Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

‘That reminds me, Gerald,’ said my wife, prying the lid off a flour tin, ‘what is the way you find out if a girl is ticklish?’

‘What’s that?’ The green room, we’d said. Right! But then …?

‘Mmm, looks good,’ said Fred, staring into the boiling water.

‘That man with the buckteeth,’ she replied vaguely, fishing around now among the dishes in the sink. ‘He was saying …’

‘Earl’s joke, you mean? You give her a couple of test tickles.’

‘Well, that’s what he said, but what does that prove?’

‘Test-tickles. Testicles.’ I pointed. They were stirring again. I smiled.

‘Oh, I see.’ She sighed and peered dismally into the empty pot of Dijonais mustard. ‘What did you want to talk to Alison about?’

‘Who—?’ She had an amazing way of juxtaposing things (the smile had become a wince: I touched my shoulder gingerly). Maybe it was the secret of her cooking.

‘That woman we met at the theater. Louise overheard Sally Ann telling her you were waiting for her down in the rec room.’

For a moment I couldn’t think. ‘What?’ What did she say? I was suddenly locked in somewhere, deep inside. And then something broke open, it felt like the police smashing in through Mark’s bedroom door, a splintering crash, and I staggered back. Or perhaps I was already staggering. The rec room! I should have known: all those wisecracks, the traffic up and down the stairs (had somebody mentioned bondage?), Alison’s husband staring fearfully down them as I was carrying Mark up to bed, Noble’s sweaty armpits and insolent complaint — it all came together now, I saw things plainly, all too plainly, and it took my knees right out from under me. I slumped weakly against the butcherblock. Going down.

‘Gerald? What’s the matter—?!’

‘It’s his wound, ma’am, He’s probably in a bit of shock.’

What was worse, she’d suppose I’d set her up for it — she’d never been to one of our parties before, how could she know it wasn’t a game we played with all our first-timers? I felt like crying. I was crying. Goddamn Sally Ann! The lights in the kitchen seemed to dim and a wave of nausea rippled through me.

‘Maybe he should lie down.’

‘It’s usually better to try to walk it off.’

‘Hey, Ger, what’s wrong? You look terrible!’

‘He’s been wounded, sir, nothing serious.’

I realized we were in the dining room. I seemed to be making progress through it without any effort of my own, held up by Fred and my wife. I still felt lightheaded and queasy. All I could think of for the moment was Tania staring despairingly into the bathtub full of pink suds, overcome — this was clear to me now, it was the only thing that was clear to me — by a paroxysm of self-hatred.

‘Here, try this.’

They were holding something alcoholic to my lips. It dribbled down my chin. Somehow I’d forgotten how to swallow.

Jim turned up then and said, no, I should be lying down, my feet higher than my head.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said my wife.

‘I’ve had ’em die on me like that,’ Fred disagreed. ‘We like to keep ’em moving around.’

They made some room for me in front of the sideboard, dragging Mavis out of the way, and stretched me out. Something was pounding in my ears. It might have been my heart. But it sounded more like feet thumping up and down the stairs. Someone brought our camel-saddle in from the TV room and propped it under my ankles. Fred made it clear that if I popped off, he wasn’t to be blamed, and Wilma, standing nearby, said I reminded her of the last time she’d seen her third husband Archie. ‘He had that same blue look in the face.’

‘Open his shirt there, give him some air!’

‘Loosen his belt!’

Heads dipped over me and bobbed away again like those little drinking birds sold in novelty shops. The ceiling, too, seemed to be throbbing, at times pressing down, at others vanishing into some vast distance, like the empty horizon of Pardew’s dream. Shadows flickered across it like faint images on a cinema screen or a drawn windowshade. I remembered Alison saying: ‘There is no audience, Gerald, that’s what makes it so sad.’ Or perhaps my wife had said that. In any case …

‘Oh dear, look at that bruise under his navel,’ she said now.

‘He looks pretty tender all over.’

‘Is there anything else we can do?’

‘You might wet a washcloth with cold water,’ Jim said.

‘Has he been crying?’

‘Well, Vic was his best friend, after all.’

‘Listen,’ said Fred, leaning close, ‘I gotta go now, and I just wondered if you got any more hot tips for us?’ His breath reeked of garlic and vodka. I turned my head away. I found myself looking up somebody’s skirt and closed my eyes. ‘You’d be doing us a real favor …’

‘No …’ I whispered faintly, or meant to — what I found myself saying was: ‘No … ble …’

‘I think he said something.’

‘That’s a good sign.’

‘That ham wizard with the glass lamp, you mean?’ murmured Fred in my ear. I shuddered. ‘Hmm, pretty tricky — he’s got that lawyer buddy, family of some sort. Still …’

‘He seems to be getting some of his color back, too.’

‘Gosh, it was great , Uncle Howard!’ Anatole was saying somewhere just past my vision. ‘I never realized doing it was so easy! ’

‘… I’ll see what I can do.’

‘No, that’s probably just fever.’

‘And now I’m going to be a playwright!’

‘Gerry? Can you hear me?’

‘Mr Quagg said I’m to be the brains for the show!’

‘Wait—!’ I whispered, turning back (‘Don’t be silly, he was with me,’ I seemed to hear my wife say), but the policeman was gone. What I saw instead was Fats floating high above me, as though suspended in midair: he hung up there, startled, looking like he was about to sail off into distant space — then he came crashing down, making the whole room shake.

‘What?’

‘The more things change, the more they are the same,’ said Hoo-Sin.

‘It’s gettin’ rough in here, Scar — wanta go up and try on the county fair?’

‘No, thanks, she’s fulla fleas and I got this preem to mount. Anyhow I just been fannin’ the rubber in the dungeon, man, I got no more snap.’

‘What am I doin’ wrong?’ Fats groaned from the floor (‘That opus still pullin’ ’em in?’), and someone said: ‘I love what you’ve done with the space in here, this delicate balance of old and new.’

‘Yeah, but not for much longer — if you wanta catch her act, you better get on down there.’

‘Hey, you come on like an ice wagon, Fats, you gonna get wrecked!’

‘Material goin’ a bit stale?’

‘You’re kidding—!’

‘It’s just terrible about Tania, Howard. Such a tragedy!’

‘Pregnant?’

‘Well, the tread’s a bit worn — but what’s really closin’ the show down is this dyke out there at the head of the stairs, doin’ a soapbox number on anybody with an honest bone-on …’

‘I know how you must feel.’

‘Do you indeed.’

‘… I mean, man, she sorta takes the starch out …’

‘I only meant …’

I closed my eyes again and found myself recalling (‘So that’s why Cyril …’), or trying to recall, something that woman in Istanbul had said to me. We were crossing an arched bridge, I remembered (‘Eileen?’ someone asked, this was very far away), there were overladen carts pulled by mules, a leaden sky, a certain spiciness in the air. ‘This will soon be over,’ she’d said. Yes. Tin cooking ware was clinking on the back of one of the carts, and there was a dull rumbling continuo underfoot. ‘In a sense, it was over before it began. We have been living with the last moment ever since the first. That’s been the magic of it all: experiencing the future with the sensual immediacy of the present and all the nostalgia of the past …’