Dan Wakefield - Going All the Way - A Novel

“Well,” Gunner said in his regular voice, “we’re all holding our breath and waiting for the big scoop, and ‘Nails’ says”—now Gunner made the deep imitation voice again—“‘Those Withers guys put their pants on the same as you do— one leg at a time! ’”

Everybody broke up, Gunner included, and he sat back down, holding his stomach. He was great at telling those old high-school stories and making them sound funny as hell, like they were funny kid stuff that everyone had grown out of years ago, so everyone liked to laugh not just because Gunner told it funny but because it made you feel more mature and sophisticated to see how funny all that kid stuff had been. The girls laughed beautifully, throwing their heads back, and Gail asked in a tinkly, light voice, “What happened? What happened then? ”

“We got slaughtered,” Gunner said, smiling, “fifty-two to nothing.”

Everyone laughed again, and Marty rubbed her hand on the back of Gunner’s neck, scruffing up his hair a little.

“My hero,” she said, making a fake sigh of awe. She was sort of pulling Gunner down to her, but he straightened up, pointed to Sonny, and said with great interest, “Hey, man, did you go to that one, the Withers game?”

“Not that one,” Sonny said.

“Sonny was our ace photographer,” Gunner said, turning to Gail, making it sound like a very big deal.

“Oh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows and looking fascinated as hell.

“Hell, yes, he shot all the action stuff of the games. Great stuff.”

“Well, I made some trips,” Sonny said modestly, “with the team.” Catching Gunner’s conversational lead, tossed like a perfectly pinpointed pass, Sonny grinned and said, “Hey, Gunner, you remember the trip to South Bend, senior year, to play South Bend Central, when the bus broke down and Herman E. ‘Nails’ Nedrick had everybody change into their uniforms on the bus and gave his pep talk about how ‘The Game Must Go On,’ and guys were getting their gear all mixed up and climbing all over each other like a Laurel and Hardy movie?”

Gunner gave a great guffaw and said, “Hey, that was fabulous, but I can’t remember it all. You tell it.”

“What happened?” asked Gail, as if she were totally enthralled.

Sonny told the story, making it as good as he could and throwing in some stuff that didn’t even happen to make it funnier. Everybody laughed—led by Gunner—at the right places, and when Sonny finished telling it, he felt like a million. He wasn’t clutched up at all, even with that sexy little babe fixing her misty, greenish-gray eyes on him like he was someone terrific. He hadn’t even got tongue-tied or showed he was nervous, and it gave him the light, floating sensation that maybe now, maybe at last, his real life was actually beginning. The way it was supposed to be.

When they all piled into Gunner’s car to go to the Italian Village to eat, Gail sat sort of in the middle of the back seat so that when Sonny got in he was right next to her, and it made him feel tremendous. He really hated it when a girl hugged the door. The loads-of-fun girls always did it, and the sexy ones did it if they didn’t like you. It was a way of telling you without using words, “O.K., Buster, you stay on your side and I’ll stay on my side, just keep your distance.” When they did that it really depressed the shit out of Sonny. It made him feel like a fucking leper. But here was this great little sexy Gail, so close that her bare, sun-tanned shoulder was touching him, and he could smell the sharp tang of her perfume.

At the Italian Village, where they had red-checked tablecloths and drippy candles, Sonny drank a lot of wine and talked with great ease, but he only picked at his food. Whenever he was sexed up he didn’t feel hungry; it was like the two things didn’t go together. He just ate enough to make it look as if he were eating like a normal person, but he didn’t actually taste anything.

It was a fresh, starry night and the roof was rolled back at the Westlake dance pavilion, which made for a great make-out atmosphere. There was a roof that they could roll over the dance pavilion if the weather was bad, and there were imitation clouds and stars set up in the roof, but it wasn’t as good as the real job. Everyone ordered drinks, and the first time Sonny went out on the dance floor he put his right arm around Gail’s tiny waist and she melted right into him. None of that stiff, plenty-of-space-between business that the loads-of-fun girls gave you. This was the real thing, the thing that made it worthwhile for a guy to go through all the crap of taking a girl to a dance. There was a good band that played a lot of slow, sexy stuff, and they even had a vocalist, a guy named Harry Henneman who used to play a little ball at Shortley but never made the team at Butler University and dropped out of school to become a crooner. He would never replace Frank Sinatra, but he sang good, sexy ones like “My Foolish Heart.”

He threw in a lot of warbly effects and did the whispery numbers with his eyes closed and his head bent back like he either was shooting his wad or had wrenched his spine. Sonny had a hell of a hard-on and Gail was moving her thighs against it so blatantly and beautifully that Sonny was afraid he might come right there on the dance floor, spoiling his debonair white-linen slacks. Once in high school that actually happened to him—his wad had blasted off right when he was dancing that way with Penny Sampleton, who was crawling all over him and secretly licking him in the ear. After the dance they parked and Penny cried and said she felt dirty for having such dirty feelings, and Sonny took her home. Later he heard she became a nurse and married a guy from Manual-Tech who drove stock cars and played the vibes.

Luckily the band broke into a mambo just when Sonny was afraid he was about to shoot it, and he said they’d better sit down. He confessed to not knowing the mambo and Gail said she didn’t mind, but while it was playing, she snapped her fingers and wiggled her head to the rhythm, like she really wanted to be doing it, and that got Sonny a little depressed, but he tried not to let on and ordered another drink. Gunner said he didn’t know the mambo either, but he and Marty got out on the dance floor and tilted around, looking to Sonny like a couple of experts. Around midnight Gunner said he thought they ought to shag the place, which was fine with Sonny, not only because he was tired of dancing but also because he’d about run through the last of the money his mother had given him buying seven-and-sevens for himself and Tom Collinses for Gail.

In the car going back Gail leaned her head against Sonny’s shoulder and he put his arm around her with firm manliness but didn’t try to kiss her. That was kid stuff, just kissing, when you had a house to go to where no one was home and there was plenty to drink. Sonny felt as confident as Roger the Lodger, the guy in the limerick who did it with the Old Lady from Cape Cod. By God.

Everyone went to the den when they got back to Marty’s, and Gunner made drinks while Marty put on one of those hot Spanish gypsy records—the kind where they’re all stamping their feet and it sounds like everybody’s getting their rocks off about every two minutes. Sonny figured maybe that’s why the Spanish were known as a “hot-blooded” people, the way they sang and danced like they all were shooting their wads.

Sonny sat down on the couch and Gail settled beside him, pulling off her shoes and tucking her feet in underneath herself. She leaned back, not touching Sonny, but making herself touchable. He casually slung his arm up on the back of the couch, not actually touching her but getting himself in position. After Gunner passed the drinks around, he flopped in one of the easy chairs and Marty curled up on his lap. Gunner told a couple good stories, a nice mix of high-school football and Japanese religion, and then Marty nestled down closer to him, pressing her mouth on his ear, and Gunner cleared his throat and said he and Marty were going upstairs for a while and everyone should make themselves at home. He gave a little look to Sonny, a look that said, “O.K., man, do your stuff,” but wasn’t too obvious or embarrassing. A lot of guys would go out of the room with some cornball wink or terrible joke like telling the girl, “Be careful, that guy’s horny!” or something that would ruin everything for you, but Gunner wasn’t like that, he made Sonny feel like he really did hope he made out.