Gilbert Sorrentino - Aberration of Starlight

But Marie did come down to supper, as cool as a cucumber if you please, and bejesus, she didn’t take her eyes off that little bastard’s face from the minute she sat down. She’d lost all sense of modesty and shame, even that little chippy at the next table wasn’t so bold with the way she made eyes at that big gawm of a lifeguard she was making a horse’s ass out of. And his nibs looked back at her as bold as brass himself, but what else could you expect of a man who had no breeding whatsoever? John was so upset and annoyed that he didn’t really follow the conversation, but Thebus was doing his best, that was easy to tell, to annoy everybody with ears to hear his ranting and raving about what the Germans were doing to get us into another war, the man was nothing more than a Mongolian idiot! Anybody with half an eye could see that what Helga said, and the Stellkamps too, was as plain as the nose on your face — it was the Jews who started everything, and by God, if there was another war who would profit from it but the Jews? Maybe Thebus was really Thebowitz just like Roosevelt was Rosenfeld. He even looked a little like a goddamn mocky with his little shyster lawyer moustache. Helga caught his eye and smiled at him, oh, she knew what kind of shenanigans were going on, this little mongrel was trying to get him into an argument so that he’d wind up looking like he was defending Helga, the poor son of a bitch thinks I was born yesterday! Ha! He’ll have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool me with his little tricks. But the gall of his daughter! She was grinning away at her great hero so that you’d think her face would crack, and no attempt to hide it either. Oh, John was soft all right, too goddamn soft, and that was the trouble. If Bridget were alive, God rest her soul, she’d put a stop to this in a minute, even if she had to drag Marie away from the table by the ear like she’d done a thousand times when she was a little girl. Finally the patch on a man’s ass stopped running off at the mouth and contented himself with mooning at Marie with his greaseball Valentino face on him, by God it was enough to turn your stomach to see it. As soon as John finished his tea he excused himself and went up to his room. He couldn’t stand another minute of this vaudeville as God was his judge.

Oh, there they were on the porch, the great hero dressed to the nines, with that great ugly lump of a pipe in his face like some nance of a professor, well, maybe John would go down and maybe he wouldn’t, but he’d be damned, whatever else he did, if he’d give them a goodbye, he wouldn’t, for that matter, give them the sweat off an ice pitcher. Then he heard the screen door open and there she was, by God, dressed up like a little slip of a girl all in white with her new tart shoes and silk stockings on her. Ah, I’ve got to go down there and show my face, I’ll not have it said that the damn fool’s own father sneaked around like a rat in the dark while she paraded around like Cleopatra. When John got out on the porch they were about to start down the steps and Marie turned to look at him but he stood there without moving a muscle with his hands in his back pockets, she’ll get no satisfaction from me! It looked to him like she was so embarrassed that she was blushing, well, she’s got something to blush about, if truth be told, it was a wonder she hadn’t gone around the past two weeks with her face as red as a beet. He watched them go down the path to the gate and then cross the road to the car, two damn fools all dolled up to go and spend their time in a dump that you wouldn’t even let a dog die in. Thebus helped her into the car and closed the door, then got in the other side, Marie was looking out her window as the car started, and then she waved, and all the other goddamn fools on the porch waved too, well it would be a cold day in hell before John took his hands out of his pockets to wave to her after she had flown in his face and as much as told him straight up and down that he could take his opinion and put it in his pipe and smoke it. Well, we’ll see, we’ll just see how far she can go with this damn fool idea before I cut the legs out from under her. She was still waving as the car moved out of sight. John went upstairs to clean his false teeth and change into his spectators. He thought of that ten-cent Casanova holding Marie in his arms and brushed at his plate furiously. She’ll soon find out the class of bozo he is!

When he finally came downstairs only Helga was on the porch, sitting in a rocker and looking aimlessly across the road. Thank God that dizzy Grace Sapurty wasn’t monopolizing her — she was probably locked in her room combing her wig, God bless the mark. He sat down in the rocker next to hers and lit a cigarette. The woman was a pleasure to talk to, a real lady and she had better manners, you can mark my word, than half the so-called Americans he’d ever bumped into in his travels. Hardly realizing it, they began to talk of Marie and that oily gigolo and he told her that he’d warned Marie about him and let her know about him chasing chippies, but she was blind and deaf to anything he had to say to her, and suddenly he sobbed and tried to cover it up with a cough, but Helga knew. What a wise and kind woman. Without saying a word to him about it she suggested that they take a little walk so he could, she said, get these things from off the chest? He agreed and went in to get a sweater and a flashlight, and also, it would be a good idea, his bottle of citronella. As he rose, Billy came out, looking like a lost soul with his mother and his idol both gone, and he told him that he and Mrs. Schmidt were going for a walk and that he wanted no foolishness from him, he was to take a bath and be in bed by nine-thirty at the latest. Helga was standing on the path when he came out again, her sweater draped over her shoulders, and as soon as she saw him she mentioned what beautiful stars were out tonight, it looked just like the old country when she was a little girl. He opened the gate and they started down the road.

She understood everything. How lonely he was, how he felt unwanted and unneeded, the fifth wheel, how he was the butt of everything now, he didn’t mind telling her, Marie had fixed it so that his own grandson sided with her on everything, Marie and that poolroom Romeo who’d pulled the wool over her eyes. Anything, ja, but anything that Helga could do to help, she’d be only too glad, he understood of course? She had tried to talk to the young woman, she’d known her so many years, but Marie had such a chip on her shoulder this summer that it was like talking to the wall if you so much as mentioned that Mr. Thebus was maybe not all he was cracked up to be. They were passing under a clump of trees whose branches leaned out over the road and Helga took his arm in her hand so that it was pressed up against her side and bosom and he had a sudden image of her straight, strong legs, her stockings in tight rolls that pinched into the ample flesh just above her knees, and he felt himself turning red, thank God for the dark. It wasn’t his imagination, Helga was holding his arm tight against her body and he let her. He felt oddly and shamefully excited — how many years had it been since he had, with Bridget, Christ Almighty, how many years? Yet here was the proof, next to him, that he wasn’t cold in his grave yet, this wonderful, decent lady, this lady he had admired for years, a widow now, alone as he was alone. Why not? Let Marie go and shift for herself if she was so goddamn independent. Maybe. Maybe is all. Helga was saying how much she understood his pain, oh ja, how children can hurt and hurt even when they are grown big, they haven’t got a thought in their heads. And as far as she was concerned, this good, good woman, she was praying on her hands and knees for the last week for Marie, ja, for God to give her the strength she would need against this, how is the word they say? this bum? He is just the sort of a man that in Germany now Hitler is punishing, the trash running after good women.