Lawrence Block - Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man

“Till the day I die, Dawn.”

“Isn’t it nice,” said Ellen to me, “that we all love each other so truly?”

There’s not really much to add to this. It’s not as if I felt compelled to burden you with a blow-by-blow description of my life without you, anyway. I just wanted to put you in the picture, so to speak, and it seems to have taken me several thousand words to do it.

That’s a really terrible school, incidentally. They have all of these seventeenth-century rules administered by a batch of desiccated nuns who spend most of their time remembering the good old days with Torquemada. My six little daughters of Lancaster seem to be the six really fine girls in the school. As B.J. put it, “We’re really alone here. Nobody else drinks and nobody else smokes and nobody else turns on and nobody else fucks. There are some lesbians, but they’re hopeless. All so sickeningly sincere about it. When they’re not eating each other, they’re praying over it. You could really vomit, honestly.”

Fortunately, these six have parental permission to sign out for overnights with mythical New York aunts and uncles. That afternoon B.J. and Alison signed out, and Merry Cat drove us to the station, and we rode into Grand Central on the New Haven. We just kept talking about things. Total rapport. I can understand how exciting it must be for you and Steve. There was a phrase in his letter about the words in popular songs being endowed with personal meaning when you’re in love. I haven’t put it as well as he did, of course, but I know what he means. I wouldn’t say that I was getting any secret flashes out of the transistor radio a few seats down the aisle, but it was that sort of very vital feeling you get when you interact in utter honest intimacy with another human being, or, in this case, with two other human beings.

We talked about you, Fran, but I didn’t tell them anything you wouldn’t want them to know. Set your mind at ease.

There was an odd moment just as the train left Westport when the two girls exchanged a brief but thorough soul-kiss right there in front of everybody. You could hear the jaws fall. But nonembarrassment is as contagious as embarrassment, and the girls were totally cool about it, and so was I. I wish Steve had been around to take pictures of the faces of some of the other passengers.

Then we got to New York and I took them over to the Feenjon for dinner, and we listened to music for a while, and then we all went back to the apartment and balled.

Dawn came in the following week, which is to say, this past Saturday. I thought she would be bringing one of the other girls along too, but nobody else could get away. It’s exam week, or exam week is coming up, or something. They’re all in the same class, with another year to go before they graduate. I guess school will let out this week or next, and not all of them will be spending the summer in the New York area, but they have solemnly assured me that I will have balled all six of them before they leave for wherever they’re going. There are only two that I haven’t gotten to so far, Ellen and Nancy. I wouldn’t want to miss out on either of them, believe me.

I didn’t know if I would be able to handle Dawn. If I’d be up to it, that it. Oh, you know what I mean. Because I spent the previous night with Jennifer and was slightly exhausted. Smoked a lot of grass, and while it had more or less worn off I still felt faintly spaced out. I was relieved when just one of them showed up, and relieved too that it was Dawn, because all anyone had to do to please her was pay proper attention to her breasts, and anyone who wouldn’t want to do that would have to have something the matter with his head.

Anyway, I surprised myself. It was really a sensational evening, and I use the term advisedly.

So here it is, Monday, and I keep telling myself that I ought to go out and look for a job, and I think I might have done just that, except I got this letter from Steve and wanted to answer it right away. Although I don’t suppose you would say that I am answering his letter, Fran(ces), since it’s you I’m writing to. But in the sense of this letter being in response to the other letter, then I guess it constitutes an answer.

A few paragraphs ago I was going to say that being in bed with two girls at once reminded me of the conversation with Bill Adams, but I don’t think I sent you that conversation. Unless I’m mistaken, that was in a letter I wrote to Lisa. I’ll allude to it anyway, Fran, on the chance that you might see a copy of that letter sometime, or that you might have an affair with Lisa yourself, as far as that goes. Did you ever have anything going with another girl? You always swore you didn’t, but that might have been because you thought I wouldn’t approve of something. Now that it no longer matters whether or not I approve of what you do or have done, I wish you would answer that question again. I’d be damned interested. An honest answer would probably explain a lot about you. Of course there’s no reason why you should have to explain aspects of yourself to me, but I would be interested.

Please keep in touch.

P.S: It occurs to me that I haven’t said anything about the fifteen hundred dollars which seems to have shrunk to $1480, and which also seems to have turned from our money into your money. You managed to figure out that the whole thing ought to belong to you, on the theory that you were leaving me our ratty furniture and the unwashed dishes and some of your dirty underwear. (Or did you want me to send the underwear along? I’d be glad to, but I don’t know if they would allow me to send it through the mail, let alone across international boundaries. But just say the word and I’ll look into the situation more closely. If you don’t want them, I can probably sell the lot to one of those funky-underwear freaks.)

I can see your point, Fran, but I’m afraid you’re not seeing things in their true perspective. Love can do this, and I think the air of total illogic which you share with Steve is proof enough of the bond of devotion that unites you. But let me try to bring things more clearly into focus for you.

Like you, I started with the premise that the $1480 (if you insist) was in the nature of community property, belonging equally to both of us. While it’s true that I was the one who put most of the money in the account, you were the one who barely managed not to spend all of it, so I guess that makes us equal partners in the venture.

I figure we’re also equal partners in the debts that existed when you walked out, and they came to a great deal more than the balance in the account, especially when one includes the money I owe Lisa, which after all must be included since I owed it to her before you decided to dissolve the partnership and merge your shares with Stevie Boy. In that sense, if you follow this through all the way, you owe me more than $1480. You owe me a lot more like two grand, but I’ve decided to call it even at $1480 by pretending that our furniture is worth $520.

And no matter how deeply you and Steve are in love, you still can’t be misty-eyed enough to believe that the crap in our apartment is worth anywhere near that much. If the sagging bed and the leaking sofa and all that garbage are worth $520, then the Salvation Army store on Thompson Street has assets greater than General Motors. Let’s face facts, honey. I would have to pay someone to haul this dreck out of here. If I stuck it out on the sidewalk, everybody would walk right past it.

You owe me money, Fran(ces). We both know this, and at least one of us knows that sooner or later you are going to make it good.

I have faith in you.

From the desk of Clayton Finch, President