All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers: A Novel (3 page)

“Danny?” she said. I began to try to think of a defense, and also to look for an apron. It was very hot and I was only wearing my underwear.

“Yes ma’am,” I said. I found a big dish towel. Sally didn’t have any aprons.

“I’ll be right there,” I said. “I’m not fully dressed.”

“I’ll let myself in,” she said. I heard the door shut. Mrs. Salomea neither wasted time nor stood on formalities.

Somehow the dish towel I found made me look even less dressed than I was. I really felt indecent, but I knew I couldn’t stall much longer, indecent or not. Mrs. Salomea was noted all over Houston for her impatience. She was the wife of a very well-to-do decorator—I guess he could be described as locally prominent. His name was Sammy Salomea and he decorated mansions. It was generally agreed that Mrs. Salomea was eating him alive, one joint at
a time. I think she had him eaten about up to the hips. She was thirty-eight or so, but very trim. In the days before I got married the Salomeas would sometimes invite me into their yard in the late afternoons to be a fourth at badminton. They were free with their liquor and I always managed to get drunk on those occasions. Those were the only times I ever got to drink good liquor. Mrs. Salomea’s first name was Jenny. She and I always teamed against Sammy and some guest or other and we always slaughtered them. We were both extremely good badminton players and could have slaughtered almost anyone we were put up against. Up to a certain point I’m a very well-coordinated drunk and I hit some terrific smashes. Sammy Salomea was slightly in awe of me, but Mrs. Salomea wasn’t in awe of me at all. I was slightly in awe of her. I always stayed as late as I could, drinking their liquor and watching her eat her husband. I told myself I was gathering material for a book I meant to write, to be called “Cannibalism in Texas,” but I was really just fascinated by Jenny Salomea. She was the scariest woman I had ever known, and God only knew what she was going to have to say about my shooting that squirrel. I finally tucked the dish towel into my shorts and straggled into the other room, feeling sheepish and quite apprehensive. I don’t think she approved of Sally, either. She was standing by our bookcase in her tennis outfit, a drink in one hand.

“Hi,” she said. “I wanted to ask you something. Does your wife like cunnilingus?”

The question completely disoriented me. I had been about to try and explain that shooting the squirrel had been a rare, isolated act, one that could never possibly repeat itself.

“Beg pardon?” I said.

“I think that’s the way you pronounce it,” she said. “Cunnilingus.”

“That’s the way I’ve always heard it pronounced,” I said, though truthfully I don’t think I’d ever heard it pronounced before at all.

“Does Sally like it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ve only been married a week.”

“You better hurry up and try it. A girl that pretty’s not going to stay around very long if she gets bored. I saw her walking down the sidewalk and she looked pretty bored.”

“She’s not bored,” I said. “We just got married. How come you asked me that?”

“I’ve never done it,” she said. “I lead a pretty routine life. I thought maybe you could show me about it while your wife’s taking a walk.”

I’d been horny for her the whole two years I’d lived in the apartment, and she’d never so much as given me a look. Now I was married and there she was. There was no bull about her, either. She was obviously ready to peel off her tennis shorts. Nothing ever happens conveniently for me.

“I’m just a student,” I said. “How about Sammy?”

“Oh, come on,” she said, indignant that I would even suggest it. “Sammy’s not going to root around like that. He doesn’t like to expose himself to germs—his mother scared the shit out of him when he was a kid.”

“I meant where is he,” I said, though I hadn’t. Sammy was very fastidious. I had forgotten that.

“He’s in Ecuador. He has a client with a ranch there.”

“I don’t understand why you came here now,” I said.

“I told you in plain English,” Mrs. Salomea said. It was obvious her patience was being strained.

“If you don’t think you know how say so and I’ll go home and get drunk,” she said. “You’re not as
macho
about sex as you are about badminton, are you?”

Her manner was awfully irritating. “I know how,” I said. “I just got married, remember?”

“Big deal,” she said. “I bet she was desperate to get away from somebody or she wouldn’t have taken up with you.”

Oddly, I had come to the same conclusion. It made me furious, that Jenny Salomea could figure it out so easily.

“Go to hell!” I said. “I didn’t even invite you in.”

“Why don’t you just admit you don’t know how? You don’t have to get vulgar. I know you’re just a kid. You’re so sloppy you look like you’d be good at it—that’s why I asked. Also, we’re handy to one another.”

“We’ve been handy to one another for
two years
,” I said.

“Yeah, but you weren’t sexy then. You looked too studious. You even looked studious when you were drunk. Maybe it took a little sex to make you sexy. They say it works that way. Makes the feathers shine.”

