Lawrence Block - Chip Harrison Scores Again

So there would have been plenty to write about, and the book would have been long enough to stop with me just getting to Wisconsin, or just getting ready to drive to Wisconsin. That was the way I originally planned to do it.

Hell.

That would have been cheating. Because the way this book ends, the way I’m ending it now, is sort of the point of it. Or part of the point of it.

But it’s a fucking pain in the ass to write it. (They may take that line out. I hope not.)

I went someplace and had a hamburger and a cup of coffee. On one side of me some students were talking about the draft lottery, and on the other side some students were talking about Gay Liberation. They already seemed liberated enough to me.

I was back in front of the building two minutes before the hour was up. Those ten minutes took another hour. Then some clown rang a bell and a few seconds later people started coming out of the building. Eventually one of them was Hallie, and she came over to me and held out her hands again, and I took them again. I asked her how the class was, and she told me, and we wasted a few words on that kind of garbage.

Then I said, “Is there some place we can talk?”

“My room?”

“I don’t know. Am I allowed there?”

“I’ll allow you.”

“I mean—”

“We have twenty-four hour open halls,” she said.

“I thought maybe we could go for a ride.”

“Oh, you’ve got a car?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay.”

When we got to it she said, “Wow, a Cadillac! Look who turned out to be rich.”

“It’s a ’54. I mean it’s worth maybe fifty dollars.”

“It looks great. When did you buy it?”

“I got it in the spring. Somebody gave it to me.”

“Oh.”

“It runs pretty good, though.”

“I didn’t know they made them with standard shift.”

“I think this may have been the only one.”

“Maybe it’s an antique or something.”

“I suppose if I keep it long enough.”

“Yeah.”

There was a lot more brilliant conversation like that. I just drove around forever without paying much attention to where we were, and we kept trying to get conversations going, and they kept being like what I quoted. She told me what courses she was taking and I told her some of the places I had been, and I kept getting more uptight about the whole thing, and I guess she did, too.

At one point I said, “Listen, I have this room. You know, a motel room. I mean we could talk there.”

“Oh.”

Eventually there was a red light and I stopped for it. I turned to her and said, “I don’t mean to ball or I would have said it, but I want to open up and rap with you because we have to, and I don’t want to do it sitting under a tree or in your dormitory or in this fucking car.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t mind?”

“No, of course not. It’s weird, isn’t it? A whole year, and we never really knew each other.”

“It’ll be all right.”

It was still a little awkward at first, partly because the bed took up about eighty percent of the room, and there was only one chair. No matter how much you say that you just want to talk, in a situation like that it’s hard to pretend there isn’t a bed in the room. I had her sit on the chair and I sat on the edge of the bed.

It wasn’t really rapping at first, but it got there. I told her some of the things I had done. I especially told her about Geraldine and the Sheriff, and how I had sort of become the child the two of them had never had together.

She told me about her brother, who had been in the service when we met, just on his way overseas at the time. They sent him to Vietnam and he was on a patrol and stepped on a landmine.

“It happened in the middle of December. But they waited until I came home for Christmas vacation before they told me about it. We were just starting to get close that summer. Before then, you know, an older brother and a younger sister, we never had that much to say to each other. And now I’ll never get to talk to him again. Sometimes I think I’m beginning to get used to it, and then I find out that I’m not.”

And later she said, “I never knew you were a writer. No Score. ”

“Huh?”

“No Score.”

“You lost me.”

“Your book,” she said. “ No Score, by Chip Harrison. I read it about a week ago.”

“It’s published?”

“You didn’t know? It’s all over the stands. All over Madison, anyway.”

“That’s really weird. I even forgot about it I mean, I kept looking for it and it never turned up, and I guess I thought they decided not to bother. They didn’t pay me very much money and I thought they decided to write it off. What was the title?”

“ No Score. Don’t you even remember the title?”

“I had a different title for it I guess they decided to change it. It’s been about a year since I wrote it.” Then something occurred to me. “Oh,” I said. “I guess you read it, huh?”

She nodded.

“It wasn’t very good, huh?”

“I thought it was good.” She had a funny look on her face. “I never expected to be in it, though.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t even change my name. I thought you could get in trouble that way, not changing names.”

“I changed everybody else’s name.”

“What made me so lucky?”

“I just couldn’t think of another name for you,” I said. “It was just Hallie Hallie Hallie in my mind and I couldn’t think of you any other way.”

“You put down the things we did and everything. The words we said to each other.”

“I didn’t think anybody would know who it was.”

“Oh, of course not. How could they? Hallie from the Hudson Valley who goes to school in Wisconsin. How could anybody possibly figure out it was me?”

“Oh, wow.”

“It’s okay, Chip.”

“Yeah, it’s sensational. I never even thought. I didn’t think about anybody reading it that I would actually know. Or that was in it.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Honest.” I looked at her, and she was smiling shyly. “I never guessed it was your first time. With me, I mean.”

“Oh. Well, it didn’t seem like something I wanted to announce.”

“When I first read it I was furious.”

“I can imagine.”

“What really got me was that I couldn’t even write to you and tell you how mad I was. I wrote a letter to your publisher just the other day. If they send it to you, you’ve got to promise not to read it.”

“They wouldn’t know where to send it.”

“I guess they’ll send it back to me then. I’ll tear it up.” Her face opened. “But after I stopped being mad, I guess it made me proud. Do you know what I mean?”

“I hardly remember what I wrote, Hallie.”

“Maybe I can refresh your memory,” she said. She stood up and took off her sweatshirt.

I said, “Last time you were wearing a bra.”

“I got into Women’s Lib a little last spring. I decided they were generally full of shit, but they’re right about bras. Do you think I need one?”

“No.”

She kicked off her sandals, unfastened her dungarees. “You’ve still got all your clothes on,” she pointed out.

“Hallie, we don’t have to. Honestly.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think you do.”

“Would I do it if I didn’t want to?”

I looked into those big eyes. “You might,” I said. “You might just because you thought you should.”

“I really want to, Chip.”

“Come here.”

I kissed her and felt her breasts against my chest. For some reason or other I felt like crying. I kissed her again and let her go, and she took her dungarees off and I started to get out of my clothes.