Читаем Gould полностью

The second time was also in New York. He met her at a party she came to with a friend of his, she seemed to be interested in him just by her occasional glances his way, he signaled her to meet him in the kitchen and said there “Look, I’d love to get your number and call you up sometime but you go out with a guy I know, or at least you came in with him, so that’s a problem, isn’t it?” and she said “We’re really just good friends,” and he said “You don’t sleep with him?” and she said “Who said that’s your business? And if we did we could still just be good friends, couldn’t we? but like to sleep with each other, even though I’m not saying that’s the situation with Tim and me,” and he said “So then maybe we could see each other one time,” and she said “It’s okay with me and I don’t think Tim will mind too much; I’ll ask him,” and he said “Maybe I should,” and she said “Better if I do; he might get mad at you for horning in and then there could be a row; I’ll put it in a way you wouldn’t be able to,” and he said “How’s that?” and she said “I’ll say ‘I flashed on this guy, Tim, and he happens to be someone you know. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me because of that, but that’s not what I want, so what do you say, Tim, will you mind very much if I see him while seeing you too?’” and he said “I don’t know how I like that arrangement, you seeing him one day, me the next, maybe even some other guy you flash on being a third, and so on,” and she said “What’s the matter, you want everything? You don’t even know me, so you have no hold. And Tim’s my friend and if it happened where I started sleeping with you, what’ll be the harm that I also sometimes sleep with him? I knew him first and who’s to say I won’t always like him more than you and also like sleeping with him more? But, you know, if it turned out that you’re the only guy I want to sleep with, then that’s how it’ll be. That is, if we do end up sleeping together, for that’s not why I’m interested in you, I want you to know,” and he said “I won’t ask why; that’d be too self-serving, I suppose,” and she said “I already told you: we flashed on each other and the outlook appears bright,” and he said “Then good, I’m glad; I also realize that isn’t all there is, what you said,” and she said “I was wondering, for a moment.” She came back with Tim about ten minutes later and Tim looked angry and said “What the hell you think you’re doing, Gould?” and he said “I’m sorry, and I told her I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, so what are you talking about?” and Tim said “Don’t hand me that; trying to steal my girl away,” and he said “I wasn’t trying to steal. We were talking, didn’t she tell you? — and then, I don’t know what, but nothing’s happened, and you don’t even want me talking to her, well, so I won’t, she’s all yours,” and the girl said “Oh look at you two: ‘Here, you take her’; ‘Yeah, I’ll take her,’ as if I was a big slab of prize beef you got cheap,” and Tim laughed and said “Only joking, you fool,” and to Gould “She flashed on you, she said; way to go, you’re getting a great babe, or woman, I’m afraid,” bowing gallantly to her with his hand sweeping in front of him as if he had an eighteenth-century hat in it, “and there’s nothing between us, right?” to her, and she said “Right,” and Gould said “Even better,” and Tim said “Not that I want you leaving with her tonight; I came with her, I escort her home,” and she said “Excuse me, I’ll decide,” and Tim said “Okay, decide,” and she said “I choose to go with .” and Tim said “Oh, go with Gould; I understand he has a shlong a mile long,” and she punched his arm and said “You beast,” and Tim said “Only joking again; he’s got a matchstick that’s all wet, so don’t expect much for a number of reasons,” and left, and she said “What a drip he can be sometimes,” and then “Ah, now we’re alone and free,” and Gould said “This is making me dizzy,” and she said “I got the cure; shut your eyes and pucker-thee-up,” and he said “Right, we haven’t done anything like that yet,” and she said “So? What about it?” and he put his arms around her and they kissed and kissed again and she said “Umm, you taste sweet; Tim tasted from ugly pipe tobacco,” and after some more kissing they went inside and sat on the couch and held hands and she leaned her head back on his arm around her shoulders and kissed the fingers near her cheek once and Tim said “Look at those goofy lovebirds; so, fuck already, fuck or fly away,” and she said “Did I ask you?” and the host said “Tim, your language, will ya?” and Tim said “Ah, screw it, it’s my way of grieving,” and she said “You dodo — c’mere,” and kissed him on the lips and Tim said “I guess that’s the best I’m gonna get, eh?” and Gould wished it were so, wanted to love a woman he was sleeping with, but what the hell, this was second best; no, sitting here and holding her was third best; first was the whole thing, arm around her