High Hunt (35 page)

“You got any special plans for the rest of the day?” she asked, sitting on the couch beside me.

“I've got to get back across town before too long,” I lied, ostentatiously checking my watch.

She didn't even bother with subtlety. Maybe she was too drunk or maybe the years with my brother had eroded any subtlety out of her. She simply reached out, grabbed my head and kissed me. Her tongue started probing immediately. I felt her hand fumbling at the front of her blouse and then the warm mashing of her bare breasts against me.

“You wouldn't run off and leave a girl all alone like this, would you?” she murmured in my ear.

“Margaret,” I said, trying to untangle her arms from around my neck, “this is no good.”

“Oh, come on, Danny,” she coaxed. “What difference does it make?”

“I'm sorry, Margaret,” I said.

She sat back, not bothering to cover herself. Her nipples were very large and darkly pigmented and not very pretty. “What's the matter?” she demanded. “Has Jack been telling you stories about me?”

“No,” I said, “that's not it at all. I just don't think that under the circumstances it would be a good idea.” I stood up quickly and gulped down the drink. “I've really got to run anyway.”

“Boy,” she said bitterly, “you're just not with it at all, are you?”

“I've got to run, Marg,” I said. “Tell the kids I said hello.”

“I sure never figured you for a square,” she said.

“I'm sorry, Margaret,” I said. I went out very quickly. Hell let's be honest, I ran like a scared rabbit.

I stopped at the Patio and had a beer to give myself a chance to calm down.

Clydine's folks had left when I got back to her place, and she tore into me for being nice to them.

All in all, I got the feeling that I'd have been away to hell and gone out in front to have just spent the whole day in bed.

D
EAR
C
AP AND
C
LINT
,

I've been so busy I kind of got behind in my letter writing. I guess I'm doing OK in school—at least they haven't kicked me out yet
.

I was down to Tacoma a couple weeks ago and saw most of the others. Sloane has gone off his diet a little, but he hasn't started putting any weight back on yet. At least he'll have a beer with the rest of us once in a while, if we all get together
and twist his arm. His doctor is sure now that there wasn't any permanent damage, so you can quit worrying about that
.

My brother's divorce should be final about the end of Feb., and I think he'll be making himself kind of scarce around here for a while after that. He'll probably want to go someplace else for a while to get himself straightened out
.

Nobody has had any word about McKlearey. We don't even know where he went. It's probably just as well, I suppose. He wasn't just the most popular guy around here anyway. I can't really say that any of us miss him
.

I haven't seen Stan Larkin for a couple months now, but the last time he was still playing that same silly game I told you about before. It's kind of sad, really, because it's all so unnatural for him
.

I guess we were a pretty odd bunch, weren't we? I'm glad you changed your mind about giving up guiding. You just happened to get a bunch of screwballs the first time out
.

My girlfriend and I made up again. I think that's about the fourth or fifth time since school started. She's a 24-karat nut, but I think you'd like her
.

Well, you fellows have a merry Christmas now, and don't let the snow pile up so deep that it won't melt off in time for me to get through when fishing season starts
.

Well, Merry Christmas again.

So long for now
,

D
AN

I write a lousy letter. I always have. I knew that if I read it over, I'd tear it up and then write another one just damn near like it, so I stuck it in an envelope and sealed it up in a hurry.

It was Wednesday night, and my seminar paper on Faulkner's
The Sound and the Fury
was due on Friday, but I just couldn't seem to get it to all fit together. I went back and tried to plow my way through the Benjy section again. I knew that what I needed was buried in there someplace, but I was damned if I could dig it out.

I kept losing track of the time sequence and finally wound up heaving the book across the room in frustration.

I wondered what the hell Clydine was up to. Lately I'd taken to listening to the news and buying newspapers to check on any demonstrations or the like in Tacoma. I think my most recurrent nightmare was of some big cop belting her in the
head with a nightstick—not that she might not have deserved it now and then.

Maybe that was why I couldn't really concentrate. I was spending about half my time worrying about her. God damn it, as harebrained as she was about some things, she needed a fulltime keeper just to keep her out of trouble.

I leaned back and thought about that for a while. I thought about some of the creeps she hung around with and decided that most of them needed keepers a whole lot worse than she did.

I guess it really took me quite a while to come to the realization that I really didn't want just anybody looking out for her. As a matter of fact, I didn't want it to be anybody but me, when I got right down to it. I knew finally what that meant. Of all the stupid, inappropriate, completely out of the question things to get involved in at this particular time! I was still running down the long list of reasons why the whole idea was crazy as I reached for the telephone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Joan. Is Rosebud there?”

