Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

We turned to look at Earl Elstob, his hand in Michelle’s blouse, an erection pushing his pants out in front of him, like a plow — we all laughed, even Woody: a peculiar little barking noise — but I was wondering at the strange intense beauty of this charge between us, brief, sudden, even (we knew this, it lent poignancy, passion, to our furtive touches) ephemeral, yet at the same time somehow ageless: a cathectic brush, as it were, with eternity, numbing and profound …

‘Don’t laugh at him, it may be a tumor!’

‘Terrific!’ exclaimed Soapie as Leonard cranked and fired at us. ‘You got it now! Ha ha! Hold it!’

Fred, grinning over his shoulder at Elstob, had lowered his gun, but now he raised it again. ‘You’d be doing your little ball-and-chain a favor,’ he said, holding the smile for Soapie, but staring ominously at me, ‘if you told her to stop interfering with our investigation.’

‘Interfering?’ Alison was stroking my finger as though trying to peel back a foreskin.

‘How can you even see me, Soapie, past that wad on Talbot’s ear?’

‘Yeah, sweeping up, moving things, covering up the evidence — it can get her in a lotta trouble.’ I started to explain (Janny had appeared in the doorway, her pink skirt creased horizontally and makeup smeared, holding something up), but Woody was distracting the cop, muttering something in his ear about the protection of forensic evidence; to give him room (but I was thinking about my wife, how to get a message to her), I leaned toward Alison’s breast. ‘He what —?! ’ roared Fred.

‘I think Janny’s got something for you,’ Talbot mumbled. I saw it now: the ice pick, my ascot knotted around the tip — in reflex, I jerked away from Alison. She too pulled back in alarm: ‘What — what’s the matter?’

‘Whoa! Hold the horses!’ Soapie shouted. Janny was picking her way past the lights and camera, waggling the pick and ascot like a little flag. ‘Only a couple more!’

‘No—!’

But it was Fred who broke up the picture-taking, leaping past us to smash Patrick in the face with the butt of his gun just as he was leaning into the pile of scattered criminalistic gear in the corner. ‘ Hey! ’ Lamps tipped, Soapie shouted something at Leonard, Patrick screamed (‘[ Not in here, Janny! ]’ I mouthed, backing off), Fats seized the cop by his collar and pulled him away.

‘A-a-gift from my m-mother …!’ Patrick bawled, his lip split, blood streaming from his nose and mouth as though a pipe had burst.

‘Now, what’d you go and do that for?’ Fats wanted to know, his big arm around Fred’s throat (I’d managed to get several people between me and Janny, but she came on, smiling dimly, holding the pick high): then Bob came rocking in, cocked revolver in an extended two-handed grip, shouting: ‘ FREEZE! ’ and Fats let go. ‘Awright, awright, I can take a hint …’

The two officers pried the tweezers out of Patrick’s clenched fist, then dragged him out, still blubbering bloodily, Bob covering us with his revolver. ‘Stupid little nance,’ Noble grumbled in the doorway, watching them go, and we all relaxed: I was on the move again.

‘ Here , Gerry!’ Janny called, circling wide around Ros’s abandoned body in her stocking feet as I ducked behind Leonard. ‘We found it! It was under the bed! ’

I scowled at her and shook my head, I was nearly at the door, but there she was, passing the pick on to me like a relay baton — what could I do? I grabbed it and tucked it inside my shirt. ‘Thanks! I–I was just looking for it!’

She smiled wanly, a little breathlessly, her face a blank (had someone put her up to this? I glanced over at Talbot: Wilma was fussing with his clothes and he grinned dopily at me over her bent back), then suddenly, spying something past my shoulder, she yanked me back against the wall, threw her arms around my neck, straddled my thigh, and kissed me, her greasy mouth yawning, in undisguised panic. ‘It’s that horrible Earl Elstob,’ she breathed. ‘Stick your finger in me, Gerry — quick! ’

‘Eh, huh! Can I cut in?’

‘Can’t you see we’re busy?’ Janny panted, her thigh twitching mechanically between my legs as though pumping a treadle. ‘Well, nothing works like it used to, old-timer,’ Soapie was saying a few feet away, while across the room, Fats, giving Woody some money, seemed momentarily stunned: ‘Who, Roger—? ’ Janny’s tongue dipped in and out of my ear like a swab. ‘You can’t find his lower lip, Gerry!’ she gasped. ‘It’s like kissing only half a mouth! I felt like I was falling over the edge of something!’

Brenda was holding a little handkerchief of some kind to her nose, her eyes watering. She offered it to Howard (‘I mean, French-kissing him is worse than painting a ceiling , Gerry!’), but he shrank back, Fats clutching her elbow in pained alarm: ‘They killed him, Bren!’ ‘Oh no! Not Roger —! ’ And then, as they rushed out past Noble (the doorbell was ringing), someone on the stairs shouted down: ‘You the guy who lives here?’ He was leaning over the railing to peer in at us in the living room, a bulky man in cap and overalls, monkey wrench in his fist, the name STEVE stitched over his pocket. There were new voices in the hallway, the slap and bang of doors.

I eased Janny away. ‘Yes …?’

‘Well, I can’t do much with the stool, mister, I didn’t bring the right tools — but it’s easy to see what’s fouling up your tub.’

‘The tub? But I didn’t know it was—’

‘Yeah, some poor broad just took her last drink in it.’

‘What?’ I felt the pick slip, pinched it nervously against my ribs with my elbow. People were passing between us, greeting each other, pulling off wraps, asking about Ros (‘In here!’ one of them shouted, a woman in a yellow knit dress), there was a lot of confusion. ‘Who …?’ But I knew, yes, even before Anatole came tumbling down the stairs behind the plumber, wheyfaced and woebegone, I knew — and the others knew, too, knew something, for there was a sudden awestruck silence as at the raising of a baton. Even the comings and goings had stopped, the greetings, the music, the footsteps, the whisper of clothing against clothing had stopped. There was only, in another room somewhere, the solitary clink of a fork against a dish.

‘ Uncle Howard! ’ Anatole cried.

We all turned to look: Howard was in the middle of the room, alone, down on his plump haunches alongside Ros, his hand under her silvery skirt; he gaped back at us, aghast, seemingly transfixed there in an intersection of beamed lamps, his cracked spectacles aglitter with a confusion of tiny lights as though his eyes were bursting. ‘My god, what are you doing , Howard—?!’ a woman asked.

His mouth worked but all that came out was a little squeak. A flush, seeming to rise from the well of his dangling tie, flooded up through his throat and into his cheeks, crept behind his eyes and into his scalp. ‘My, ah … tiepin!’ he managed to stammer at last. ‘I … eh … dropped—’

‘ It’s Aunt Tania, Uncle Howard! She’s dead! ’

A sudden spasm jerked Howard’s lips back into a terrible clenched grin, the flush draining away as though some plug had been pulled — then he fainted and, anchored by the hand still locked in Ros’s thighs, fell over her body, Leonard’s flashgun popping.

There was a pause, then a rush for the stairs, people shouting, crying, swearing. The plumber, catching my eye as they clambered past him, shrugged apologetically. ‘Christ! When did all this happen?’ somebody asked behind me, and Soapie said: ‘That’s it, Leonard! That’s our story!’