Evan Hunter: Sons

“Wanna buy a duck?”

“No relation.”

“I’ll bet you hear that a lot, though.”

“No, this is only the ten thousandth time,” she said.

“I get the same thing,” I said. “My last name’s Tyler. Everybody always wants to know if I‘m related to the President.”

“To Roosevelt? I don’t get it.”

“No, to Tyler. John Tyler. He was the tenth president. Of the United States.”

“Oh,” she said. “Are you?”

“No, no. You want to dance?”

“Sure.”

“What about Walsh?”

“What about him?”

“Won’t he mind?”

“Who cares what he minds?”

“Not me, that’s for sure,” I said, and we went into the other room. Walsh was still on the couch. I gave him my John Wayne look, and then took the girl into my arms.

“Where do you live?” I whispered in her ear.

“On Halsted.”

“Halsted and where?”

“Halsted and Sixty-first.”

“Near the university?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very nice there.”

“Yes, it’s beautiful. You dance awfully close, do you know that?”

“So do you.”

“That’s only because you’re holding me so tight.”

“Do you mind?”

“Well... no. But don’t get the wrong idea.”

“What’s the wrong idea?”

“You know,” she whispered.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, you just figure it out.”

“I’ll try.”

“Yes, do try,” she said.

Walsh was still watching us. There was only one other couple in the room and they were standing near the record player. Walsh glanced at them as though seeking their sympathy, but they were chattering about the poster hanging over the phonograph, a huge cartoon showing Hitler saying, “It is goot to hear Americans are now pudding 10 % of der pay into Bunds!” and Goebbels whispering to a glum Goering, “Hermann, you tell him it iss BONDS — not BUNDS!” Neither of them even noticed Walsh’s imploring look, and he seemed to take their indifference as a personal affront.

“How old are you?” the girl asked me.

“I’ll be eighteen in June. I may join the Air Force,” I said. “I want to fly. I want to be a fighter pilot.”

“Seems like everybody interesting is either already drafted or about to be,” the girl said.

“Oh? You think I’m interesting?”

“You’re okay,” she said indifferently.

Walsh came up off the couch in that moment, apparently having made his big decision. He walked directly to where we were dancing, and politely tapped me on the shoulder. I looked at his hand, and I said, “Sorry, no cutting in.”

“Who says so?” Walsh asked.

“Me.”

“Look, Tyler...”

“Yes, Walsh?”

“What’s the idea?”

“What’s the big idea,” I said. “You’re supposed to say ‘What’s the big idea?”’

“All right, what’s the big idea?” Walsh said.

“The idea is no cutting in,” I said. “That’s also the big idea.”

“Look, Tyler...”

“Yes, Walsh?”

“You know, Tyler...”

“Yes, Walsh?”

Walsh stood looking into my face, pained. I figured he didn’t know whether to press the issue or to retreat gracefully. He knew I could take him, but he also knew there were several close friends of his at the party, and yet he further knew I could take them, too. Besides, he knew I’d had a few beers, and he knew I could be terribly dangerous when I was John Wayne, but at the same time he wanted this girl, probably because he’d had such a promising beginning with her, his hand only having been removed from the hem of her skirt some sixty-four times in the length of a half-hour. So he stood in the center of the room, not wanting to walk away from a light, and yet hoping he would not have to fight. Realizing all this, I refused to make things easier for him. Instead of dancing the girl away and allowing Walsh to save face, I kept circling in the same spot, waiting for him to make his move.

“Aw, go fuck yourself,” he finally said cleverly, and went out into the kitchen.

“Nice fellow,” I said, and smiled.

“Charming.”

“You still want to dance?”

“What else is there to do?”

“I thought we’d explore the house a little.”

“What’s there to explore?”

“Well, the thing about exploration is you never know what you’ll be exploring until you start.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea what we’ll be exploring,” the girl said. “Well, don’t be too sure.”

“Maybe we ought to keep dancing.”

“Sure, whatever you say.”

“Anyway, it seems as if too many people are already out exploring.”

“Oh, there’re always new worlds,” I said.

“What time is it?”

“Eleven-thirty.”

“At midnight, you know...”

“Sure, we’ll be back. What do you say?”

“Why not?”

I took her hand. I deliberately avoided going through the kitchen to the bedrooms at the back of the house, not wanting an encounter with Walsh, not now. Instead, I led her through the entryway and up a flight of steps to the second floor. A boy and a girl were necking in the hallway. They broke apart as we went by, and then began kissing again almost immediately. I had practically grown up with Michael Mallory, could in fact remember the time he had wet his pants in the first grade of the Norwood Park elementary school on West Pratt Avenue, and I knew of course that his bedroom was around the turn at the far end of the hall, out of sight, heh heh, unbeknownst except to people like myself who had been in and out of this house for the better part of ten years. I tiptoed down the hall and hoped that Michael himself wasn’t using the bedroom, because that would have been possibly the most depressing thing that could happen on this otherwise totally depressing night.

“Where are we going?” the girl whispered.

“Exploring,” I whispered back.

I tried the doorknob, and gently eased the door open. Wherever Michael was, he was not in his own bedroom. I led the girl inside, and locked the door behind me. When I turned, she was walking toward the bed, and I watched the black dress tighten across her ass as she moved in the semi-darkness, something about her deliberate walk as suddenly provocative as the whisper of a streetwalker on West Madison. The outside porch light was on, and it threw enough illumination into the room so that I could make out a framed picture of Michael on the table near the bed. He was smiling, his cherubic face retouched free of acne, his curly hair sitting on his head like a pile of wood shavings. The girl sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs. My heart was suddenly pounding. I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes to twelve. I didn’t want to forget to call my father. “Western Union calling,” I would say.

I thought at first that she, this Margaret, Marge, or Margie Penner, this cotton candy concoction with bright red hair, would allow me to do whatever I had wildly imagined in my midnight bed, holding myself stiff and throbbing while my sister Linda slept in the room next door, would give herself to me as freely as the old year was giving itself to the new. There was no reluctance in her bold unfolding, she allowed me to take her breast in my hand, the way Michael had taught me to do one rainy afternoon in the basement of this selfsame house when we were both twelve years old and discussing all the things we’d never done to girls, permitted me to explore and exploit, offering her pink-white softness like a sacrificial maiden helpless in the grip of a greedy priest, allowing me the secret electric touch of all her silken underthings, and then opening to receive my hand. I was astonished by my own success, I had never before, she was wet and warm and suddenly entreating beneath me, suddenly transformed into something to tell the truth a little frightening. “Oh Jesus,” she whispered, “put on a rubber,” and I said, “I haven’t got one,” and she said, “Oh Jesus,” again and the stench of fear rose from her as overpowering as that other dizzying musk. Her hand expertly found me and she urged me against her belly in quick sharp jerks, while I begged, “Let me fuck you, let me fuck you,” and she answered now the cool determined mistress, “No, you’ll get me pregnant,” and I pleaded, “I’ll pull out, I swear to God,” and she said as Michael smiled in black and white beside the bed, “No, you won’t, you won’t, you won’t, you won’t,” and I came against her leg, spurting dizzily onto her thigh and her garters and the ribbed tops of her stockings.