Robert Coover: Gerald's Party

‘Yes …!’

‘Hurry, Gerald!’

‘I’m afraid, Gramma!’

There was a congestion now of fingers and organs, a kind of rubbery crowding up around the portal (‘But he was not alone,’ my mother-in-law was explaining in an encouraging voice), but then she slipped her hands out to snatch at my buttocks, yanking them fiercely toward her as though to keep them from floating away like hot-air balloons — perhaps I’d been worrying about this, I felt like I was coming apart and falling together at the same time — and as her legs jerked upward (‘little Prince Mark was protected by his faithful companion Peedie the Brave Rabbit …’), I dropped in through the ooze as though casting anchor. This , I was thinking with some excitement, and with some bewilderment as well — what is this ‘we’ when the I’s are gone? — is my wife! Under my tongue, her nipple (‘… and by his Magical Blue Shirt …,’ her mother was saying) had sprung erect like a little mushroom stem (‘… for forfending demons …’), and I moved now — I say I, certainly something moved — across her flushed and heaving chest to suck intrepidly at the other one.

‘… And his good Fairy Godmother, who watched over him wherever he went …’

‘Oh, Gerald! You’re so … so …!’

I gripped her buttocks now, one taut flexing cheek in each hand (‘Did she look like you, Gramma?’), feeling the first distant tremors deep in the black hole of my bowels (‘A bit …’) and remembering one night at the theater when, the stage littered with fornicating couples meant to represent the Forms of Rhetoric (the sketch was called A Meeting of Minds’), she’d leaned toward me and whispered: ‘I know they want us to feel time differently here, Gerald, more like an eternal present than the usual past, present, and future, but the only moment that ever works for me is at the end when the lights go down (‘No, Peedie doesn’t die,’ her mother was saying, ‘not yet …’) and the curtains close. And I’m’ — her feet kicked up over my back, crowding her own hands away, so she reached up to clutch my neck and hair — ‘not sure I like it.’ ‘ Great! ’ she moaned now, her head tipping back off the edge of the sofa, her back arching, her hips convulsing, and mine too were hammering away, completely (‘Don’t worry …’) out of control — it was a kind of pelvic hilarity, a muscular hiccup (had Pardew compared this to murder?), our pubes crashing together like remote underwater collisions, as ineluctable as punchlines.

‘That’s what fairy godmothers are for …’

Only not too soon, I begged (as did my wife: ‘Wait, Gerald! Not … ooh! ah … ! yet …!’), wanting to hold on to this moment, like so many before, but her vagina seemed to have filled up like a fist and to be clinging to my penis for dear life, pumping and pumping in tight muscular spasms, and even as I was looking forward to its arrival, it was already (‘ Yes—!! ’ my wife cried out, her head out of sight) gone.

I lay sprawled across her breasts, my head jammed into the linty corner between the armrest and back of the sofa, trying to conceive of the idea of eternity as a single violent spasm. I couldn’t even imagine it. For that matter I couldn’t imagine much of anything. It was as though I carried my semen in my head and orgasm had sucked it hollow. Distantly, I could hear my mother-in-law describing for Mark the ‘mysterious Walled Garden’ in the middle of the Enchanted Forest, ‘where fairies play and rubies hang from bushes like berries and you never get old or lose your way,’ which might have been quite soothing had she not sounded like she was scolding. We were still linked in a soft aromatic congestion. I wanted to say, ‘I love you,’ but instead found myself saying: ‘You focus … my attention …’ ‘Oh, Gerald,’ she sighed from below, reaching up to pat my hip, ‘your sweet nothings are not always sweet … but at least …’

We slipped apart, my wife’s pelvis sliding away to the floor to join the rest of her. Mark’s grandmother was telling him about a hidden treasure in the Walled Garden, ‘guarded by a wicked and spiteful Tattooed Dragon that breathed both ice and fire.’ As I fell back, I seemed to catch her televised eye: a kind of warning … ‘And what the Prince had to do to reach the treasure,’ she went on as my wife sat up and reached for the off button (‘Sorry, mother …’), ‘was chop —’

Click.

There was a sudden dreadful silence. ‘Goodness,’ my wife murmured, looked around, ‘I almost don’t know where I am …’ Somewhere, I seemed to hear some sort of knocking sound. Like darts hitting a dartboard. ‘Do you think we should …?’

‘No, leave it all till morning.’ I was thinking about the ice pick, that improbable object. When the officer carried it away, I was glad to see it go — I thought at the time: Free at last! But now I was not so sure. I seemed to feel its presence again, as though it had got back in the house somehow.

She struggled to her feet, then turned to gaze down at me with a compassionate smile. She was still wearing the apron. It was the one with the candystripes. From Amsterdam. ‘I love you, Gerald.’

‘I know …’ Or Monaco.

‘You might as well stay where you are.’ Her eyes were damp, I saw, the pupils dilated, and her lips were flushed and puffy. ‘I’ll sleep on the studio couch in the sewing room.’ Perhaps I frowned at that, or looked puzzled, because she added: ‘Our bed’s filled up, I’m afraid. Mr and Mrs Elstob are evidently staying the night.’ There seemed something wrong with that, but I couldn’t remember what. ‘It will be a while before we want to use that bed again.’ She leaned over, her breasts brushing my arm, and kissed me. ‘It’s all right, Gerald,’ she whispered, resting one hand on my tummy. I seemed to hear Vic snort at that (‘Don’t shit me it’s all right!’), and I trembled, so she took her hand away. ‘Is any-thing —?’

‘No … well … it’s like there’s an echo in here. Or …’

‘That’s probably the people out in the backyard,’ she said, rising.

‘The backyard? But what are they doing out there?’

‘Nothing. Just telling stories, as far as I could tell. You know, the usual stragglers. But don’t worry, I’ve locked up. Tomorrow …’ Her voice seemed to be receding. ‘No, wait—!’ I called, but she was already gone. Only the faintest fragrance remained and that, too, was fading. I lay there on my back, alone and frightened, remembering all too well why it was we held these parties. And would, as though compelled, hold another. At least she had turned the TV back on. Perhaps I had asked her to do this. Prince Mark was now riding through the Enchanted Forest. Or maybe this was the Walled Garden, maybe the Tattooed Dragon was dead already, quite likely. ‘’Ass usin’ yer ole gourd, Mark,’ Peedie was saying, with a loose drunken chortle. ‘I think we’re awmoss there, ole son — juss keep it up’n — yuff! huff! — don’ look back! ’ ‘Look! There she is! I can see her now! She’s beautiful! ’ Yes, this was the Garden, I could see her, too: she was running bouncily toward me through the lotus blossoms, radiant with joy and anticipation, her blond hair flowing behind her, eyes sparkling, arms outstretched, her soft white dress wrapping her limbs like the frailest of gauze. I felt myself awash in glowing sunshine. ‘Gerry!’ she cried, leaping across some impossible abyss, and threw her arms around me. Oh, what a hug! Oh! It felt great! I could hardly get my breath! Tears came to my eyes and I hugged her back with all my strength. But then suddenly she grabbed my testicles and seemed to want to rip them out by their roots! I screamed with pain and terror, fell writhing to the ground. ‘No, no, Ros!’ I heard someone shout. I couldn’t see who it was. I couldn’t even open my eyes. ‘That’s “Grab up the bells and ring them,” goddamn it—!’ Oh my god! Get up! I told myself. (But I couldn’t even move.) Turn it off. ‘Gee, I’m sorry …’ (But I had to!) ‘Now c’mon, let’s try that again! From the beginning!’ No! Now—!