“Who the hell are you giving orders to? If you want to get out you can jump out.”
“Well, let’s go back. That was Bonomo.”
“So it was Bonomo.”
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“Because I don’t want to stop, that’s why.”
“Why not?”
“I said I don’t want to!”
Whether Gene understood then or remembered something Ernie did not even know, or whether simply the vigor of that bellow proved conclusive, the subject abruptly ended. In the days that followed, Ernie avoided him, and that night he did not take Faye into his arms.
He lay apart from her in anguish at her faithlessness. If with Bonomo why not with others? Was Bonomo any better than anybody else? Ernie could conceive of no one worse. He was sick with murderous despair over the liberties that had been taken with his wife. Reminding himself that it had happened before she had known him made not the slightest difference, and telling himself that maybe nothing had happened was of no use. His first interest in Faye had come at seeing her riding along Main Street pressed against Bonomo, who was not known for wasting his time.
When she sprawled against Ernie, he recoiled, and at last he fell asleep clinging to the edge of the mattress.
For days he was churlish, agitated, glum. One night he woke with a jerk.
“Ernie, what’s wrong?”
“Nightmare.”
“What a pitiful noise you made.”
“Had a nightmare.”
“Poor Ernie, what was it?”
“Nothing.”
“Was something after you?”
“What do you care?”
“Was it about me? Is that it?”
“You were in it. Leave me alone. It wasn’t anything.”
“Did I do something wrong? I can’t help it if I did. I mean because I didn’t really do anything.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t. What was it?”
“It wasn’t anything. Somebody came up and took your hand, that’s all.”
“Just that? Was that all?”
“And you let him.”
“It was your dream. Don’t blame me. Was it just that?”
“Isn’t that enough? You did it right in front of me.”
“Well, that isn’t so bad. Maybe he was my father.”
“He wasn’t your father.”
“Did he look like him?”
“You know who he was.”
“I don’t!”
“You sure?”
“I don’t, I don’t.” She sat up, turned on the bedside lamp and looked down at him in alarm. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t.”
“Ernie, it was just a dream. It isn’t real, it didn’t really happen.”
“Didn’t it?”
“I don’t understand you. I didn’t do that and I wouldn’t and I don’t see why you’re making such a big fuss about it.”
“What if it was Bonomo?”
“Was it him?”
Ernie nodded, watching her eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I mean it’s not my fault. You know I went with him. You went with other girls, too.”
“I know. Don’t get the idea I’m jealous. I’m not. I just don’t see why you couldn’t find something better than that son-of-a-bitch.”
“I did. I found you.”
“Oh, come off it. What if he hadn’t joined the army?”
“I wouldn’t be with him. I never liked him.”
“That just makes it worse. How many other guys didn’t you like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Jesus, that’s really something.”
“What is?”
“Just that.”
“Not liking him?”
“And letting him have you.”
He saw fear in the gray evasive eyes. She was wearing a pale-blue nightgown and her hand rose to the ribbon threaded through the lace of the neck, then to her hair, the short fingers twisting a dark lock level with her chin.
“I didn’t do that.”
“You can tell me the truth. I know how it is. I accept that. It’s only human. It’s a natural drive. I don’t hold it against you. But why with that rotten bastard? There ought to have been something else available, and I guess there was, too, wasn’t there? It’s only natural with a woman and I accept that. It really doesn’t bother me. That’s just the way things go. How can you fight nature? What’s past is past. It’s just the present that counts. But if I ever catch you with him I’ll kill both of you.”
“Who?”
“With anybody! I know what you were doing before you met me. It didn’t take any great brain to figure that out.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. Tell me all about it, I don’t care. It’s natural enough — you’re a healthy girl. I’m not jealous, I’m just warning you. Now okay, forget it, I’m not mad, everything’s fine. For Christ’s sake, don’t cry. I’m not mad. What went on before me is your own business, and if anybody wises off I’ll bust his head. Didn’t you know he’d shoot his mouth off to everybody? Didn’t you even think about that? That’s what I can’t stand — knowing that son-of-a-bitch is laughing about it. I’m going to kick ass royal around this shit town. Will you stop crying? I told you I’m not mad. Can’t you understand that? Maybe you loved him, I don’t know, though I don’t see how you could, but maybe you did. I know you got urges. It wouldn’t be right if you didn’t.”
She uttered a wail of such resonant grief, loud and deep like an inhuman moan, that he was frightened.
“Faye?”
She was silently rocking. From between her fingers tears dropped to the sheet. Again that deep animal moaning, terrifying in its immodesty, rose from behind her hands. It was a sound he had never heard before. He sat up, rigid, staring at her bowed head, her clenched and digging fingers, saying: “Faye, it doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t bother me. It really doesn’t bother me. Faye, it doesn’t bother me at all. It really doesn’t bother me.”
15
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be without that man?”
“Uh,” said Billy Tully.
“And he didn’t mean it. He just gets so nervous. You don’t know what you have to take when you’re interracial. Every son-of-a-bitch on the street has to get a look at you. And Earl’s really a peaceable man. He’s even-tempered. He didn’t hurt that guy and he didn’t want to. Just a little nick on the back of the neck. He wouldn’t any more try to assult somebody than you’d get up on that stool and try to fly. He couldn’t. He’s just not made that way. He’s the sweetest-natured man in the world.”
“He’ll get out,” said Tully, glancing at her in the mirror, her eyes darkly circled, nose dented, mouth bracketed with lines, her lips red and sorrowful and with a fullness, for an instant there beyond the reflected bottles, like the fullness of his wife’s lips. He turned to her, but her face was down and her lips, blocked from his view by her mass of curly hair, could not be like his wife’s because his wife would not have worn that hairdo. His wife had had taste, which had the effect of disqualifying the woman beside him. He turned back to his drink with a pleasurably melancholy sense of fidelity. Impressed by the breadth of his love, he resigned himself. Hopefully he had come to sit by this woman, Oma, whom he remembered as having once intrigued him, but now he felt only indifference. As she talked on, he looked wearily down the lighted bar, lined with beer bottles, glasses, brown bare arms and hot-sauce bottles filled with salt. He had spent the day picking peaches.
“He’s so jealous. I wouldn’t put it past him to be out already, spying on every move I make.”
Tully glanced at the open doorway. Mournful Mexican howls came from the jukebox. On a calendar above the ranks of Thunderbird and Silver Spur, a bare-breasted Aztec maiden lay sleeping at the feet of a warrior, flanked by two giant bottles of Cerveza XX, against a background of snow-capped volcanoes.