Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

‘Yes, only I–I keep forgetting things …’

‘Wasn’t there someone else here when I came in?’ asked Mr Draper, peering over his spectacles, just as Dolph came thumping in for another beer.

‘He left,’ said my wife, turning her bottom away from Dolph as he passed. She winked at me.

‘Christ, have I got a thirst!’ Dolph exclaimed, swinging open the refrigerator door.

‘Gerald just put some in, Dolph.’

‘Cold ones to the front,’ I said. It was coming back to me, the knife, loose in the room like a taunt, then someone reaching for it, picking it up …

Dolph pulled a beer out and popped it open, took a long guzzle, all the while holding the door agape.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ smiled Mr Draper, coming forward (yes, Naomi, Naomi picking it up and putting it in her bag, Mrs Draper making her take it out again — it must have been just before Roger hit me). ‘It’s time—’

‘You already got mine, Dropper,’ grumped Dolph, wiping his mouth with his sleeve (and some big woman, fallen among my wife’s potted plants, greenery in her hair like laurel, a silly look on her face as though she’d just remembered something she wished she’d forgot). ‘That one with the gold band halfway up your arm — don’t lose it!’ He belched and the dishwasher shut down. ‘That’s better!’

‘Time is never lost,’ Mr Draper declared, lifting his chin so as to peer grandly down over his long warty nose, ‘only mislaid!’

‘Jesus, what a night,’ wheezed Dolph, ignoring the old man. He shook his burry head as though in amazement, hauled out another beer. ‘It’s starting to look like a goddamn packing house in there, Gerry!’

My wife blushed, wiped her hands on her checkered apron. ‘I’ll go tidy up in a minute, Dolph.’

‘Is this guacamole?’ Mr Draper asked at the butcherblock.

The two glasses of vermouth sat there, pools of pale green light on the maple top beside the dark pudding of mashed avocado. Like two halves of an hourglass. I hurried over to the fridge, filled the bucket with ice. ‘You’re right, Gerry,’ Dolph said, watching me (‘Well, it has avocados in it,’ my wife was explaining, ‘but it’s not as spicy — would you like to try some?’), ‘you sure as hell couldn’t stab anybody with that thing.’

‘Yes indeedy, ma’am — if you have a spoon. I don’t think I can chance those crispy things. New store teeth, you know.’ He grinned sheepishly and pushed them halfway out of his mouth at her.

Dolph squeezed his empty can double and tossed it in the bin, then, belching voluminously, popped the other one open. ‘I’ll take that bucket in for you, Gerry.’

‘Thanks, Dolph. Oh, hey — this bottle of tonic, too.’

Mr Draper smacked his lips generously. ‘A real treat, senyoretta!’ he beamed. She smiled again, but less buoyantly. Her courage was slipping, and I could see the anxiety and weariness crowding back. ‘But I must fyoo-git!’ He lifted his manacled arms: ‘Time, like they say, hangs heavy — yeh heh heh!’ And he left us, Dolph having preceded him without farewell.

‘Are you fyoo-gitting, too?’ my wife asked, her apron twisted up in her hands.

‘Well, duty,’ I said, picking up the two glasses.

‘Someone …’ She hesitated, staring at her hands. ‘Someone said there was a valentine.’

‘What? A valentine?’

‘In Naomi’s bag.’

‘Ah, well, what didn’t she have in there! Even our—’

‘They said it was from you.’

‘From me! What, a valentine to Naomi?’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. But she seemed to be trembling, so I set the glasses down and took her in my arms. ‘Hey, has Louise been working on you again?’

She turned her head into my chest, wrapped her arms around my neck. At least, I was thinking, she didn’t ask about the cock sock. ‘Gerald, I’m afraid …’

‘Come on, you’re my only valentine. You know that,’ I said, and lifted her chin to kiss her.

But there was a sudden rush of chattery laughter as the door whumped open and in came Charley Trainer with Woody’s wife, Yvonne, and a tall skinny man he introduced as Earl Elstob. We pulled apart. I recognized Earl by the mismatched pants and sports jacket, green socks and two-toned penny loafers, as the guy who’d been in a clinch with Charley’s wife in the TV room a little while ago. What I hadn’t seen before was the awesome overbite that nearly hid his chin from view. One of Charley’s insurance projects no doubt; he often brought them to parties to soften them up.

‘Hey!’ boomed Charley affably, wrapping his free arm around my wife’s waist; the other carried glasses and a half-bottle of scotch. ‘ Hey! ’

My wife, getting out a fresh handtowel, said, ‘Goodness! I’ve got so much to do!’ and Earl Elstob, grinning toothily, asked us if we knew what a constipated jitterbug was. Charley Trainer har-harred and lumbered over to the fridge for some ice cubes. He grabbed ahold of two, and a half-dozen fell out. ‘You’re lookin’ beautiful!’ he said to the room in general, and Yvonne, a huge splotch of blood over the left side of her face, thrust her empty glass out and cried: ‘You goddamn right! ’

My wife picked up the avocado dip and offered it around, Charley slopping half of it out on the floor with his first dip. He stooped with a grunt to wipe it up with his fingers, hit his face on the edge of the bowl in my wife’s hands, came up with a green blob over his right eye like some kind of vegetable tumor. ‘What izziss stuff anyhow?’ he asked, licking his fingers. Big Chooch they called him back in his college football days: Choo-Choo Trainer, last of the steamroller fullbacks. In those days he could sometimes be stopped but rarely brought down; now, any time after happy hour, you could tip him over with your little finger.

‘One who can’t jit! ’ Earl Elstob hollered out, just as my mother-in-law came in, looking down her nose at so much noise, to get cookies and milk for Mark. Charley backed out of her way, crunching ice cubes underfoot, and bumped into the cabinets, sending things clattering around inside.

‘There’s some vanilla pudding for him in there, Mother,’ my wife said, exchanging a cautionary glance with me. ‘Behind the bean salad.’

‘Mark’s still not asleep?’ I asked. Yvonne seemed to be crying.

‘Not yet! ’ my mother-in-law snapped, giving me a fierce penetrating look which had more in it than mere reproach. She slammed the refrigerator shut, snatched down a box of candies from the cupboard, and, jaws clenched, planted a button of chocolate in the middle of the little bowl of pudding — fplop! — like some kind of immutable judgment.

Charley Trainer, staring down at it, suddenly went limp and morose, his thick jowls sagging. ‘That poor damn kid …,’ he muttered tearfully, the avocado dip now slipping down over his eyebrow as though he were melting, and my wife shook her head at him, her finger at her lips.

Charley stared at her foggily, failing to understand, opened his mouth to speak, and my wife, in desperation, grabbed up the dip again: ‘Charley! A little more …?’ Yvonne stifled a sob.

‘But … but I loved her—!’

‘We all did, Charley. Here …’

I had a catch in my own chest and felt suddenly I had to get out of here (Mavis over the body, working her jaws: it was like trying to turn a key in a stiff lock, my chest felt like a stiff lock) — but as I grabbed up the glasses and turned to go, Tania came bursting in, her bangles jangling, holding her bloodsoaked dress out away from her body as though it were hot soup spilled there, crying: ‘My god, look at this! What am I going to do? ’