The whole thing is a lot tougher on Tod than it is on me. I’m always awake when the dreams happen. And I am innocent. . . . The sick shine of imposture and accusation— I don’t get that. I know he’s only dreaming. I just settle back, with some apprehension, admittedly, and give witness to the late show screened by Tod’s head, by his secret mind—by his future. When the time comes to experience the events that Tod’s dreams foretell (when we find out, for instance, how the baby came to wield such power), then maybe I will take it harder. Tod himself weeps like a baby before the dreams happen. Occasionally, nowadays, Irene is around to psych him up before he goes in there.
On the TV (look)—on the rooftop, on the ledge, high up, the crying man in the dirty white shirt, holding a baby. Nearby, a policeman, urgently crouched, all cocked and bunched for this urgent encounter or transaction. The cop is saying through his bullhorn that he wants to take the baby. In effect, he wants to disarm the crying man in the dirty white shirt. The crying man has no weapon. The baby is the weapon.
That’s not how things stand in the black room, with its groping carbon, its stilled figures. I just know this. In here, the baby is not a weapon. In here, the baby is more like a bomb.
Just when Tod has established our relationship with Irene on a secure footing, the kind of setup that any sane man would kill for, with her punctual visits and affectionate phone calls, the movies we enjoy together, the fine dining, the peace and safety (the forgiveness) that her presence confers, plus the exquisitely torpid lovemaking that takes place right on the button every couple of months or so, and reaching the stage, now, where I think we can tackle her, gently but firmly, about her untidiness around the house, because it’s best to get these things out in the open, not to let them rankle and fester, and so on—guess what. Tod has started fooling around. Yeah. With Gay nor.
One Sunday afternoon we took a trancelike ride in the car out to Roxbury, and parked, and strolled the streets, and there she was, standing at her front door in a blue dressing gown with her arms folded and with a look of amused reproach on her face. “You old bastard,” she called out. But we got talking to her anyway. I didn’t think anything was up until we went inside. Tod, I wanted to say: don’t do this. The voice of conscience. It speaks in a whisper. Nobody hears it. One thing led to another—actually it was more like the other way around. After an initial lull we now go out to Gay nor’s regularly, every other week.
It’s called two-timing, or double-lifting, and that’s exactly how it feels. There is integrity-loss. On the other hand it’s a buzz physically, I admit, because our new friend has been around quite a bit longer than Irene. This little honey’s only fifty-four. But I’m upset. To be frank, I’m scandalized. Last week he went out with another one: Elsa. Just lunch, fortunately. It was a very acrimonious occasion and she called us some terrible names. I thought it was a disaster but something tells me that Tod’s still hopeful. Is this allowed? I feel as if we’re about to get arrested. What’s the limit?
Suddenly, to Tod’s glands, the world is a woman. Even the sharpness of the city, on a wet night, the veils of rain, the stained darkness—it’s a woman. Their shapes are everywhere, and sending messages to his glands. I wonder if Tod’s new interest in women is a professional interest, connected to his dealings with them at AMS: his custodial scrutiny of disturbed or distempered female flesh. But his new interest in women seems far too broad and anarchical; it isn’t specialized. Unwinding, we sink into the armchair with a coffee cup, and gaze out of the window, and then he’ll see an outline across the road (now what?), through the fence, through the leaves, and he’ll vainly crane and peer, and tip forward onto his feet.