“I can’t wear that.”
“Sure you can,” Mary said, “it’s the style.”
“I can’t,” Mills said. “I won’t.”
“Please, Mills,” she said. “
Please.
It’s
such
a pretty color.
Please.
”
“I’m over fifty years old,” he said.
“I want to go back to the hospital,” Mary said.
“Mrs. Glazer is tired. She needs to rest.”
“Take me back.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Now. Take me back now.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“I’ll go in a taxi.”
“Come on, Mary. Don’t be like that.”
“You call me Miss.”
“Don’t be like that, Miss.”
“Will you buy the yellow bathing suit?”
“Yeah, sure thing, Miss,” Mills said.
He changed in a stall in the men’s room. He loaded his genitals into the suit’s small pouch, crushed them against his crotch. They seemed more sizable than in street clothes, and he felt like a man in a codpiece, curiously badged, an agreeable power. He had felt this way before, in the locker rooms of plants, naked on his bed. Stripped on examining tables or dressed at close quarters on couches, his erection courting the girls, his shyness suddenly reversed, subsumed in waves, jolts of inexplicable swank.
He carried his underwear rolled in his pants and crossed the lobby. He still wore his shirt. White socks came up his shins and out of his black, unlaced shoes.
Mary treaded water at the deep end of the pool. She ducked her head down and squirted water at him through her braces, wetting his legs. “Ha ha, Miss,” George Mills said.
“I’ll race you,” she said.
“I’m not much of a racer,” Mills said. “I wouldn’t stand a chance against someone who takes lessons from a swim coach or who’s been to summer camp.”
“How do you know I have a coach? How do you know I go to camp?”
“Your mother told me.”
“Does she talk about me a lot?”
“All the time, Miss.”
“As much as my sister Milly?”
“She’s mentioned your sister.”
“Only mentioned her? Let’s race.
Come
on.”
“I don’t know if I could even swim in a pool. I probably wouldn’t stay in the lane.”
“I’ll spot you. You can have a head start. Come on, get wet.” She splashed him.
“Ooh. Oh.”
“Then get in the water. Get in or I’ll splash you.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s lovely once you’re in.”
“It’s too cold.”
“Once you get used to it.”
“Well,” Mills said uncertainly.
“I’ll count to ten.”
“I’ll take my shoes and socks off.”
And George Mills, on a patio chair, crossed his legs, the gesture broad, difficult. He tugged at his unlaced shoes. He rolled his socks down his legs. Spreading his thighs, he leaned over and stuffed his socks into the front of his shoes. He felt a flap of testicle against his thigh and looked up. Mary was watching him.
“I’ve seen balls before,” she said.
“Have you?”
“Sure, lots of times. My daddy’s and uncle’s. I’m on the swim team. I’ve seen my coach’s. I think they’re ridiculous. Big old hairy prunes. Anyway, I go steady. Don’t they hurt when you sit on them?”
“That doesn’t happen.”
“No?”
“Mother Nature keeps them out of the way, Miss.”
“Boobs don’t hurt either. Well sometimes they do. Before my period they can get pretty sore.”
“Hmn,” George Mills said.
“Are you coming in or aren’t you? What did you mean you don’t know if you can swim in a pool?”
“The poor don’t know much about swimming pools. The schools didn’t have them when I was a boy.”
“Where did you swim?”
“Off piers. In ponds. In bodies of water where bait shops are found.”
“Didn’t you ever go to the beach?”
“We went there on Sundays, on Fourths of July. We sat on a blanket, we drank beer from a keg. We swam always in waters that were bad for our strokes.”
“Come in,” she said, “we don’t have to race.”
“I’ve a stroke like a nigger. I flounder, I thrash.”
“That’s mean, Mills. That’s wicked to say.”
“Black people are afraid of the water,” George Mills said. “Poor people are.”
“Wait,” she said, “I’ll come out.” She swam to the side of the pool where George Mills was sitting and placed her hands on the coping. Using only her arms, she hoisted herself out of the water easily. “Brr,” she said, “it
is
chilly. The air’s cooler than the water. Where’s my towel? Oh, there it is. Dry me off, Mills.”
“Here,” George said, “I’ll hand it to you.”
“
You
dry me,” the girl said. She laughed. “A hundred strokes.”
“I think you’d better do it yourself, Miss,” Mills said.
“I’ll let you call me Mary.”
“I don’t mind calling you Miss.” It was true. He didn’t.