at a party and kissing and sex, and second just sleeping with a girl he liked but there was no chance of his being in love with, and she shared an apartment with another girl and was a beauty all right, the face, the neck, when he first saw her he thought she was a dancer, which had always been an attraction, and she turned out to be, with a great body, long legs, the works, hard rear and from what he could see from the bulge they made against her shirt and what he’d felt against his chest, solid breasts, but she was Negro and that was a problem but he didn’t think it’d be much of one. He’d never had sex with a Negro except a whore in Harlem when he was in high school and drove up with an older friend in his friend’s father’s car and picked up a hooker on the street and she didn’t want to drive with them to the park or somewhere because you never know, girls have got killed that way and they were afraid of going to one of the local hotels so they each in turn did it with her standing up in a little area under the stairs on the ground floor of a rundown brown-stone and a few times during it people leaving or entering the building said as they went up or down the stairs “What’re you doing back there? Kids live here. Do your filthy, scummy business some other place.” They went to her apartment and she said to her roommate “This is Gould; you know, I don’t even remember his last name. But a nice guy I met at the party tonight. If you’re up at eight tomorrow and I’m not wake me and don’t take a no; I have early rehearsal,” and they went to her room, she said “You want to wash up now, because I’m tired and want to get to bed quickly,” and he said “I don’t have a toothbrush and I’d seriously like to use one,” and she said use hers, it’s the pink one and told him where the bathroom was and as he went to it he passed her roommate’s door, it was open a little and he could smell cigarette smoke and hear soft music, chamber, Vivaldi or Bach or one of those from the Baroque, she was a dancer and good-looking too and he thought maybe one day she might want to do a threesome with them; he’d never done it, but these two, they seem so free or unconcerned or something like that about sex and men sleeping over, so who knows if they might not go for it — it’s been a fantasy of his for a while; he’ll be sure to be extra nice and polite to the roommate and also but in a subtle way do what he can to be physically attractive to her and after a while hint at it to the girl. She was naked when he got back to the room and she said “Any special preference to which side of the bed you want?” and he said “Either,” and she said “Then take the left one; traditionally, I’m a smack-dab-in-the-center sleeper, but with a guy I like to be on the right,” and went to the bathroom without putting anything on. When she came back he was on top of the bed with his clothes on and she said “What are you waiting for? Oh, itty baby wants momma to undress him?” and he said “That wouldn’t be so bad, though it’s not essential; but first time, it would’ve been nice to remove each other’s clothes and, you know, gradually reveal what’s underneath,” and she said “That’s hogwash; as you can see, what I’ve got underneath every girl’s got — boobs, bush and cracks — unless she has one of those third nipples or something, which I don’t have. Look, you just want to screw and so do I, but if you insist — next time, if there’ll be one, the slow shedding of clothes and striptease, all right? Tonight, let’s just get it over with, if you’re not too tired — I am, almost — because I do have that early rehearsal call tomorrow, which means neither of us sleeps late.” She helped him take off his shirt, only because it got stuck around his ears, he took off his pants and shorts and they got under the covers and made love. He wanted to make love in the morning and she started to but looked at the clock and said “Oh my gosh, sorry, gotta catch a bus,” and took his hand away from her vagina and got out of bed. He saw her a couple of times a week for months and she had a number of boyfriends, she said, but she liked him most and he was her best lover too, and he said “I don’t believe a word you say about that,” and she said “Really, you are, for two of the other three guys are demi-fags so they sometimes want to do it to me as if I’m a man, and that I want no part of, none. All I need is a ruptured rectum or torn sphincter, if that’s what you get. Not just that it’ll hurt like the devil, but try and dance with it.” Sometimes he felt self-conscious with her on the street or in a restaurant, for some reason never on movie lines or in theaters or bars or at talks. People occasionally stared, pointed them out, more like touching someone’s arm and saying “Don’t look to your left too quickly but there’s something there I want you to see,” sometimes he’s sure because she was so beautiful, and her height and figure, and she talked so dramatically, her gestures and big