“Yeah, Danny. Just a minute—Clydine!” I wished to hell she wouldn't yell across the open mouthpiece like that.

“Hello.” Damn, it was good to hear her voice.

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Flower Child. I don't want to have to repeat myself.”

“My, aren't we authoritarian tonight.”

“Don't get smart. This is serious.”

“OK. Shoot.”

“I want you to transfer up here next quarter.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I'm stone sober.”

“Why the hell would I want to do a dumb thing like that? This isn't much of a school, I'll admit, but it's sure a lot better than that processing plant up there.”

“Education is what you make of it,” I said inanely. “I want you up here.”

“All my friends are down here.”

“Not
all
of them, Clydine.”

“Well, it's terribly sweet, but it's just completely out of the question.”

“Dear,” I said pointedly, “I didn't
ask
you.”

“Oh, now we're giving orders, huh?”

“Goddammit! I can't get any work done. I'm spending every damn minute worrying about you.”

“I can take care of myself very nicely, thank you,” she said hotly.

“Bullshit! You haven't got sense enough to come in out of the rain.”

“Now you look here, Danny Alders. I'm getting just damned sick and tired of everybody just automatically assuming that I'm a child just because I'm not eight feet tall.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“I'm going to hang up,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “I'm going to be down there in an hour anyway.”

“Don't bother. I won't let you in.”

“Don't be funny. I'll kick your goddamn door down if you try that.”

“I'll call the police if you do,” she yelled at me.

“The
fuzz
?
You
? Oh, get serious! I'll be there in an hour.” I slammed down the receiver.

As a matter of fact, I made it in less than an hour. I saw Joan scuttling down the steps as I climbed out of my car.

“Good luck,” she called. “I'm heading for the nearest bomb shelter.”

“She pretty steamed?” I asked.

“Don't forget to duck.”

“Thanks a lot, Joan. You're all heart.”

I went on up the stairs. She didn't have the door locked, but she did try to hold it shut against me. I pushed my way on through and we got down to business.

It was a glorious fight—the whole bit. We yelled and screamed at each other, and she slammed doors and threw books at me. I insulted her intelligence and her maturity, and she screamed like a fishwife.

Then she tried to hit me, and I held her arms so she couldn't, so she kicked my shins for a while—barefoot of course.

I'm sure we both knew we were behaving like a couple of twelve-year-olds, but we were having such a good time with the whole thing that we just went ahead and let it all hang out.

Finally she ran crying into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. I went right on in after her. She was lying across the bed, sobbing as if her heart were about to break.

“Come on, Blossom,” I said soothingly, sitting down beside her.

“You—you said such aw—
awful things
,” she sobbed.

“Come on, now. You know damn well I didn't mean any of it.”

“No, I
don't
,” she wailed. “First that awful phone call and now you come down here yelling, and calling me names, and ordering me around, and grabbing me, and—oh, Danny, why?”

“Because I'm in love with you, you little knothead,” I said. I hadn't really meant to say it, but it was pretty damned obvious by then.

She rolled over very quickly and looked up at me, her face shocked. “What?” she demanded.

“You heard me.”

“Say it again.”

I did, and then she was all over me like a fur coat. She tasted pretty salty from all the crying, but I didn't mind. I kissed her soundly about the head and shoulders for ten minutes or so—as I said before, it was a glorious kind of fight.

“You're going to transfer up to the U next quarter,” I said firmly.

“All right, Danny,” she said meekly. “I know it's stupid, but I can't fight you and me both.”

“You knew damn well you were going to do it anyway,” I said kissing her again. “Why did we have to go through all of this?”

“I just wanted you to say it, that's all,” she said, nestling down in my arms.

“You knew that was what it was all about, for God's sake. You're not dense.”

“A girl likes to be told,” she said stubbornly.

Women!

A
ND
so, after the holidays, Clydine Stewart, the terror of Pacific Avenue, transferred to the University of Washington. I'm not exactly sure what she'd threatened her parents with to get them to go along with a switch like that in the middle of her junior year, when the loss of credits probably set her back almost two full semesters, but somehow she managed to pull it off.

She rented a sleeping room down the block from my shack—primarily for the sake of appearances and to have a place to store her spare clothes and her empty luggage. She slept there on an average of about once a month.

I suppose that if a man lives with a woman long enough, he gets used to the damp hand-laundry hanging in the bathroom and the bristly hair-curler that he steps on barefoot in the middle of the night, but I wouldn't bet on it.