“You’re just scared Uncle Harry will see.”
“See what, Miss?”
“Go in, get wet. I’ll dry
you
off.”
“I’m in a state of grace, Miss,” George Mills said so gently that the girl might have thought she was being scolded. But Mills felt no anger. Even the mild, queer authority of maleness he’d felt, the odd thrust of his exhibitionist swagger, had somehow resolved itself, declined, his horsepower manhood gone off. I’m her servant, thought Mills. It’s proper she should tease me. There was a compact between them, the ancient, below-stairs displacements and goings on of history’s and the world’s only two real classes. She was there for his character as, in a way, he was there for hers. And her mother didn’t want to die until this child was ready. He knew that if he didn’t do something with his loyalty he was lost. So he told her.
“Because,” he said, “women always fooled me. Because whatever I thought about women was never what I should have thought.
“I mean their natures. I had this idea about their natures, that there was such a thing as a virgin heart. To this day I’m astonished young ladies let fellows. I’m not talking the sense of the thing. I mean if it makes sense, or even if it’s right or wrong. I mean it seemed to me it couldn’t happen, not shouldn’t, couldn’t. That the body itself wouldn’t let it. That that’s what a body was, being’s buffer, a place to hide. Lord, Miss, the things I thought. That marriage wasn’t so much a way of two people finding each other as something they did to keep others from finding them, from ever having to do again with anyone else what their bodies weren’t strong enough to keep them from doing with each other. To give back sovereignty, you see, even if it was devalued now, like bad dollars or a fixed income. That courtship was impossible, that a fellow’s lies and urgencies had to get past the hymen first, that they listen in their cherry, see Miss?”
The child, wrapped in towels now from head to toe, watched from where she lay in the deck furniture. Mills had a vagrant image of her mother in her sheets in the hospital bed.
He tells about the Delgado Ballroom. He tells about bringing Louise and her friends back to his apartment.
“This is swell,” Louise says. “Isn’t this swell?”
“Have you got television?” Bernadette asks.
“What’s in the fridge?”
“I don’t know. Just some eggs. Some stuff for breakfast.”
“Who wants cocoa? Raise your hand.”
“I don’t think there’s cocoa,” George says. “There may be some chocolate syrup in the cabinet where I keep the soap powder.”
“Where’s your phone?” Charles says. “Never mind, I see it. This directory looks like it’s never been used.”
“If you had the fixings I could make chocolate chip cookies. If you had the chocolate chips.”
“There’s Saltines,” George says.
“At least there’s a radio,” Herb says. “I’ll get some music.”
“Somebody get the lights.”
“Man, are you corny!”
“Who’s horny?”
“Sometimes Ray acts very immature,” Bernadette says.
“Got a church key?”
“In the drawer with my tableware.”
“Okay, I’ve got it. Look at this, he’s got service for one.”
“Maybe he isn’t registered.”
“Hey you guys, be still a minute.…Is this Mr. Stuart Melbart of 2706 North Grand Boulevard?…It is? Congratulations, Mr. Melbart, this is Hy Nichols of KSD radio. If you can answer the following question you and Mrs. Melbart will be the lucky winners of an all-expense-paid vacation in Hot Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, as KSD’s guests at the luxurious Park Palace Hotel. Are you ready for your question?…Good. All right, sir, name two members in President Eisenhower’s cabinet.…Sherman Adams is correct. You’re halfway there.…I can’t hear you. John Foster who? Speak up, please.…Yes, yes, John Foster. We have to have that last name, sir. Can you speak up?…No sir, I can’t.…Yes sir, I can now. Go ahead, sir, take one more try.…John, yes.…Foster, yes.…What’s that?…It
must
be a bad connection, yes.”
“Charles, that’s cruel. The poor guy must be fit to bust.”
“Did you hear him? Did you hear him shouting? What a goon!”
“Beer, everybody. Have a beer, George?”
“That sounds funny. Can’t you get a different station?”
“This is the only one that works. George must be some Browns fan. They left town two years ago.”
“Haven’t you even got a
phonograph?
”
“No.”
“How big are your breasts?…I said how big are your breasts?…No, ma’am, I’m not being fresh. Isn’t this the take-out chicken place?”
“I’m expecting a call,” George says.
“Bern?”
“What?”
“Want to take a shower?”
“Oh, Ray. You’re the limit.”
“What the hell, Bern. We’re married.”
“I don’t have clean towels.”
