David Gates - Jernigan

“Clarissa’s in her room,” she said to Danny, and he started upstairs. It hurt me that this house was so obviously familiar to him. “I think my daughter is part vampire,” said Martha Peretsky. “It’s like if sunlight touches her …” Cracking rubber letters on her t-shirt read DAMN I’M GOOD.

From upstairs came a quick blast of rackety music that was not “My Guy” by Mary Wells, then a door slammed and you heard “My Guy” by Mary Wells again. Martha Peretsky shrugged. “I don’t even want to know what they do up there. At least they’re not glued to the tv. Clarissa and I are at a little impasse these days — I won’t buy a color tv and she won’t watch black-and-white.”

“What do they do up there?” I said.

“Oh,” she said. She seemed to remember that I was an interested party. “Not drugs or anything, I don’t think. Danny’s been very good for Clarissa in that respect. You knew that she — I mean, we both did, but Clarissa in particular went through a very hard time when her father left.” First I’d heard, of course, about any of this.

“Now when was that?” I said. I meant it to sound like a keep-it-rolling kind of thing. I could hear that I sounded like a cop grilling somebody. (That cop. Grilling me . One year ago today.)

“Was it two years ago?” she asked herself. “I was — Clarissa was twelve. So it’ll be three years in October.”

“This coming October,” I said, getting it absolutely nailed down. I mean, who gave a shit.

“Right,” she said. “Time flies when you’re having fun. Listen, would you like a beer? Soda?”

“Beer’d be good,” I said.

She smiled, a nice combination of open and sly. “Follow me,” she said, and kitchy-kooed with her index finger. I didn’t mind. I wondered what her breasts would look like. I mean, decent-sized, obviously. But specifically. Except for one throwaway fuck about two months after Judith died — a woman client I’d gotten drunk with; I never called her afterwards and the sale never went through — I’d seen no breasts in a year.

Back outside, I plunged my hand into the icewater and came up with a can of Old Milwaukee. Made my hand ache to hold it. I ripped open the top and was brought over and introduced to the friends. There was a Jerry with a j and a y; another, unattached to him, was a Gerri with a g and an i . Much merriment over this. Also a Dave and a David: the two beards. And a Tim who didn’t look timid, with rimless glasses. So it was Rimless Tim. See, I’m bad at names; shit like that is how I try to keep them straight. This Tim had the Gerri and another woman laughing and laughing. He was one of those men with a pointed nose and a wolfish grin. So you could think of a timber wolf. I sat down in a lawn chair whose seat and back were made of crosshatched wire about the gauge of a coathanger. I’d seen these chairs on sale at Caldor’s; this Martha Peretsky had actually bought them.

She went over and said something to the Tim person. He said something back, and they both laughed. Then she came and sat on the grass beside my chair, gave her knees a hug and looked up. “You really are nice,” she said. Based on what? On my saying that a beer would be good? “Danny said you would be. We’ve become great friends, Danny and I.”

“Well,” I said, “always nice to hear. That your kids, you know, think you’re nice.”

“God, I always say the wrong thing,” she said. “Say what you mean , Martha. What I mean is, I am a nice person too, and I think the nice people in this world should stick together. Because bro-ther.”

“To the nice people,” I said, raising my beer can from collarbone level to chin level. But not actually drinking. To have taken a belt right then would have been crude, wouldn’t it? Suggesting this world was so awful that we should all immediately get drunk. So I just raised the beer can and lowered it, as if crossing myself. Then, after a couple of seconds, I went ahead and took a belt, as if someone had changed the subject.

But we were still on the subject, apparently.

“Actually, Danny didn’t need to tell me you were nice,” said Martha Peretsky. “He’s so nice himself, I knew that he had to have been raised by—” and here she hesitated, for reasons she must have hoped weren’t obvious. “I mean, a boy that nice, his father had to be nice too.”

To the human intellect , I felt like saying. And its capacity to reason shit out . “Yeah, I’m proud of Danny,” I said, looking over to make sure I could see my car from here. I was slow today, boy: how could it have taken me this long to see that she was absolutely shitfaced and trying to keep it together?

“That’s what I mean,” she said.

“To meaning,” I said, and took another good belt. So why not get shitfaced myself?

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re very bright,” she said. “I am not doing a very good job of establishing that I’m bright too.”

I tried to think what to say. Finally I went with, “Is that important?”

“If we’re going to be friends , yes, I think so,” she said. “I would like very much to be friends with you. Oh God am I losing it. Martha ma chère , why don’t you just taisez-vous for a change, n’est-ce pas?” She shook her head; her straight blond bangs, in accordance with some principle of physics, wagged in the opposite direction from the way her head was going. I got interested in the way that looked. To avoid, I suppose, having to pay attention to the chatter.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry sorry sorry. See, I have to tell you. Or else you are going to think the absolute worst of me. Clarissa gave me this pill. Because I was getting nervous? With people coming over? And she warned me not to drink on top of it and I’m like give me a break here. What is a fourteen-year-old going to give you that you couldn’t have a beer with?” She shook her head. “Whew.”

“How long ago did you take it?”

She shook her head again. “Before everybody show up. Show-da up. Couple hours ago?”

“Well look,” I said, “just don’t have anything more to drink and I’m sure it’ll wear off pretty soon.” As if I had any idea what the hell her kid had given her. “You like to go for a walk?” I said. “Walk it off a little?”

“Feel like lying down,” she said. “So maybe I should walk. Boy oh boy oh boy.” I stood up, she raised her hand like a student who has the answer, and I pulled her to her feet and we walked. The way we worked it out about the hands made me think there were possibilities: each kept holding the other’s hand for longer than necessary, then each let go as if we’d counted one two three. This Martha Peretsky must be very wise in the body, I thought, if she could manage this while drunk and stoned on what was obviously some powerful downer. I felt a jolt of heat to the penis. Machine that I was.

We went through the gate and up the street, avoiding potholes as if they were puddles. Which of course they must be when it rained. “I wonder are there any frogs,” I said, which couldn’t have made much sense to her.

“Mmm,” she said.

We got as far as her nearest neighbor’s house, a gabled box, probably early ’60s, with windows wider than they were tall. Like mine. “Ugly,” I said. I was criticizing her neighborhood.

“Ugly people live there,” she said. Then she said, “I’m deserting my guests.”

“Not your favorite guest,” I said, old smoothie. I sort of remembered now how you did this.

“You,” she said. She smiled a pacific smile and took my arm. I considered considering where this was all heading, but found I didn’t feel like considering. On one beer? I must have wanted not to feel like considering.