“I just fell in love,” I said. “Didn’t you notice that?”

“Sure,” she said. “I wouldn’t have come here when you weren’t in love even if I
had
thought you were sexy. You don’t think I want you in love with me, do you? You’d be harder to keep out than the goddamn mosquitoes. I don’t like love anyway. I was just hoping for a little cunnilingus.”

“It’s the wrong time of day,” I said. “Sally was probably just going around the block.”

“That’s a bunch of horseshit,” Jenny said. “I know her type. She’ll be gone for hours. We could have already done it if you weren’t so slow off the mark.”

Just then there was a knock on the door. I was very grateful for the interruption. It was a man from Western Union.

“Daniel Deck?” he said. He looked taken aback to see me in the dish towel. I admit it made me look awfully sleazy.

“Yes?”

“Telegram.”

“My goodness,” I said. “I’ve never gotten a telegram in my life.”

He handed it to me anyway. “Could be a mistake,” he said. “I’ve never delivered one to anybody who looked like you.” He was a middle-aged guy who seemed bored with his profession.

The telegram was really for me. I could hardly believe it. I walked back to where Jenny Salomea was, trying to believe it. It was from an editor at Random House, for whom I had revised my first novel:

DEAR DANNY. REVISION EXCELLENT. NOVEL ACCEPTED. CONGRATULATIONS. YOU DID GOOD. LETTER AND CONTRACT WILL FOLLOW. I GOT YOURS ABOUT MARRIAGE. CONGRATULATIONS ON THAT TOO. KISS SALLY FOR ME. ALSO PROSPECTS GOOD FOR AN IMMEDIATE MOVIE SALE. COLUMBIA VERY EXCITED. HOW WOULD 30,000 STRIKE YOU? OR MORE. YOURS. BRUCE.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “I sold my novel. It’s going to be published.”

“Yeah?” Mrs. Salomea said. “Somebody told me you were writing a book. What you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t believe it.” I really couldn’t. I kept looking at the telegram to make it seem real. Things were swirling. I never expect most of my dreams to come true, even though I keep dreaming them, and when one does come true I don’t know how to handle the feelings I have. I felt very odd—I was glad and excited and curious and a lot of things. I became instantly giddy, and within the giddiness was a kind of fear. I had got one dream but something felt wrong in the pit of my stomach. Maybe some other dream was being taken away from me forever. Maybe I wanted that one more. I didn’t know, and at the same time I felt dizzy with relief. It was actually going to be published.

“Well, I guess that leaves getting drunk,” Jenny said. “Put some pants on and come up to the house. We got some champagne. Do you have any dirty books?”

I was looking at the telegram again. I had just really noticed about the movie. Thirty thousand must mean dollars. “What?” I said.

“I was going to borrow a dirty book, if you’ve got one,” she said. “You’re not going to be much help.”

“I’ve only got
Tropic of Capricorn
” I said. I had stolen it from the library.

“I wouldn’t know one from another,” she said. “Lend it to me.”

I found the book for her and got some clothes on and we went to her house. I had never been in her house before, only in the yard. The house was full of terrible art, but I was feeling very happy and would have forgiven Jenny or almost anybody worse art than that. My stomach had quit hurting and I had the telegram in my hip pocket. Jenny really began to impress me. She gallantly put aside her personal desires and helped me celebrate. Not only was she not totally selfish; in some way she was lavishly generous. They had champagne all right, but only in jeroboams. I couldn’t believe it.

“Oh, Sammy likes to think big,” Jenny said. “He never buys anything small.” She insisted that we open one. “Sure,” she said. “You must have some friends somewhere who’ll want to celebrate too.”

I could barely carry the bottle, it was so heavy. We opened it in Jenny’s kitchen, which was easily a hundred times the size of ours. In the center of the kitchen was the biggest butcher’s block I’d ever seen. It was a whole section of a redwood tree.

“That’s magnificent,” I said. “You could butcher an ox on that thing.”

“That’s an idea,” she said. “Sammy bought it in San Francisco. It weighs over a thousand pounds.”

We opened the huge bottle and drank about a quart each, in almost no time. I couldn’t stay off the woodblock. It was
irresistible. I helped Jenny up and we danced—it was the only way I could keep her from reading the Henry Miller book. The Salomeas had a terrific hi-fi system. I began to feel drunk, but it was one of my better-coordinated drunks. We danced for twenty minutes and neither of us fell off the woodblock. Jenny was a well-coordinated drinker too. The woodblock was just the right size for cha-chas.