voice, but he knew the looks from others were also angry at times, though some people smiled at them in a way which said “Good, white and Negro can go together, they can even fall in love, it’s healthy and right and important and time for that and this couple proves it can work.” But he’s getting away from the point. The point’s abortion. He held hands with her on the street, put his arm around her at bars, kissed in those places, did everything anywhere he would with any girl he was seeing, though he was never in love with her; they had a good time, got along well, made each other laugh, saw other partners during all this time, and then they broke up. She said she wanted something more stable, just wanted to see one man now, maybe even think of eventually marrying and having a kid or two and she for sure knew it wasn’t going to be with him. She had fun with him, the sex was great, he was smart, nice-looking enough, pleasant and witty most times though too often a bit removed and cold or grim, but she didn’t feel anything — what should she call it? help her out with this, he’s good with words, which was another thing she liked about him and that he didn’t parade it — anyway, nothing deep or just really emotional toward him, and don’t kid her, he didn’t for her either, so she thinks they ought to break up and without any fuss. Not “ought,” they have to, that’s all; some things you don’t want to take beyond their natural life spans and maybe even some things you should end while they’re still pretty good so before their natural life spans are up. He said okay, he likes her but as she said he doesn’t love her, though he thinks he did a few times and sometimes for days, but enough about that, and they were silent, not looking at each other, or at least he wasn’t to her, as they walked to her building from the bar they’d had this talk at, and he said goodnight at the door and she said “Look, one last time won’t kill us and it’ll be interesting too, knowing that unless there’s this tremendous sexual emergency of some kind in the future that the other one can quickly relieve, this is the last for all time,” and he said “You think there’s a chance for some future thing like that, because I wouldn’t mind?” and she said “No, I was really just talking, but so what.” They went to bed and in the morning he wanted to do it again and she said “Last night’s was fine as a fond fare-thee-well-my-undarlinged — how do you like that one? better than even you’ve made — but now I’m not in the mood and don’t see myself getting in it, so I wouldn’t want this time to be the one I remember as the last,” and he said “Last, fast, we both have no clothes on and we’re all greased up for it from last night so let’s just do it, and you can get into it for a few minutes,” and she said “I mean it, don’t make me think I made a mistake by suggesting the one last night, and I would have to put more gook in the diaphragm when what I want to do most is take the damn thing out.” She called him a few months later and said “How are you?” and he said “Fine, but surprised to hear from you after so long,” and she said “Uh-oh, your voice, it’s so unwelcoming — so I should probably get right to it, why I called, right?” and he said “It’d be appreciated,” and she said “Well, guess what? I’ve gone and got myself pregnant by you, how’s that for openers?” and he said “What’re you talking about? I haven’t seen you for three months,” and she said “That’s exactly how many months pregnant I am, and I have to get an abortion now unless I want it to be an induced miscarriage or worse,” and he said “Why do you think …no, this once got me into trouble, not with you, but — oh, I’ll ask it anyway, for it fits here: Why are you so sure it’s mine? You were always seeing three to four other guys,” and she said “No more than three others, and because I know who I sleep with and at the time I hadn’t slept with anyone for about three weeks before you. Not those fags, if that’s what you’re about to say; we just petted or did other things but no penetration — and nobody the weeks after you or till I skipped my regular period. It’s you,” and he said “Also, which makes me curious, why’d you wait so long in telling me, if it is me who you say did it?” and she said “I thought I could take care of it myself, but I put it off too long, for reasons of my own making but which have nothing to do with you, and I now see where I need the money for the operation,” and he said “What reasons that don’t have to do with me — the whole thing seems to have to do with me, am I wrong?” and she said “Boy, you’re stubborn. Reasons, I’m saying; stupidity on my part, I’m saying. I don’t know; that I thought I was smarter and cleverer and more capable than I am and also maybe believing that some cheap home remedies, as someone told me, would work, and which I never even got around to try, I’m so lazy — okay?” and he said “I’m still a little skeptical about this,” and she said “Does that