The cabin was overgrown with weeds and brambles. One of the back windows was broken. The river had, at some recent time, risen and filled the front room with mud. The porch was broken and sagging; the railing, against which she had leaned in the photograph, was gone completely. When they pried the door open—the hinges and lock were rusted—they found that mice and ground squirrels had destroyed the sofa and mattresses and chairs. Somebody had broken in and stolen the pipes from the stove. The electricity was off, and the supply of gas was almost gone.
“Jesus,” Patricia said, walking back outside to gaze across the river. “I’m sorry.”
He said, “In two or three days it can be fixed up.”
“Can it? It looks dreadful.” She tossed a stone into the water. On the far side tiny children were paddling. People, on the beach, were sunning themselves. The afternoon air was hot, dry. Around them the bushes rustled with the wind.
“It’s nice up here,” he said.
He found a shovel and cleaned out the debris, the silt, and rubbish. With the windows and doors open, the cabin aired out rapidly. Pat, using a heavy needle and thread, managed to repair the mattresses to some degree.
“But you can’t cook,” she said. “How can you fix meals? The stove won’t work without pipes.”
He had lost interest in that part; he had become interested in her. “They probably have pipes around here,” he said. “And glass for the window.”
“If you say so,” she said.
When the sun began to set, they walked into Guerneville and had dinner at one of the restaurants. After dinner, they sat at the table drinking beer. By nine o’clock neither of them was in any condition to drive back to San Francisco.
“This is a hell of a thing,” he said when they left the restaurant. Kids roamed the streets; kids in hot rods screeched by. The night air was pleasant. Off to their left was the river. He could see it glinting. The river did not seem to move at all. Somewhere the Sonoma County people had dammed it up.
Beside him Pat strolled contentedly. “I like it up here.” She had changed into jeans and gone wading, her jeans rolled up to her knees. Her legs were smooth, light. She walked barefoot.
“Don’t the stones hurt your feet?” he asked.
“Everybody up here walks barefoot,” she said. She stumbled a little, and he caught her. “Be careful,” she said to him.
“Why?” He held onto her arm. “I think I’m drunk.”
“I think you are too,” he said. “I think we both are.”
On the bed, her eyes shut, Pat said, “We stayed there that night, didn’t we? Was the electricity on?”
“No,” he said. “It was still shorted.” He had got the lights working the next day. “Did you make love to me that night?”
“You’re darn right I did,” he said.
She reached out for her cigarette, stirring on the bed. “Why isn’t it like that anymore?”
“Your fault. My fault.”
“Nobody’s fault,” she murmured. He took the cigarette from her fingers; she was dropping it to the covers. “Thanks.”
He said, “Remember that beanery down in the Tenderloin?”
“Where we stood,” she said. “Where they didn’t have chairs or stools. Just the counter. That was where all the longshoremen ate . . . down by the produce area and the docks.” Her voice trailed off.
All the various places, he thought. The secondhand record shop on Eddy Street where the old man fussed with the albums, not knowing what he had in stock but knowing everything there was to know about the records themselves. And the nights they had rushed upstairs floor by floor at the War Memorial Opera House, battling to get to the rail first, clutching their standingroom tickets.
And, he thought, the day they had bought the firecrackers and given them to the kids. The illegal firecrackers. They had driven down to San Jose to buy them. Early morning in the San Francisco streets, driving with the car full of fireworks, cones and pinwheels and cherry bombs, giving them away to the kids. And, he thought, then the police.
“They sure got us,” he said.
“They?”
“The police. For the firecrackers.”
“Yes,” she said.
He leaned down and kissed her. She did not protest; she turned a little toward him, drawing her knees up and burying her head down between her arms. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, and he smoothed it away from her face, out of her eyes “Maybe I will stay,” he said. “Can I?”
Presently she said, “Okay.”
“I love you,” he said. He put his arm under her and lifted her up against him; she was a dead weight, sound asleep, without resistance. “You know that?” he said.
“Yes,” she murmured.
“But I’m not good enough for you.”
“No.”
“Who is?” he said.
She did not answer. Her hair brushed against his wrist, and he kissed her again, on the mouth. Her lips gave, and he was conscious of her teeth, her hard teeth, relaxed, apart, and the motion of—her breath in her throat.
“No,” she said, “we better not.” She struggled up. “I’m sorry. I wish we could. We better just go to sleep . . . I think you should sleep above the sheet. So we can’t without going to a lot of trouble. Don’t you agree?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She opened her eyes. “It’s not what I want. I wish we could . . . maybe we could. No, it wouldn’t be right. Come on, get into bed and let’s go to sleep. You don’t have to get up early tomorrow, but I do; I have to get up at six-thirty.”
Going here and there in her apartment, he shut off the heater and the lights and made certain that the door was locked. When he reentered the bedroom, he found her standing sleepily by the bed, her robe in her arms; he took it from her and hung it in the closet.
“How serious is this business with Posin?” he said.
She shook her head without answering. Already she was in bed, tugging the covers over her; she wore some kind of single-piece material, but he did not see what it was. He did not recognize it. Something new. Something she had bought after she had left him.
As he got into bed, above the sheet, separated from her by the surface of material, she put her arms against him, her fingers pressing against his head. “This is nice,” she said, but she was failing asleep; she was drifting away. The outline of her body was vague under the sheet, and he could not reach it. He could not grasp her. When he tried to take hold of her, he found himself holding nothing but material, the uniform cotton material, bleached and absolutely clean and absolutely impersonal. She turned away from him, and that was that.
5
No Joy in Fogville.
The other night long- and short-hair disc jock Jim Briskin on radio (recall, you TV addicts?) station KOIF got off a doozy of a reading of a Looney Luke (three ughs and a blah!) commercial right twixt Beethoven and Brahms.
Said Briskin: “Looney Luke sells clean cars.” Which Looney Luke thought was fine. And then he said: “That’s enough of that commercial.” Which darn near everyone else in town thought was fine. So now no more Looney Luke commercials on KOIF, because even if you weren’t listening the sponsor was.
But now poor Jim’s on suspension. Lost a month’s pay.
Alas, no justice in this-here world.
From within his concealed and reinforced loft, Ludwig Grimmelman watched the three of them approach. It was late in the afternoon, and the day was hot and fair. The sidewalk sparkled, outlining the figures.