John MacDonald - Slam the Big Door

“You are not a little fat man. You’re just... dignified in a stocky sort of way, and you have nice shoulders and nice eyes.”

He stopped in the starlight and beamed upon her. “Say, you come through nice.”

“Okay. Tell me something nice about me.”

They started walking again. “Okay. Tonight when you said anything, it made sense. You talked just enough, and not too much. You laughed in the right places. That’s what you need for a good group. People who all laugh in the right places.”

“Mother said beware of men who compliment you on your mind.”

“The rest of it? Hell! You look like Lamour should have looked when she used to do those South Seas things, only a little more on the savage side.”

“Me got faded sarong, sailor man. Cook plantain. Share grass hut, maybe?”

“Baby, I just got off that ship out there and I didn’t know there was nothing like this in the world. You know what I’m going to do? I’m just not going back to that ship, ever.”

“Sailor man likes photogenic little coral atoll? Photogenic sarong. Sailor man likes... ah, God, let’s drop it.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Every little while the bottom falls out of any mood I’m in. Games don’t last long these days. Don’t mind me. I should have gotten a place of my own. My aunt and uncle are just too damn solicitous. And indescribably disapproving. Poor little Shirley. Know what I want to do?”

“What?”

“It’s pretty silly. Maybe it’s self-conscious.”

“Try it on me.”

“I would dearly love to get revolting, sloppy, stinking drunk. With somebody standing by to take care — somebody I could trust not to let me do anything horrible or sick. I feel as if it would... release some kind of tension. And afterward I want to have a hangover so bad, I’ll never want to do it again. One of these days, when I’m ready, will you be the male nurse?”

“Where do you want this debauch?”

“Somewhere private. I don’t want anybody to see me in that condition. I’m very prim and conventional. I’ll think of a place.”

“Let me know.”

“Hey. Here we are! It turned out to be a real short walk, Mike. Thanks.” She turned and put her hand out to him, standing up the beach from him where it was so sharply sloped her eyes were level with his. Her face was clear in the starlight. Her hand was small, warm and slightly, not unpleasantly, moist. Black bangs and heavy black brows shadowed eyes, and a triangular paleness of face, narrowing to the broad line of the mouth.

They said good night and he waited there until she turned under the night-light over the side door, and waved at him, and let herself in. He turned and walked slowly back the way they had come, thinking about her. Where they had walked side by side in moist sand their prints were sharp and clear.

She doesn’t look like what she is. So who does? I’ve marveled at them — statesmen who look like pickpockets, murderers who look like scout leaders, whores who look like seamstresses, bankers who look like football coaches.

Bless you, Shirley McGuire. After they have tumbled you over the reef, and torn all their raggedy holes in you, walk safe ashore. No rats in the roof of your grass house, baby. Fruit on every tree. No hurricanes. Stay dry when it rains. Have some love, not for earning it, but because you can give some — and that’s the only way you ever get any back.

The Gulf sighed, like the steady breathing of some ancient hibernating thing. The night crabs marked his passage. When he got back to the house he stood for a moment on the beach and looked at a star.

That’s the way they’ll find out what we were, he thought. They’ll go whistling up there and settle down and look back, right along this path of light from me to the star. Train their instruments and take a look at light rays fifty thousand years old. What were those creatures back there, down there? One of them stands on a beach in the ancient past. On a wrinkly ball of mud and water. Looking up. Why did they do what they did? What were they thinking about? Were they aware, as we are aware, or was it just a refinement of instinct which almost simulated intelligence?

Go to bed, Rodenska, before you flip. Before you bug yourself with the ineffable grandeur of your night thoughts. Go wash your fangs and lie down.

On Thursday morning at nine when he walked into the main part of the house, Durelda said, “Moanin’, Mista Mike. Worl’ all covered up white and misty.”

“Moanin’ to you, Durelda,” he said. He saw a quick glint of amusement in her eye. He wasn’t intending to mock her, and she knew it too. But it didn’t hurt anything to let her know he was aware of being Uncle Tommed. It was a part of the essential defenses she had raised against her environment. It was a maintenance of established order, and thus comforting to all involved.

“Suppose I set you in the dinin’ aye-ria on account everything’s soaked wet on the patio this morning.” The final word came out with a crispness of diction that matched and replied to his gentle dig at her.

“That’ll be fine.”

“Miz Debbie Ann isn’t up and the mister isn’t up and I got no idea what he’ll want.”

“I’d plan on just juice and coffee when he does get up.”

“Your eggs same way today?”

“Same way every day, thanks.”

“Sun’ll burn this yeer fog away quick.”

The morning paper was on the table. He found the item on Troy on the bottom of page three, headed BUILDER ARRESTED. It was short and reasonably fair, neither exaggerated nor underplayed. Estimated damages to the car were four hundred dollars, plus eight hundred dollars other property damage.

After he finished breakfast he went quietly to the bedroom and looked at Troy. He didn’t look like anybody who was about to wake up. There was a sour musty smell in the room. He decided he would have time to run in and get the cash for Jerranna from the bank. After he got the thick packet of tens and twenties from the bank, he looked up Signs of Ravenna and went to the sign company and talked to a reasonable man about the boards for Horseshoe Pass Estates. Despite Mike’s assurance that soon he would be in a position to make some fair settlement on the previous contract and set up a contract for a slightly smaller program, the man was reluctant to promise any cooperation. But after Mike, smiling confidently, said, “Mr. Purdy Elmarr is anxious to have this project run smoothly. Why don’t you give him a ring?” — after that the man said he would phone the attorneys and tell them to delay action on the past due contract until Mike had a chance to make arrangements.

It was a little after eleven when he got back. Troy was in the shower. He came out to the patio at eleven-thirty, in a blue mesh sports shirt, spotless beige slacks, clean-shaven, in an obviously ghastly condition, physically, mentally, spiritually. How come, Mike thought, a hangover is comical, like a black eye, or somebody slipping on a banana peel and cracking their pelvis?

Troy lowered himself carefully into a redwood chair and said, “I drank so much water I’ve got the bloat.”

Durelda came to the doorway and said, “Fix you up something, Mist’ Jamison?”

“I’ll try some black coffee, thanks.” As soon as she left Troy said, “Take a good look at a fun-loving playboy.”

“Got any questions?”

“I cracked up the car and spent some time in the drunk tank. Debbie Ann got me out. You got me to bed. Is that the essentials?”

“Yes.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“No.”

“Thank God for that. Thank God for there being no kid on a scooter or a bicycle. Another thing. Does Mary know?”

“Yes.”

“She told me when she took off for me not to try to get in touch with her. She said you’d be in touch. Did it make you feel important, relaying my little disasters?”