One man stands in blue light behind its high windows. When you see him from the county road, you think, That certainly must be the loneliest man in the world. But actually, it’s not true. His name is Al Costello and he’s a good friend of mine. He’s the head of a large Catholic household, and the tower is all the peace he gets. The lonely guy is the warden, an out-of-stater, a professional imprisoned by card files: a man no one likes. He looks like Rock Hudson, and he can’t get a date.
Sometimes I stop in to see Al. I go up into the tower and we look down into the yard at the goons and make specific comments about the human situation. Sometimes we knock back a beer or two. Sometimes I take a shot at one of his favorite ball clubs, and sometimes he lights into mine. It’s just human fellowship in kind of a funny spot.
But, today I keep on cruising, out among the jackrabbits and sagebrush, high above the running irrigation, all the way around the little burg, then back into town. I stop in front of the doughnut shop, waiting for the sun to travel the street and open the shop, and herald its blazing magic up commercially zoned Deadrock. Waiting in front is a sick-looking young man muttering to himself at a high relentless pitch of the kind we associate with Moslem fundamentalism. At eight sharp the door opens, and the Moslem and I shoot in for the counter. He seems to have lost something by coming inside, and I am riveted upon his loss. By absolute happenstance, we both order glazed. Then I add an order of jelly-filled which I deliver, still hot, to the lady’s doorstep.
I’m going to stop reading this newspaper. In one week, the following has been reported: A Deadrock man shot himself fatally in a bar, demonstrating the safety of his pistol. Another man, listening to the rail, had his head run over by every car of a train that took half an hour to go by. Incidents like these make it hard for me to clearly see the spirit winging its way to heaven. And though I would like to stop reading the paper, I really know I won’t. It would set a bad example for the people on the porches who have trained Spot to fetch.
“Did you get the doughnuts?” I called out that evening.
Tonight, as I fall asleep, I have a strange thought indeed. It goes like this: Darling (my late wife), I don’t know if you are watching all this or not. If you are, I have but one request: Put yourself in my shoes. That’s quite an assignment, but give it the old college try for the sake of yours truly.
I know they’ve been talking when I see Deke Patwell give me the fishy look. I cannot imagine which exact locution she used — probably that I was “bothering” her — but she has very evidently made of me a fly in Deke’s soup. There is not a lot he could do, standing next to his warming-up sensible compact, but give me this look and hope that I will invest it with meaning. I decide to blow things out of proportion.
“You two should do something nice together!” I call out.
Deke slings his head down and bitterly studies a nail on one hand, then gets in and drives away.
You think you got it bad? Says here a man over to Arlee was jump-starting his car in the garage; he had left it in gear, and when he touched the terminals of the battery the car shot forward and pinned him to a compressor that was running. This man was inflated to four times his normal size and was still alive after God knows how long when they found him. A hopeful Samaritan backed the car away and the man just blew up on the garage floor and died. As awful as that is, it adds nothing whatsoever to the basic idea. Passing in your sleep or passing as a pain-crazed human balloon on a greasy garage floor produces the same simple result year after year. The major differences lie among those who are left behind. If you’re listening, please understand I’m still trying to see why we don’t all cross the line on our own, or why nice people don’t just help us on over. Who knows if you’re even listening?
“So,” I cry out to the person with exaggerated innocence, illustrating how I am crazy like a fox. “So, how did you enjoy the doughnuts?”
She stops, looks, thinks. “That was you?”
“That was me.”
“Why?” She is walking toward me.
“It was a little something from someone who thinks somebody should take you somewhere nice.”
My foot is in the door. It feels as big as a steamboat.
“Tomorrow,” she says from her beautiful face, “make it cinnamon Danish.” Her eyes dance with cruel merriment. I feel she is of German extraction. She has no trace of an accent, and her attire is domestic in origin. I think, What am I saying? I’m scaring myself. This is a Deadrock local with zip for morals.
I decided to leap forward in the development of things to ascertain the point at which it doesn’t make sense. We are very much in love, I say to myself. I recoil privately at this thought, knowing I am still okay if not precisely tops. I am neither a detective nor a complete stupe. Like most of the human race, I fall somewhere in between.
“Tell you what,” she says with a twinkle. “I come home from work and I freshen up. Then you and me go for a stroll. How far’d you get?”
“Stroll …”
“You’re a good boy tonight and I let you off lightly.”
Mercy. My neck prickles. She laughs in my face and heads out. I see her cross the trees at the end of the street. I see the changing flicker of different-colored cars. I see mountains beyond the city. I see her bouncing black hair even after she has gone. I say quietly, I’m lonely; I had no idea you were not to have a long life. But I’m still in love.
I call Doc. I tell him, You can put your twenty-two fifty an hour where the sun don’t shine, you dang quack. John Q. Public says, walk the line, boy, or pay the price. Well, John, the buck stops here. I’m going it alone.
She stood me up and it’s midnight.
I have never felt like this. This house doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the person, and I’m lying on her bed viewing the furnishings. It’s dark here. I can see her coming up the sidewalk. She will come alongside the house and come in through the kitchen. I am in the back room. I guess I’ll say hello.
“Hello.”
“Hello.” She’s quite the opposite of my wife, but it’s fatal if she thinks this is healthy. She’s in the same blue dress and appears to view this as a clever seduction. “It’s you. Who’d have guessed? I’m going to bathe, and if you ask nice you can help.”
“I want to see.”
“I know that.” She laughs and goes through the door undressing. “Just come in. You’ll never get your speech right. Do I look drunk? I am a little. I suppose your plan was a neighborhood rape.” Loud laugh. She hangs the last of her clothes and studies me. Then she leans against the cupboards. “Please turn the water on, kind of hot.” When I turn away from the faucets she is sitting on the side of the tub. I think I am going to fall but I go to her and rock her in my arms so that she kind of spreads out against the white porcelain.
She looks at me and says, “The nicest thing about you is you’re frightened. You’re like a boy. I’m going to frighten you as much as you can stand.” I undress and we get into the clear water. I look at the half of myself that is underwater; it looks like something at Sea World. Suddenly, I stand up.
“I guess I’m not doing so good. I’m not much of a rapist after all.” I get out of the tub, a tremendous stupe.
“You’re making me feel great.”
“That Deke has caused you to suffer.”
“Oh, crap.”
“It’s time he took you someplace nice.” I’m on the muscle now.
I am drying off about a hundred miles an hour. I go into the next room and pull on my trousers. I don’t even see her coming. She pushes me over on the daybed and drags my pants back off. I am so paralyzed all I can do is say, Please no, Please no, as she clambers roughly atop me and takes me, almost hurting me with her fury, ending with a sudden dead flop. Every moment or so, she looks at me with her raging victorious eyes.