Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

‘Well, y’don’ hafta be sore about it, buddy!’

‘Sorry, Charley, I meant—’

‘Whatever thoughts you have, they are not to dwell on anything,’ Hoo-Sin said softly as Janny’s head snuggled in under her chin and her hands dropped to her sides. ‘That’s easy, Hoo-Sin …’

‘Why don’t you tell him the one about giving the testicles to the girl, Gerald,’ my wife suggested, looking small and vulnerable under Charley’s arm.

‘Testicles?’ Charley grinned broadly.

‘You already have,’ I said.

Hoo-Sin reached down under Janny’s sagging knees to pick her up. ‘We return to the origin,’ she whispered, as Janny wriggled closer, ‘and remain where we have always been …’

‘Flo! Where’d you find the fodder?’

‘No, the one about how you find out if she’s ticklish or not.’

‘In the back there, Rocco, but you gotta scrape it off the pans …’

‘How you find out — oh Jesus!’ Charley doubled up, roaring with laughter.

‘You find that funny?’ I asked in some amazement. At the foot of the stairs, Prissy Loo shook her plumed hat (‘Chet!’) and stamped her foot. ‘But you said you’d wait , Zack!’

‘I guess — whoosh! hah! — I guess it’s all,’ Charley wheezed, falling back on the hall bench, holding his quaking sides (‘Ha ha! Not Chet! ’), ‘ in how you tell it! ’

‘I knew he’d like it, Gerald,’ my wife said. ‘Now go ahead and tell it.’ Whereupon Charley, tears in his eyes (‘You’re a real heel, Zack!’), nearly fell off the bench.

‘You kids off?’

‘Careful, Charley, you’ll hurt your back again.’

‘Oh shit! — hoo ha hah—!’

‘Yes, thanks a lot, Mr Quagg! As soon as we’re in our new place—’

‘— I awready did!’

‘Better come quick, Zack! One of those drunken yobs gave Olga something heavy and she’s freaking! She thinks she’s a bird and keeps throwing herself at all the walls!’

‘What am I, some kinda nursemaid?’ Zack protested.

‘Say, where’d you hide your sewing machine?’ asked Prissy Loo, slapping over (‘Well, keep in touch, kid—!’) in her big galoshes. ‘I went in there to sew these sanitary napkins on my costume and—’

‘You mean it isn’t there?’ my wife exclaimed.

‘And let me see what you write!’

‘It probably cost me my part!’

‘That’s right,’ someone said (‘You bet!’), ‘your dressing table was gone, too,’ I said.

‘Unh, Big G …? I — hoof! — I can’ get up …!’

‘The dressing table! But that old thing is worthless!’

‘Well, aw- moss! ’ yuffhuffed Charley, struggling clumsily, ‘but, Jesus, don’ go tellin ’ everybody!’

Anatole gave me a hand pulling him to his feet, while Hoo-Sin stood patiently by, holding Janny, now breathing deeply, in her arms. Howard had joined us and, peering down through Tania’s half-lens glasses, was trying to button his coat, while at the same time holding on to the sheaf of drawings the tall cop had made of the scene of the crime. ‘Here, let me help, Uncle Howard,’ Sally Ann said.

‘What I don’t understand, Gerald, is how they got all those things out of here?’ In the dining room we could hear Olga crashing around, yelling: ‘Tveet! Tveet!’ ‘Tell her she’s a fucking flower! ’ Zack was shouting. ‘Or a stone! ’

‘Cute,’ said Prissy Loo, fingering Sally Ann’s dirndl.

‘You gotta catch her first, Zack!’

‘’At wuzza bess laugh I had all night! Hoo! ’

‘Do you think they had a truck?’

Anatole cleared his throat. ‘Uh, do you want to tell them, Sally Ann …?’ he said, blushing.

‘Well …’ She took Anatole’s arm, looked at each of us in turn.

‘Tveet — squawk! ’

‘Oh oh,’ said Prissy Loo, puckering up.

‘We’re … we’re going to get married.’

‘I knew it!’ wailed Prissy Loo and burst into tears. ‘I always cry at the clinches!’ She planted a blubbery moustachioed kiss on Sally Ann’s cheek and Anatole’s (‘That’s wonderful,’ my wife was saying, ‘I’m so happy for you!’), then went clopping off into the living room in her plumed hat and decorated girdle. ‘Whuzzat? Whuzzat?’ asked Charley blearily, careening around, and I said: ‘But how will you live?’

