Dan Wakefield - Going All the Way - A Novel

“Yeh,” he said, nodding his head.

“The real thing, huh?” Gunner asked proudly.

“Yeh.”

“Would you like to see some of my paintings?” Marty asked.

“Sure.”

Marty seemed different in the room, more relaxed and friendly even. She moved around in it with a kind of authority that was different from the sexy, feminine assurance of her social self, freer in a way, free in the way of a seaman on the deck of his ship. She was wearing a pair of paint-splattered jeans and a raggedy man’s white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

“Here,” she said. “Gunner, give me a hand.”

She had gone to a corner of the room where a dozen or so canvases stretched onto frames were propped against the wall. Gunner helped her as she moved them out, one by one, and placed them against another wall, in the best light. Sonny felt silly because he didn’t know how to make the right comments, and he just sort of made sounds, like “Mmmm” and “Yeh” and “Ahhh.” Some of them had people in them, but they weren’t the jolly All-American folks of Orville Lockwood’s homey magazine covers; they were misshapen, elongated, puffed up, twisted, their heads on wrong and faces distorted in pain and surprise and fear and confusion. They weren’t pictures of how people looked but of how people felt. Some of the canvases had no pictures at all, just colors, swirls and patches and planes of color, thickened and lumped, like hunks of emotion.

“I feel like a dumb ass,” Sonny said. “But I know you’re doing something real.”

“She has it, all right,” Gunner said.

“I’m learning.” Marty smiled. “I’m learning what color is. God. You take green. Have you ever really thought about green?”

Sonny bit at his lip and then grinned foolishly. “Lucky Strike green has gone to war. That’s about all, as far as thinking about it. That I can think of.”

“Or yellow? God . Yellow.”

“Cowards, I guess,” Sonny said.

“The sun,” said Marty. “Heat. Energy. Life. Van Gogh’s sunflowers.”

“I never saw them,” Sonny admitted.

“They’ll knock you out,” Gunner said.

“And goldenrod,” Marty went on, “growing wild.”

“I’ve seen that, as a kid,” Sonny said. “Does it still grow around here?”

“Sure. You just stopped seeing it. You stopped looking. Most people do.”

“Hell, yes,” said Gunner. “You go stale. You have it as a kid, that way of seeing things, and you lose it. That’s what they call ‘growing up.’”

“I guess, yeh,” said Sonny.

“Going back, going back to seeing it fresh, like a child, that’s art,” Marty said. Her face had a real glow of excitement. Gunner put an arm around her and hugged her against him.

“This kid’s got it,” he said. “She can teach it, too.”

“Better than Artists Unlimited, I bet.” Sonny grinned.

“Oh, man! Wait’ll I show you the letter I got. When I didn’t do Lesson Number One and didn’t send the next fee.”

Gunner went over to where he had slung a khaki jacket over a chair, and he pulled out this letter and handed it to Sonny.

“All over America,” it said, “the lights are burning late at night in the homes of those who are getting ahead. Ambition is burning, while others sleep. We don’t think you’re the kind of sleepy soul who wants to let opportunity and fortune pass him by. We know you want to complete this course and be right in the forefront of the kind of creative people who will emerge as the great talents and geniuses of their generation. Please send the $10 fee for your next lesson—not for our sake, for yours.”

“Wow,” Sonny said.

“See, they’re worried about me ” Gunner said. “It’s not the bucks they want.”

“Of course not, dear,” Marty said mockingly. “It’s your future they’re worried about.”

“I bet Orville Lockwood himself is worried,” Sonny said.

“Maybe he’ll paint a magazine cover showing me staying up late, burning with ambition.”

“Is that what you burn with, dear? Ambition?”

Marty squeezed Gunner and he gave her a kiss on the forehead.

“Sometimes,” he said.

Sonny looked away, imagining Gunner and Marty burning up with lust every night, their bodies tangled in bizarre positions never before imagined. Gunner moved away from Marty and said why didn’t they all go out for a nice one. Sonny appreciated that; he felt Gunner must have sensed that he was feeling kind of out of it. Some guys seemed to delight in lording it over you when they had a girl, nuzzling up to her in front of you and sort of looking like “See what I’ve got and you haven’t?” but Gunner was good about that kind of thing. He didn’t go in for showing people up, even though he could have if he was that kind of guy.

They had a round of Buds at the Key and then went to Marty’s house. She and Gunner were going out again that night, and they asked Sonny to join them but he said he was busy. He just figured it would depress him to be out with them when he didn’t have a girl he was hot for himself. They insisted he stop by the house, though, to meet Marty’s old man and he said O.K. to that.

The house was one of those imposing brick jobs set way back from the street on Washington Boulevard. It looked like a small castle, with vines running all over it and casement windows. While Marty got dressed to go out, Sonny and Gunner went and sat in the den and had a drink with Mr. Pilcher.

Solomon Pilcher was the first man Sonny ever met in person who could genuinely be described as suave . Not slick, not slippery. Genuinely suave. When he made you a drink, he didn’t just slosh some booze in a glass and plunk a couple of ice cubes in it. He measured; he poured; he stirred. He proffered the drink to his guests with a manner that made you feel special, like an honor was being bestowed, a bond established. But for all this there was nothing stiff or uncomfortably formal about the man, and Sonny not only felt at ease with him, he felt more sophisticated himself, as if Mr. Pilcher’s charm was a kind of light that brightened his guests as well as him. He treated you as a gentleman, and so you felt like one.

The room itself made you feel good, too. Wherever you sat—on the pillow-fattened sofa or one of two matching easy chairs—you sank, softly, into a downy ease. Quiet, intricate music came from a pair of speakers whose parts were all hidden except for a pair of speakers that were blended among the books. The books were fine and old, yet they didn’t just seem like decoration. Sonny felt sure Mr. Pilcher really read them, returned to them like honored friends, and chose just the right one to suit his particular mood. Gunner got talking about Japan, and Mr. Pilcher asked interested, interesting questions; he was conversant, of course, with certain aspects of Japanese culture—philosophy, art, the theater. Warmed by the drink and the conversation, Sonny would have been happy to sit there the rest of the evening.

When Marty came down, Mr. Pilcher stood up and Sonny and Gunner scrambled to their feet. Mr. Pilcher asked Marty if she cared to join them in a drink, addressing her like a visiting princess instead of his young daughter fresh out of college. Marty looked tan and cool in a white summer dress that was cut low enough to show the beginning of her cleavage. She wore several interesting rings and a gold sort of band in the form of a serpent on the upper part of her left arm. She had no makeup on except for the dark accentuation of her deep brown eyes. Sonny felt himself getting a hard-on, and he felt crude and uncivilized.

“You look lovely, dear,” Mr. Pilcher said.

“Terrific,” said Gunner.

“Yeh, I’ll say,” Sonny added and quickly shut up, his bumbling compliment sounding raw and awkward in the perfumed air. He drained the last of his drink and the ice cubes made a clicking noise against his teeth.