mean you’re not going to help me?” and he said “Let me think about it,” and she said “I’ve arranged an abortion in two days and I need help fast if you’re going to help — that means money right away and it also means, if you really want to be helpful, coming with me when I go in for it,” and he said “I still have to think about it first; I’ll call you tomorrow,” and she said “You were never like this, that I remember — so what happened?” and he said “We’ve been split up for a while, you know, so I don’t have the right to be skeptical?” and she said “I don’t see where the two equate. No, I’ll say, you don’t have the right, because haven’t I always been straight-out and open with you, holding nothing back?” and he said “Yeah, I guess, but I also think I do have a reason for being at least somewhat skeptical, for who knows what could have happened with you the last three months; but I’ll call tomorrow, I swear,” and she said “Fuck you then, you shithead; call nobody tomorrow as I never want to talk to your ugly snake face again,” and hung up. He didn’t call and a month later got a letter from her saying “Don’t ask me why I’m being so conciliatory to you in relating all this, but here goes: the good news. Everything worked out A-OK. If you want to contribute to the fund that made it this way, you can send whatever you want, although $200 would be fine and rock-bottom and quite fair. No matter what, papa is off the hook, even if he contributes zero. How’s that for gracious pardons, and I don’t mean the excusez-me kind. Best and much luck. Yours sincerely and honestly.” He thought why should he send her anything? It probably was some other guy who was responsible, or easily could have been. Sure, she was usually honest and direct to him, or seemed to be, but sometimes he didn’t think she was telling the truth. Even with the two homosexuals. He bets both those guys, or has a sneaky suspicion, were straight and she just said they weren’t . for what? So his ego wouldn’t be bruised, or something? Or so he wouldn’t feel he was one of four guys sticking it in her, and all the images that brings up, and maybe sometimes the four of them in a week, or five guys, even, or six — because how would he know for sure? As for the contribution, he didn’t know what to do. Maybe a hundred, or more like fifty, which was about what he could afford. Either would help out a little and shut her up — for sure a hundred would — and cut him off from her for good. Well, maybe, but a hundred the max. He sent nothing. He never heard from her again. About a year later he was at a friend’s apartment for dinner, a married couple, and while the woman was washing the dishes and he was drying them she said “You know, of course, that Lynette Taylor died,” and he said “What? What’re you saying? Lynette? The dancer?” and she was nodding and he said “But what do you mean? What could’ve happened?” and felt faint, at least his legs got weak, and he had to sit and was still holding the dish and towel and the woman took the dish out of his hand and said “Why are you so white? What’s wrong? You look sick,” and he said “Don’t you know?” and she said “Know what? That you went out with her a couple of times and more than likely shtupped her? — for she was a free bird if there ever was one. But what of it? So did a lot of men,” and he said “I went out with her for months; maybe a half year. Two to three times a week. She wanted to marry me. I was very close to her. She was pregnant with my baby once and had an abortion — a year ago, or sometime around that,” and she said “That I also didn’t know — Monty, come in here, Gould’s not feeling well,” and her husband came into the room and said “What’s wrong, your stomach?” and he said “Anna just told me Lynette, the dancer, died,” and Monty said “And you didn’t know? I thought everyone who knew her had at least heard about it. Overdose, at a party; got sick, went into the bedroom to rest and she never woke up. What, a month ago?” to Anna and she said “I think so; no more than that,” and Monty said to him “She wasn’t an addict; it might have been the first time she took the stuff. Cocaine with the booze, they said. But she just stopped breathing,” and Anna said “He took it so badly before I thought he was going to have a stroke himself. Did you know they were so close?” and Monty said “I knew they saw each other sometimes, and that Tim Rudd was pissed, someone said, because Gould took her away from him at a party — or something like that happened, anyway — but that’s about it,” and she said “That’s what I remember too, except for the Tim thing. Once at a party I saw Gould and Lynette, is all, though I don’t recall any incandescence between them, do you?” and Monty said “Never, which is why we’re both so surprised, Gould. What were you doing, hiding it?” and he said “What do you mean, because of her color?” and Monty said “Yes, if you want me to be honest about it,” and he said “But it’s not so; I came