Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

Her audience, some of them still picking themselves up, whooped and whistled, giving her a big hand. ‘God, that was one helluva moving story!’ someone exclaimed. ‘Wild — but real! ’

‘Why doesn’t Gramma read me stories like that?’ Mark wanted to know.

‘Style, man — some people got it, some don’t.’

‘Where is Grandma anyway?’

‘She’s with some man.’

‘She on the spike, you think?’

‘Grandma—?’

‘Didn’t you notice when her skirt was up?’

‘These yours, Mark?’ Kitty asked, emerging from the crowd now milling about. She held them up in front of her like an apron. ‘One thing for sure, you can tell they’re not mine!’

Mark laughed, and Kitty knelt to help him put them on, a bit flushed still from Mavis’s tale and none too steady. ‘Been in to see your old man, Kitty?’ Talbot asked, tilting his head toward his good ear.

‘What’s there to see?’ The bearded technician in cowboy boots now crouched behind her shoulder, his camera focused on Mark and Kitty’s fumbling hands — I stepped forward to block his view, but just then the two police officers came staggering in from the kitchen, supporting a huge turkey between them, shouting at me: ‘Hey, you! Move that empty tray, will ya? Hurry! ’ ‘Just appearance, Talbot — believe me, dreams are never as good as the real thing! Isn’t that right, Mark?’

‘What real thing?’

‘Hey! Look at the little birdie!’

‘Easy!’ grunted Fred as they lowered the turkey gingerly onto the hot plate, the others in the room beginning to press around the table. ‘Here, gimme that rag!’ he cried, snatching the sash from around my neck.

‘Wait!’

‘Back off now!’

‘Jesus, whoever lives here really opens up his pockets!’

‘You shoulda been here earlier, Gudrun — there was a curried shrimp dip you wouldn’t believe!’

‘Say,’ Zack Quagg whispered in my ear, nodding toward Alison’s husband in the doorway (‘But I heard him say he was going to do it,’ Janny Trainer was insisting with tears in her eyes, ‘right in her chest like that!’), ‘that bearded dude got any green?’

‘And mushroom turnovers!’

‘He does all right, I think.’

‘He’s so cute!’

‘Thanks, man — that’s what I wanted to hear.’

‘I’ll get a bowl for the stuffing,’ Bob said, taking his oven gloves off, and Janice Trainer, beside me, gasped in disbelief, clutching her bosom: ‘Oh no! You mean he sits right on their faces and—?!’ ‘And that blade you just honed!’ Fred called after him.

‘That’s right, you little dope,’ said Daffie sourly, blowing smoke. ‘And now you’ve driven him away with your nasty little rumors.’

‘Well, I didn’t know!’

‘What? Has Dickie gone?’

‘He’s just leaving,’ said Dolph, wandering in (‘Is it … is it fun?’), a boozy smile on his face. He winked at Talbot, nodded back over his shoulder toward the hallway. ‘H’lo, Mark. Say, you’re on a real toot tonight, aren’t you?’

‘It can be felt,’ Hoo-Sin explained at Janny’s shoulder, ‘but it cannot be grasped.’

‘Yeah? Try telling Dolph that!’ groaned Kitty, slapping his hand away, as I took Mark’s. ‘Uncle Dolph’s got ants in his pants, Daddy.’

‘Hey, what’s Mavis doing down there on the floor?’

‘Whatever it is,’ Regina declared, fluttering in from the living room, ‘you can bet it’s something dirty! ’

‘It has no surface …’

‘Trouble with Dolph is, he starts at the bottom but never works his way up!’

‘Don’t put the act down, Vadge, the big lady’s got talent,’ admonished Zack Quagg, working his way away from the table with a thick slab of breast, just as Fats came waddling up behind Regina, crooning: ‘Ruh-gina! Won’t you be my Valentine-a!’ She grimaced and shrank away.

‘… No inside …’

‘Man, this turkey’s a fuckin’ flyer!’ Quagg had apparently dunked it in the mustard; it was running down his chin and dripping on his unitard. Regina pushed Fats’ hands away, glowering toward Hoo-Sin (‘Gee, it sounds nice ,’ Janny was saying, and Hoo-Sin, smiling enigmatically, left her). ‘Did you get hold of Benedetto?’

‘He’s coming as soon as his show’s over,’ said Regina. Hoo-Sin now had Fats in a half-nelson. ‘Wait—! Have a heart!’ he gasped. ‘To have mercy on wolves is to be tyrannical toward sheep,’ Hoo-Sin replied, as though intoning Scripture. ‘He’ll be bringing some of the cast.’ Fats was in the air again.

‘Terrific! Hey, we got the goods — let’s frame a show here! Malcolm—?’

I realized too late we should have gone the other way. We’d made it as far as the hall door, but were blocked there by incoming traffic. ‘Malcolm may be down in the dungeon, Zack — something’s on the boards down there …’ Mark pulled back so I took him up in my arms. ‘Is that little man a dorf, Daddy?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘A real one?’ It was like having to go the wrong way in a train station at rush hour. ‘Lemme at that roast canary, boys! I gotta round out my saggin’ career!’ But there was no turning back either, people were pushing toward the table and away from it at the same time. Fred backed off, gingerly holding his neckbrace: they were tearing the bird apart in there with their bare hands, it was as though we hadn’t put anything out to eat all night.

‘Are real dorfs naughty?’

It was the tall cop, Bob, limping through with the butcher knife, who finally opened up a gap we could slip through. He scowled angrily at us as he squeezed past, and, glancing up, I saw that Mark was sticking his tongue out at him. ‘Hey, Mark! That’s not nice!’

‘I don’t like him, Daddy. He pinched me.’

‘The policeman pinched you—?’

‘Whaddaya say, Mark?’ grinned Charley on his way in. ‘How’s yer ole rusty dusty?’

‘How’s your ole boo-boo, Unca Charley!’ Mark replied, giggling. Charley rolled his eyes and did a sad little flat-footed dance around us. ‘My ole boo-boo’s gone blooey!’ he declared mournfully. There were people piling up and down the basement stairs (‘Whoo! game, set and snatch! ’ ‘Ha ha! you goin’ down again?’ ‘Yeah, man, one more time …’), but it was less crowded out here. ‘It’s bye-bye, boo-boo, Mark, ole buddy!’ Charley called. Mark laughed and jumped up and down in my arms as I carried him toward the stairs. My study door had been pulled to, but the toilet door was open, the darkroom light still on. It glowed from the inside like hell in a melodrama. ‘Boo-hoo- hoo -hoo!’ Quagg had used just such a scene in The Naughty Dollies’ Nightmare , when the wooden soldier sold his soul to the golliwog. ‘How’s your ole poo-poo , Unca Charley!’ Mark squealed.

‘That’s enough, Mark. You’re getting overexcited—’

‘Wait, Daddy!’

‘No, Uncle Charley’s gone now, it’s time—’

‘But Peedie! ’ he wailed. ‘ I want my Peedie! ’

‘Ah.’ This was a different matter. In fact, if I wanted any peace, I had no choice. But the TV room was impossibly distant, I didn’t know if I had the strength to go all the way back through there again. I felt as though I’d crossed one border too many: I just wanted to book in somewhere. Sit back and use room service. What made me think we wanted to go traveling again? ‘Do you think you really need it, Mark? Maybe we should try to go to sleep once with — all right, all right, stop crying.’ He was heavy, or seemed so suddenly. I set him down. The front room looked empty but there was music playing. A dance tune, ‘Learning About Love’ — it sounded tinny and hollow. ‘Wait here, I’ll go get it.’