‘Oh, Gerald!’ my wife scolded, taking my arm. ‘Hush now!’

‘That’s all right,’ said Sally Ann gently. ‘I knew he’d be upset.’

‘I’m going to drop out of school and write for Mr Quagg,’ Anatole explained. ‘And Dickie’s getting Sally Ann a job in one of his massage parlors.’

‘You see, Gerald?’

‘And we’re going to live with Uncle Howard,’ Sally Ann added, taking the older man’s arm. ‘He needs us, and we need him. Now that …’ Her voice broke and Anatole’s eyes began to water up.

‘I assume you are aware, Gerald, that the “Susanna” is missing,’ Howard said in his rigid pedantic way.

I nodded. ‘And not only that, Howard, they even took—’

‘Such carelessness, Gerald, is utterly inexcusable.’

‘Come along now, Uncle Howard,’ Anatole said huskily.

‘Whoa there, young fella!’ exclaimed Charley, holding Anatole back. ‘’Sa tough ole world out there, son — you can’ go get married on nothin’!’

Anatole looked offended. ‘It’s not nothing, Mr Trainer. Mr Quagg says I have a lot of talent and—’

‘No, hell, I know that, but juss hole on, goddamn it!’ He fumbled in his pockets. ‘Art, Gerald,’ Howard harrumphed, scowling at me over the spectacles, ‘is all we have. It is not a joke.’ Olga came bounding through on all fours, more like a lamb or a goat now than a bird, the yellow nightie up around her ears, pursued by Gudrun, Zack, and some of the newcomers. ‘ Maaa-aa-aa! ’ she bleated, frisking along into the living room, her head stretched high. ‘Come here, Olga! Stop that!’ ‘It is not a decoration, simple bric-a-brac. It is not a mere entertainment.’ ‘Maybe if she thought she was a dog, we could get a leash on her!’ ‘ Maaa-aa-aa! ’ ‘Just so she don’t start droppin’ pellets!’ panted Horner, limping along behind, and the guy with him stopped and pointed: ‘Hey! I know you jokers! Ha! I seen you in the photos!’ ‘Art, Gerald—’ ‘Photos?’ my wife asked. ‘ — Is the precipitate of the human spirit …’ Charley dumped all his change into the pockets of Sally Ann’s dress — or in that general direction: coins splattered the floor, rolled at our feet. ‘Yeah, some guy from the newspaper’s floggin’ ’em out in your front yard like souvenirs.’ ‘There! ’Sall I got, kids,’ said Charley, emptying his wallet and thrusting the bills at Anatole, ‘but, well — I mean, god- damn it—!’

‘I don’t go much for the shots of stiffs or all the blood and shit …’

‘Oh, Uncle Charley!’ cried Sally Ann, throwing her arms around him.

‘… The repository of the only meaning we have in this world …’

‘… But there’s one of some ole girl peein’ off the teeter-totter out in the backyard that’ll — Christ! — break your heart!’

‘I know, Howard, but—’

‘That must have been Wilma,’ my wife said.

‘In the end, Gerald, and I say this with all seriousness, you are a dangerous person!’

Hoo-Sin, carrying Janny, bowed slightly and backed out the door, Howard (‘I intend therefore to sue you for the remaining pieces in your possession,’ he declared, and my wife said: ‘Yes, you must come again soon!’), Anatole, and then Charley following. Some of the people chasing Olga had peeled off here in the hallway and it was filling up again. Not a familiar face among them. ‘Is that the only bottle you could find, Carmody?’ one of them asked. I recognized it. Alas. Central to the art of love, I knew (‘Yeah’n taze like piss, buh’ this time nigh’, who givshit?’), as to the art of theater, was the essential fusion of process and product, an acknowledgment of the inherent doubleness — one’s particularity, one’s universality, one’s self, one’s persona — of the actor/lover. In fact (‘I’m so glad you found each other,’ my wife was saying, ‘it’s just about the nicest thing that happened all night!’), I’d said something like this to her earlier tonight, and she’d agreed, probably it was while she was fingering my nipple, we’d seemed in perfect harmony, perfect collusion, and yet … ‘Gerry?’ I realized Sally Ann, hanging back from the others, had taken my hand. ‘Try not to be so sad, Gerry, it’s for the best, believe me — but I promise I’ll never forget you!’ Her eyes were full of tears and they were tumbling down her cheeks. ‘I–I was blind until you opened my eyes to love …!’ She tried to say something more, but it was choked off by a stifled sob. She kissed my mouth and went running out the door.