Peter got up, heavy-footed, looking for something to do. There were mystery stories, women’s magazines, his own philosophy books: nothing to read. He went to the refrigerator for a beer, found none, settled with evil heart for a 7-Up.
“You’ll feel much better if you dance,” Gloria said, crossing his path. “Take my word, it takes your mind off things.”
“I should be doing something,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the couch. Standing up.
“Don’t you think I’d like to do something?” she said. “I never want to do anything, do I? You and Herbie think you’re the only ones …” Swaying in place to the music, she clutched the imaginary outline of a partner, her dreams remote, her eyes misted-over with roseate recollection.
And Peter felt the need to be doing, to be moving. He wanted to do something, though there was nothing he could think of he wanted to do. For a moment he thought of calling Dr. Cantor, whom, for no reason he could remember, he had stopped seeing. But when he thought of the details of the call itself — the painful impossibility of talk — he gave up the idea with a pang of relief. “Let’s go to Coney Island,” he said suddenly, excited at the discovery of his own suggestion, as though he had stumbled on a valued possession that had been lost and forgotten for years. “Huh? Do you like going on rides, Gloria?”
She grunted, shrugged. “If you really want to go. But Peter, it’ll take at least an hour or more by subway. And I’ve been standing on my feet all day.” She sighed her exhaustion, easing herself with ancient grace onto the sofa. “Why don’t you go yourself if you really want to go?”
“Maybe I will.” He sat down across from her, watched the flowered walls, dreamed the suffocation of their scent. “I have another idea, Gloria. How would you like to go for a ride on the Staten Island ferry?” He waited for no response. “It’s only a nickel,” he added persuasively.
Gloria was unimpressed. “What’s there?”
He didn’t know. “Staten Island,” he said with the sly confidence of an inspired guess. When he thought about it, riding back and forth on the ferry seemed a foolish waste of time. You ended, when it was over, only back where you began.
“What do you do when you get there?” she asked, tapping her foot absently. “I mean, what’s there?”
“When you get there,” he said, “generally what you do is come back. Sometimes you walk around Staten Island and take the next boat back.” He yawned, though he wasn’t sleepy. (He was hungry.)
“Big deal,” she said sadly, used to better things.
They argued other possibilities: “How about a movie?” “How about it?” “Let’s do anything, for God’s sake.” “Let’s do something.” “Whatever you want to do.” “I want to do anything, anything.” Anything? The conversation exhausted itself. They danced on nerve endings to the music of silence. There was nothing to say.
Peter went through the bones of the refrigerator like an excavator, found nothing of interest, ate everything in sight — mostly pretzels and American cheese. Gloria danced.
Then, choking on soft-stale pretzels, he dozed. And in Herbie’s tumorous red velvet armchair, he dreamed of Lois. She had returned to him, five months pregnant, lovely in a white maternity dress. “I’ll stay with you,” she said, “if you promise to wash your feet.” “Ask me anything else,” he pleaded. “I was born with that dirt. That dirt is me.”
Gloria woke him. “It’s time to go to sleep,” she said.
“What time?” He followed her into the bedroom to look at her clock.
“Where are you going?” she said, her thousand-year-old eyes amused at his presumption. “For your information, I’m going to bed now.”
“Sorry.” He retreated to his couch, horny as a church steeple (as the Empire State Building). He vowed to leave the next day, to move back into his own room, to do something.
Sleeping fitfully, he had the dreamlike awareness that Gloria was calling to him. “What do you want?” he yelled, his own voice waking him. “I’m sleeping.”
“What did you say?” she called, her voice indistinct, only the “say” coming through to him.
He climbed off the couch, irritated at being disturbed. The door to her room opened. They met, almost bumped, in the doorway, surprised to see each other.
“What do you want?” Gloria said — they both said — Peter half a word behind, Gloria laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he wanted to know, breathing her perfume; Gloria in a lacy black nightgown, a coy pink rose, a fallen flower, stationed between her legs like a guardian — the flower of her flower.
“Great minds run in the same track,” she said, patting his arm to make her point. They embraced to commemorate coincidence.
“Good night,” Gloria said, holding him genially at arm’s length.
His spirit offered only token resistance to the rages of the flesh. In heat, Peter thrust her into the bedroom, tumbling her onto the bed.
“No, Peter,” she said. “Behave. No! No! No! No!” She fought for her honor — her fury more than he had reckoned on, a reckoning in itself — scratching, biting, pulling his short hair. “Don’t mess with me,” she kept saying. “Who do you think you’re messing with?”
In pain from her assault he accounted his losses, deciding, against the vanity of his instincts, that she had meant her resistance. His spirit counseled retreat. But when he moved away and tried to climb out of bed, Gloria held on to him, her nails pinned to his back. “Don’t think you’re so tough,” she said.
He punched her in the mouth, just to get free, using his left hand so as not to hurt her any more than he had to. He landed with more force than he had intended — intending merely gesture — her face squashed momentarily, then settled back into shape. What had he done now?
“Oh,” she moaned, her tongue prodding the wound of her lip. “Oh.” Her shocked eyes wet, running. “Oh, my … lover,” she crooned.
“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing her wet face. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Brute,” she whispered, her blood between them, her salt.
Though he didn’t know why — desire its own knowledge — he found himself on the mountain of Gloria, lover and explorer, a little giddy from the height. It was less pleasure than he remembered, his feelings barely there. And afterward he felt used, taken advantage of, the gull of her whims, his mouth caked with regret.
And afterward she asked him about Lois. “What was your marriage like?”
“That’s none of your business,” he said.
“Louse.” She slapped him. “Dumb, ugly brute.”
“Go to sleep,” he said, seeking refuge in a corner of the bed.
She came after him. “You really are a brute,” she said, “a dumb brute,” punching him in the back. “You know, you’re a dumb brute.” He had to hold her hands down to protect himself.
“Cut it out,” he ordered.
She kicked him savagely in the chest, sparks of pain in the rage of his eyes. He swallowed a curse. They wrestled.
“Come on, tiger,” she said, her mouth breathing his.
What could he do? He came on, an old bird, flying. They were one tiger then, all flames and teeth. She bit his lip bloody, tore his back, devoured his tongue.
Reckless, he flew toward the sun, soaring through impenetrable terrain, through the fine scars of habit and nerve, the flames of deep wound, his wings catching fire, his chest burning. His chest. He flew higher, all of him aflame, his chest — the sun a dream out of reach. He burned to death.
“You brute,” she sang. “Oh, you …” She caught him as he fell, put out his fire, called him by name — Herbie, Peter, lover, bastard, brute — her finest, most winning, most sleep-making song. (He sang a little himself.)