Barrows said, “Calm down.”
“Okay, I’m coming to get you, and with all the technological improvements at my disposal.”
“Now listen, Rosen. I suppose Maury Rock egged you into this. I talked it over with Dave and he assured me that the statutory rape charge has no meaning if–”
“I’ll kill you if you raped her,” I screamed into the phone. And, in the back of my mind, the calm, sardonic voice was smirking and saying, That’s giving it to the bastard. The calm, sardonic voice laughed delightedly; it was having a grand time. “You hear me?” I screamed.
Presently Barrows said, “You’re psychotic, Rosen. I’m going to call Maury; at least he’s sane. Look, I’ll call him and tell him Pris is flying back to Boise.”
“When?” I screamed.
“Today. But not with you. And I think you should see a Government psychiatrist, you’re very ill.”
“Okay,” I said, more quietly. “Today. But I’m staying here until Maury calls me and says she’s in Boise.” I hung up, then.
Wow.
I tottered away from the phone, went into the bathroom and washed my face with cold water.
So behaving in an irrational and uncontrolled manner paid off! What a thing to learn at my age. I had gotten Pris back! I had scared him into believing I was a madman. And wasn’t that actually the truth? I really was out of my head; look at my conduct. The loss of Pris had driven me insane.
After I had calmed down I returned to the phone and called Maury at the factory in Boise. “Pris is coming back. You call me as soon as she arrives. I’ll stay here. I scared Barrows; I’m stronger than he is.”
Maury said, “I’ll believe it when I see her.”
“The man’s terrified of me. Petrified–he couldn’t wait to get her off his hands. You don’t realize what a raving maniac I was turned into by the terrible stress of the situation.” I gave him the phone number of the motel.
“Did Horstowski call you last night?”
“Yes,” I said, “but he’s incompetent. You wasted all that money, as you said. I’ve got nothing but contempt for him and when I get back I’m going to tell him so.”
“I admire your cool poise,” Maury said.
“You’re right to admire it; my cool poise, as you call it, got Pris back. Maury, I’m in love with her.”
After a long silence Maury said, “Listen, she’s a child.”
“I mean to marry her. I’m not another Sam Barrows.”
“I don’t care who or what you are!” Now Maury was yelling. “You can’t marry her; she’s a baby. She has to go back to school. Get away from my daughter, Louis!”
“We’re in love. You can’t come between us. Call me as soon as she sets foot in Boise; otherwise I’m going to give it to Sam K. Barrows and maybe her and myself, if I have to.”
“Louis,” Maury said in a slow, careful voice, “you need Federal Bureau of Mental Health help, honest to god, you do. I wouldn’t let Pris marry you for all the money on Earth or for any other reason. I wish you had let things lie. I wish you hadn’t gone to Seattle. I wish she was staying with Barrows; yes, better Pris should be with Barrows than you. What can you give her? Look at all the things Sam Barrows can give a girl!”
“He made her into a prostitute, that’s what he gave her.”
“I don’t care!” Maury shouted. “That’s just talk, a word, nothing more. You get back here to Boise. Our partnership is off. You have to get out of R & R ASSOCIATES. I’m calling Sam Barrows and telling him I have nothing to do with you; I want him to keep Pris.”
“Goddam you,” I said.
“You as my son-in-law? You think I gave birth to her–in a manner of speaking–so she could marry you? What a laugh. You’re absolutely nothing! Get out of here!”
“Too bad,” I said. But I felt numb. “I want to marry her,” I repeated.
“Did you _tell_ Pris you’re going to marry her?”
“No, not yet.”
“She’ll spit inyour face.”
“So what.”
“So what? So who wants you? Who needs you? Just your defective brother Chester and your senile father. I’m talking to Abraham Lincoln and finding out how to end our relationship forever.” The phone clicked; he had hung up on me.
I could not believe it. I sat on the unmade bed, staring at the floor. So Maury, like Pris, was after the big time, the big money. Bad blood, I said to myself. Carried by the genes.
I should have known. She had to get it somewhere.
What do I do now? I asked myself.
Blow my brains out and make everyone happy; they can do fine without me, like Maury said.
But I did not feel like doing that; the cold calm voice inside me, the instinctive voice, said no. _Fight them all_, it said. _Take them all on_. . . Pris and Maury, Sam Barrows, Stanton, the Lincoln; stand up and fight.
What a thing to find out about your partner: how he really feels about you, how he looks at you secretly. God, what a dreadful thing–the truth.
I’m glad I found out, I said to myself. No wonder he threw himself into the Civil War Soldier Babysitter simulacrum; he was _glad_ his daughter had gone off to be Sam K. Barrows’ mistress. He was proud. He read that _Marjorie Morningstar_, too.
Now I know what makes the world up, I said to myself. I know what people are like, what they prize in this life. It’s enough to make you drop down dead right on the spot, or at least go and commit yourself.
But I won’t give up, I said to myself. I want Pris and I’m going to get her away from Maury and Sam Barrows and all the rest of them. Pris is mine, she belongs to me. I don’t care what she or they or anybody else thinks. I don’t care what evil prize of this world they’re busy hungering after; all I know is what my instinctive inner voice says. It says: Get Pris Frauenzimmer away from them and marry her. She was destined from the start to be Mrs. Louis Rosen of Ontario, Oregon.
That was my vow.
Picking up the phone I once more dialed.
“Northwest Electronics, good morning.”
“Give me Mr. Barrows again. This is Louis Rosen.”
A pause. Then the deeper-voiced woman. “Miss Wallace.”
“Let me talk to Sam.”
“Mr. Barrows has gone out. Who is calling?”
“This is Louis Rosen. Tell Mr. Barrows to have Miss Frauenzimmer–”
“Who?”
“Miss Womankind, then. Tell Barrows to send her over to my motel in a taxi.” I gave her the address, reading it from the doorkey. “Tell him not to put her on a plane for Boise. Tell him if he doesn’t I’m coming in there and get her.”
There was silence. Then Miss Wallace said, “I can’t tell him anything because he’s not here, he went home, he honestly did.”
“I’ll call him at home, then. Give me his number.” In a squeaky voice Miss Wallace gave me the phone number. I knew it already; I had called it the night before.
I jiggled the hook and called that number.
Pris answered the phone.
“This is Louis,” I said. “Louis Rosen.”
“For goodness sakes,” Pris said, taken by surprise. “Where are you? You sound so close.” She seemed nervous.
“I’m here in Seattle. I flew in by TWA last night; I’m here to rescue you from Sam Barrows.”
“Oh my god.”
“Listen, Pris. Stay where you are; I’m driving right on over. Okay? You understand?”
“Oh no,” Pris said. “Louis–” Her voice became hard. “Wait just a second. I talked to Horstowski this morning; he told me about you and your catatonic rampage; he warned me about you.”
“Tell Sam to put you in a cab and send you over here,” I said.
“I thought you were Sam calling.”
“If you don’t come with me,” I said, “I’m going to kill you.”
“No you’re not,” she said in a hard calm voice; she had regained her deadly cold poise. “You just try. You low-class creep.”
I was stunned. “Listen,” I began.
“You prole. You goof ball. Drop dead, if you think you’re going to horn in. I know all about what you’re up to; you fat-assed fart-faces can’t design your simulacrum without me, can you? So you want me back. Well go to hell. And if you try to come around here I’ll scream you’re raping me or killing me and you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail. So think about that.” She ceased, then, but she did not hang up; I could hear her there. She was waiting, with relish, to hear what I had–if anything–to say.
“I’m in love with you,” I told her.