Authors: Jack Ketchum
“Yeah. I wish I hadn’t now. He thinks he’s doing the right thing.”
“Sure he does. He’s another generation, Sally. Jeez. Sex is something a lot of them don’t handle real well. Plus he’s a
man
, right? You ever meet a guy who wasn’t a little screwed up sex-wise? Like I say, give him a couple days to get used to the idea that first of all, people know about you two and there’s nothing you can do about it and second of all,
you’re not around anymore
. Couple of days, he’s gonna be missing you like crazy. You can bet on it. Meanwhile I’ve got some
good
news. I was going to call you tonight if you hadn’t called me. They fired Liz Beach today. That means we’ve got an opening.”
Tonianne worked at Sam’s Sporting Goods out on Route 15.
“You think you can get me in?”
“I
know
I can get you in if you want it. I already talked to Sam about it. It’s just a store clerk job but . . .”
“Toni, I love you. I absolutely love you! You just made my day.”
“Given the givens, I’d say that wasn’t real hard. Be in at eight-thirty. We open at nine. What do you suppose he’ll do with the bouillabaisse?”
“Huh?”
And then wonder of wonders, they were laughing.
By Wednesday night Ray had broken his promise to himself not to sleep with Jennifer again. He told himself it was a mercy fuck. That she kept on hanging around him looking so goddamn pathetic and sounding so goddamn pathetic that what could you do? That fucking her now had more to do with his previous
failure
to fuck her did not occur to him until afterward. And even then his response was to note that he was back on track again sexually speaking and that was that.
He felt so good and expansive as a result of it though that he gave her one of the rings he kept in his drawer for just this kind of occasion. Saying he’d bought it just for her. To show how much he loved her. That she still was number-one with him.
The ring was Austrian crystal. He told her it was a diamond.
It was pretty and sparkled and she’d never know the difference. And seeing the expression on her face, you could almost believe it
was
a diamond because how could a ring you picked up for a few bucks bring on all that happiness?
He figured that took care of Jennifer for a while.
The night before that he’d slept with Dee Dee. He was disappointed to find that Dee Dee wasn’t a virgin. He’d figured that somebody named Dee Dee almost
had
to be. He was even more disappointed with her performance in bed. The chick was enthusiastic, sure. But she hadn’t a clue as to how to actually do the dirty deed. She kissed too hard and too wet, grabbed when she should have stroked, lay back and made him do all the work when she should have been grinding away. He figured that once around with Dee Dee was plenty and got her out of there as soon as he could. With the promise—which he’d never in a billion years think of keeping—to call her about getting together over the weekend.
Not a chance.
By the weekend Kath would be back.
At least he thought she would.
By then they’d have buried her lunatic mother and she’d be home again.
In the meantime the fact that he had no phone number for her out in San Francisco and no way to talk to her until she
did
come back was driving
him
crazy. She’d refused to give him one, saying that she and her father would be busy dealing with relatives and friends of the family. Saying it wasn’t appropriate for him to call. Using that word.
Appropriate
.
Who gave a shit about appropriate?
But he’d had no choice but to accept it. Her mother was dead for godsake. He guessed you had to show some respect. But he was surprised to see how sad she seemed after all she’d said about her. About her mother being a fruitcake and throwing her drink against a tree and bodies buried in the garden. He’d have thought she’d be relieved to get the crazy bitch off her back.
He’d left her house that night feeling excited and confused again.
She’d grabbed his dick for chrissake!
He guessed that Katherine just had that effect on him. Excitement and confusion.
But this was worse than ever.
Because waiting was a total bitch. He’d come
that close
to fucking her and fucking her right this time and then she gets this phone call and it’s good night, Ray, I’ll call you when I get back, sure I will, of course, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose into a Kleenex. And the hell of it was that he only half believed her.
He wasn’t at all sure she
would
call.
Even after what he’d told her. Even after what they’d damn near done
after
he’d told her. With Katherine you just couldn’t say. You couldn’t be sure.
If she didn’t call he didn’t know what he’d do.
They were a thing now, right?
She could have called from California. She could have done that at least.
She didn’t.
He was having trouble sleeping. He
never
had trouble sleeping. He slept like the fucking dead.
He was eating too much junk food and drinking too much booze neither of which was good for his waistline and smoking too much dope and too many packs of Marlboro and mornings he got up hacking lungers into the toilet and feeling like a large polluted stream.
He looked for distractions. What the hell else could you do?
That was what Dee Dee and Jennifer were about really. Distractions. He picked out a brand-new Magnavox on Monday over at Sounds Limited and bought some new records and dealt Ralph Dorset, who worked behind the counter, a couple lids of dope in order to cut the price in half. He got the car washed. Tuesday he spent over at Lee Seymour’s house practicing with the band, getting lost in “Let’s Spend the Night Together” for three solid hours. That was okay.
The band as a whole still sounded like shit, though.
He even put in some extra hours at work, surprising the hell out of his father by offering to spell him so he could get in a few practice games over at Sparta Lanes.
All of it fucking distraction. Something to do. A way to keep from thinking too much about Kath.
It only half worked.
Thursday he got stoned on some truly amazing hash and went to the movies with Tim. The Colony was showing
The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, My Teeth Are in Your Neck
with Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. Tim said it was pretty fucking cynical to release the movie now after what had happened to Sharon and wondered what Polanski thought, but that didn’t stop them from going, hell no, they went anyway. The movie was spooky and funny if a little lame sometimes like all European movies were a little lame but Ray definitely thought it was
too cool
to see this short guy, Roman Polanski, who had got this tall terrific perfect girl in real life and had been fucking her on a regular basis and then married her and knocked her up.