“You don't put your hair up,” I said one morning, as calmly as I could, “so why in the name of God do I keep stepping on these damned things?” I held out a well-mashed curler.

“A girl never knows when she might want to,” she said, as if explaining to a child.

We were horribly crowded, and our books and records got hopelessly jumbled, and we were always stumbling over each other. We argued continually about who was going to use the desk and who got firsties on the bathroom in the morning. All in all, it was a pretty normal sort of arrangement. We even wound up sharing the same toothbrush after she lost hers and always kept forgetting to buy a new one.

She even read my mail, which bugged me a little at first, but I couldn't see much point in making an issue out of it since we read all our letters to each other anyway.

“Hey,” she said one afternoon as I came in, “you got a letter from Cap Miller.”

“Where are you?”

“In the bathtub.”

I went on in. She'd gotten over
that
little hang-up.

“Where is it?”

“On the desk.”

I bent over and kissed her and then dabbled foam on the end of her nose.

“Rat,” she said.

“Are we going to have to go to the store this afternoon?” I asked her, going on back out to the living room-bedroom-study-reception hall-gymnasium.

“We'd better, if you want any supper tonight. Why?”

“Just wondering, that's all.”

“Did you get any word on that fellowship yet?”

I picked up Cap's letter.

“Yeah,” I said. “I got it.” I tried to sound casual about it.

She squealed and came charging, suds and all, out of the bathroom. I got very wetly kissed, and then she saw that the shades were up and scampered back to the tub. What a nut!

I unfolded the letter. It was in pencil.

D
EAR
D
AN
,

I have been meaning to write a letter to you ever since we got your fine letter just before X-mas. I was real glad to hear about the big man. I have been awful worried about him ever since the trip last fall
.

I was awful sorry to hear that your brother and his Mrs. broke up. That's always a real shame
.

The snow here is pretty deep this time of year, but you don't need to worry about being able to get through come spring. Clint says he'll carry you piggyback from Twisp if need be. Ha-ha
.

We are all wintering pretty well considering our ages. Clint has a little trouble with his legs that he broke so many times when the weather turns cold. And I have a little trouble getting started out of a morning myself, but otherwise we don't have no complaints to speak of
.

Well, Dan, it's about time I went down and fed the stock. Old Ned is resting up so he'll be all full of p——& vinegar when you come up. I knew you'd like to know that. Ha-ha. I
have been going on here about long enough. Next thing you know I'll be turning into one of them book writers your learning about at college. So long till next time
.

Your friend
,

C
AP

Oh. Clint says to say hello for him, too
.

 

I could see him laboring over the letter with that stub-pencil of his, the sweat trickling down the outer edges of his white mustache.

“He isn't very well educated, is he?” she called from the bathroom.

“He's one of the smartest men I know,” I said.

“That's not the same thing.”

“I know.”

“You can see how hard he worked on that letter,” she said. “I kept trying to see through all that stiffness to the real man.”

“You have to meet him to see that,” I said.

“I hope I get the chance,” she said.

“You will,” I promised her.

Somebody knocked at the door, and I put Cap's letter down, swung the bathroom door shut and answered it.

It was my mother.

“Danny, baby,” she said, her mouth kind of loose and her tongue a little thick.

I couldn't say anything. Just seeing her was like having somebody grab me by the stomach with an ice-cold hand. I know that sounds literary, but that's the only way to describe it. I held the door open and let her in. My hands started to shake.

The years on booze had not been very kind to my mother. Her hair was ratty and gray, and not very clean, and her hat was kind of squashed down on top of it. She'd tried to put on some makeup and had done a rotten job of it. Her coat was shabby, and she had a large hole in one of her stockings.

She stood uncertainly in the middle of the room, waiting for me to say something.

“Sit down, Mother,” I said, pointing at the couch.

“Thank you, Danny,” she said and perched uneasily on the edge of the couch.

“How have you been, Mother?” I asked her.

“Oh,” she said tremulously, “not too bad, Danny. I've got a pretty good job down in Portland. I'm in maintenance.” She
pronounced it “maintain-ance.” “It is with the company that owns this big office building. I work nights.”

I nodded. It was about what I'd expected.

“I got a week off,” she said. “I heard about poor Jackie's marriage going on the rocks. You heard about that, didn't you?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Well, quick as a shot I went to my boss and I told him I was going to have to have a few days off so I could come up to Tacoma and see if I couldn't help him maybe patch things up. Poor Jackie. He's had such bad luck with his marriages.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“But he told me it was too late for that, and I was just so awful sorry. Then he told me you'd gone back to school up here, so I just had to come up here and see you. I mean, you
are
my baby and all, and we haven't seen each other in just years and years, have we?”

