I sat up without stopping. Betty was at the piano next to mine. She had one hand squeezed between her legs and with the other was plunking out the chords. She was in good voice. She was radiant. I have never forgotten the look she gave me then. That’s me, though-I’m made that way, I have a good memory for colors. We went at it with hearts high for several long minutes, brushing with Beatitude and totally unconscious of the noise we were making. There could be no limits put on what we felt. I was fully afloat. I thought it would never end.
Then a guy appeared at the top of the stairs, making wild gestures. We stopped.
“Hey, are you nuts?” he said.
We looked at him, not knowing what to answer. I was still breathless.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” he added.
Eddie appeared behind him. He glanced at us, then took the guy by the shoulders and turned him around.
“Leave them alone,” he said. “It’s okay, just leave them alone. They’re not hurting anything. They’re my friends.”
They disappeared behind the curtain. The silence rang in my ears. I turned toward Betty. It was like crossing over to the sunny side of the street.
“Shit, how come you never told me…” I asked.
She lifted her hair up, laughing. She was wearing killer earrings-five inches long, shining like neon signs.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t really play,” she said. “I just know two or three things…”
“Right, two or three things…”
“No, really. It’s easy.”
“You kill me. You’re a weird girl…”
I put my hand on her thigh. I had to touch her. If I could have I’d have just swallowed her whole.
“You know,” I went on, “I’ve always chased after something that would make my life make sense. Living with you is maybe the most important thing that ever happened to me.”
“You’re sweet to say that, but it’s ‘cause you’re so tired you can’t see straight.”
“No, it’s the plain truth.”
She came over and sat on my lap. I put my arms around her and she whispered in my ear.
“If it was me who wrote that book,” she said, “I wouldn’t be asking myself if my life had meaning. I wouldn’t have to think about what’s most important. Me, I’m nothing, but you… you can’t say that, not you.”
She finished her sentence with a kiss on my neck. I couldn’t be upset.
“You’re driving me crazy with that,” I sighed. “That’s where all our troubles come from.”
“Jesus, that’s not the problem!”
“Yes it is.”
“So why did you write the book, then? Just to give me a headache?”
“Not really.”
“It means nothing to you…”
“Yes it does. I put everything I had into it when I wrote it. But I can’t force people to like it. All I did was write it, it was all I could do. And it’s all I can do if it stops there.”
“And what about me? You think I’m an idiot? You think I fall in love with every book I read? You think it’s just because you’re the one who wrote it?”
“I hope you wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Sometimes I think you’re playing a game.”
“What…?”
“You seem to think it’s cool to deny the obvious. It happens that you’re a hell of a writer, whether you like it or not.”
“Fine. Then maybe you could explain why I haven’t written another line?”
“Sure. Because you’re a jerk.”
I pushed my face into her chest. She played with my hair. I wouldn’t have wanted my future fans to see me like that. Tenderness is a hard pill to swallow-there’s always a big risk involved. It’s like sticking your hand through the bars of a cage.
Betty had no bra on, and my stool had no back. It all felt so good that we nearly wound up on the floor, but at the last minute I called my back muscles into action, squealing in horror. I felt the end was near. My last bit of strength was disappearing like the cherry blossoms in a Japanese garden. So it is said in The Art of War: The brave man must know his limits. I yawned into her sweater.
“You look tired,” she said.
“No, I’m fine.”
She liked my hair-it got along famously with her fingers. I myself was happy to have her weight on my lap; it made things less dreamlike, made me know she was really there, and nowhere else. I could have just picked her up and carried her away. But I didn’t try anything fancy-I didn’t want to budge. I’d have died first. I felt lead pouring down my spine, and it made me grimace. And yet my soul was light as a feather, carefree and docile, floating up in the slightest of breezes. I couldn’t figure it out.
“Anyway, there’s no room for us to stay upstairs,” she said. “What are we going to do?”
This kind of remark would have destroyed me a few minutes earlier, but I was beyond it all by then. It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. Thinking itself was a herculean feat. Still, I did it.
“I’m going to go get in the car,” I said.
Luckily she came with me. I was taller than she was, so it was easy to lean on her. As I feared, the door to the street was locked, so we had to go back up and come down the miserable stairs. On the way, I was suddenly struck with terror-I saw myself being swallowed by a boa constrictor. By the time I sagged into the backseat of the car my teeth were almost chattering. Betty gave me a worried glance.
“You don’t feel good? My God, you look like you have a fever.”
I made my hand into a white flag. I waved it.
“No, no. Everything’s fine.”
I pulled a blanket up over my legs in one last act of lucidity.
“Betty, where are you? Don’t leave me…”
“I’m here! What’s gotten into you? You want a cigarette?”
My eyes closed by themselves.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
“Hey, did you get a look at all the stars? Look…”
“Hmmm… yeah, it’s nice out…” I mumbled.
“Hey, you sleeping?”
“No, no. I’m cool…”
“You think we’re going to stay here all night…?”
15
At around eleven o’clock we went to the funeral. The sun was beautiful and the sky was blue. We hadn’t seen weather like that in months. The air smelled sweet. I’d slept well; one of the advantages of luxury cars is that you can just about stretch your legs out and the seats are comfortable. I hadn’t been cold. There I was in the sunlight, my eyes half closed, while they lowered the coffin, hulling and puffing. I was meditating on the warmth of the sun on my face, realizing that man and the universe are one. I was realizing these things mostly to make the time pass. I wondered when we were going to eat.
No one seemed to care. We went back to the house without saying a word. I lagged behind. It took a few minutes of walking around in circles above the pianos before someone had the bright idea to open the refrigerator. But she had only been an old woman who lived alone-a poor little thing already half dead, who ate like a bird. We had to make do with a little pork chop, half a can of corn, some plain yogurt already past its expiration date, and some crackers. Eddie was feeling better. He was pale and his forehead was still wrinkled, but he’d recovered his cool-he asked me for the salt in a peaceful voice. Luckily the weather’s nice, he added.
He spent part of the afternoon going through a drawer full of photographs and papers, talking to himself. We watched him and yawned. We turned the TV on, then had to get up I don’t know how many times to change the channel. Finally night fell. I went out to do some shopping with Betty. We took Bongo with us.
It was a terrific little area-trees everywhere, and very few cars in the street. I felt like I hadn’t breathed in centuries. I almost smiled as I walked. When we got back I put a huge casserole in the oven. Eddie had shaved, showered, and combed his hair. After the main dish, we downed six pounds of cheese and an apple pie as big as the table. I cleared, then started on the dishes in the kitchen. The girls wanted to watch this western I’d already seen a hundred times, so it didn’t bother me. I was back in good shape.