Dan Wakefield - Going All the Way - A Novel

“No.”

“O.K. Thanks, ’cause I don’t know why myself. I don’t know anything.”

“Don’t be angry. Please.”

She pressed herself on top of him, pressed her mouth on him, hungry and wide open. Her tongue felt sticky.

He moved away. “What do you want me to do, manipulate your breasts?” he said.

“Please, Sonny. Don’t think about those people.”

“I can’t help it.”

He lit a cigarette, and Buddie scooted back in the driver’s seat. After a while she started the motor and Sonny didn’t say anything, so she turned on the lights and backed out onto the highway. They drove without speaking, and Buddie pulled up across the street from Sonny’s house. The other cars were gone.

“Well, thanks,” Sonny said.

“That’s O.K.”

She leaned over and kissed him wet in the ear, and he drew away and pushed down the door handle.

“Listen,” he said, “I’ll call you.”

“Will you?”

“Yes, yes, I just said I would.”

“O.K. Good night.”

He got out, slammed the door shut, and said, “Good night,” and she quietly drove away. Sonny stood for a while in the street, smelling the dark green night and wanting to die.

His mother and father were sitting in the den, wearing their bathrobes. Only one dim light was on. It was like they were sitting up for a sick friend. In their bathrobes, they looked older and more vulnerable, defenseless and confused. Sonny felt sorry for them, but he didn’t want to sit around and talk. He stood at the door.

“Hello,” he said.

“We’re sorry,” Mrs. Burns said. “We didn’t mean to upset you.”

“O.K.,” Sonny said. “It’s O.K. It wasn’t you. It was them.”

Mr. Burns cleared his throat. “Even so,” he said in a weary, grim tone. “Even so, you can’t let yourself—fly off the handle. You can disagree without flying off the handle.”

“I’m sorry,” Sonny said. “But I hate their lousy guts.”

“They mean well,” Mrs. Burns said.

“Lord, yes,” Mr. Burns said. “I don’t agree with all their methods, Lord knows, but they’re trying. They’re trying to help.”

“I’m sorry,” Sonny said, trying hard not to fly off the handle again. “I just don’t want to see them again. Any of them. Ever.”

“Sonny, I promise you,” Mrs. Burns said, teary-eyed, “I will never invite them here again.”

Sonny didn’t mention she had promised that once before. He just wanted to go to bed and not think about anything. He wished he could lift the aura of gloom, the religious hangover. He could see his parents were suffering from it too.

“Hey, what happened to Uncle Buck?” he asked. “Did you send him to the movies or something?”

“I asked him to do an errand,” Mrs. Burns said. “And he was glad to,” she added with defensive pride.

“An errand?”

“I got some leftovers together and had him take them over to a new family that just moved into the parish neighborhood. They haven’t got settled yet.”

“Huh,” Mr. Burns snorted. “Buck probably ate it himself.”

“Oh, Elton.”

“Maybe he shared it with them,” Sonny said.

His mother sighed. “Buck means well,” she said.

“I guess we all do,” said Sonny.

“Lord, yes,” Mr. Burns agreed.

While they all were in general agreement on something, Sonny hurriedly said good night. He wanted to get safely to bed before anything could spoil the temporary harmony.

The day after his welcome-home party, Sonny woke up around eleven, but he didn’t get out of bed. He was sorry he woke up at all. You could tell it was one of those steamy hot days outside, and he didn’t want to do anything. His hand was gently fondling his prick. It had been about half-erect when he woke, the sort of condition that the guys at Boy Scout camp used to call “a semi.” He wanted to beat off, but he couldn’t think of anything that got him charged up. He tried to remember the blonde on the train coming home, but she had already faded from his mind. He closed his eyes and tried to squint her back into focus, but the memory of how she really looked ran together, like a photograph left in the rain. He tried thinking of stuff he had done in the past with Buddie, when he still was hot for her, but it just didn’t get him going.

There was a soft rap on the door, and he quickly drew his hand off his cock.

“Sonny?” his mother said.

“Yes?”

“Are you up?”

“No.”

“I have to go the office now.”

“O.K.”

“I left you a tray. Outside your door.”

“O.K.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be back around two.”

“O.K.”

“You don’t have to get up if you don’t want.”

“I will. In a minute.”

“If anyone calls, I’ll be at the office.”

“I know.”

There was a pause. He could still hear his mother’s breathing, and he lay motionless, both hands innocently lying under his head on the pillow.

“I love you,” she said.

“Me too,” he answered.

He couldn’t make himself say, “I love you,” to his mother anymore, and when she said it to him and waited for reply, he said, “Me too,” which he realized was ambiguous. It might either mean he loved her too, or it might mean he loved himself, too. That was probably closer to the truth. He heard her tiptoe away, down the stairs. Then the car boomed and skrcaked from the drive. His prick was limp; he had even lost the semi. He got up and opened the door, and took the tray in and set it on his desk. There was a white-meat chicken sandwich with the crusts cut off, a big glass of Pepsi with ice, a piece of lemon chiffon pie, two brownies, and the morning Star . He took a sip of the Pepsi, and then went back to bed with the sports section. He might have never got up at all if Gunner hadn’t called.

“How ’bout that film we shot?” Gunner asked. “I thought we were going to have a big developing bash.”

“Oh, yeh. Right. We ought to do it,” Sonny said.

“How’s about right now?”

“Sure, I mean, like an hour or so would be O.K. I have to finish something up first.”

What he had to do was get dressed and get himself together, but he wouldn’t have dreamed of admitting to Gunner he was still lying around the house just vegetating, halfway through the damn day.

Sonny got a real lift from just being in the darkroom, and having Gunner there to watch and to learn made it even better. Him, Sonny, able to teach something to a guy like Gunner, able to give him some bit of knowledge he sought, that was really something. It was like being able to bestow a gift on someone you liked, and it was really the best kind of gift, much better than the kind you could wrap in a package.

Gunner was really absorbed and eager to know. Like everything he did, he wanted to dive right into it and find out everything he could about it, and his questions and admiring comments at Sonny’s knowledge of the developing process made Sonny actually feel like Somebody.

The most exciting part was when you put the blank paper in the chemical bath that would bring the picture to life; the forms taking shape, the gathering of the darks and shadows and outlines until the actual picture came forth in its full detail. That was a kind of creation, a kind of magic. It always gave Sonny goose pimples, and he had the feeling Gunner felt the same way about it.

Sonny had got some good action stuff, but most of Gunner’s was fuzzy and blurred. Sonny told him about how you corrected that with shutter speed and all, and assured him he’d get the hang of it soon. He figured he really would, too, but it was nice to be able to reassure him.