to a few parties with her that you two were at, you don’t remember?” and Anna said “Just that one that I can recall,” and he said “Well, I haven’t been invited to many for the past year or so, so maybe that’s why,” and she said “To be frank with you, I think that’s because you were usually telling people off at parties — getting drunk, maybe, to do it — and they were getting bugged by your attitude,” and he said “Well, I don’t know, people we know have become so freaking . . middle class or something, lately, and it got to me — long ago — and their minds like compression machines, so old before their time when before they were so lively, talked about writing, thought about art, were going to chip away at walls in whatever field we went in, were freer and didn’t just think advancement and money. But I still can’t believe it about her — Lynette, her dying. There wasn’t a funeral? Or there was and you went and never thought to tell me?” and Anna said “What did they do with her, honey?” and Monty said “Her family came up and brought her back to Raleigh to be buried and there wasn’t even a memorial here for her, that I’m aware of. Was there and we just missed it?” and she said “We would have known, and gone to it, of that I’m positive,” and Monty said “True, we would have known, but why would we have gone to it? She wasn’t, to be perfectly honest, anything particularly special in our lives, though really a nice, beautiful girl, I thought, and from everything I heard, a terrific modern dancer,” and he said “Poor Lynette,” and Anna said “She was beautiful — gorgeous, is more like it. Those cheeks, and with a gorgeous figure, which is to be expected. I can see why you were drawn to her — I think Monty, by what he said, was too — but I’d think she’d be too wild for you after a few times for almost anybody. Unlike Monty, I wasn’t surprised when I heard about it; nor do I believe what I’m saying is I’m almost positive she was involved with hard drugs for a while, or she was heading for it. She seemed to want to try anything; you could see it in her gaze and by what she said. That wasn’t the time I saw her with you, Gould, but — Tim, for instance; I forget if that was before or after you — and with others, I think, or alone. But you said she was pregnant with your baby?” and Monty said “She was? I never heard that,” and Anna said “Don’t believe it, Gould, just don’t, or have very strong doubts. It could have been no baby or one from any number of men, because someone as wild as she was could also be an imaginative and, all right, I’ll say it, a conniving liar too,” and he said “She said she was pregnant and that I was the father, and when a woman says that you have to believe it unqualifiedly and help her out,” and she said “You went to the doctor with her and everything — I mean, the abortionist too?” and he said “She said I didn’t need to and that she in fact didn’t want me there — this was after we broke up, you understand. That she was plenty independent enough to do all of it herself — her words, almost verbatim,” and Monty said “She told you she got pregnant after you broke up?” and he said “That she got pregnant before, but told me after we broke up,” and Monty said “I was wondering, but it still smells a bit fishy to me. Listen, no disrespect meant to that lovely creature, but I wouldn’t run around telling people you got even that close to being a father, though it was certainly the more than decent thing to do to help her out with the abortion, I assume you were talking about,” and he said yes, and Anna said “What do they go for these days? You might not know this, but I had one — Monty and I — right when we were starting grad school, and before it turned out we couldn’t have children, and it cost us a then-walloping two hundred,” and he said “No, I didn’t know; I’m sorry. She didn’t give me the exact figure, but I managed to scrounge up three-fifty for her, which I think covered it completely and with maybe a few bucks to spare,” and she said “Wow, unbelievable, unbelievable; can you imagine that, Monty?” and Monty said “If she had one, then at that price I suspect it was done by a real physician,” and he said “I believe so.” He called her roommate when he got home and she said “It’s late, my new roommate has super hearing so can hear my talking through the walls, but besides all that I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. It’s too disturbing. If you want to discuss it, come here,” and he went to see her the next night. She said “I was devastated; she was my closest friend. There’s nothing I can tell you to add to anything, nor do I want to; you have no right to know,” and he said “So thanks, but why’d I come down here then?” and she said “I asked you here so I could say to your face what I’ve been hoping to since even before she died and that’s that you’re a rotten stinking scumbag. She was in trouble and asked you for help and you wouldn’t give it. You even hung up on her,” and he said “I didn’t hang up. I told her I’d call the next day with my decision and I thought it over and decided to help her as much as I could, financially and every other way — personally — but your line was busy and busy and busy, and same for the next day and the one after that. I gave up, thinking something was wrong with your phone — the operator didn’t think so; I called one and she checked your line — and that Lynette would call me, knowing something might be wrong with the phone, but she didn’t. When that happened I thought ‘Well, she wants to do it all herself; so let her.’ And then I got a letter from her a few weeks later saying everything was okay and the abortion a success and she had no bad feelings toward me anymore, and that was it, so why are you letting me have it like this?” and she said “Lynette never lied and I’m sure our phone was fine then. And that when you hung up on her you in effect kissed her off. And she was right, because you never came through with a red cent, not then nor when she later asked you in a letter to help cover it. It hurt her tremendously. To the point where I thought she was even thinking of harming herself because of it,” and he said “Oh, come on. What are you going to accuse me of next, the overdose?” and she said “I’m not. She was foolish that way, took too many chances. But I also know she was broken up over having to lose the fetus the way she did, and your fetus, for she told me it was yours. And also that she had to borrow from her parents to pay for it, and all that didn’t help her to not take chances at parties the months after or not to carry out her experiments on herself, I’ll call them, too far. But that’s all I wanted to say to you.” She closed her eyes, for a few seconds was silent in thought it seemed, and then said “Yes, that’s all. I don’t want to tell you anything else; you don’t deserve it. What she felt about you — she felt a lot. How you hurt her by taking her to certain places and not others and only seeing her in the evening or here, and so on, because she wasn’t the right color. I couldn’t understand why she continued dating you once she knew all this, and sleeping with you too? — she must have been out of her mind. But that was another problem she had, a psychological one with white guys — the fascination with the Other, and taking their shit, and all that crap, and the more egotistical and callous they were, the harder she fell for them. But get out of here, you bastard. Get out now,” and he said “Hold it, just hear me out, because she fell for who? — she didn’t fall for me,” and she said “Now, out, now, or I’ll yell for Janice in there to call the cops,” and he left. Who knows? he thought on the way home. She could have lied to her roommate too. Or who knows, the baby could have been his. Let’s say it was; well, he still shouldn’t feel responsible in any way for her death. Did he try to keep her under wraps? Okay, he did a little, but not that much and he did feel, and she must have seen this, more and more comfortable being with her — on the street, anyplace — the longer he knew her, and she could have said something if any of it bothered her, no? They just weren’t right for each other, that’s the main thing; for a long-term commitment or short-term romance or anything except an overnight fling, and maybe you don’t even want to start with something like that, and she should have been able to take care of herself. She said she could and he believed her, so why’s he being blamed by that neurotic witch and why was he before by Lynette? She gave off the presence, and this is what she wanted to give off, of someone able to look after every aspect of herself, so why wasn’t she? It couldn’t have been all a goddamn farce on her part, could it? And she knew as well as he they only went with each other for the sex and to have a good time other ways, and to see someone fairly steadily but not to be tied down, and things like that and maybe, just maybe there was a little more to it for both of them — some feeling — he even said that to her once about himself, and sometimes when he was with her he did feel it, for a moment, for a night, but he did — but that was about it, all they wanted at the time and all there was. Does he have it right? He thinks he does. Is he being straight with himself? He thinks so, or as much as he can when he hasn’t thought much about it before, and if he isn’t being straight, then only by a little. She liked his looks, he loved hers and her wildness most times and boldness and outspokenness and unconventionalness and the profession she was in and so forth, and same she for him with two or three of those and his intelligence, or at least his book knowledge — his critical abilities when it came to artistic things, she said — and they liked — for him it was nearly “worshipped”—each other’s bodies. They used to talk about it: “I’ve never seen such a hard perfectly shaped ass”—he; “I love your fat brawny