Inert or not, she was not so unyielding that he could not put his arms around her and hold her cupped like a child in his sideways lap. Smiling in her neck, he gave her some hugs. What made him happy was the thought of her sleeping so soundly, having eaten so well, resting and digesting and fattening and restoring herself even as he held her. Already the corn bread was sticking to her ribs. Her warm breath blew regularly against his arm.
5
You packed the guns in the trunk of the car, remember?
Yes. No. Leslie did.
Go get them.
No.
Come, it’s the only way, the one quick sure exit of grace and violence and beauty. Come, believe me, it’s the ultimate come, not the first come which we all grow up dreaming about and which is never what we hoped, is it, but near enough to know there is something better, isn’t it, the second, last and ultimate come to end all comes.
No.
Come, what else is there? What other end if you don’t make the end? Make your own bright end in the darkness of this dying world, this foul and feckless place, where you know as well as I that nothing ever really works, that you were never once yourself and never will be or he himself or she herself and certainly never once we ourselves together. Come, close it out before it closes you out because believe me life does no better job with dying than with living. Close it out. At least you can do that, not only not lose but win, with one last splendid gesture defeat the whole foul feckless world. You’ll do better than I, you’re already in a better place, you a placeless person in a placeless place, a motel surely a better place for taking off than a swamp or an attic, yes.
No.
Go like a man, for Christ’s sake, a Roman, here’s your sword.
No.
Very well. Then it will close you out, since you’re already impregnated with death, a slight case of sickness in the head making you crazier even than you are, smelling the past, nigger cabins, pin-oak flats, not even knowing where you are, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, without looking out the window to check the mountain, and from here on out nowhere to go but down.
No.
Very well, let it close you out with the drools and the shakes and your mouth fallen open, head nodding away and both hands rolling pills. But you’ll never even get that far because you’ve got my genes and you know better.
Yes.
Then get up and go out to the car and get it and go to the empty corner of grass and fence where nobody’s been. We like desert places.
All right.
It was dark.
His head as he turned to rise seemed to shift on its axis like the great world itself.
He rose and dressed in the dark, walked out to the Mercedes, unlocked the trunk, took out the leather case containing the Greener and the holster containing the Luger. It was a cold starry night. The mists of summer and fall had all blown away. He walked down the highway holding the Greener like a businessman with a briefcase. When he reached the overlook the Holiday Inn looked over, he did not even pause but swung the case like a discus, the throw turning him around and heading him back. He did not hear the Greener hit bottom. As an afterthought, he pitched the Luger back over his shoulder and went away without listening.
6
It was light.
“Wake up. What’s wrong? What is it?”
“What is what?” Instantly he was awake and unsurprised.
“Who were you talking to? What were you saying about Georgia? Why do you want to go to Georgia? Where did you go?”
“Outside for a walk.”
She must have gotten up. The drapes were open a little. The morning light poured in. The Holsteins were grazing beyond the chain-link fence. There was something pleasant about the unused ungrazed Holiday Inn corner. Her pajamas hung in the alcove.
“Come here,” he said.
“I’m here,” she said. “In the bed. By you.”
“Come here.”
“Well, you’ll have to straighten up. You were all bent over, covering your head with your arms like somebody was after you. Were they?”
“No. I don’t know. Now.”
“Yes. That’s better. Now.”
“Yes, it is.” Her skin was like silk against him.
“There you are,” she said.
“Yes.”
“It’s you.”
“Yes.”
“You against me, yet not really opposed.”
“Yes. That is, no.”
“Put your arms around me in addition.”
“They are around you.”
“They sure are.”
When she came against him from the side, it was with the effect of flying up to him from below like a little cave bat and clinging to him with every part of her.
They were lying on their sides facing each other.
“Come here,” he said.
“I’m here.”
“Now.”
“Yes.”
There was an angle but it did not make trouble. Entering her was like turning a corner and coming home.
“Oh my,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That’s you for true.”
“Yes.”
“This was not in the book.”
“What book?”
“No books, no running brooks, just you.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe this,” she said. “I don’t, I don’t.”
“It’s true,” he said.
“Oh my, what is happening? I think I’m going to have a fit.”
“Yes.”
“What is going to happen?”
“You’re going to have a fit.”
When he woke up, she was gazing at him. “Were you having a dream?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were talking about — loving.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Was it love like this?”
“No, not like this. I’ll take this.”
“Don’t ever let me go,” she said. “Now I know what it is I wanted. Before I only wanted.”
“I won’t let you go.”
“Ah, do you want to know what it is?”
“What is it?”
“It is a needfulness that I didn’t know until this moment that I needed. What a mystification.”
“Yes, it is a mystification.”
“Don’t you think you better get up and close the curtain?”
“Not necessarily. The consequences of not closing the curtain are neither here nor there and in any case not direful.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she said.
“Yes.”
They laughed. It was the first time he had heard her laugh so, a tickled hooting laugh, the way a girl laughs with other girls.
“Oh my,” she said after a while. “Perhaps that was it, after all.”
“It?”
“Yes, you know, it.”
“Yes.”
“Would you have ever believed?” she asked someone, perhaps herself, absently.
“Yes, I would have believed,” he said.
“Oh my,” she said again presently. “It is now evident that whatever was wrong with me is now largely cured. Quel mystery.”
“I have an idea,” he said after a while.
“What?”
“Let’s stay together. I do not wish to leave you again.”
“Me neither. I, that is, you.”
“Me too.”
“Well well,” she said later. Her back and legs were strong as a man’s. “That was not in the book either.”
“What book?”
“The pine-tree book. Or the picture book.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” he said.
“What?”
“Let’s get a house and live in it.”
“Okay. Can we make love like that much of the time?”
“As much as you like.”
“For true?”
“For true. Would you like to marry?”
“Uh, to marry might be to miscarry.”
“Not necessarily. I’ll practice law. You grow things in your greenhouse. We can meet after work, have supper. We can walk the Long Trail or go to the beach on your island. Then go to bed irregardless.”