She never knew whether one of his spells, she guessed you could call them... triggered by something that had happened at store that day, or whether they had something with the calendar, or the phases of the moon, or tides like a woman's period. She suspected was something sexual about these spells of his, what happened was some kind of substitute for that he got off on first getting drunk and then... "You disapprove, right?" he said.
"I'm making a nice dinner for us," she said.
"Which means you disapprove, right?”
Pouring the gin liberally over the ice cubes in short fat tumbler.
Fingers curled around the Outside, there was thunder in the east. It had days now since they'd had any rain. Rain would be welcome.
"I asked you a question, Sally.”
She wondered if he was already drunk. Usually it took more than two of them, however heavily he'd poured them. She didn't want anything to start. And yet, whenever he got this way, no matter how carefully she tiptoed around him, there didn't seem to be anything she could do to prevent what came next. It was like a button inside him got pushed, and then all the gears started turning and meshing, and there was nothing you could do to stop the machine.
Except maybe get out of here. Get away from the machine. Far away from it. She thought maybe she should get out of here right this minute, before the machine started again.
"Sally?”
“Yes, Art," she said, and realized this was a mistake the moment it left her mouth. His name was Arthur, he liked to be called by his full name. Arthur.
Not Art, not Artie, but Arthur. Said Arthur sounded majestic, Arthur the King, whereas Art or Artie sounded like garage mechanics. "I'm sorry,” she said at once.
"You still haven't answered my question," he said.
Good. He was ignoring the fact that she'd called him Art rather than Arthur. Maybe this wasn't going to be a bad one, after all, maybe tonight the machine Would merely grind to a halt before it...
"Did you hear my question, Sally?”
"I'm sorry, Arthur...”
Making certain she called him Arthur this "... what was the question?”
"Do you disapprove of my drinking?”
"Not when you do it in moderation. Because making us a nice dinner tonight, Arthur...”
"What nice dinner are you making us toni asked mockingly, and lifted the short fat his lips, and drained it.
Outside, lightning flashed and thunder "Salmon steak," she said quickly.
"With lovely asparagus I got flesh at the Koreans'.”
“I hate asparagus,” he said.
"I thought you liked asparagus," she thought it was broccoli you hated.”
"I hate asparagus and broccoli," he said, and to the counter again and lifted two ice cubes tray and dropped them into the tumbler. She he would not pour himself another drink.
He poured himself another drink.
"Asparagus and broccoli and cauliflower the other shitty vegetables you make that I hate, said. "Brussels sprouts...”
"I thought you liked...”
"... and cabbage and all of them," he said, lifted the glass to his lips. "A man gets forty-nine years old, he's been married to the woman for twenty-five years, you think she'd what he likes to eat and what he doesn't like to eat.
But oh no, not Fat Sally...”
The Fat Sally hurt.
He was going to hurt her tonight.
"... Fat Sally goes her merry fat way, cooking whatever the fuck she wishes to cook, with never a thought as to what her husband might...”
"I give a lot of thought to...”
"Shut upl" he said.
I have to get out of here, she thought. The last time I waited too long, I waited until it got out of hand, and then there was no getting away. I don't care if the dinner burns to a crisp, she thought, I don't care if a fire starts in the stove, I have to get out of here. Now.
But she waited.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Because after the last time, when she'd gone to Father Michael to tell him what had happened, things seemed to get a little better, this was what... almost two months ago, the beginning of April, shortly before Easter, right, after he'd written that terrible letter. She'd asked him not to write the letter, she'd told him he'd be making a fool of himself before the entire congregation, but he'd insisted on typing it.here in the apartment and then taking it to the bank to Xerox however many copies he'd needed, said he resented the way the priest was turning the church into a financial institution, his words. And, of course, the congregation did think he was a fool for writing that dumb letter, the very next Sunday Father Michael made sermon about money, this time mentioning the he'd received, the letter Arthur had sent.., yes, right, thi was exactly a week before Easter this was he second Sunday in April.
He'd got that night. And the very next day, she'd gone Father Michael, her eyes puffy, her lip split... "The very bad habit you have, Sall, interrupting," he said.
"Oh, I know," she said pleasantly, still giving: the benefit of the doubt, still hoping that her " the priest had changed the situation here at that now that Arthur realized someone else what was going on here...
But the priest was dead.
Someone had killed the priest... even when I was a young girl," she said voice trailing, "I used to...”
And fell silent.
Interrupt, she thought.
All the time, she thought.
He was standing at the counter, putting cubes into the glass. She had lost count of how drinks he'd had already. Outside, there was lightning, and then thunder, and then the rain down in sheets, driven by a fierce wirid. She staring at his back. He stood stock still at the his hand wrapped around the lever that pried the ice-cube tray. Little egg-crate tray, the lever fastened to them. The tray empty w. The ice cubes all gone. The rain coming down in sheets outside.
"Miss. Zaftig," he said. "Isn't that what your little Jewboy used to call you?”
"Actually, he did refer to me as zafiig, yes," she said, "but he never called me Miss. Zaftig as such.”
Don't contradict him, she thought. Agree with everything he says!
"Little Miss. Zaftig," he said, "running to the fucking priest!”
"Well, if you hadn't...”
"Washing our dirty laundry in public I”
"There wouldn't have been any dirty...”
"Taking our dirty laundry to church and washing it for the priest!”
"Next time, don't...”
His arm came lashing out at her in a backhanded swipe. His hand was still curled around the lever of the egg-crate divider, the metal outlining twelve empty squares now, the metal edges hitting her face but only barely scratching it because this was truly an ineffectual weapon, a silly weapon really, this aluminum tray divider dangling limply at the end of a lever, hardly a weapon at all.
The gin bottle was quite another thing.
The gin bottle was green and stout, and it had a ilittle red seal on it that identified it as the genuine article, the Tanqueray, the good stuff. As quickly as he had swung the tray divider, he now dropped it clattering to the tiled kitchen floor, and immedi grasped the bottle by its neck and yanked it off counter, and pulled it back as though preparing forehand tennis shot, the bottle coming around as it were a racket level with a ball coming in shoulder high, swinging it, eye on the ball, high was where her head was.
A red circle of blood splashed onto the go alongside the red seal. Gin sloshed from the neck of the bottle onto his wrist, onto the floor, spurted now from the gash the bottle had alongside her left eye. The blood startled him. seemed to realize all at once that he was her with a lethal weapon, that this heavy fashioned of thick green glass could very easily her if he were not terribly careful. He said, really?" as if blaming her for his own stupidity picking up the bottle, in using the bottle on her, really?" and threw the bottle into the deliberately smashing it, shards of green exploding up onto the air, caught for a against a dazzling backdrop of yellow-white light lightning flashed again beyond the window.