“Sure has been lonesome around here lately,” she said.
“You have any plans — I mean for after —” I left it up there. Under the circumstances it was kind of a touchy subject really.
“Oh,” she said, polishing off her drink in two gulps, “nothing definite yet. I’m not worried.” She got up, went into the kitchen and came out with a fresh drink.
“You got any special plans for the rest of the day?” she asked, sitting on the couch beside me.
“I’ve got to get back across town before too long,” I lied, ostentatiously checking my watch.
She didn’t even bother with subtlety. Maybe she was too drunk or maybe the years with my brother had eroded any subtlety out of her. She simply reached out, grabbed my head and kissed me. Her tongue started probing immediately. I felt her hand fumbling at the front of her blouse and then the warm mashing of her bare breasts against me.
“You wouldn’t run off and leave a girl all alone like this, would you?” she murmured in my ear.
“Margaret,” I said, trying to untangle her arms from around my neck, “this is no good.”
“Oh, come on, Danny,” she coaxed. “What difference does it make?”
“I’m sorry, Margaret,” I said.
She sat back, not bothering to cover herself. Her nipples were very large and darkly pigmented and not very pretty. “What’s the matter?” she demanded. “Has Jack been telling you stories about me?”
“No,” I said, “that’s not it at all. I just don’t think that under the circumstances it would be a good idea.” I stood up quickly and gulped down the drink. “I’ve really got to run anyway.”
“Boy,” she said bitterly, “you’re just not with it at all, are you?”
“I’ve got to run, Marg,” I said. “Tell the kids I said hello.”
“I sure never figured you for a square,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Margaret,” I said. I went out very quickly. Hell let’s be honest, I ran like a scared rabbit.
I stopped at the Patio and had a beer to give myself a chance to calm down.
Clydine’s folks had left when I got back to her place, and she tore into me for being nice to them.
All in all, I got the feeling that I’d have been away to hell and gone out in front to have just spent the whole day in bed.
37
DEAR CAP AND CLINT,
I’ve been so busy I kind of got behind in my letter writing, I guess I’m doing OK in school — at least they haven’t kicked me out yet.
I was down to Tacoma a couple weeks ago and saw most of the others. Sloane has gone off his diet a little, but he hasn’t started putting any weight back on yet. At least he’ll have a beer with the rest of us once in a while, if we all get together and twist his arm. His doctor is sure now that there wasn’t any permanent damage, so you can quit worrying about that.
My brother’s divorce should be final about the end of Feb., and I think he’ll be making himself kind of scarce around here for a while after that. He’ll probably want to go someplace else for a while to get himself straightened out.
Nobody has had any word about McKlearey. We don’t even know where he went. It’s probably just as well, I suppose. He wasn’t just the most popular guy around here anyway. I can’t really say that any of us miss him.
I haven’t seen Stan Larkin for a couple months now, but the last time he was still playing that same silly game I told you about before. It’s kind of sad, really, because it’s all so unnatural for him.
I guess we were a pretty odd bunch, weren’t we? I’m glad you changed your mind about giving up guiding. You just happened to get a bunch of screwballs the first time out.
My girlfriend and I made up again. I think that’s about the fourth or fifth time since school started. She’s a 24-karat nut, but I think you’d like her.
Well, you fellows have a merry Christmas now, and don’t let the snow pile up so deep that it won’t melt off in time for me to get through when fishing season starts.
Well, Merry Christmas again. So long for now,
DAN
I write a lousy letter. I always have. I knew that if I read it over, I’d tear it up and then write another one just damn near like it, so I stuck it in an envelope and sealed it up in a hurry.
It was Wednesday night, and my seminar paper on Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury was due on Friday, but I just couldn’t seem to get it to all fit together. I went back and tried to plow my way through the Benjy section again. I knew that what I needed was buried in there someplace, but I was damned if I could dig it out.
I kept losing track of the time sequence and finally wound up heaving the book across the room in frustration.
I wondered what the hell Clydine was up to. Lately I’d taken to listening to the news and buying newspapers to check on any demonstrations or the like in Tacoma. I think my most recurrent nightmare was of some big cop belting her in the head with a nightstick — not that she might not have deserved it now and then.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t really concentrate. I was spending about half my time worrying about her. God damn it, as harebrained as she was about some things, she needed a fulltime keeper just to keep her out of trouble.
I leaned back and thought about that for a while. I thought about some of the creeps she hung around with and decided that most of them needed keepers a whole lot worse than she did.
I guess it really took me quite a while to come to the realization that I really didn’t want just anybody looking out for her. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want it to be anybody but me, when I got right down to it. I knew finally what that meant. Of all the stupid, inappropriate, completely out of the question things to get involved in at this particular time! I was still running down the long list of reasons why the whole idea was crazy as I reached for the telephone.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Joan. Is Rosebud there?”
“Yeah, Danny. Just a minute — Clydine!” I wished to hell she wouldn’t yell across the open mouthpiece like that.
“Hello.” Damn, it was good to hear her voice.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Flower Child. I don’t want to have to repeat myself.”
“My, aren’t we authoritarian tonight.”
“Don’t get smart. This is serious.”
“OK. Shoot.”
“I want you to transfer up here next quarter.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No, I’m stone sober.”
“Why the hell would I want to do a dumb thing like that? This isn’t much of a school, I’ll admit, but it’s sure a lot better than that processing plant up there.”
“Education is what you make of it,” I said inanely. “I want you up here.”
“All my friends are down here.”
“Not all of them, Clydine.”
“Well, it’s terribly sweet, but it’s just completely out of the question.”
“Dear,” I said pointedly, “I didn’t ask you.”
“Oh, now we’re giving orders, huh?”
“Goddammit! I can’t get any work done. I’m spending every damn minute worrying about you.”
“I can take care of myself very nicely, thank you,” she said hotly.
“Bullshit! You haven’t got sense enough to come in out of the rain.”
“Now you look here, Danny Alders. I’m getting just damned sick and tired of everybody just automatically assuming that I’m a child just because I’m not eight feet tall.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“I’m going to hang up,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “I’m going to be down there in an hour anyway.”
“Don’t bother. I won’t let you in.”
“Don’t be funny. I’ll kick your goddamn door down if you try that.”
“I’ll call the police if you do,” she yelled at me.
“The fuzz? You? Oh, get serious! I’ll be there in an hour.” I slammed down the receiver.
As a matter of fact, I made it in less than an hour. I saw Joan scuttling down the steps as I climbed out of my car.
“Good luck,” she called. “I’m heading for the nearest bomb shelter.”
“She pretty steamed?” I asked.
“Don’t forget to duck.”
“Thanks a lot, Joan. You’re all heart.”
I went on up the stairs. She didn’t have the door locked, but she did try to hold it shut against me. I pushed my way on through and we got down to business.