Going All the Way (34 page)

After one of the songs Hildie chirped, “Hey, gang, speaking of Kappas, did you know that Sandy Masterson got engaged?”

Sandy had been a Junior Prom Queen at Shortley and a Kappa at I.U. and was always being voted this and that for being so beautiful. She was one of those dumb but nice sort of beauties, always walking around like she was in a daze, hypnotized or something. Sonny wondered if she was like that even when she screwed or whether she really got hot and active. He had a feeling she'd just lie there in the daze, letting the guy go about his business.

“Who to? Who's the guy?” several people asked at once.

“He's a Phi Gam,” Hildie revealed, “from Michigan State. She met him at a wedding.”

“Way to go, Phi Gams!” yelled Kings Kingley, who had been a Phi Gam.

“Phi Gams always were lucky,” said Jamie Beemer, who had been a Sigma Chi. “Not good, just lucky.”

“Shee-it,” Kings said, “tell it to the birds.”

“Shee-it,” Jamie answered back.

“Hey, Hildie,” Gunner asked, and he had that curious edge in his voice, like he was about to pop one of those questions that got people nervous. “How come when they asked you who Sandy married you said ‘a Phi Gam?'”

Hildie didn't get what he meant. “Because that's what he
is
,” she explained.

“But isn't he anything else?” Gunner persisted. “Is he a jock, is he a lawyer, is he a veterinarian, is he rich, is he handsome? Does he have green eyes and red hair, or walk with a cane, or sing opera in Italian?”

“Well, I'm sure he's
cute
,” Hildie said, kind of miffed.

“How do you know? Just 'cause he's a Phi Gam?”

“Goddam right,” said Kingsley, and some other guys hissed and booed.

“No, really,” Gunner went on, “I mean, you tell about a girl we all know getting married, and you describe the guy just by saying what fraternity he was in.”

“What's wrong with that?” said one of Jocko's lodge buddies from Bloomington who didn't know Gunner and might have thought he was some wildeyed, nutty Independent or something.

“Nothing's
wrong
with it,” Gunner said. “It just seems funny, when you think about it. It seems especially funny when you realize after Hildie described the guy that way, nobody even asked anything else about him, like that was all anybody needed to know, what fraternity he was in.”

“So what do you want, the guy's life story?” asked Kingsley, kind of grumpy.

“No, man, I just mean it tells a lot about us, about what kind of values we have, that's all,” Gunner said.

“Oh, Jesus, we gonna have a sociology class or something?” asked Jocko Beemer. “
Val
ues, for Chrissake.”

“Gunner's turned real egghead on us,” Jamie said.

“What's with this guy?” asked the big lodge brother from Bloomington.

“He's O.K.,” said Jamie. “He's just gone a little egghead on us since he's been to Japan and seen the world.”

“Sounds kinda pinko to me,” the Bloomington guy complained.

“Pinko!” shouted Gunner, and Sonny's stomach got that queasy feeling, the one like he had at the swimming pool that day when he thought Gunner was going to get into it with Wilks Wilkerson.

“Now, now, here we are at the
lake
,” drawled Sparky in his best soothing voice. “The
lake
is no place for politics and arguments, the lake is for fun. Now I'm about to go someplace where if they had a lake at all the damn thing'd be frozen solid, and I'm here to get me some lake time in before—”

“Hey, Sparky, is that true, you're goin to Alaska?” Jocko asked.

“Al
as
ka!” gasped Hildie, and everything got around to that, the Bloomington guy cooled down and Sonny could see Gunner kind of felt bad for stirring things up and he just guzzled at his beer and kept quiet. He saw what he'd meant, though. It reminded him of this minister's wife his mother got in thick with for a while, she always described a person by what religion they were, like “Did you know the young Sampler boy married a Baptist?” which was a little weird to her, she being a Presbyterian.

Jamie unloaded some more beer into the cooler, and Sonny had another one too, and then everyone got to singing again, this time the old campfire sort of songs, the ones you sang on blanket parties and hayrides and on summer nights at the lake, ones like “I Been Workin' on the Railroad,” “Good-bye, My Coney Island Baby,” and then slower, sadder ones, like “My Gal Sal” and “Over the Rainbow” and “Home on the Range.”

