Gilbert Sorrentino - Aberration of Starlight

She used, oh God, how she used that girlish voice falsely, later when there was nothing at all but those goddamn newspapers smelling of garbage. To charm anyone, Tony especially. And of course, on the phone, not that they had a phone. Won every battle and one day he looked in the mirror and saw himself old. That night went through his dresser drawer to find himself, ha! In bits and pieces. Fragments. Of crap. Silver penknife, clay pipes from old-fashioned Irish wakes, one from that idiot, Mark Caffrey’s, shanty son of a bitch, even dead he looked drunk. And the other clays with the green satin bows on them, Erin Go Bragh, yes, and kiss my arse! The rusted knife with the point broken off that she used for paring her corns till he couldn’t stand the sight of it and hid it here. Bejesus Christ, you’d think a million dollars was lost the way she carried on. Tangles of string and cord, clam shells. Matchbooks and stirring rods from dozens of road-houses and taverns, coasters and napkins. Where in the hell did the one with the pink elephant come from? Dizzy-looking article floating amid glassy bubbles. COCKTAILS is all it said. And on the closet shelf hats and horns from New Year’s eves, a flowered pitcher and six matching glasses from the Electra and its rotten movies, tarnished watch chain and a broken old turnip in an envelope — that had been Bill’s. Inside the case was engraved Excelsior. Whatever the hell that was all about. His mandolin, the shillelaghs, a green paper derby. That had been Bill’s too, wore it the last St. Paddy’s Day he’d been alive. The luck of the Irish, kid! Come on, have a ball with me! One goddamn ball won’t hurt you! Right, Bridget? But there was no smile or girlish voice for Bill.

In the Methodist Hospital he looked up at him, eyes dull in that curiously flushed skeletal face. Bill, he said, and took his hand. I’m on my way, kiddo. I’ll give everybody your regards, especially good old Mark. He died right in the middle of his soundless laugh. Then he had to listen to Bridget tell everyone about how the whiskey will do it to you until he came as close to killing her … well, not killing her, but my God! Gave it the old girly-girly voice then, too. How he had grown to despise it. It was soon after that he began to hide a pint of Wilson’s under his shirts. Just a whisper, a hint of that phony voice and he could feel his throat begging for a swallow of that rotgut. It was intolerable precisely because it was such a perfectly monstrous imitation of the voice she’d really had. I’m your wife. Her small fingers wrapped around his penis, pulling it and squeezing it until he was ready. Again? Now, John? Sometimes, years later, he could feel her hand, feel just how it had been. Yeah? Have a cigar! What bullshit.

When did he stop singing? He hadn’t been bad at all, at all. Sweet Adeline, Genevieve, Home Sweet Home. When You Were Sweet Sixteen. Old man Kahn used to come out of the butcher shop with that one, his walrus moustache and his few little hairs swirled around on his head and plastered down with hair tonic. The old Dutchman loved that song. Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose, Bill Bailey, Some of These Days — he did a nice thing on the break, could still do it if he wanted to, hell. What else, oh Jesus H. Christ, he knew a lot of songs. Play That Barber Shop Chord, right! Waiting for the Robert E. Lee, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, My Melancholy Baby, Ballin’ the Jack, I Ain’t Got Nobody, Pretty Baby — dozens more, dozens. All those old vaudeville songs that he got by ear. Sitting on a kitchen chair, his boater over one eye like Bill, picking away in his shirtsleeves.

You put it in nice and slow, kiddo, take it from the man who knows. Bill leaned close to him and winked, then threw his whiskey down and sighed, took a sip of beer. Nice and slow and easy on the girl, don’t be in a big hurry, me bucko. Then when you hear a loud pop you know you’re on your way. He looked at Bill, his eyes wide and his mouth half open. Ah, nah, nah! Bill said, don’t pay me any heed! There’s no pop, bejesus Christ — can’t your own brother have a little fun with you? But I’m on the level with that slow and easy stuff, take it from the man who was there, from the man who knows. Christ knows, she didn’t know. While she was taking a bath their first night in a hotel he opened her drawer and kissed her chemises and drawers and silk stockings. When she came out of the bathroom her dark coppery hair was loose, falling over her shoulders and back. Under her white wedding peignoir the collar of her nightgown showed, white too, and embroidered with pale-pink roses. She blushed and looked away. He could see her heavy breasts shift as she smoothed the night clothes over her hips. Are you warm enough, John? I think it’s a little chilly in here?

I’ve never been good enough for you, have I, Mr. High Mucky-Muck? Mr. Church of Ireland? Too much of a gentleman to be a man, a patch on a man’s ass is all you are. Why God in His goodness knows you weren’t but half a man on our wedding night! And you needn’t gape at me. Go out and get another pint of beer, for God’s sake! Ah, that got her back up — that she couldn’t drive him to the whiskey but for a ball or two now and again. How she wanted to turn him into another Mick drunkard, but it wouldn’t work. Walked around the house all day in her torn housecoats and broken shoes, the soles flapping, her stockings full of runs and twisted into knots below her knees. And he’d come into that, still impeccable in his starched white shirts and creased trousers, his heart dull and empty as he heard her: Wipe your feet! You’re late! Talking to one of those cheap painted chippies in the office again? I wouldn’t put anything past you! Later she’d sit across from him, cracking pretzels on her bottom front teeth and swilling her beer, lost in radio dramas, her feet planted on the floor, legs spread, so that he could look up to her naked crotch. God forbid she should put on drawers in the house and wear them out! It was disgusting. During the commercials she’d talk about how some old biddy neighbor of Aunt Lizzie or somebody had seen that bum of a brother of his fall in the gutter outside of Fritz’s Tavern, the puke, by God, all crusted on his shirt front. Something, something about Bill. Or maybe about that “tramp” Whiting in the office. Oh, you had your eye on her, didn’t you, you goddamn old fool? Jesus Christ almighty, Bridget! Don’t be using God’s name in vain with me, Mr. Big-Shot. And don’t deny for a minute that for six months here there wasn’t a conversation that the name of that tramp didn’t come out of your mouth a dozen times. Miss Whiting this, Miss Whiting that, Miss Whiting the other thing. And no wonder, the tramp probably wears her skirts up to here and takes good care that you see plenty of her when she crosses her legs.

Odd and sketchy fantasies about Jean Whiting. But he was no fool. Not yet. The girl could have been his daughter, she was younger than Marie. The night that Bridget had humiliated him in front of that goddamn flatfoot Jimmy Kenny and his common-law moron of a wife, Helen what’s her name. Mentioned once, once, by Christ, to Bridget that she was a great help in the office to all the credit men in his section, a nice bright girl. Oh Jimmy, did John mention to you that he’s gone ga-ga over some little chippy in the office? Why, you should see him, am I right, John? He goes to work every morning dressed up like Astor’s pet horse, oh, fit to kill! And then that fat cop’s laugh, the phlegm catching and tearing in his throat until he spit his filthy oyster into a grey handkerchief. And what did he say? The great strong hero, the lord of the manor, Caspar Milquetoast? Ha ha ha— she’s a dizzy jane, cheap and pimples all over her face, God bless the mark. And you should smell the Woolworth’s poi-fee-yume off her, my God, she’s like a nigger on Christmas. We all feel sorry for her. He felt sick and drank off two more ginger-ale highballs as fast as Jimmy made them. But that licking of the floor, the dirt, kissing her ass, wasn’t enough. Bridget squeezed the blood out and when it was gone she kept on squeezing. Insisted that he better his insults until Jean became their jointly invented monstrosity, their freak. And Jean moved then, even more strongly, in his fantasies.