Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

‘She’s in the next room, Vic. She’s got a part in Zack’s play. Shall I —?’

‘No … just tell her for me … tell her to watch out for words like … like mind and … and soul, spirit …’

‘You better point it a little higher,’ Bob murmured, ‘or you’ll just cause him more useless damage.’

Jim knelt and tipped Vic’s head to one side. ‘The best place, Gerry, is here behind the ear …’

‘All that junk … just … just a metaphor, tell her … old animistic habit …’

‘That way, you’ll penetrate the medulla at the top of the spine, which is the center for regulating all the internal functions …’

‘ ’Assa pretty bad sunburn , li’l lady,’ Charley was rumbling behind me.

‘… There’s nothing in there, goddamn it … no me, no I …’

‘Breathing, for example.’

‘… The brain … just makes all that up … the first person …’

‘Or speaking.’

‘Iss even got scabs! ’

‘… Is a hoax, an arrogant sham … the first person …’

‘That little place does it all?’

‘Yes, the smallest damage to it causes death in a few minutes.’

‘… Is no person … at all! Tell her …’

‘So what’s all this baloney about thinking with the whole body, old man?’ I muttered hoarsely to myself as I took off the safety.

‘Did I say that?’ He looked up at me, cocking one yellowish eye (this startled me), and a wet sardonic grin formed at one corner of his mouth. He seemed disconcertingly alert all of a sudden. ‘Well, just watch me … twitch after …!’ he grunted.

‘Vic?’ But he was delirious again, rumbling on about ‘militant time’ and ‘the living organic arena …’ (‘That often happens,’ Jim was explaining softly, ‘a kind of involuntary hypoglossal reflex …’) ‘… of choice and freedom …’ I heard someone behind me say something about ‘the host,’ then ask for a drink. Or perhaps offer one. ‘Yeah, he’s a sweet guy …’ Vic was fondling his knee with his free hand (he clutched the fork in the other still like some kind of credo) and I supposed he was thinking about Ros again. Well, why not? For all his dogma about the oppression of the past: who was I, locked even now in reverie (that quiet talk we’d had earlier in my bedroom, now so poignant: it was ancient history!), to hold him to it? This unexpected weakness had in fact endeared him to me even more. ‘One in a million,’ someone murmured, and my wife called out from somewhere back there: ‘Gerald, can you help with the coffee, please?’

‘Yes, in a minute.’ My shoulder throbbed, and something was blurring my vision. Tears maybe. I couldn’t see his face at all, it was like that face in Tania’s painting.

‘Why don’t you … wise up, old buddy?’ he gasped. I found the place. I hoped Jim was right. ‘There’s not … much time …!’

‘To tell the truth, Vic,’ I sighed, ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘Famous last words,’ he grunted, and I squeezed the trigger.

There was less kick than I’d expected, less noise. I’d been braced for worse. And Vic was mistaken. I waited patiently (no, that’s not true, it wasn’t patience: I was rooted to the spot, frozen, a waxworks figure, legs spread, body and neck rigid, arm outstretched, lips pulled back over my clenched teeth — I wasn’t any good at this), watching him, but nothing twitched. Except my shoulder, after the cop pried the gun out of my hand. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he said. Jim, kneeling by Vic with his stethoscope, looked up at me and nodded solemnly. He reached for Vic’s eyes, now wide open as though startled by something he’d just seen (or remembered?), and closed them. ‘Okay!’ someone said, a chair scraped, the lights dimmed — then brightened again and wheeled around: ‘ Daddy—? ’ My arm dropped and my fossilized spine unlocked and sagged as the light spun away. ‘ Oh no! Daddy—! ’

As Jim rose, concern pinching his tired face, to gaze over my shoulder toward the living room door, I turned the other way, weary of concern itself. ‘How do you feel about nihilism, then, as a viable art form?’ Gottfried was asking, the mike thrust in front of my face, but I pushed away, out past Scarborough and Patrick and the guy on the chair, across the room (‘Gerry, your wife —’ ‘I know, I know …’), and on through the swinging door into the kitchen.

‘Ah, just in time, Gerald,’ she said, switching off the oven timer. ‘The coffee’s ready. Could you take that tray of cups in, please? We’ll get the chocolates and the whipped cream—’

‘ In a minute! ’ I snapped. I’d made it as far as the butcherblock table in the middle of the room, and stood there now, leaning against it. The stains were gone, it had been scrubbed clean.

‘You look exhausted, Gerald.’ At least she was able to see that much. I could feel her ego, callous and swollen, billowing out of her, packing the kitchen, crushing me. Or perhaps that was my own ego, her own infuriating in its evanescence. Or maybe Vic was right, maybe it had nothing to do with egos. ‘Is Vic …?’

‘He’s dead,’ I shot back.

‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘it’s probably for the best.’ She brought the bowl of whipped cream over and set it on the butcherblock. I clutched my head in my hands. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Gerald, I forgot about your shoulder — don’t worry about the cups. Instead, why don’t you —’

‘My god!’ I cried. ‘What’s the matter with you? He’s dead , I tell you, his life is ended , it’s all over! ’

‘I know, you just—’

‘But how can it be for the best? That’s crazy! ’

‘Yes, I’m probably mistaken, Gerald, please don’t shout at me.’ She glanced back over her shoulder. ‘Maybe what you could do is bring in the brandy. And anything else people might like with their—’

‘ You get the damned brandy! I’ll — I’ll—’ I felt like picking up the bowl in front of me and heaving it across the room. I had to struggle to get control of myself. ‘ I’ll bring the whipped cream! ’ I yelled.

‘Well, if you wish, but Alison had offered—’

‘What?’ All along I’d been seeing Louise over at the breakfast bench, as usual. But it was Alison. She sat there, watching sullenly, huddled up in a heavy checkered overcoat. ‘Ah …’ I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. Her hair was snarled, her makeup gone, her eye shadow smudged. As she got up, I saw she was barefooted as well, and there were welts on her ankles. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all right, I’ll, uh, take this in, then—’

‘No, I’m the novelty act here tonight, allow me,’ she cut in acidly and snatched up the bowl of whipped cream. She glanced briefly at me as she padded by, her brown eyes hard and dull like hammers.

‘Does she always walk that way,’ my wife wondered as the door whumped shut behind her, ‘or is it just the funny coat …?’

‘Does the Inspector know she—?’

‘Oh, is that whose it is? She came in hungry and cold, so I fixed her something to eat, while Woody went to find her a wrap. She seems to have misplaced all her own things.’ She put on mitts, opened the oven door, and took out a pie, set it on the counter, reached in for another. ‘I must say, Gerald, I’ve never known anyone to have such an uncharitable view of you.’

‘Well … I probably deserve it.’

‘Oh no. She feels slighted, but I’m sure you’ve done everything you could, Gerald. It’s all these extra guests.’ She sliced the pies, ran her fingers along the knife blade and licked them, wiped them on her apron (it was that handwoven red-green-rye-and-gold one that we’d bought at a mountainside roadstand on our way back from Delphi), sprinkled some powdered sugar on. ‘Just because she didn’t get enough attention, that’s no reason to blame you for everything that’s happened! Even poor Roger, and Cyril and Peg — really, she got quite nasty about it, said it was all your fault, you were no better than a petty thief!’