He got all choked up in a good way singing that song to himself, looking up at the stars that glittered and the night sky all lit up and how amazing it was to think about how glorious it was compared to us down here on the ground. Sonny leaned back, lying down all the way so his body was still on the blanket but his head was on the grass. You could see about a million stars up there. On a clear night in town you could see about a half million, but you got out to the lake and you could see twice as many. The songs were making him sad as hell, and when they started singing “There's a Long, Long Trail A-winding, Into the Land of My Dreams,” he really felt choked up. He guessed the deal was he felt scared and sorry for himself, like he was on the wrong damn trail and that it wasn't winding to any land of dreams, that he'd always be on the outside listening to other people sing about their dreams, ones that would come true for them but not for him, that he'd always be just listening and watching, waiting for his life to begin, waiting until the damn thing would be over and nothing would have happened. Jesus. He started thinking like that and it was like falling, falling deeper and deeper into some pit you couldn't climb out of. He made himself sit up and finish his beer, and even sing some. He sang along with “Down Among the Sheltering Palms,” and after that one Jocko and his girl got up, quietly, and walked off hand in hand, down along the lakeshore, no doubt going somewhere to make out, and the Bloomington lodge brother picked up on one of the lake girls and they wandered off someplace, too. The thing started breaking up. Wheels had passed out, quiet and calm, like he'd been conked on the head. Sparky asked if Gunner and Sonny would help get him back to the Sargent, and they carried him out to his red Studey, Gunner holding him under the shoulders and Sonny and Sparky taking a leg apiece.

They got him into the blanket on the floor in the room he and Sparky had thrown their stuff in at the Sargent, and offered Sparky some candles but he said no thanks he was bushed and he just wanted to crap out so they said good night and went down the creaky hall that smelled like somebody's old attic, Gunner with the flashlight, and got to their room and lit a candle.

By the light of it, Gunner had his prophet look.

“Pinko,” he said, shaking his head. “Anything different is pinko. Anything you ask, if you really want to figure things out, that's pinko too.”

“Yeh,” Sonny said, “it seems like it.”

“Maybe we ought to move on,” said Gunner. “I'm restless as hell.”

“Sure,” Sonny said. “Me too.”

“There's other lakes.”

“Hell yes.”

They each had a beer and then Gunner blew out the candle and got in his sleeping bag. Sonny's sunburn was hurting and so he just lay on top of his bag. It seemed like hours getting to sleep, hours of fighting off thinking of Gail and what had happened, and he drank another beer in the dark. Finally he must have flaked out because he woke up out of a mixed-up dream, sitting straight up, blinking into an early-morning sunless light.

A voice was yelling, “No, goddam it, no, no!”

Gunner was sound asleep, and Sonny started to get up and then he heard Sparky's voice saying, “Wake up, wake up, you're O.K., buddy. It was only a dream.”

It was poor Wheels Conzelman's dream. The one the Marines had given him.

When they got up, they went to a Shell station to shave and brush their teeth, and then went by Beemers so Gunner could have one more swim, and Sonny did his wading act. The little kids on the sand stopped shoveling and stared at him, and he tried not to notice them. Finally this little girl asked how come he couldn't swim, and he said he could but not right now because of his arm, waving the bandage at them. They just stared some more. Sonny figured that little girl would grow up to be a real bitch.

They took off around eleven and Gunner just drove due north, on 421, and they just talked about this and that, nothing special, just flapping their lips in the breeze. Sonny was eager to know if Gunner had figured out anything about his cure, but he didn't want to press it. It was hot as hell and Gunner stopped at a gas station and took off his shirt and drove on, saying he'd like to hit another lake. Around three o'clock they began to see a lot of signs advertising cottages and dances and shit at Lake Bold Eagle, which was only twenty miles or so off the main highway. Gunner said that might be a good place, they had a public beach and bathhouse. Bold Eagle was the lake where most of the Manual-Technical people went if they could afford to go to the lake at all. It was sort of chintzy and had a roller rink and tacky little cottages and most of the boats were just outboards, the people who went there could never have bought a Chris-Craft.

