Dan Wakefield - Home Free

Barnes had brought Gordo a copy of his paperback mystery, and Gordo held it awhile, like he was judging its weight, then tossed it onto some magazine-and-bottle debris on the floor.

“Well, it don’t look like the new Ulysses ,” he said.

“Gene,” Barnes said, “I just want to explain something you might otherwise fail to understand. I told you Gordo’s an old friend. There’s some friends you’ve had so long you don’t even have to like them anymore.”

“I can dig it,” Gene said.

“Goddam right,” said Gordo. “What are friends for?”

He waved for his wife to come sit beside him so he could feel her up with his free hand.

“I can see you’re really settled down this time, huh, Gordo?” Barnes said.

“Well if you mean by that am I restricted , like a goddam dog on a leash, hell no. I just got me a nice little warm home base. This place has got too much young new slit comin in all the time for a man to sit back and restrict himself. But Melba here keeps me real busy, she got the hottest pants I come across yet. Hey, you guys had any dinner?”

“No,” Barnes said. “I thought we’d fall by The Airliner and grab a tenderloin or something.”

“Hell no, you won’t, you’re in my house you’re gonna get fed. Melba honey, what you got good you can go whip up for us?”

Melba pondered, then meekly asked, “Macaroni?”

“ Bare macaroni? Just plain? ” he asked. “For the love of Christ stir a little somethin in with it, girl.”

“Oh, sure!”

He gave her a whack on the fanny and she was off.

“Nude macaroni,” Gordo said, shaking his head. “Well I guess you can damn well have your pussy and eat it, too, but you can’t expect it to cook.”

Gene had a hit off the Southern Comfort, wondering how long it would be till the day sure to come when Melba walked calmly into the living room holding a shiny new .38 revolver purchased after months of careful pilfering from the grocery fund and put a hole right between Gordo’s beady little eyes. Gene would have liked to be there to see it, but he wouldn’t want to stick around to wait.

They all ate warm macaroni with peas out of cereal bowls, washing it down with their respective brands of booze.

Melba was allowed to turn on the TV. She liked to watch reruns of “The Brady Bunch.” It was in color but the wrong kind. The people had bright orange faces and purple bodies. Everything else was green.

What with the vivid orange, purple, and green from the TV screen, the macaroni and peas washed down with Southern Comfort, and Gordo’s conversation, Gene was getting decidedly nauseous. He was going to suggest to Barnes they find a motel, when the door opened and a girl came in.

She lived in the rooming house next door and sometimes she came over to watch TV with Melba. She could look out her window and see if the set was on in Gordo’s living room.

She had on a long plain green bathrobe, and a pair of big black galoshes with a lot of buckles that she took off when she got inside, and was barefoot then. Her chestnut hair was clean and thick, the bottom cut off straight across just below her shoulders. Her name was Lizzie.

Gene got out of his chair so she could have it but she thanked him and took a spot on the floor. Instead of going back to the chair, Gene sat down on the floor beside Lizzie. Not right next to her, just beside her.

He held the bottle toward her and smiled.

“I guess I can’t offer you any of the niceties but here’s the straight stuff if you’d like some.”

She smiled, thanked him no.

Her upper teeth protruded very slightly, giving a lift to the lip, not like pouting but as if she were thinking of something and just about to speak.

But she didn’t so he did.

“We just got in,” he said, not knowing why.

“You missed the party.”

“Yeh. I’m beginning to think it was just as well.”

“It wasn’t Iowa City’s finest.”

“Did you come? For long?”

“I dropped in every so often and had a beer or smoked a little. Just to be neighborly.”

“Hey, Lizzie,” yelled Gordo, “when ya gonna let your pants down for me? You’re the only one of them girls next door I haven’t had. You and that prissy one, what’s her name?”

“Marge, I guess you mean.”

“Yeh, she’s a real priss. But what about you? You’re no priss. I see you with other guys, what about ole Gordo?”

Gene felt his cheeks getting hot. He looked to see how Lizzie was taking it. Evidently she was used to it. Her skin was still pure as milk.

“You get enough,” she said to Gordo. “You’ll be all right.”

“Goddam Lizzie,” Gordo grumbled.

Lizzie took a pack of Camels out of the pocket of her robe, offered one to Gene, lit the one he took and then one for herself.

“Where were you,” she asked, “before you got in?”

“Oh. Maine. I mean that’s where we started from.”

“You live there?”

“I worked there, sort of, this summer.”

“I always liked it. I mean the sound of it. It sounds clean and cold.”

Her voice was kind of high and tended to go up at the end of a sentence.

“It can be,” he said. “Clean and cold.”

Gordo told Melba they were running low on booze, she should get off her fanny and try to scare up some bottles from the neighbors. Lizzie volunteered to help, so Gene did, too. He realized it was kind of screwy, him going up to doors of strangers with two young women he’d just met, begging for booze. But he wanted to be sure Lizzie came back. He wanted to talk to her more. He didn’t know what about.

The raiding party scared up a half bottle of brandy, some cooking sherry, and two quarts of Ballantine ale.

Everyone wanted brandy so the bottle was passed around. Lizzie reached in the pocket of her bathrobe, got out some grass and papers and rolled a joint.

She asked Gene more about Maine, sounding like she gave a damn what he thought.

He told her about it, leaving out the part about Stella the Divorcée.

She listened to what he said, not just in an offhand way, but like it mattered.

Gene was dog-tired but he didn’t want to leave, he didn’t want to move away from where Lizzie was. There was something about her, some quality that drew him, nothing that was said or seen on the surface, but something that seemed to infuse what she said and did, her look, her manner. It was a quality he hadn’t encountered for a long time, it was something even Lou didn’t have though he loved her anyway. As he watched Lizzie, listened to her, he realized what it was about her that drew him to her so powerfully, and how rare it was to find in someone. It was kindness. She was kind.

He had a terrific desire just to lay his head on her lap and close his eyes. Of course that wasn’t the thing to do, but he did it anyway. It was not a calculated move, it was natural and felt, as simple and deep a kind of urge as being cold and wanting warm.

He put his head on her lap and she stroked it, gently. There was TV noise and people noise, Gordo and Barnes repeating tales of the old days, Melba giggling and making appropriate remarks of awe and wonder at the exploits of drinking and fucking and dope long gone, more glorious than now, all of it huge and heroic. Gene didn’t listen. Lizzie’s hand rubbed across his forehead. Soothing.

He woke with people saying g’night, see ya, yawns, yeh, man …

Lizzie leaned her mouth to his ear, whispered, “Come.”

She took his hand and he followed. He didn’t look at anyone else or say thanks or good night or see ya later, Barnes or anything at all, he just followed Lizzie out the door and over the cold yard to the rickety white frame rooming house next door and up the stairs. Maybe she did this all the time. Whatever, Gene didn’t care.