In the Bedroom
IT WAS ABOUT 10:30 WHEN JACK GOT HOME. THE LIGHTS were on all over the house, but Anna wasn’t there, even though the table was set for supper, another cold supper. She was really cute. Through the kitchen window, he saw Joey sitting on the back steps, silent, his face vacant, his shoelaces untied, as usual. Anna always said he was driving her crazy, that there was something not right with the boy. Jack opened the back door and took his son by the hand. “Hello, Daddy,” he said. “Mama shut the door on me.” He didn’t seem upset and there was no evidence that he’d been crying. He certainly wasn’t frightened. Maybe there was something the matter with the kid, he was a little slow, but a lot of kids are slow. Jack made him a sandwich and poured him a glass of milk. “Eat your sandwich, Joey, and I’ll put you to bed, it’s very late. Where’s Mama?” Joey didn’t know, he’d been playing in the backyard and when he tried to come in because his shoes got loose, Mama wouldn’t open the door. She was all dressed up and had her furry coat on. Jack put him to bed and went downstairs to pour himself a whiskey. All right, so he’d seen Jenny, but just for a cup of coffee, it was over, he’d told Anna again and again that it was over, what the hell is she pulling now?
And at the meeting, Lawless had given him most of Nassau County, a goddamn gold mine, Thermo-Fax couldn’t ship the machines fast enough to keep up with the orders, not to mention the copy paper. He wanted to surprise Anna with the news, something fresh and good for a change, but now it was all spoiled. She locked the kid out? And in her fur coat, what the hell is that about? She was probably at her sister’s, what a piece of work she was with her dumb cop of a husband. He could see Anna now, sitting at the kitchen table, pissing and moaning about what a son of a bitch he was and swilling beer.
Anna went into the first saloon she saw, a place called the Melody Room, and sat at the bar. It looked like a decent enough place, and there was another woman at the bar with her husband probably. Just the three of them on this Monday night. She ordered a Seven and Seven and bought a pack of Chesterfields from the machine near the phone booth. She staggered a little, and after she finished the drink, knew that she was pretty well gone. “He doesn’t love me any more,” she said to the bartender. “Take it easy, sweetheart,” the bartender said, “just take it easy.” She nodded and ordered another drink and then another in what seemed like a minute. The couple at the end of the bar was looking at her, and then the man walked over and picked her fur coat up from the floor. “The floor’s not exactly clean, Miss,” he said. “He won’t sleep with me any more,” she whispered to him. “He won’t, you know, do anything with me any more.” She was crying.
Jack called her sister, but Anna wasn’t there. The bitch was pleased to hear that she’d just left. “Maybe you’ll get home for supper now once in a while before midnight,” she said. “Mind your fucking business,” he said and hung up.
The couple at the bar lived on the same street as Jack and Anna, and the husband suggested that he take Anna home, she was really tight, he told his wife, not making any sense, and might get in trouble alone like that. “I always thought she was a drunk,” his wife said, although this was the first time that either of them had seen her anywhere near drunk, the first time, for that matter, that they’d ever seen her in a bar. “I really think I ought to take her home,” he said, “it’s a fifteen-minute walk and I’ll be back in no time.” His wife looked at him. “We’ll go together,” she said, “we’ll both go.” He laughed and shook his head.
“Christ, what the hell do you think I’m gonna do? What do you think I am?” She smiled knowingly at him, an infuriating smile, smug and aggrieved. At that moment, whatever trust that still existed in their marriage disappeared.
While Jack thanked his neighbors, Anna was telling them what a big shot salesman he was, how he could lay the law down to the branch manager, he was fearless, a hero, that’s why he had this great territory in East Flatbush and Canarsie, where there were maybe five businesses, but he was such a tough guy that he couldn’t bear to scare the boss by complaining, by quitting, God no! But he was great at meetings, oh! those meetings! He spent so much time after work at those meetings! tell them about the meetings, Jack. Jack thought of how sweet it would be to strangle her right there, watch her turn blue, the fucking cunt. The couple backed away, nodding and smiling, then turned and walked off. “Come in the house, you drunk bitch,” Jack said. “Get in the fucking house before I kill you!” He pushed her in the door and slammed it. “Joey out in the cold and dark with his shoes falling off,” he said. “Oh, really,” Anna said, “now you know what I put up with all day, every all day.” “You’re his mother!” Jack shouted.
“She must be miserable with that guy to talk that way in front of strangers,” the husband said. “And what about him?” his wife said, “married to a drunk who just walks out whenever she pleases it looks like? Don’t they have a little boy? And did you see that dress she had on? Not much left to the imagination there.” “It looked all right to me,” he said, “that green dress you have looks like that.” “It does not,” she said, “not a bit! Looks all right to you! Maybe you’d like to take her out for a drink some time.” “Oh, for the love of Jesus,” he said. But he would, indeed, like to take her out for a drink, and a lot more. There was something lost and sweet in her face that appealed to him.