“You’re a sexy kid,” she said, as we were sidling around one another. “I can’t stand your wife.”

“I don’t know her very well,” I said. I didn’t want to argue. Jenny Salomea was a sexy lady. She kept lifting my T-shirt and counting my ribs, as we danced. I hadn’t been to the barbershop in a couple of months and my hair was almost as long as hers. It seemed to amuse her. Also the woodblock was affecting. I’ve never seen a sexier object. The name Sally began to blink in my brain. Fortunately the phone rang. It was Jenny’s sister—she was divorcing somebody in Galveston and wanted to talk about it. I got clear of the woodblock. Western Union and Southwestern Bell had combined to keep me faithful, at least for one evening. As soon as Jenny got off the phone I said I had to go.

“Run mouse run,” she said, not particularly angry. She lifted up my T-shirt and counted my ribs again.

“I love Sally,” I said. “I better give monogamy a chance.”

“I took that attitude once,” she said, holding out her champagne glass. “Now I’d rather give cunnilingus a chance.”

I felt apologetic, but she was very pleasant. We went in and threw our champagne glasses in her huge fireplace, though neither of us could remember precisely what tradition that went with. I had taken a liking to Jenny and had mixed feelings. She insisted I take the jeroboam with me—it still had an awful lot of champagne in it.

“If you’re too drunk to walk you can borrow my car,” she said, as I staggered out the door with the big bottle.

“I can make it to the library,” I said. “There’s probably somebody there to drink it with.”

“Okay.”

She walked through her yard with me, rubbing my back. “As soon as your wife leaves we’ll play some badminton,” she said. I had both arms around the bottle of champagne. Jenny kept sniffing me in various places—apparently she liked how I smelled. It was too much. I had a warm impulse and turned and kissed her. She was nothing loath, but kissing merely seemed to amuse her.

“You’ll never learn,” she said, chuckling.

“Why not?”

“You just won’t,” she said. “Not you.” She said it fondly, though, and she gave me a little shove, to get me started.

I HAD
almost more liquor than I could carry, inside and out, but fortunately I didn’t have far to carry it. Rice University was just across the street. I staggered along, hugging the jeroboam and feeling slightly guilty. It was obvious to me that if the phone hadn’t rung Jenny Salomea and I would have done something adulterous on her woodblock. I have no real resistance to temptation, drunk or sober. Very few attractive temptations come my way and when they do I almost always yield to them. I can’t smash them away like they were badminton birdies. I just don’t have any moral coordination, as Jenny Salomea well knew.

On the formal quadrangle in front of the library I ran into Sally. She was riding a bicycle. A tall math major I knew slightly was riding another bicycle, right beside her. He was a campus genius, and very smug about it. I had never liked him and I liked him even less when it dawned on me that he was taking a bike ride with Sally. His name was Rick Leonard.

“Hi,” I said. “Where’d you get the bike?”

“Borrowed it,” Sally said. She looked like she was enjoying
herself. I really didn’t like the tone of things. My stomach was getting bad signals again. I tried to set the jeroboam on one of the hedges that filled the quadrangle, but it didn’t work. The bottle sank into the hedge.

“What’s in the bottle?” Rick asked.

“Champagne.”

“How come?” Sally asked.

“Mrs. Salomea gave it to me. She’s not so bad. It’s to celebrate selling my novel. I just got a telegram.”

I handed it to her and she sat on the bicycle and read it. She could sit on the seat and reach the ground with both legs. Her legs were remarkably long and remarkably shapely. I loved to watch her stand that way, although I was generally in a disapproving mood.

“Gee, that’s nice,” she said, a little speculatively. Rick did not pretend to be delighted with my success. When the news got out I would be a campus genius too. Actually it griped him that Sally had to break off the bike ride.

I was an honors student and had a key to the library. Rick had one too, but he declined to come to my celebration. He didn’t deign to make an excuse. The library was the usual madhouse. It had supersilent floors that had to be waxed every night in order to remain supersilent. The waxing staff was hard at it, riding their giant waxers around the huge rooms. I had one friend on the staff, a happy-go-lucky little Mexican named Petey Ximenes. Petey was not important enough to merit a giant waxer, but he didn’t care. He had a middle-sized waxer and spent his evenings smoking marijuana while he followed his waxer in and out of the fifth-floor stacks. He loved to get high and follow his waxer around. The other concern of his life was fourteen-year-old girls. He spent his afternoons hanging around a Mexican junior high on the North Side, picking up fourteen-year-olds.
Usually he bribed them with lemon drops and screwed them. He had very trusting eyes.