neck; you look like you could jack up cars with it”—she; “Your biceps and popping veins in your forearms [she meant from the muscles] and large high-arched feet”; “Your endless legs and, solid as they are, the modeling clay — like way they curl around me”—he; “Your big dick with the beauty mark on it”; “Your every-single-time ready-to-go hole”—nothing brainy, nothing serious or new, except maybe for them; this is how they talked when they were alone in his flat or her room or on their bed, and if she missed a period a week or two after they last had sex — he can picture her right now lying in bed when she said that about his dick; he was sitting in a chair opposite her putting on his briefs; she still had the sheet over her shoulders and was sort of peeping out from behind it — why didn’t she call him then? Did he ask her that? He thinks he did. But if she said anything, right now he forgets. And same with her ass: he was in bed, she was standing nude in front of her bedroom’s long door mirror, leaning forward a little to inspect something on her face when he said that about its shape. He would have believed her if she’d called then. Be honest, would he have? More than her calling him three months later, and what she said then, he now remembers, is that she thought she could take care of it herself. What did she mean — a coat hanger, special pills, something like that? Did he ask her? He thinks he did, but now he can’t remember it. No, once she stopped seeing him — once they stopped seeing each other, for he doesn’t remember doing much to prevent it — she probably picked other guys up the way she did him or let other guys pick her up that way. In other words, the same way they’d met: at a party (or a bar), a little talk, eye contact, or lots of eye contact first and then talk, or asking someone to make the introduction, then necking in the kitchen (or at the bar) — even if she came to whatever she came to with someone else; all that mattered was if she was immediately taken with the new guy — and then to her home or his and the bed and up early next day for a dance rehearsal or class or the new thing she was thinking of starting to do: drama school. Or no new guys but just the old ones, some she had even discarded from the past. Or maybe even one of her homosexuals — for something different this time or to really give her a bang — decided, or she convinced him, to put it in. Oh, he’ll never know, so leave it at that. At what? At his not ever finally knowing for sure if the baby was really his and how responsible he should feel over it and so on. “So on” what? Her color and if he did mostly want it to be night and not day when he was with her outside and the rest of the things. “Rest of the things” what? Everything, all of it, too many and too much to think about right now, what’s he expect of himself? One thing leading to the other, from his baby to his not giving money to get rid of the baby, to her death — how much he should feel involved in it, “responsible” was the word he used. If he can never know, what can he do? Nothing, so for now forget it. He drank a lot at home that night, sat in the big easy chair and read yesterday’s and today’s Times while he drank and ate sliced carrots and pieces of cheese, and passed out. Her poor parents, he thought while he was drinking; Christ, what it must be like to lose such a beautiful high-spirited talented daughter in her twenties. To lose one anytime, any child, but this one in her early twenties at the most, right? He knows: they even celebrated her twenty-third birthday with a champagne split and two eclairs he brought to her apartment. “Here’s to you, Miss Twenty-three; not a significant number or earthshaking passage, like twenty-one, fifty, but just the right one perhaps for big things to open up for you. So here’s to ya, Linny La-la,” and they drank up, saved the pastry for later, saw a movie, came back, ate the eclairs and made love. Her younger sister, slightly older brother, or maybe he has them reversed, but such a live wire she was, how stupid could she have been to go screwing around with drugs or just using them in strange combinations? “Here’s to you, lovely Lynette,” he said from the chair, raising his glass of vodka and ice, standing up, newspapers and plate of carrots sliding off his lap to the floor, and holding the glass out, shooting the drink down, sitting down and from the chair pouring another. “What a phony I am, a fake, washout, drain — take take take, that’s all I do, can’t help a fucking soul and all I want is to get laid, right? Yes, I think so. Right? Yes, it’s goddamn true. Even now I want to go through my phone list to see who to call, but I won’t because I’m too sloshed to even move from this chair.” And such a gorgeous body. There you go again. But those legs, breasts, backside, cunt that was always ready for him and never stunk. Just shut up about it, stop, everything you’re thinking’s wrong. Then he passed out.