Short
power! Yeah!
They were disappointed that you didn’t get to see all of Sharon’s tits in the bathtub scene. No nips. There was too much soap.
Supposedly one of those tits had been cut off by whoever had killed her and left on the floor by her body. That was what he heard.
It was weird to see a woman, especially a gorgeous fucking beast like Sharon Tate almost totally nude in a movie and then to know that somebody had murdered and mutilated the real naked flesh of that same beast just a week or so before. It made you remember that anybody could get fucked over and killed,
anybody
. Even a movie star like Sharon. That was the kind of world it was.
He wondered if they’d raped her. She was eight months pregnant and probably fat as a house.
You probably wouldn’t want to rape her. Not then.
After the movie they drove by Katherine’s house. No lights were on. He’d driven by the night before too and found that it comforted him in a way. She hadn’t called him because she wasn’t back. Period. The dark house said it all.
If she didn’t get home by the weekend he was going to go seriously nuts with the waiting.
She had to call. She fucking had to.
He woke that night at ten to three in the morning.
His head felt thick and achy from too much beer but he didn’t want to be alone. He wondered who’d be up at this hour and thought that probably Roger would. Roger was his sometime drummer in the band but made his living as a gas jockey working night shift at the Esso station and had his own apartment over it. Had Roger and the apartment not reeked of gas all the time he might have been as popular as Ray was.
There would be dope there and beer and maybe even a girl or two.
He stripped to the waist and in the bathroom washed his face and hands and spread Ban Roll-on across his armpits and slicked and combed his hair. From his closet he chose a crimson shirt threaded delicately with black, 60 percent rayon and 40 percent polyester, bunched slightly at the shoulder and baggy in the arms, a lot like the one Elvis used to wear touring on the road, left the top two buttons open at the neck and tucked it into his jeans.
He checked himself in the mirror, decided he looked tired, the eyes dark-rimmed and broody. But on him the look wasn’t bad. Anyhow it was only Roger and a couple of chicks maybe.
He got into his car and drove through dark deserted streets into town. There was a light burning in the apartment window over the Esso station, just as he’d suspected. He walked up the rickety flight of wooden stairs and knocked at the door. He heard Donovan on the stereo inside, “Mellow Yellow.” He hated that shit. Roger thought Donovan was cool but why anybody would think a song about fake dope was cool was beyond him and maybe that kind of thing was part of what was wrong with their band.
He knocked on the door and waited and then knocked again harder this time and Roger opened it and squinted at him and grinned. He was barefoot and bare-chested, in a pair of oil-stained jeans, long lank hair ratty as usual.
“Far out. C’mon in, man.”
Roger talked like that.
Far out. Groovy
. And maybe that was part of what was wrong with the band too.
“We was just doin’ a little blow, man. You want to do some blow? Only thing is, you gotta help me out on the bread situation, y’know? That fuck Danski don’t pay me till Saturday and I’m already, like, y’know, tapped, right? Hey, Cheryl, Sylvia, Harvey, look who dropped by for a little blow. You know Stevie Ray? His chick Marie? Nah, ’course you don’t. Stevie Ray’s from Morristown. My bro’s main man. Just got back from Nam, right? Just a coupla months ago. But jesus this is good blow. Try some. You want a beer, man?”
“Hey, Ray.”
“Hey, Ray.”
“Hey, man.”
They were all of them sitting cross-legged around a table that was probably already old and beat to shit when Eisenhower was in office. Its legs were cut off so that it rested about two feet above the equally beat-to-shit rug. Cheryl and Sylvia and Harvey he knew. In fact he’d fucked the first two and beaten up the third in junior high, he didn’t remember why. The girls were basically dogs. Stevie Ray was a bull-necked longhair in jeans and a cutoff denim workshirt. With arms that were not quite as big around as Harvey’s head. His girl Marie was blond and slim and big-titted inside the Grateful Dead T-shirt and fuckable as hell.
Man!
The lines were laid out on a cloudy old mirror beside a rolled-up dollar bill and the blade from an Exacto knife.
Roger handed him a Schlitz.
“How much?”
“Ten, man.”
“For how much blow?”
Roger sat down between Sylvia and Cheryl and grinned. “Fuck it, man, bop till you drop, y’know? I mean, like, we got about four grams left. I figure about half a gram ought to sock it to ya righteously. We already done three grams of the shit tonight.”
He dug into his wallet, pulled out two fives and handed them to Roger and sat down next to the girl. It felt dangerous to sit down next to the girl because of Stevie Ray there on the other side of her especially when she smiled at him but it was the only space left at the table.
The girl smelled like patchouli oil.
It was slightly better than the smell of gasoline.
“So you guys are from Morristown, huh?”
He said this to Stevie Ray. Not even
looking
at the girl. He wasn’t about to get his ass kicked tonight. Not over some piece of pussy. He picked up the dollar bill and snorted a line and sniffed it up good and wiped his nose and rubbed his forefinger over his gums and snorted another. The coke rush blazed a sudden smooth trail to his head.
“Yeah.”
The guy was looking at his shirt like there was something wrong with it, like he’d puked all over himself or something.
“Good town. I got friends in Morristown. You were in Nam, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“How was it, man? Pretty bad over there?”
The guy kept staring at his shirt.
“See, the thing is I don’t talk about it. That okay with you,
Ray?
I sure as shit do hope so.”