Dan Wakefield - Going All the Way - A Novel

“Hell, no,” Gunner said quietly, sweat beads showing on his brow, “I’ve got such a goddam hard-on I can barely walk.”

Sonny walked around the block with Gunner—slowly, of course, like you’d walk with a guy who was just getting over a leg injury. Gunner kept slamming his fist into the palm of his other hand and saying, “Son of a bitch.” Sonny suggested they might have a nice cool brew somewhere, but Gunner didn’t feel like sitting still. He was nervous as a cat. He lit a cigarette and threw it into somebody’s yard after just a couple puffs.

“C’mon,” he said, “let’s roll out to Little America and bash a few balls.”

Gunner didn’t say a word on the way. Sonny was thinking it was sort of funny—not funny ha-ha, but funny strange—how their good intention to get some real first-hand culture turned out. It seemed like everything led to pussy, even Art. He didn’t mention that to Gunner, though.

Sonny looked on and chain-smoked while his buddy took things out on an innocent bucket of golf balls.

“She thinks I’m a stupid jock,” Gunner kept saying, and then he’d wind up and knock another ball to hell and gone.

“No, she doesn’t,” Sonny would answer, but it didn’t sound very convincing, probably because he wasn’t really convinced of it. Besides, he felt silly, trying to reassure one of the town’s great cocksman about a broad!

Gunner was sweaty after just one bucket, and he said what the hell, they might as well go tip a few. They went into Broad Ripple to the Melody Inn, which had the virtue of being the closest place to get a beer. It was getting on toward five and there were some businessmen already gathered—not big businessmen, but guys who probably sold roofing or air-conditioners or some other door-to-door kind of thing. Sonny figured that must be a real bitch of a way to make a living. It wasn’t bad for college guys on summer vacations, but these were guys with thinning hair and spreading waistlines, guys with slack, puffy faces who wore wingtip shoes with ventilation holes and white-silk socks with arrows up the side. A couple of them had broads along, probably gals they picked up in an office, the kind with those big, shellacked hairdos and double chins and laughter that was loud without being happy.

“Order me a Bud,” Gunner said suddenly and headed for the back of the bar. Sonny figured he was going to the head. Maybe he even had to puke, poor bastard. His face had a faint green tinge to it. Sonny ordered Buds when the waitress came, and they were there when Gunner got back to the table. He looked in a little better shape, and when he sat down he said with relief, “It’s there. It’s in there.”

“What is?”

“Her phone number.”

“In the head? ”

Gunner looked plenty pissed off. “Hell no, it’s not in the head, it’s in the phone book! Under her father’s name. What the hell kind of girl you think she is? The kind that guys write her phone number in the head in a crummy bar?”

“Jesus, no, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t get what you were talking about. No shit. I thought you went to the head.”

That was a terrible thing to say about a girl, that her phone number was written in the crapper. You often saw girls’ phone numbers written on the wall of a head, especially in bars, but they were numbers of whory broads that a guy would write down for general consumption, with an explanatory comment under the number like “Stella Wants to Fuck” or “Connie Eats Cock,” something like that. Sometimes Sonny wondered if they were real girls’ phone numbers and if the girls really did the stuff it said on the wall. Once when he was pretty loaded he took down one of those numbers, but he threw it away when he found it in his billfold a couple weeks later, written on the back of an old university ID card. The truth was that if he ever called a number like that and some sexy babe answered the phone and said to come on over, he’d be scared shitless, so there wasn’t really much point in calling. The number might be phony, or it might not, and either thing would end up depressing him.

“Listen,” Gunner said, “I’ve got to convince her I’m not a dumb jock.”

“Oh—right.”

Sonny had got so wrapped up in his own imagined troubles he’d forgot about his buddy’s real problem. “Why don’t you tell her about Japan?” he suggested. “The stuff about Zen.”

Gunner stroked his chin. “Maybe,” he said.

He brooded over another round of beers, and Sonny reminded him they probably ought to get home for dinner. Gunner drove him back without saying anything and almost passed the house.

“Well,” Sonny said when he got out, “good luck, man. Lemme know what happens.”

“Right,” Gunner said, sounding a million miles away.

Sonny walked slowly to the house, his thoughts sunk deep in his friend’s dilemma. He wondered if Gunner had ever failed before and whether the Jewish girl really didn’t like him or was just putting on an act. Maybe she didn’t like him because he wasn’t Jewish. Sonny knew a lot of the Jewish people felt that way, and at first it had surprised him; he had figured a Jewish person would be flattered that a regular person would be hot for them, and then he realized that was prejudice on his part and he felt lousy for thinking it. He walked in the front door wondering if maybe Gunner could argue with the girl that she was discriminating against him if she didn’t fuck him. There was more than one kind of discrimination, after all, and surely one was as bad as another. His head was filled with those vital questions as he wandered into the living room, and he didn’t even notice anyone until his mother’s voice broke his concentration.

“Sonny, I want you to meet a wonderful man.”

A big, craggy-faced fellow was sitting across the room, and he stood up and came toward Sonny. He was one of those carved-out-of-mountain sort of guys, with iron-gray hair and a jaw that could stop a crowbar.

“Hello, sir,” Sonny said.

The man took his hand with a grip that would have turned an orange to instant juice. “Happy to meet you, son. I’m Luke Matthews.”

The name sounded familiar, but Sonny couldn’t quite place it. Maybe he was some famous guy.

“Mr. Matthews wrote a book,” his mother said.

“Oh. You’re a writer?”

“I wouldn’t say the literary art is my true vocation,” Matthews said with a craggy smile. He had a couple of bright gold teeth.

“Well,” Mrs. Burns said quickly, blocking further questions, “maybe you’d like a cold beer, Sonny? There’s some beer cold in the icebox.”

Sonny looked at her very hard and she coughed and looked away. He figured something was up. His mother putting cold beer in the icebox was a sure tip-off. He went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, cautiously. Sure enough, there among the cakes and pies and brownies was a six-pack of Weidemann’s. It wasn’t his favorite, but it sure as hell was beer.

“I think Mr. Matthews would like one, too,” his mother called in cheerily.

The plot thickened.

Sonny punched open two cans with the churchkey and, because there was company, poured them into glasses. After he gave Luke Matthews his beer and sat down, he stared at the guy and asked, “What was the book you wrote?”

“I’ll just leave you two alone for a while,” his mother said. “I have some errands to run.”

She scurried out of the house, and Sonny looked back at Luke, waiting for a reply.

“My book is entitled And the Heavens Answered .”

“Oh,” Sonny said, “I get it.”

He should have known. The beer had thrown him off, but you couldn’t tell about the new religious guys, some of them smoked and drank just to show they were One of the Boys. They were the kind who told you that Jesus was a regular guy, a real sport.