“Why don’t you sit by me?”
“There, that’s better. Isn’t that better?”
“Hey, I can’t see to dial.”
“Why don’t you sit by me?”
“Where are they going? That’s my bedroom. Why’d they close the door?”
“George, they’re engaged.”
“Dibs on the couch.”
“Shove over you guys.”
“Okay. Quit your pushing.”
“All the good spots are taken,” Louise says.
“Did they just go into my bathroom together?”
“Maybe Bernadette had to go.”
“They’re running the shower.”
“I know, you don’t have clean towels. Maybe they could…” Louise giggles.
“What did you say?”
“Shh. Ruth and Charles.”
“We heard you, Lulu.”
“Well, mind your business then. You weren’t
supposed
to hear me. I was talking to George.”
“
Don’t, Charles, you could hurt the baby!
”
“Do you like that?” she whispers. “Does that feel good?”
“Yes,” George Mills says.
“Charlie, it could.”
“Hmnn.
Hmmnn.
”
“You’re shy, aren’t you? You don’t open your mouth when you kiss. Didn’t you ever french a girl, George?”
“I french.”
“Kch, kch. Take it easy, you want to cut off my air?”
Ruth, beside him on the sofa, touches his arm.
“What?”
“Shh. Listen.”
Louise giggles. “Ruth, that’s mean. They’re in love.”
“He’s not going to sit next to
me
in those sticky pants.”
“They’ve only been in there two minutes,” Charles says. “Boy, was
he
hot to trot!”
“He couldn’t help it,” Ruth says. “She’s been teasing him all evening.”
“Well he’s calmed down now all right, all right.”
“I swear,” Louise says, “wham bam. You men have no staying power.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t we have a contest?”
“A
control
contest,” Charles says.
“Everybody?” Louise asks.
“Sure. Tell those guys in there. Herb’s already out of it. Herb’s already lost.”
“Hey, you can’t go
in
there.”
“Bet?”
Charles gets up and walks to the bathroom door. He opens it. “We’re having a control contest. Herb’s out of it. On your mark, get set, go.” He leans his mouth against the bedroom door. “We’re having a control contest.”
“I thought Herb’s out of it. That he already lost.”
“Is Ellen Rose out of it?”
“Oh sure,” Ruth says. “With her fella already come? That’ll be the day, won’t it, Louise?”
“You should have seen it, George. She’s all lathered up. What a pair of tits on that Bernadette.”
“Charlie!”
“Well it’s true.”
“Nicer than mine?”
“No, not nicer than yours. Not nicer than yours at all. Just bigger,” Charles tells his wife.
“Only because she’s four months’ pregnant. It’s all milk.”
“You’re pregnant too. She doesn’t even show yet.”
“She shows in her titties.”
“Are we really having a control contest?” Ray shouts from the bathroom.
“Is it all right, George?”
“Why not? There’s no TV, I’m out of cocoa, I haven’t got a phonograph, and only one station on the radio works.”
“Sure,” Charles shouts back, laughing. “Come, I say
come,
as you are.” He turns to George. “Count ten to yourself and start moaning.”
“Charlie, that’s cheating.”
“No it’s not, it’s a joke. We’ll make monkeys out of them.” He moans, he purls. “
Everybody,
” he hisses.
“The water’s running. They can’t even hear us.”
“No fair you guys,” Charles calls. “Either turn off the shower or open the door. Hey,” he calls. “you guys in this or not?——Okay,” he whispers, “go.” In seconds he begins to moan again. He growls, he coos. He’s the very troubadour of sexual melody.
“How come you never sound this way in real life?” Ruth Oliver asks.
“Come on, come
on,
” Charles tells his wife. “Oh. Oh
yeah,
” he says less quietly. “I lose,” he cries. “I
lose.
”
“I guess we ought to humor him,” Ruth says. “Mnn,” she purrs, “mnn.”
Mary looked at him wide-eyed. “Is this true? Did this happen?”
“I’m in a state of grace,” George Mills said. “I don’t have to lie.”
Now Louise is chirping. Grace notes, diapasons, the aroused tropes of all dilate rapture.
“Louise?” the child said.
“All of them,” George Mills said. “Doting love solos, Miss. Arias of concupiscence. Choirs of asyncopatic, amatory, affricative, low-woodwind drone.”
“What a racket!” Mary said.
“Yelps, cries, askew pitch. All the strobic gutturals of heat.”