Gilbert Sorrentino - Aberration of Starlight

He simply ignored her and said that she’d probably paid a pretty penny for those shoes to look like Astor’s pet horse for that horse’s ass of a man, a man? and did she want to know a thing or two about him? When he started in with Helga says, Marie looked up at the ceiling and clasped her hands at her bosom, God help us all! Helga! But the old man went on, oh yes, Poppa went on and on like a Victrola, stubborn Irish mule! Helga says that her cousin knows the family very well, Tom’s wife’s family, and it was no secret why his wife packed up and left him. The man spent his whole life chasing janes, the scum of the earth, any tramp that cocked her eye at him, she even saw him one day with some skirt in a fleabag hotel, coming out of it, in Newark, by God, the man looked like the wrath of God and the floozie with him was painted up to her eyes and the hair on her out of a bottle with the roots growing in black! And there they were arm in arm just as nice as you please, oh yes, don’t tell me about Tom. Oh, Poppa, she said. Don’t you know anything, after all these years, about Helga Schmidt? Never mind about Helga Schmidt! Of course, of course, what did she expect? She’s a fine upstanding woman and knows whereof she speaks. If the shoe, bejesus, fits! And besides, there was talk, and a lot of talk, that he even tried to love up his own brother’s wife, yes, goddammit! His own sister-in-law. The man is a mongrel and he’s taking advantage of you because you’re all alone and he figures your father is too old to do anything about it. And, also, and he’s also, he’s a pup! And then Poppa forbade her to go to the WigWam tonight or any other night. Marie told him, her face white, that she was a grown woman, and could go dancing with a man who had been kind to her and to her son— and to him! — and showed nothing but the highest respect to all of them since the moment they laid eyes on him. I don’t care what gutter stories you hear from Helga Schmidt! I’m entitled to some life! I haven’t spoken to chick nor child but the butcher and the grocer for years and years. Is that life? And then her father, shaking his head in anger and disgust, walked out. Little turd of a man, he turned and said at the door. The man doesn’t even have an ass, what kind of a man is that? And Marie blushed and tears came to her eyes as she walked to the door and shut it, hard, behind Poppa. Oh my God, she said, the spite, Poppa, the spite!

She thought she looked stunning in the suit, and turned, standing on the bed, so that she could see her behind. It looked a little, not exactly fat, but heavy. Well, she wasn’t getting any younger, but she knew, as well, that her figure was attractive, still, God knew she looked better than Eleanor, who had the nerve to wear a suit like this in white, and she was older by ten years too. If Tom looked at her tomorrow … She’d be nonchalant, take off her robe as she always did. She wasn’t going to make a damn fool of herself, was she? She yanked at the suit, trying to make it cover more of her behind and felt a little panicky. She imagined Tom looking at her tugging and pulling, my God! She’d better not be doing that tomorrow like some frip without any breeding. The suit was perfectly respectable. Everybody wore them. It covered her perfectly, that’s the way it’s supposed to look. She was still young. That walk with Tom, suddenly veering off the road with him, behind a tree in the cool dark. The mosquitoes, she’d said, but he had embraced her, my God, and kissed her and kissed her, she’d opened her mouth and felt him down there big and hard pressing against her belly through her thin dress. He’d tried to pull her skirts up, I love you, I love you, Marie, but she’d pushed away his hands, still kissing and kissing, oh! she’d almost died with excitement. He stopped trying to put his hands under her clothes then and stepped back, she could see his eyes shine in the starlight, and he apologized, begged her forgiveness, and even kissed her hand. She felt so bad for him. You must think I’m some rotten egg, Marie. But I’ve dreamed so long of holding you … Oh no, no, my dear Tom, dearest, it’s just that, it’s just that I feel I’m not even me! Like a baby. And then they kissed again and she opened her mouth again. She said they ought to start back. She stepped out from behind the tree and started toward the road and he said that he had to tie his shoe but she knew he was fixing, adjusting himself. She could feel the impress of him still on her belly and thighs and almost felt dizzy, God forgive me.

At the supper table, it was a comedy of errors if she’d ever seen one. Tom talked about the war that everybody who wasn’t blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other knew was coming, and how Germany had been preparing for it for years, they never got over the last one, and Poppa, when he broke his heart to look at Tom, looked at him so sarcastically, oh, how superior! But Marie knew what that was all about, you couldn’t fool her — it was on Helga’s behalf, oh sure, the dumpy little kraut with her hooks out for a widower with a nice little nest egg. The bereaved widow with her Germany this and Germany that. She probably had a picture of Hitler on the wall, Marie wouldn’t put it past her. Marie, whenever Poppa wasn’t looking, smiled over at Tom and he smiled back and once, she thought so anyway, he accidentally stuck his foot out and touched her foot under the table. And that finagling Helga was chewing the fat to beat the band at her table, my God, she had Mrs. Copan’s ear, the poor washed-out bag of bones, it’s a wonder Marie’s ears didn’t turn red as a beet, and every once in a while the poor widow had the gall to look over at Poppa and smile this poor-man, poor-put-upon-man smile, the nerve of her! and she made damn sure that Poppa saw it too, you can bet your bottom dollar on that! Tom saw it too and talked even more about Germany and how they wouldn’t be satisfied until they had another war because the Germans were really very Prussian, it was a historical fact. Marie got so mad at Helga and her playacting that she decided to wait until she looked over at Poppa again and then smile her best smile at Tom as bold as brass, and how do you like that, dutchie? You busybody. It was almost as if Tom knew what she was thinking because he smiled back at her and made some little jokes, just for her, to make her laugh. Billy had his eyes on everything, the boy must know something is going on, not exactly what, but little pitchers. Well, she had nothing to be ashamed of, she could hold her head high and if she wanted to show manners to a decent wonderful man with a head on his shoulders, what should she have to be ashamed of? She was entitled to a life, too, just like everybody else.

After supper, Marie had time to kill before she had to bathe, so she sat in her room, away from all the relics and damn fools on the porch, wondering if she would really look all right in that old white dress. Well, it wasn’t that old, and it had a nice cut to it and the belt made her figure stand out, which was, she knew, her worry. She felt ashamed of herself, worrying about that, my God, she’d been hiding from the world for so long — through no fault of her own! — that she’d actually begun to think of herself as some stick of an old woman. What else had made her wear that bathing suit for so— Oh, that suit. Good riddance! She got up from the bed and began to undress quickly, then, naked, reached under her slips and step-ins and stockings in the top drawer and took the new suit out, looking at her watch as she began to pull it on, she had a minute, she just wanted, again … She adjusted the shoulder straps to lift her bosom and looked in the dresser mirror, cocking her head, then climbed on the bed and turned so that she could see her body in half-profile. She put her hands on her hips and smiled the way Madeleine Carroll smiled. I’d love to take a dip, Tom, she said, and smiled again, half-closing her eyes, smoothing the suit over her hips to see how her breasts looked with her arms pulled back tautly. If anyone looked in the window! And she turned to see if anyone, by some miracle, might be there, then felt foolish. She got off the bed and pulled the suit off, threw it on the bed and put her robe on, then took soap and powder, rouge, lipstick, and her toothbrush and toothpaste and stepped into the corridor.