David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 4

“Don’t you let it worry you. You just keep up your good work... and keep on reading those Agricultural pamphlets and the papers and learning, the way you have been, and improving yourself. I like the both of you. Fine, just fine.”

“Would you like to come down to supper?”

“Not tonight. Young folks should be alone, and I take Sunday dinners with you... that’s plenty... not that she’s not a grand little cook. She is.”

“Thanks. She’ll be tickled to hear you said that.”

“Didn’t I ever tell her?”

“Well...” Hugh began uncomfortably. “No. And... well, I always was a little scared you don’t like her much...” He waited and Barton assured him. “I sure am relieved. I kind of thought you sometimes look at her... well, stern-like.”

“That’s mainly how old men do look, you know.”

Hugh chuckled. “Funny thing, but Deena May says she ain’t fooled the way you look stern because you like her.”

Barton felt a quick uneasiness. “I do, indeed I do.”

“And she sure likes you. Wants to come up and live in the big house. Says it’s a pure shame you got to cook yourself and stay around that big old empty place alone. I said to her: ‘Deena May, it would just aggravate him out of his wits to have to put up with your childishness right in the same house.’ ”

“But not at all... why, that’s a splendid idea... I mean, Hugh... if you’d want to... the pair of you would give the old place life, and the stove’s a good one and there’s that fine refrigerator and a nearly new bathroom...”

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Barton, it’s only her idea.” He shook his head. “You see, even if you could stand her childishness... well, you understand, I got my hands full already to make a woman out of her... and if you both like each other why you’d cater to her like she had it back home with old... older people... No offense, but, well, that little house is just nice. Sure you wouldn’t take supper with us, though?”

Barton hesitated; he dreaded cooking his own meal and eating alone in that oversized coffin of a house. Talking with Hugh, face to face, Barton liked him and shared with him, from Hugh’s viewpoint, his problems with the “child bride.” But Deena May in the flesh was something else. In his presence, they both became kids and meals with them were full of bickerings, and each would turn to Barton for support. He had always found it amusing, but inevitably he had had to side with Hugh. Still he didn’t want to go over there and be forced to sit like a gray sage passing down moral pronouncements. He didn’t want to say a word against her, nor uphold a set of principles that smelled of must and decay.

“No, thank you just the same,” he said. “See you tomorrow, Hugh.”

Barton sat in the parlor with the evening paper, rereading grain market quotes without absorbing them. He didn’t give a damn. There was something else, like a small, pleasant glow in his belly, holding his mind. Hugh had said she wasn’t fooled by the look of sternness; she knew with the sure female animal instinct that the sight of her stirred the still-living male in him. And she wanted to take over the big house, where he’d cater to her.

He turned off the parlor light and went up to the bedroom and turned the bedroom light on for a few minutes, as though he had come up to bed. He didn’t undress. Presently, he turned off the light and waited, listening near the open window. It would be awhile. She’d peer over to make sure the big house was dark and that he slept.

She was looking out her window. She vanished, and her front screen clapped shut and the hound, put out, whimpered for his mistress like an exiled lover till she shrieked at him. Then the lights went out. Barton tensed and rubbed his thick, calloused fingers against his dry palms. The beat of his heart quickened in anticipation and he could feel the juice of life rising in him, even his mouth salivated and his lips were warm and wet.

He began to fear that Hugh had, in a sense, won, that he was lying there cold beside her fire, sober and resolved to hoard his strength, and sleep like the goddamned fool he was... Then it came. A squall and a moan. Barton blinked, brightening. Hugh handled her roughly, but with no genuine air of mastery. Instead, his roughness seemed against the grain, something he did because she willed it. But one Saturday night they had gone to a dance, and, from the gossip Barton heard, Deena May had slipped out to the parking lot and serviced a squad of young bucks before Hugh caught her. He’d bloodied some noses and got a whaling himself and the sounds coming from the little house that night had been pure hell. But tonight, as usual, Barton heard her song of lust, a primitive sound of combat and terror and wild joy that set a serpent crawling in his belly.

In the long wake of silence, Barton found himself shivering and disgusted with himself. What had he come to? Turning his eyes and ears and mind into sneaking, slimy things that degraded everything he had ever been. The most shameful, the most intolerable part of it was that he was reduced to this cowardly caricature of manhood, as if he was a eunuch. He slept fitfully, waking repeatedly till almost dawn, when he dropped into a deep sleep.

He woke to the sound of her “Cha cha cha- tiyata...”

Light flooded the room and he knew from the slant of the sun that it was very late. Past ten. My God, he hadn’t overslept this way in years. He sat up and got heavily out of bed. He heard the tractor in the field. Everything was going on without him.

“Cha cha cha- tiyata... cha to cha...”

He shut the window and the blind, but her chirpy, teasy little voice penetrated the dim bedroom with an insistent, irresistible rhythm. It stroked his waking senses and thrummed through his tired body like another pulse. He had to see her, he had to see her. He got the binoculars. His trembling thick fingers fumbled at the blind. It got away with a startling zip and hiss and flapped around the roller at the top. He found himself standing flatfooted and exposed at the window in his old nightshirt. He jumped aside, and had to stand gripping the bedpost for balance until his heart quit slamming and the dizziness passed. He edged back into the room and in the mirror caught sight of his scarecrow old body, in the old fashioned nightshirt, and turned his face.

He couldn’t eat. He went out to the car in his best suit. He drove into the city and made some purchases.

He was back at two, the funereal old Sunday suit behind him, splashed out now in brown and white shoes, light tan suit, coconut weave straw hat with a band matching his turquoise sport shirt. He carried packages of vivid socks, underpants, pajamas, and straw shoes in two pieces of airplane luggage.

He put the binoculars, which he’d used at the State Fair races, into their case. He hung them by the strap across his shoulder and gave himself a sporty grin. For awhile he just walked around acquainting himself with his new clothes and personality.

He stopped in the middle of the kitchen, frowning. He should have saved the old suit. He’d have to go to the bank and tell them to put the place up for sale, because the new life would be impossible in this community where he had a set meaning and where, if he changed the meaning, they’d think he was crazy. They’d snicker and wag their heads if they saw him in these clothes, and figure him insane because he didn’t just sit and wait to die.

He shuddered. Most of the acres were gone, most of the rooms closed... the dimensions were narrowing, narrowing... the old dark house had the feel of a coffin.

He wanted to hear the sunlight sound of her “Cha cha cha...” He kept listening vaguely, wondering where she was. The tractor was out in the field; he could hear it. Hugh was accounted for, but where was Deena May? In the little house... alone... on the bed...