My first instinct was that a social life depended simply upon giving people what they wanted. So, I called Peavey, as a kind of test case.
I told him that I had finally understood that marriage was what Roxy wanted and that I therefore endorsed that view and would see Roxy that very day to make myself clear.
“Why, that’s very nice.”
“I am going to try to stop interfering,” I said.
“I think you should.”
“I am going to attempt to be normal,” I said, “eat regularly, see some motion pictures, and take in the hot spots on weekends.”
“Right…”
“And anyway, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s very nice. And look here, I’d like to return the favor. I got a line on your dog. I’ll have Nylon Pinder drop it by.”
“Say,” I said, “thanks a lot. I appreciate that. Nylon been feeding her pretty good?”
“Not too bad. Not too damn bad.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“A house pet should have special care,” Peavey said.
“Well,” I said, “I’ll be talking to you.”
“Real good, and thanks!”
Catherine was looking at me.
“I’m trying,” I explained. It was quiet.
She said, “You’re the original snowball in hell.” She was shaking all over.
11
MY UNCLE PAT was in his yard on a stepladder, out in the middle of the yard, wiring a creeper to a freestanding trellis. He was in some aerial relationship to the trellis, as though he, on his ladder, were feeding it like a tall bird.
“Pat, Roxy wants to get married.”
“I don’t care a thing about it.”
“I’m making my party at the Casa Marina a wedding party. But she wants to know if you’ll come.”
“I couldn’t say, Chet.” A bead of sweat fell from the tip of Pat’s nose sixteen feet to the ground.
“It’s going to be dressy as hell, Pat. And there’d, you know, be a ceremony.”
“But would I figure?”
“You’d have to work that out with Roxy.”
“It’d be good to have something other than Peavey’s henchmen and their trashy girlfriends.”
“That’s why I thought you might stand up for Roxy.”
“Can I dress?”
I hesitated, but not for long. Pat lived to dress up. It was the key to his attending. I said sure. He got happy quick and the ladder started over. He reached and embraced the trellis. They went down together in parallel. In the descending arc, I could see his happy eyes.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“The plant’s shot,” I said, looking at the turmoil of vines.
“I don’t have a green thumb,” he said. His mind was already on the wedding, his eyes glowing with yet unseen ceremony. I myself thought of the wedding, the orchestra, Catherine, semi-familiar faces, a warm and swollen ocean beaded with the lights of ships. I helped Pat to his feet, lost in happiness. I knocked loose dirt from his getup. “You’re a good uncle,” I told him, remembering the crazy angles of my father’s roof.
“If I could quit cruising,” he said. “People talk.”
* * *
Waiting in front of my house was a familiar man in safari clothes. His hair was slicked straight back without a part and he was chewing a cheroot.
“You are Ramón Condor,” I said, “star of The Reluctant Gaucho.”
“The keys.”
“?”
“The check bounced on the Land-Rover. Get me the keys.”
“They’re in it.”
He walked over to the car.
“This was a go-anywhere vehicle,” he said, “now it’s nothing but a repo.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re a bald-ass liar and your checks are bum.”
“I knew only confusion.”
He was halfway in the car and he got out again. He flicked away the cheroot and cinched up his safari coat. “You knew only confusion…” He started at me. There are those who despise my flair for language.
I saw another smack coming and I lowered my head between my shoulders for protection, simultaneously turning my false-tooth-filled mouth to one side. But then when he got to me, I reflexively popped him in the side of the head and he sat down.
“This whole deal is getting highly Chinese,” he said.
“Don’t be coming at me like that.”
“I oughta leave you for the birds.”
“You’ll have to get to your feet first.”
“Nylon said, ‘Let me collect that for you,’ but me, I had to be big.”
“Nylon hasn’t been doing so good either.”
“But if I hadn’t had to be big, it would of been him instead of me. Now look. God damn polished cotton’s worth its weight in gold. One knee’s done for and the thing is an outfit, not just pants and a jacket. And a tough one to come by.”
“They do reweaving down off Simonton Street.”
“I did it. I have to live with it.” He got in the Land-Rover and left.
“Where’s he going in the Buick,” Catherine asked.
I turned around. “Where did you come from?”
“Kiss me hard.”
I held her.
“I just thought today, maybe I can stand it. You’re out of the question but today I thought, it won’t kill me.”
“I never said that,” I said. “I never said it would kill you.”
I looked at her and she was glowing. She had evidently had some kind of moment with herself. I was holding it away. It seemed as if she was coming back or going to try and I didn’t want to distort it; if I could just hold on to one place for her to come back to. She would do that for me. And why in hell couldn’t I do that for her?
We walked around to the beach and Marcelline was there, sitting on a Ramada Inn towel and reading pornography. I had my arm around Catherine’s waist when Marcelline commenced an excerpt; it was gruesome filth. She laughed, then stopped and looked up. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I mean, I’m sorry,” she said.
“Look,” she said, getting up and folding her towel, “no salesman will call at your door.”
She left.
“Huh,” I said.
“Gee,” said Catherine.
Then Marcelline was back and she was throwing rocks at us. “It’s no call to do me like some doormat!” she shouted.
“Lay off the speed, Marcelline,” Catherine said, “this always happens. It’s venom … put down those rocks.” Marcelline vanished again, weeping this time. “It’s venom, I tell you. Monday she’s blowing one boyfriend in his sports car and by Wednesday she’s cutting her wrists in another’s apartment because he says he doesn’t love her. Then by the time she gets back to the blowjob in the sports car, it’s on holiday in Europe and Marcelline’s standing there wondering why she’s always holding the bag. One minute you’re holding the bag, the next you are the bag.”
“This is your version?”
“This is it, this is la vie en rose.”
“Do you think it’s possible for a little romance?”
“I seriously doubt it. It’s like eating gravel.”
Even in the sun, all the world seems to contain a hollow wailing moan, long and drawn out, as though purgatory understood the meaning of not knowing what was next.
“I love you so,” said Catherine. “Whatever’s missing in the world, I’m doing my part.”
We passed down the purlieus of Duval Street, past vile restaurants addressed “Rue Duval.” On the steps of St. Paul’s Church, a pigeon worked its way diagonally below the feet of two elderly gentlemen, factional members of a Long Island exodus.
“We could have had such a damned good time together,” I heard one say.