Эд Макбейн - Last Summer

“It isn’t quite your proper bag,” Deuce sang into the microphone, “the scene ain’t yours, it’s ours.”

“Yes, but if we possess the power to blast them to hell and gone,” Mr. Porter said, “then why don’t we use it? Why are we holding back?”

“It’s girl and boy,” Deuce sang.

“Let’s demolish them,” Mr. Porter said, “annihilate them!”

“And flower joy,” Deuce sang.

The man with Mr. Porter, his bald head peeling, his face as lobster red as Mr. Caudell claimed his got in the sun, said, “I agree of course,” and Mr. Porter said, “Do you agree?” and the bald man said, “Of course, but what about retaliation?” Mr. Porter considered this for a moment, and then said, “ Let them retaliate! It’s a question of lasting power, that’s all. We’ll still be going strong after they’re all dead and gone, let the bastards retaliate. Do you agree with me?” The bald man said, “Of course, I agree with you,” and Mr. Porter said, “You agree with me, don’t you?” and the bald man said, “Of course.”

“It isn’t quite your proper bag,” Deuce sang, “the scene ain’t yours, it’s ours.”

I took their empty glasses and carried them to the bar.

“Hello there, Sammy,” Mr. Caudell said.

“It’s Peter,” I told him.

“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,” he said, and laughed. “What’ll it be, Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater?”

“Two scotches and soda,” I said.

“Coming up. You want a little snort yourself, Peter, Peter pumpkin eater?”

“Thank you, I don’t drink.”

“Ho-ho, zat ees rich,” Mr. Caudell said.

“It’s true, though.”

“What do you do, Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater?”

“I don’t get you.”

“With Sandy,” he said, and winked.

“Why won’t you let us set it right?” Deuce sang.

“I still don’t get you,” I said.

“Love all day and love all night...”

“Forget it, pal,” Mr. Caudell said, and winked again, and mixed the drinks.

“Lulu had a baby,” someone sang over Deuce’s voice, “his name was Sonny Jim...”

“She put him in a pisspot...”

“Shhh, shhh, die Kinder, ” someone said.

“It isn’t quite your proper bag...”

“Two scotches and soda,” Mr. Caudell said.

“The scene ain’t yours, it’s ours.”

I picked up the glasses and carried them to where Mr. Porter and the bald-headed man were still talking.

“Because Goldwater himself advocated defoliation,” Mr. Porter said, “don’t you remember that?” the bald man said, “Of course I remember it,” and Mr. Porter said, “You remember it, don’t you?” and the bald man said, “Of course.” Behind me, I heard my father telling someone, “I’m a connoisseur of good scotch,” and then he grabbed me as I handed Mr. Porter his drink, and swung me around, and put his arm around my shoulders and said, “C’mere, Peter, tell these good people, am I a connoisseur of good scotch, or am I a connoisseur of good scotch?” I looked him in the eye, and I said, “You are a connoisseur of good scotch, Dad,” and he said, “You bet your sweet ass I am.” I excused myself just as someone said, “Is that your son? How old is he?” Behind me, I could hear my father saying, “Sixteen going on twenty-four,” and then a woman laughed, and said, “He’s so big for his age.” Sandy was leaning over the deck railing, looking back over her shoulder as I approached.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi. Where’s David?”

“Down with the band. He’s making a request.”

“What’s he requesting? ‘Far Far Away’?”

“Yok yok,” Sandy said.

The amplifiers exploded into sound again with “Chelsea Bird,” a hit expertly recorded by an English group and excruciatingly imitated now by Deuce and The Dynamiters. “Chelsea Bird, so cool, so nice, so cool like ice, so nice, so nice...”

“... because in this day and age, there are only hypocrites and Puritans and nothing in between. I ask you, does...”

“... Johnson really know what the fuck he’s doing...”

“All the world dig her, all the world love her, Bristol, Taunton, Leeds, and London!”

“... or is he only concerned about his precious image?”

“Blackburn, Bangor...”

“... into a drugstore and says he wants to buy a deodorant, and the clerk says, ‘Yes, sir, did you wish the roll-on ball type?’...”

“Die Kinder...”

“... all the world dig her, all the world love her, Bangor, Blackburn, Leeds, and London!”

“... ‘No, thank you, just the regular underarm kind...’”

“... of fools do they take the American public for?”

“Chelsea bird, so cool, so nice, so cool like ice, so nice, so nice...”

“... I love them both, they’re my precious sweethearts, these two darling boys.”

“All the world dig her, all the world dig her, all the world dig her, mmm.”

The voice suddenly cut through the cooperative din of the Dynamiters and the party guests, amplified and blaring from the group’s expensive loudspeaker setup, overwhelming all other noise by sheer volume and ineptitude. Sandy and I both turned to look over the deck at the same moment, trying to pinpoint this new source of sound, this intrusive and cacophanous groan from below. An amber rectangle cast from the living-room window above illuminated three quarters of The Dynamiters plus a short, chunky, dark-haired girl who had commandeered Deuce’s microphone and was holding it just below the head, as though producing, by her strangling grip on its neck, the horrible sound that permeated the night. We might not have recognized the girl as our friend from the beach had she not smiled in that moment, revealing her beautiful metal bands in what was doubtless intended to be a sexy grin accompanying the “Portsmouth, Dartmouth, Falmouth” line of the song. She continued slaughtering the lyrics as Deuce winced behind her, his head going deeper into his shoulders with each offkey bleat. Behind him, Phil’s fear of acne exposure fled before an overwhelming curiosity as he lifted his face to see who was being sick on the lawn. David came rushing up the steps to the deck, laughing helplessly, running over to where Sandy and I stood with our mouths open, listening. The dark-haired girl would not relent. The lyrics resisted her, the amplifier feedback squeaked, the drummer tried to drown her out by playing even louder (a feat I would have thought impossible), and Deuce and the embarrassed Phil tried to recover their cool by singing stronger than she, but only succeeded in sounding out of tune against her flat and penetrating whine, “All the world dig her, all the world love her, Chelsea bird, mmm, Chelsea bird, mmm, Chelsea bird, mmm, dig her, dig,” and the song ended.

The guests stood in drunken stupor and neurasthenic shock on the silent deck.

“Thank you very much,” the dark-haired girl said into the microphone. “My name is Rhoda.”

We took a walk along the beach after the party broke up.

There were a lot of parties on Greensward that night, and snatches of music drifted over the dunes, overlapping, and then getting lost in the steady murmur of the ocean. The moon had risen high and silvery over the water, dripping molten filigree from horizon to shore, illuminating the beach with a flat white light. The evening was soft, the distant stars blinked against a deep black void. We walked barefoot on the cold wet sand. We had already laughed ourselves silly over Rhoda and The Dynamiters, and now we were curiously silent, ambling up the beach without any clear destination in mind, stopping once to watch an airliner blink its red and green wing lights as it soared overhead, stopping again to listen to the clanging of a buoy far out on the water, and then picking up our steady gait again, the ocean on our left, the dunes dark with beach grass that rattled and whispered with each gentle gust of wind that came in off the water.