Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

But then …

‘Papanash,’ someone said. What? I heard ice tinkling in glasses, smelled hot food, or perhaps I felt these things: a chill, a flush … ‘I’ve never felt anything ,’ Janny Trainer was saying, and someone asked: ‘Vomedy?’ Someone had placed a wet dishtowel on my forehead. ‘Yum!’ ‘Quagg’s casting!’ ‘Oh yeah?’ ‘I always did it because I thought I was supposed to, but suddenly I don’t feel as dumb as I used to!’ ‘Oh, I see — I thought it was a vomit remedy!’ This was Jim. I opened my eyes. There was a lot of excited activity around me. People preening, straightening stockings, tucking their shirttails in. Fats was on his feet again. ‘Hey, man, can you use a good piana player?’ ‘Right now,’ said Quagg, ‘I need a coupla grips to help Scarborough skate the flats!’ Maybe I’d dozed off. My head was thick and there was a metallic taste on my tongue. ‘It’s like letting men shove their thing in me all the time was making my brain all sticky and stupid …’ ‘Feeling better?’ Jim was bending over me. ‘Hot as a junked-up canary, man!’ ‘Hey, where you guys been?’ ‘Vot? Chunk?’ ‘Noble,’ I murmured. ‘I have to tell him …’ ‘He’s all right. The police are talking to him. Do you want to try sitting up?’ ‘Down the well, Zack, you know — so what’s on the menu, somethin’ special?’ What’s on the menu. The line stuck in my head for a moment. As Quagg read it off (‘Ach, yah, zeks!’ ), I seemed to see real menus, one-page books, tantalizing, yet unreadable, opening out before my eyes. Choices could be made, they said. They are always the same choices. ‘Gerry …?’

‘Let one who knows your nature,’ breathed Hoo-Sin soothingly, ‘feel your pulse.’

‘Well, it hasn’t got a name, though the kid’s working on that. But it’s about time and memory and lost illusions …’

‘Oh yeah! Is that the one where the director comes running in and says: “No, no, Ros! you’re supposed to pick up the clock and—”?’

‘Or how ’bout a little soft-shoe,’ wheedled Fats. ‘ And play the piana!’

‘No, this is all new, man!’

‘The way I heard it, she was — ha ha — supposed to pick up the jewels and run …’

‘Both at the same time, Zack, both at the same time! ’

Menus, my mother used to say, were fun’s bait, misery’s disguise. She could be epigrammatic like that. She’d sit over hot coffee, smoking nervously, thinking up these depressing little aphorisms. Happiness, she’d say, is a missed connection …

‘Come on, Gerry …’ Jim was slapping my cheeks gently. I felt very remote. The menus had become cue cards, curtains, candles, calendars, the white wakes of ocean liners (Regina said something about the ‘last act’ or maybe ‘elastic,’ and there was distant laughter like the sound of waterclocks), wet laundry …

‘To experience perfect interfusion, let all the knots be dissolved.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s all right …,’ said Janny.

‘Here, we don’t need every fucking “ i ” dotted, son — just give us the nub and a zinger or two and we can pong along on the rest.’

‘… Though I’m a little bit ticklish there!’

‘What’s Scarborough doing in there?’

‘Uh, what’d he say, Uncle Howard?’

‘Has to do with some saint, he said.’

‘Yeah? Well, it’s wild , man!’

‘I believe he wants you to prepare an outline.’

‘You ever seen me bang the dogs, Zack?’

‘Gerry …?’

I opened my eyes again (this took effort) and found myself staring across the floor at Mavis, staring pitiably back. Her own eyes were glazed over (‘Hoo! hah! Just — puff! — clamp your lamps on this move, man!’) and she was grinning, but she didn’t seem to be dead. Just listening. The pale rolls of flesh on her arms and legs lay spread out on the carpet as though deflated. Or deboned. I tried to flex my own arms, but couldn’t.

‘Jesus, he looks like he’s fucking had it!’ muttered Dolph.

‘No, I’m all right,’ I whispered. But he wasn’t talking about me, he was looking at someone across the room.

‘Whoo, all bets off on that one!’

I twisted my head around. Steve the plumber and an older guy were hauling Vic in feet first through the crowd, Hilario and Daffie clearing the way. The older guy had his name stitched over his overalls pocket like Steve, but I couldn’t read it. He seemed to resent having to drag Vic in and bumped him along irritably, knocking his lolling head against the doorjamb and table leg, elbowing people (Fats was huffing out a nasal tune and bobbing about recklessly, making little Vachel duck and scowl, and Hoo-Sin, kneading Janny’s kidneys — ‘Ooh, that feels good, I was just itching there!’ — backheeled him deftly in the crotch just as Dolph popped a beer can open) out of the way. With every step, blood bubbled out of Vic’s chest wound, staining darkly his pale blue workshirt. ‘What … what are you doing—?! ’ I gasped.

‘In drag? ’ whimpered Fats, hobbling around, doubled over. ‘ Hunh , Zack? Whaddaya say? And falsies? ’

‘We breeng the chackass to the reever,’ Hilario smiled, helping the two workmen prop Vic up in the corner of sideboard and wall. He was still clutching the fork, but more like a standard than a weapon.

‘He was asking for a fresh drink every five minutes,’ Daffie panted, wiping the sweat off her breasts (‘With high heels? Eh? And striped longjohns? How ’ bout it, Zack?’). ‘He was getting to be a goddamn nuisance.’

Vic groaned and blood dribbled down his chin. ‘Looks like his valves are shot, Goldy,’ sighed Steve, digging at the blackened crotch of his overalls. ‘Yeah, well, for that I ain’t got the right tools.’

‘Who the hell did that?’ Dolph wanted to know.

‘I dunno. Gerry (‘Olga—?’) was there …’

‘Vic—?’ I tried to sit up but (‘Oh yah, annudder, bitte!’) I was too lightheaded.

‘Aw, Zack, c’mon — y’mean that lollypop who useta moon around Ros’s door?’ Vachel was whining. ‘You gotta be kidding!’

‘I’m sorry, Gerry,’ Jim said. ‘The second bullet apparently (‘Dot’s enuff!’) ricocheted off a rib and lodged in his heart, there’s nothing I can do.’

‘Whaddaya mean? It’s your kinda role, Vaych! Look at him, he’s a real downstage sorta guy! And you can interpret it any way you—’

‘In fact, probably lucky for you it did.’

‘Tank you.’

‘Wha—? That bushwah tinpot? That fashion-mag foof?’

‘That’s the guy there, Goldy, the one with the blue belly hanging out. It’s his spread.’

‘Cheez, Zack! Have a heart! ’

‘All right, all right, I hear ya talking …’

‘Hey, mister, is there anything else?’ I opened my eyes again: it was the older plumber, standing over me, squat and jowly, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. He had a wad of something in one cheek, which now he shifted.

‘I tell ya what, man, we’ll make it the main speaking part, whaddaya say?’

‘Come on, pal, I ain’t got all fucking night, you know.’

‘Okay, okay,’ squeaked Vachel, ‘just so you don’t stick me in a robot suit like last time,’ and Steve said: ‘I think his wife said something about the dishwasher making a funny noise, Goldy.’

‘Yeah? Where is it then? Let’s get it over with, goddamn it — you took me out of a good movie on the box.’

My head was a sieve, everything just came rattling in. It was like a frequency scan. White noise. My shoulder was beginning to hurt again, though, which was probably a good sign.