Sonny was tired of wading and he just sat on the beach while Gunner went in, and then, when he'd swam and dived himself silly, he seemed even more full of pep than ever and said they ought to go by the roller rink and see if there was any stuff. In fact, there were some pretty sexy Manual-Technical babies, or at least that type, ones with tight skirts and toreadors and low-cut blouses so you could see the line between their boobs. Some of them were roller-skating alone, some with guys, and some were with other girls, crossing their arms and holding hands while they skated and twirled to the recorded organ music. Sonny and Gunner didn't go in, but it was sort of an open-air rink and they stood leaning on the fence and watching, just like you'd lean on a corral fence and look over the livestock.

A couple of cuties who'd been skating together came out after a while, chewing gum and swinging their little tails like crazy, and Gunner watched them closely, his eyes sort of squinting like an appraiser, and after they passed, giggling and pretending like they didn't even notice the guys, Gunner gave Sonny a little jab with his elbow, and still keeping his eyes on the girls as steadily as he kept his eye on the ball playing golf, he took off sauntering after them.

Sonny didn't know whether he was more afraid Gunner wouldn't get the girls or more afraid he would. Even if he did, probably both of them would want Gunner, and the one he didn't take would probably be pissed off at Sonny for being stuck with him. He tried to look at things from their point of view, too. Some guys didn't even think they were human, it didn't even occur to them that the girls have feelings too, but he tried to remember that. You always hear guys, when they spot a couple girls, talk about who's getting the dog and who's getting the cute one, sometimes they even flip for it, but they never figure that the girls might be thinking the same thing about
them
.

Gunner was talking to them, making a lot of gestures, and Sonny could tell he was pouring it on, but he didn't seem to be making much headway. They just kept staring at him and chomping on the gum, and finally he threw up his hands like he gave up, and they turned away real huffy and went off waving their tails even harder. The goddam prick-teasing bitches—boy, would Sonny like to fuck them till their ears fell off. As if he could. Maybe after his cure, though.…

“Screw 'em,” Gunner said when he came back. “Let's haul ass outa here,” and Sonny didn't ask him anything more about it.

They kept going north until it got dark, and stopped at a little diner, one with oilcloth on the tables that had coffee stains and a couple dead flies mashed into it, and one of those big old stand-up electric fans that made a lot of noise and just blew the hot air around. Gunner had the pork-chop special dinner, with peas and mashed potatoes, and three Cokes and two pieces of gluey blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. Sonny had a grilled AC and a glass of iced tea.

“I know a guy in Chicago,” Gunner said, “where we can probably sack out for a while. If he's still there. He was a young guy at the agency.”

“Great.”

“If he's not married.”

Gunner rolled his napkin into a ball and said, “Shit, he wouldn't get married. He was getting laid all over Chi.”

Gunner lit up a cigarette, and Sonny had one too.

“'Course we don't have to get to Chi tonight,” he said. “We don't have to get anywhere. We'll just take off and see what happens.”

“Terrific.”

What happened was they ended up in Cal City around ten o'clock at night.

3

Sonny had heard about Calumet City ever since high school, but he'd never been there. He always wanted to go, but he'd have been afraid to do it on his own. You had to be careful or you'd get beat up and rolled. A lot of guys from the region who worked in the steel mills would come into Cal City and get horny and loaded out of their skulls and what they didn't blow in the bars and the strip joints they might get rolled for by the thugs who were just waiting for a guy who'd cashed a big paycheck. Or a serviceman. Or a couple of veterans. But Gunner knew the ropes.

“It's really a crappy place when you get right down to it,” Gunner said, “but if you've never been there you ought to go at least once.” He laughed and said, “See Cal City and die.”

There was this main street all lit up like a carnival with flashing neon signs and barkers trying to get you in the strip joints, all of them saying the main attraction was just coming on no matter what was actually happening. It was just a little country-town street except that it was nothing but bars and strip joints, and all that mothering neon glaring and blinking in the night, and behind it, in the sky, the reddish-orange glow from the steel mills, like the skyline of hell.