Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

Hugo went out softly.

He stayed close to home all the rest of the week, living off canned goods and watching television. Nothing much could happen to him, he figured, in the privacy of his own apartment. But even there, he had his moments of distress.

He was sitting watching a quiz show for housewives at nine o’clock in the morning when he heard the key in the door and the cleaning woman, Mrs. Fitzgerald, came in. Mrs. Fitzgerald was a gray-haired lady who smelled of other people’s dust. “I hope you’re not feeling poorly, Mr. Pleiss,” she said solicitously. “It’s a beautiful day. It’s a shame to spend it indoors.”

“I’m going out later,” Hugo lied.

Behind his back, he heard Mrs. Fitzgerald think. “Lazy, hulking slob. Never did an honest day’s work in his life. Comes the revolution, they’ll take care of the likes of him. He’ll find himself with a pick in his hands, on the roads. I hope I live to see the day.”

Hugo wondered if he shouldn’t report Mrs. Fitzgerald to the FBI, but then decided against it. He certainly didn’t want to get involved with them .

He listened to a speech by the President and was favorably impressed by the President’s command of the situation, both at home and abroad. The President explained that although things at the moment did not seem 100 percent perfect, vigorous steps were being taken, at home and abroad, to eliminate poverty, ill health, misguided criticism by irresponsible demagogues, disturbances in the streets and the unfavorable balance of payments. Hugo was also pleased, as he touched the bump on his head caused by the policeman’s club, when he heard the President explain how well the war was going and why we could expect the imminent collapse of the enemy. The President peered out of the television set, masterly, persuasive, confident, including all the citizens of the country in his friendly, fatherly smile. Then, while the President was silent for a moment before going on to other matters, Hugo heard the President’s voice, though in quite a different tone, saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you really knew what was going on here, you’d piss .”

Hugo turned the television off.

Then the next day, the television set broke down, and as he watched the repairman fiddle with it, humming mournfully down in his chest somewhere, Hugo heard the television repairman think, “Stupid jerk. All he had to do was take a look and he’d see the only thing wrong is this loose wire. Slap it into the jack and turn a screw and the job’s done.” But when the television man turned around, he was shaking his head sadly. “I’m afraid you got trouble, mister,” the television repairman said. “There’s danger of implosion. I’ll have to take the set with me. And there’s the expense of a new tube.”

“What’s it going to cost?” Hugo asked.

“Thirty, thirty-five dollars, if we’re lucky,” said the television repairman.

Hugo let him take the set. Now he knew he was a moral coward, along with everything else.

He was cheered up, though, when his mother and father telephoned, collect, from Maine, to see how he was. They had a nice chat. “And how’s my darling Sibyl?” Hugo’s mother said. “Can I say hello to her?”

“She’s not here,” Hugo said. He explained about the trip to Florida with her parents.

“Fine people, fine people,” Hugo’s mother said. She had met Sibyl’s parents once, at the wedding. “I do hope they’re all enjoying themselves down South. Well, take care of yourself, Hooey.…” Hooey was a family pet name for him. “Don’t let them hit you in the face with the ball.” His mother’s grasp of the game was fairly primitive. “And give my love to Sibyl when she gets home.”

Hugo hung up. Then very clearly, he heard his mother say to his father, 1000 miles away in northern Maine, “With her parents. I bet.”

Hugo didn’t answer the phone the rest of the week.

Sibyl arrived from Florida late Saturday afternoon. She looked beautiful as she got off the plane and she had a new fur coat that her father had bought her. Hugo had bought a hat to keep Sibyl from noticing the scalp wound inflicted by the policeman’s club, at least at the airport, with people around. He had never owned a hat and he hoped Sibyl wouldn’t notice this abrupt change in his style of dressing. She didn’t notice it. And back in their apartment, she didn’t notice the wound, although it was nearly four inches long and could be seen quite clearly through his hair, if you looked at all closely. She chattered gaily on about Florida, the beaches, the color of the water, the flamingos at the race track. Hugo told her how glad he was that she had had such a good time and admired her new coat.

Sibyl said she was tired from the trip and wanted to have a simple dinner at home and get to bed early. Hugo said he thought that was a good idea. He didn’t want to see anybody he knew, or anybody he didn’t know.

By nine o’clock, Sibyl was yawning and went in to get undressed. Hugo had had three bourbons to keep Sibyl from worrying about his seeming a bit distracted. He started to make up a bed on the living-room couch. From time to time during the week, he had remembered the sound of the low laugh from Sylvia’s window and it had made the thought of sex distasteful to him. He had even noticed a certain deadness in his lower regions and he doubted whether he ever could make love to a woman again. “I bet,” he thought, “I’m the first man in the history of the world to be castrated by a laugh.”

Sibyl came out of the bedroom just as he was fluffing up a pillow. She was wearing a black nightgown that concealed nothing. “Sweetie,” Sibyl said reproachfully.

“It’s Saturday night,” Hugo said, giving a final extra jab at the pillow.

“So?” You’d never guess that she was pregnant as she stood there at the doorway in her nightgown.

“Well, Saturday night, during the season,” Hugo said. “I guess I’ve gotten into the rhythm, you might say, of sleeping alone.”

“But there’s no game tomorrow, Hugo.” There was a tone of impatience in Sibyl’s voice.

The logic was unassailable. “That’s true,” Hugo said. He followed Sibyl into the bedroom. If he was impotent, Sibyl might just as well find it out now as later.

It turned out that his fears were groundless. The three bourbons, perhaps.

As they approached the climax of their lovemaking, Hugo was afraid Sibyl was going to have a heart attack, she was breathing so fast. Then, through the turbulence, he heard what she was thinking. “I should have bought that green dress at Bonwit’s,” Sibyl’s thoughtful, calm voice echoed just below his eardrum. “I could do without the belt, though. And then I just might try cutting up that old mink hat of mine and using it for cuffs on that dingy old brown rag I got last Christmas. Maybe my wrists wouldn’t look so skinny with fur around them.”

Hugo finished his task and Sibyl said “Ah” happily and kissed him and went to sleep, snoring a little. Hugo stayed awake for a long time, occasionally glancing over at his wife’s wrists and then staring at the ceiling and thinking about married life.

Sibyl was still asleep when he woke up. He didn’t waken her. A church bell was ringing in the distance, inviting, uncomplicated and pure, promising peace to tormented souls. Hugo got out of bed and dressed swiftly but carefully and hurried to the comforts of religion. He sat in the rear, on the aisle, soothed by the organ and the prayers and the upright Sunday-morning atmosphere of belief and remittance from sin.

The sermon was on sex and violence in the modern world and Hugo appreciated it. After what he had gone through, a holy examination of those aspects of today’s society was just what he needed.