And his father, answering heavily, “He’s got to learn sometime. He’s no damn good, and, unless I can teach him, the cops are going to have to.”
His father went away, and he managed to get up and stumble to his room. But he knew he couldn’t stay here any longer. In a way, he didn’t blame his father. He had it coming, all right. But still, he couldn’t stay here now that his father had beaten him. He waited until the sounds died down, and then he crept out on stocking feet, his body stiff and sore, his head still giddy.
He started up the street where Rusty had a room. Maybe Rusty could look after him. But he didn’t like the idea of Rusty seeing him beat-up this way; Rusty would want to know what had happened. He couldn’t tell him it was his old man, and he didn’t think he could make up a story, either.
He sat down on the stone steps of an apartment, holding his head in his hands, trying to figure out what to do. A couple passed by, arms around each other, not noticing him. Then he heard the click of heels on the brick sidewalk, and he thought he’d better get moving before a cop found him. It was an effort to stand up. He had to steady himself against the side of the building to keep from falling. The footsteps grew closer.
Then they paused, and Liz Nolan said, “Johnny! What’s happened to you?”
He looked at her, but all he could see was a twisting shadow.
“Beat up,” he managed to say.
“I’ll get Rusty — I just left him. We’ll get you home.”
He ran a tongue over dry, cracked lips. “No — Don’t get Rusty. I can’t go home, either.”
“Come to my place, then.”
He tried to draw away. But she took his arm. He went meekly then, not knowing what else to do. She helped him up the stairs, into a room that smelled of some heavy, sweet perfume. The smell almost gagged him. He sat on the edge of the bed, while Liz went over and pulled down the window shade. Hammers were pounding inside his skull. He felt as though he might be sick again. She came over and kissed him, lips slack and moist.
He let himself fall back on the bed — away from her. “You better leave me alone, Liz,” he said. “I’m in bad shape.”
She looked down at him a moment, contemptuously. She said, “You’re so right. I should of known.”
In the morning, he left before Liz woke up...
He stood on the sidewalk in front of Jerry’s Hot Dog Stand. It was almost six o’clock, and Lois had said she would be there before six. But he couldn’t be sure — women were late, lots of times. Or, maybe, she wouldn’t come at all. She had hesitated when he phoned her — as if it was hard for her to make up her mind.
He glanced impatiently up the street. There weren’t so many cars, and he would have seen the blue convertible right away. Johnny set the paper bag he was carrying between his feet and took out a cigarette. He cupped his hands against the wind that was blowing in from the ocean. Dark clouds banked against the horizon, and there were whitecaps on the dark water. Not many swimmers were out there.
The cigarette didn’t taste good, and he tossed it away and picked up the paper bag again. He wished, suddenly, that she wouldn’t come. It was all worked out with Rusty, but, if she didn’t come, he wouldn’t have to go through with it. Yet there was a part of him that had to see her again. He felt mixed-up, not knowing which part of him was real. He knew, desperately, that it wasn’t good to be mixed-up this way.
He heard the roar of the roller coaster up the street, and he smelled the hotdogs from the grill of Jerry’s Hot Dog Stand, and he tried hard to figure things out straight. Figure out just what he wanted — because you had to know that. The time had come when he couldn’t kid himself any longer.
But it made his hangover stand up inside when he tried to figure it out, and then there wasn’t time anyway, because he caught sight of the convertible coming along behind a 1941 Chewy. Suddenly, he felt every nerve in him snap tight and brittle.
The convertible pulled over to where he was standing and stopped. He reached to open the door and tossed the paper bag on to the seat. He looked into Lois’s face and felt his guts knot. The mechanical organ at the Merry-Go-Round began to blare You Can’t Be True, Dear.
“Well?” Her lips pursed delightfully. The wind blew a lock of yellow hair across her forehead. He got into the blue convertible, and Lois pulled out into the street.
They drove for a few moments in silence — past the pitch games, the Fun House, the stands selling frozen custard. She turned off, away from the waterfront.
He found his voice then. “I bought some sandwiches and a couple of cans of beer. For a picnic.”
“I don’t have much time, Johnny.”
“It won’t take much time. After all, I came all the way out to bring back your wallet.”
“You could have sent it to me.”
“Yeah, I could have.”
But he could tell that she really wanted to be here, with him. He didn’t know how, but he could tell. “There’s a place up the road,” he suggested.
She followed his directions, turned off the highway, down a dirt road that led into a pine grove at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. The dark clouds were closer now, edging in toward the land.
“Oh, Johnny,” Lois said as he gave her a sandwich, “what is there about you?”
He looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know. Something restless — disturbed. It’s hard to tell.”
“Don’t try then.”
He kissed her lightly, almost as if it didn’t matter. Then he looked at his watch. It was later than he had supposed. _
“I really can’t stay,” she said. She hadn’t even unwrapped her sandwich. “I promised I’d get back.”
“And us?” Johnny asked. “You’re not giving us a chance.”
Lois looked at him searchingly, as if she was trying to see what really lay inside him. He felt strangely uncomfortable under her gaze, as if she could actually look inside him. He knew it didn’t matter just then that his face was a good-looking face, or that his body was slim and hard and well proportioned. He could see that for himself in the old mirror in his room, and it was only the outer part of him.
She was trying to probe deeper, and he didn’t want her to find his secret self. Yet he knew that, before very long, she would know. Because he would have to show her himself.
She said, very slowly, “You know, Johnny, we don’t have a chance — because I’m afraid of you.”
He tried to laugh. It didn’t sound right. And then she took out the car key. “So we’d better go,” she added.
He knew this was the time. The wind from the ocean felt very cold. Even the blood, beating in his temples, couldn’t drive the numbness out of him. Like Rusty said, he was chicken. This was the time, and he couldn’t do anything.
He heard the starter begin to purr, and then something broke inside him. He reached for the switch and cut the motor. He tried to block off any emotion — any sense that this was Lois. This was a car and a woman, and he had to do a job.
She looked at him a moment, straight into his face, her eyes going wide, her nostrils flaring, the blood draining from her cheeks. It almost got him — but then he said tightly, “It’s just the car I want. If you don’t make any trouble, I won’t hurt you.”
But she did make trouble. She tried to struggle. He had to clamp his hand over her mouth and almost choke her to keep her from screaming. As he was getting her out of the car, one of her arms came free and her nails scratched the side of his face. He had to slam her to the ground before she grew quiet.