“It's been a long time, Mother,” I agreed.

She was nervously trying to light a cigarette, and finally I fired up my lighter for her. Her hands were shaking as badly as mine were.

“Would you like a drink, Mother?” I asked her.

She raised her face quickly, and the sudden look of anguish cut right through me. She thought I was being snotty.

“No games, Mother,” I said. “I'm going to have one, and I just thought you might like one too, that's all.”

“Well,” she said hesitantly, “maybe just a little one. I've been cutting way down, you know.”

“Mixer? Water? It's bourbon.”

“Just a little ice, Danny, if you got any.”

I fixed us a couple, and I could see by the way her hands were shaking that she needed one pretty badly.

We both drank them off, and I refilled the glasses without saying anything. I think we both felt better then.

“I'm so proud of you Danny, baby,” she said. “I mean your college and all. I never told you that, did I? There's so many things I never got the chance to tell you. You and Jackie both seemed to grow up so fast. It just seems like I no more than turned around and you were both gone. First Jackie in the Navy, and then your father passing away, and then you leaving like you did. It just all happened so fast.”

“It's like that sometimes, Mother,” I said. “Nothing ever stays the same.”

“I can still remember you two when you were little,” she
said. “Jackie always so lively and full of fun, and you always so quiet and serious. Just like day and night, you two. And now poor Jackie getting divorced again.” She dug out a handkerchief and held it to her face. She wasn't crying; she was just getting ready.

“He's a big boy now, Mother,” I said.

“It's just all so rotten,” she said. “You're the smart one. Don't ever get married, Danny. Women are just no good. We're all bitches.”

“Now, Mother.”

“No, it's true.” The tears were running down her face now, smearing her makeup. “Your father was a good man—a fine man, and look what I did to him. He didn't understand me, but that didn't give me the right to hound him the way I did. I tried to be a good wife, but I just couldn't help myself.”

“It's all right now, Mother. Just try not to let it get you down.”

She finished her drink and mutely held out the glass. I doubt if she was even aware that she was doing it. I filled it again. She was making a good-sized dent in my bourbon, but what the hell?

“I'm pretty much a failure, do you know that, Danny? I failed your father, and I failed you boys.” She was crying openly now, the wet, slobbering, let-it-all-go kind of crying you see once in a while in an old wino.

“I'm so sorry, Danny. I'm so sorry.”

“It's all right, Mother. It was all a long time ago.” How could I get her off it?

“Please forgive me, Danny, baby.”

“Come on, Mother.” That was too much.

“You've got to forgive me,” she said. She looked at me, her eyes pleading and her face a ruin.

“Mother.”

“I'm begging you to forgive me, Danny,” she said. “I'll get down on my knees to you.” She moved before I could stop her. She slid off the edge of the couch and dropped heavily to her knees on the floor.

“Come on, Mother,” I said, trying to lift her back to the couch, “get up.”

“Not until you forgive me, Danny.”

This was silly. “All right, Mother, I forgive you. It wasn't your fault.”

“Really, Danny? Really?”

“Yes, Mother. Come on now. Get up.”

She let me haul her to her feet, and then she insisted on giving me a kiss. Then she kind of halfway repaired her face. She seemed a little calmer after that. She talked for a few minutes and then got ready to leave.

“I've got just enough time to make connections for the Portland bus,” she said.

“Have you got your ticket?” I asked her.

“Oh, yes,” she said brightly. “I'm just fine.”

“Do you need any money—for a bite to eat or anything?”

“No, Danny, I'm just fine, really.” She stood up. “I've really got to go now.” She went over to the door. “I feel so much better now that we've had the chance to get things straightened out like this. I've worried about it for the longest time.”

“It was good to see you, Mother.”

“I'm so proud of you, baby.” She patted my cheek and went out quickly. I watched through the window as she carefully made her way around the house in front. Her hat was on lopsided, and her dark coat had a large dusty patch on one shoulder where she'd stumbled against something. She went on out of sight.

“Oh, Danny,” Clydine said. “Oh, Danny, I'm so sorry.” She was standing behind me, wrapped in a bath towel, huge tears bright in her eyes.

“Oh, it's all right, Blossom. She's been like this for as long as I can remember. You get used to it after a while.”

“It must have been
awful
.”

“I don't even hold any grudges anymore,” I said. “I thought I did, but I really don't. I really forgave her, do you know that? I didn't think I ever could, but I did. I wasn't just saying it.” It surprised me, but I meant it. “I just wish she could quit drinking, is all,” I added.