Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

Janet stopped abruptly, appalled at having read this last part aloud. She had not expected Bozoe to mention Sis at all. “Gee,” she said. “Gosh! She’s messing everything up together. I’m awfully sorry.”

Sis McEvoy stood up and walked unsteadily to the television set. Some of her drink slopped onto the rug as she went. She faced Janet with fierce eyes. “There’s nobody in the world who can talk to me like that, and there’s not going to be. Never!” She was leaning on the set and steadying herself against it with both hands. “I’ll keep on building double-decker sandwiches all my life first. It’s five flights to the top of the building where I live. It’s an insurance building, life insurance, and I’m the only woman who lives there. I have boy friends come when they want to. I don’t have to worry, either. I’m crooked so I don’t have to bother with abortions or any other kind of mess. The hell with television anyway.”

She likes the set, Janet said to herself. She felt more secure. “Bozoe and I don’t have the same opinions at all,” she said. “We don’t agree on anything.”

“Who cares? You live in the same apartment, don’t you? You’ve lived in the same apartment for ten years. Isn’t that all anybody’s got to know?” She rapped with her fist on the wood panelling of the television set. “Whose is it, anyhow?” She was growing increasingly aggressive.

“It’s mine,” Janet said. “It’s my television set.” She spoke loud so that Sis would be sure to catch her words.

“What the hell do I care?” cried Sis. “I live on top of a life-insurance building and I work in a combination soda-fountain lunch-room. Now read me the rest of the letter.”

“I don’t think you really want to hear any more of Bozoe’s nonsense,” Janet said smoothly. “She’s spoiling our evening together. There’s no reason for us to put up with it all. Why should we? Why don’t I make something to eat? Not a sandwich. You must be sick of sandwiches.”

“What I eat is my own business,” Sis snapped.

“Naturally,” said Janet. “I thought you might like something hot like bacon and eggs. Nice crisp bacon and eggs.” She hoped to persuade her so that she might forget about the letter.

“I don’t like food,” said Sis. “I don’t even like millionaires’ food, so don’t waste your time.”

“I’m a small eater myself.” She had to put off reading Bozoe’s letter until Sis had forgotten about it. “My work at the garage requires some sustenance, of course. But it’s brainwork now more than manual labor. Being a manager’s hard on the brain.”

Sis looked at Janet and said: “Your brain doesn’t impress me. Or that garage. I like newspaper men. Men who are champions. Like champion boxers. I’ve known lots of champions. They take to me. Champions all fall for me, but I’d never want any of them to find out that I knew someone like your Bozoe. They’d lose their respect.”

“I wouldn’t introduce Bozoe to a boxer either, or anybody else who was interested in sports. I know they’d be bored. I know.” She waited. “You’re very nice. Very intelligent. You know people. That’s an asset.”

“Stay with Bozoe and her television set,” Sis growled.

“It’s not her television set. It’s mine, Sis. Why don’t you sit down? Sit on the couch over there.”

“The apartment belongs to both of you, and so does the set. I know what kind of a couple you are. The whole world knows it. I could put you in jail if I wanted to. I could put you and Bozoe both in jail.”

In spite of these words she stumbled over to the couch and sat down. “Whiskey,” she demanded. “The world loves drunks but it despises perverts. Athletes and boxers drink when they’re not in training. All the time.”

Janet went over to her and served her a glass of whiskey with very little ice. Let’s hope she’ll pass out, she said to herself. She couldn’t see Sis managing the steps up to her room in the insurance building, and in any case she didn’t want her to leave. She’s such a relief after Bozoe, she thought. Alive and full of fighting spirit. She’s much more my type, coming down to facts. She thought it unwise to go near Sis, and was careful to pour the fresh drink quickly and return to her own seat. She would have preferred to sit next to Sis, in spite of her mention of jail, but she did not relish being punched or smacked in the face. It’s all Bozoe’s fault, she said to herself. That’s what she gets for thinking she’s God. Her holy words can fill a happy peaceful room with poison from twenty-five miles away.

“I love my country,” said Sis, for no apparent reason. “I love it to death!”

“Sure you do, Hon,” said Janet. “I could murder Bozoe for upsetting you with her loony talk. You were so peaceful until she came in.”

“Read that letter,” said Sister. After a moment she repeated, as if from a distance: “Read the letter.”

Janet was perplexed. Obviously food was not going to distract Sis, and she had nothing left to suggest, in any case, but some Gorton’s Codfish made into cakes, and she did not dare to offer her these.

What a rumpus that would raise, she said to herself. And if I suggest turning on the television she’ll raise the roof. Stay off television and codfish cakes until she’s normal again. Working at a lunch counter is no joke.

There was nothing she could do but do as Sis told her and hope that she might fall asleep while she was reading her the letter. “Damn Bozoe anyway,” she muttered audibly.

“Don’t put on any acts,” said Sis, clearly awake. “I hate liars and I always smell an act. Even though I didn’t go to college. I have no respect for college.”

“I didn’t go to college,” Janet began, hoping Sis might be led on to a new discussion. “I went to commercial school.”

“Shut up, God damn you! Nobody ever tried to make a commercial school sound like an interesting topic except you. Nobody! You’re out of your mind. Read the letter.”

“Just a second,” said Janet, knowing there was no hope for her. “Let me put my glasses on and find my place. Doing accounts at the garage year in and year out has ruined my eyes. My eyes used to be perfect.” She added this last weakly, without hope of arousing either sympathy or interest.

Sis did not deign to answer.

“Well, here it is again,” she began apologetically. “Here it is in all its glory.” She poured a neat drink to give herself courage. “As I believe I just wrote you, I have been down to the bar and brought a drink back with me. (One more defeat for me, a defeat which is of course a daily occurrence, and I daresay I should not bother to mention it in this letter.) In any case I could certainly not face being without one after the strain of actually boarding the bus, even if I did get off without having the courage to stick on it until I got where I was going. However, please keep in mind the second reason I had for stopping short of my destination. Please read it over carefully so that you will not have only contempt for me. The part about the responsibility I feel toward you. The room here over Larry’s Bar and Grill is dismal. It is one of several rented out by Larry’s sister whom we met a year ago when we stopped here for a meal. You remember. It was the day we took Stretch for a ride and let him out of the car to run in the woods, that scanty patch of woods you found just as the sun was setting, and you kept picking up branches that were stuck together with wet leaves and dirt.…”

They sat in the sun, looking out over a big new boulevard. The waiter had dragged an old iron table around from the other side of the hotel and set it down on the cement near a half-empty flower bed. A string stretched between stakes separated the hotel grounds from the sidewalk. Few of the guests staying at the hotel sat in the sun. The town was not a tourist center, and not many Anglo-Saxons came. Most of the guests were Spanish.