The discs were in manual sequence. He put side one on the turntable and lowered the arm. Now Frank Hubble was watching through the window of the studio; he scowled with disapproval. How wicked, Jim thought, to be playing records. A man trying to draw out and hold his own wife.
The music, with its progression upward, its heavy quality of darkness and isolation, helped clear his mind. The weight seemed to pass from him into the music. The great structure of the music absorbed it and accepted it from him.
So, he thought, he discovered at this late date that the stuff had a use.
He got the music up loud enough to reach across the station, from one room to the next, out onto the roof where Pat stood in the darkness. At such volume, the music could not be evaded. Listening, he paced back and forth; he became restless, and suddenly he was afraid that no time was passing. The music had put an end to everything.
As he was putting on the second record, Bob Posin appeared. “What a racket,” he said. “I could hear it all the way downstairs. Isn’t it getting over the air?”
“No,” Jim said, demoralized. In his mind he had written Bob Posin out of existence. “Is Patricia here?”
Entering the room, Pat said, “Where have you been?”
“I was tied up. Straightening out the Granny Goose potato chip material.” He said it with anger.
Pat said, “I can’t go out. It’s too late. Take my word for it; you wouldn’t want to be with me tonight. I’ve had too much to drink, and all I want to do is go home. We can go out some other time, she’ll be there for a week at least, and if she’s gone we can see her when she’s back this way.” She seated herself with her coat and purse on her lap. The drinks had begun to affect her outwardly; her face was waxen. “Just go off and leave me. Will you do that?”
Standing his ground, Bob said, “At least let me drive you home.”
“Have you ever seen a woman throw up nine drinks?” Bob Posin left. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”
“Don’t come near me,” Pat said, as Jim approached her.
“I know you,” he said. He led her from the station and downstairs to his car; she walked slowly, step by step, her eyes on the ground. In the lobby she halted, and try as he might he could not budge her.
“I’m scared,” she said. “I’m too drunk to go with you. I know how you feel about me. Honest to God, Jim, I can’t go with you. There’s no point in talking about it; I mean it, and you know me well enough to know I mean it. And If I passed out, would you want me like that? That isn’t what you want. I’m going to sit down here.” With care she went to the lobby couch, the old ratty, bedraggled couch, and stood beside it. “Go away,” she said. “In the name of Jesus Christ, leave me alone!”
He walked out onto the sidewalk and then around the block, past bars and closed-up shops, until he reached the side entrance to the station’s parking lot. By the long route, he came back to the McLaughlen Building. In the lot was Pat’s car, and she was trying to start it. The headlights were on, and with each turn of the starter motor the lights dimmed to a feeble yellow.
In the darkness he watched her, feeling compassion for her; the car door was open, and she was crouched over the wheel, her arm resting on it, her coat spilled onto the floor by her feet. She was crying; he could hear her where he stood. At last the engine caught, and the headlights flared up. Pat slammed the car door, threw the gear into drive, and drove directly into a car parked across from hers. The bumpers tangled with a grating metallic shriek. The engine died, and Pat sat without moving, her hand over her face.
Walking over, he saw that no harm had been done; both bumpers were scratched, but that was all. Nobody would care. He opened the car door and said, “Sweetheart.”
“I won’t let you,” she said. She was clutching the wheel, and on her face was the set, fanatic look that she got once in a long while; she was terrified of him and of what she had done. Probably she thought she had demolished the other car.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. You can’t drive. You’ll kill yourself.” She nodded.
“Let me drive you to your place. I won’t go in; I’ll park you in front of the building and I’ll leave you.”
“How’ll you get back here? You have to come back for your car.”
“I’ll walk. Or take a cab.”
“That isn’t right.”
He said, “Then I’ll send you home in a cab.”
“Don’t.” She caught hold of him; her fingernails dug into him. “It’s dark there. I want to be out somewhere.” Tears shone on her cheeks. “It’s awful living alone; I have to marry Bob Posin—don’t you see? I can’t stand living alone. I can’t stand waking up in the morning alone and going to bed alone at night and eating alone.”
Kneeling against the seat, he put his arms around her and pulled her to him. Kissing her, he said, “Then let’s go to my place.”
For a moment, for the passing of one breath, she seemed to give in. Then, without pulling away from him, she said, “I can’t.”
“What then?”
“I—don’t know.” Her voice was bleak. Tears fell onto his face; tears rolled onto his nose, tickling him. “I wish I hadn’t let you stay with me the other night. I just can’t stand it without somebody any longer.”
“Somebody!” he said, enraged.
“You, then. Oh god. All right, take me to your place, and let’s go to bed and get it over with. Hurry.” Jerking away from him, she scrambled over to make room for him. “Let’s go. Drive me there. I’m tired and I give up.”
He sighed. “I tell you what,” he said. “I have a couple of friends. Two kids.”
Her head turned, and she was looking at him. In the darkness, her gaze was fixed on him; he was aware of it, the intensity.
“They invited me for dinner last night,” he said. “Suppose we go over there and stay awhile. Until you’re sobered up. Okay? They’re nice kids; they’ve been in the station. You’ve probably seen them.”
Pat said nothing. But the struggle reached him, the sense of torment.
“The girl’s pregnant,” he said. “She’s seventeen; the boy’s eighteen. They live in a broken-down flat on Fillmore. They don’t have any friends and their families aren’t speaking to them. They don’t have any money, and they’d like to see somebody once in a while.”
After a long time, Pat said, “What—are they like?” Rallying, she said, “Is she pretty?”
“Very pretty,” he said. He was still kneeling against the seat, and now he stood up. He was stiff, cramped. “Very sweet, very bright.”
“She doesn’t sound very bright. She could have taken precautions.” For a time she was silent. “How did you meet them?”
“They came into the station. I took them with me when I went to dinner.”
“What’s . . . their names?”
“Rachael. Art.”
Pat slid away until she rested against the far door. He gathered up her coat and purse and put them into her lap. “Just until I feel better,” she said.
“Okay.” Relieved, he got in behind the wheel and started up the engine. “Did I damage that car? I never hit anybody’s car before.”
“It’ll live,” he said. He backed her Dodge away and then drove from the parking lot.
9
On Fillmore Street the neon signs of bars and shops put on color haphazardly for Saturday night; their arrangement had been built up over the years by businessmen. Spots of gum on the pavement formed dark circles near the entrance of a movie theater, a bowling alley, the illuminated door of a coffee shop.