting anything?”
“Oh, of course not. Come on, Dan, we know each other better than that.”
“OK, Stan.” I laughed. “I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes then.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
I went back to the bar and had another beer. I wasn’t sure this was going to work out. I wouldn’t mind seeing Stan again, but we hadn’t really had a helluva lot in common to begin with, and now he was married, and that along with a couple of years can change a guy quite a bit.
The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. I went out and climbed in my car. I pulled out of the lot and headed off toward his house, dodging dogs and kids on bicycles, and swearing all the way. It had all the makings of a real bust.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t. Stan had aged a little. He was a bit heavier, and his forehead was getting higher. He was combing his hair differently to cover it. He was still neat to the point of fussiness. His slacks and sport shirt were flawlessly pressed, and even his shoe-soles were clean. But he seemed genuinely glad to see me, and I relaxed a bit. He showed me around a house that was like a little glass case in a museum, making frequent references to Monica, his wife. The house was small, but everything in it was perfect. I could almost feel the oppressive presence of his bride. The place was so neat that it made me wonder where I could dump my cigarette butt. Stan gracefully provided me with an ashtray — an oversized one, I noticed. He obviously hadn’t forgotten my slobby habits. He had changed in more ways than just his appearance. He seemed to be nervous — even jumpy. He acted like somebody who’s got a body in the cellar or a naked girl in the bedroom. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
We sat down in the living room.
“How’s Susan?” he asked me.
My stomach rolled over. “I wouldn’t know really,” I answered in as neutral a tone as possible.
“But I thought you and she —”
“So did I, Stan. But apparently she shopped around a bit while I was in Germany. She must have found somebody more acceptable to her mother — you know, some guy who thought that the Old Lady was a cross between the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc, and Eleanor Roosevelt.”
“I’m sorry, Dan. I really am.” He meant it.
“Those are the breaks, old buddy,” I said. “It’s probably all for the best anyway. Her Old Lady and I probably would have been at each other’s throats most of the time anyway. About the first time I told her to stick those chest pains in her ear, the proverbial shit would have hit the proverbial fan.”
“Did she have a bad heart?”
“She had a useful heart. It may have been rotten to the core, but it was as sound as the Chase Manhattan Bank — how’s that for mixing metaphors?”
“Scrambling them might be a little more precise.”
“Anyway, the old bag would get this pained look on her face, and the old hand would start clutching at the maternal bosom anytime Sue and I were about to leave the house. One of the great weapons of motherhood, the fluttery ticker. My Old Lady never tried it. I don’t think she was ever sober enough.”
“You still haven’t much use for motherhood, have you, Dan?” he asked me, an amused look on his face.
“As an institution, it ranks just downstream of San Quentin,” I said sourly.
Stan laughed. I think that’s one of the reasons he and I had gotten along. With him I could be as outrageous as I liked, and he was always amused. I’d never really offended him.
“Could you drink a glass of wine?” he asked suddenly. The perfect host.
“I can always drink — anything,” I told him.
“Alders, you’re a boozer, you know that?”
“It’s part of my charm.” I grinned at him.
He went out to the kitchen and came back a minute later with two glasses of pink wine. “This is a fairly good little domestic rose,” he said handing me one of the glasses.
“Thank you,” I said. “Your manners, charm, and impeccable good taste are exceeded only by your unspeakable good looks.”
“Steady on,” he said. He glanced at his watch. I seemed to catch that edginess again. Maybe I was imagining things.
“How’s your gun eye?” I asked him. Oddly enough — or maybe not, when you think about it — Stan was a spectacular shotgunner. He’d started out on skeet and trap — gentlemanly, but not very nourishing in terms of meat in the pot — and had moved on up to birds. I’d actually seen him triple on ducks once — one mallard coming in high, another on a low pass right out in front of the blind, and a widgeon going away like a bat out of hell. He’d just raised up and very methodically dumped all three of them, one after another.
“Probably a little rusty,” he said. “I’ve only been out to the range a few times this summer.”
“You’d better get on it, old buddy,” I told him. “The season’s coming on, you know.”
“I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to go out much this year,” he said regretfully. “Monica and I are pretty busy.”
I got another flash of that nervousness from him. Something was definitely wrong. I decided to let it drop. I didn’t want to be grinding on any open sores.
“Say,” I said suddenly, “do you ever hear from Maxwell?”
“He was in California last I heard,” Stan said. Maxwell had been a sometime visitor when we had roomed together. He was a nut, but we’d both liked him.
“Did he really bum his draft card that time?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Stan snorted. “He was just trying to make a big impression on a girl who had an acute case of politics. He told me later that he just pulled out one of those printed ID cards — you know, the kind that comes with the wallet — and set fire to it before anyone could see what it was. The real joke was that he was really 4-F or whatever they call it.”
“You’re kidding. A hulk like that?”
“He had a kidney removed when he was eleven. The military wouldn’t touch him.”
“Man” — I laughed —”what a con artist. Did he ever make it with the girl?”
“I suppose,” Stan said. “He usually did, didn’t he?”
“That’s why he flunked out of school. If he’d spent half as much time on his classes as he did on those elaborate campaigns of seduction, he’d have chewed up the department.” I took a belt of his wine.
“Alders, you know, you’re a beer drinker at heart. You drink a fine rose like you would a glass of draft beer in a tavern two minutes before closing time.”