There was one Sunday that was no fun at all. The weather, however, was beautiful. We got up fairly early. At the stroke of nine, there was loud knocking on the door downstairs. I slipped on some shorts and went down to see. It was a guy in a suit-perfect hair, little black hanky, perfectly folded, and a BIG SMILE.
“Good day, sir. Do you believe in God?”
“No.”
“Well, then I’d like to talk to you…”
“Wait,” I said. “I was just joking. Of course I believe.”
Big smile. VERY BIG SMILE.
“Even better. We put out a small booklet…”
“How much?”
“All monies go directly for…”
“Naturally. How much?”
“Sir, for the price of five packs of cigarettes…”
I took a bill out of my pocket. I gave it to him and closed the door. Knock, knock. I opened the door.
“You forgot your booklet…” he said.
“No I didn’t,” I said. “I don’t need it. I’ve just bought a little piece of Heaven, haven’t I…?”
While I was closing the door again, a ray of sunshine smacked me right in the eye. If it had been my mouth I might have said, “While I was closing the door a sourball slid onto my tongue.” A vision of sea and waves came over me. I ran up the stairs. I sent the sheets flying all over the room.
“Hey, I feel like seeing the sea!” I shouted. “Don’t you?”
“It’s sort of far, but if you want to…”
“In two hours you’ll be roasting on the beach.”
“I’m as good as ready,” she said.
I watched her stand up in the middle of the bed, nude, as if hatching from some striped egg. I put my naughty thoughts off for later, though-the sun wouldn’t wait.
It was a very chic spot-very trendy-but then there are assholes everywhere. They stay around all year, so the stores and restaurants stay open. Finding a beach that isn’t too dirty means paying for it. We paid for it. There was almost no one there. We swam and swam, then swam some more. Then we got hungry. You had to pay to take a shower, too… and to get your car out of the lot. And for this, and for that. In the end, I just kept my hands loaded with change, ready to toss it away on the slightest pretext. The place seemed like a huge money machine-nothing was free.
We ate at a sidewalk café, under a fake straw umbrella. On the other side of the street were about twenty young women, every one with a four- or five-year-old child-fair-haired boys with fathers in business and mothers who either sat home getting bored or went out to get bored. The waiter explained that the little darlings were there to audition for a commercial-to bring us to tears in a spot for an insurance company: BUILD THEM A FUTURE. I thought it was pretty funny. One look at those kids, full of joy, good health, and money, and you really didn’t worry much about their future-depending on how you looked at it, of course.
By the time we dug into our peach melba, they’d already been there for an hour, getting restless in the sun. The kids were running all over the place. The mothers were getting nervous. From time to time they’d call one over to fix his hair or brush away some invisible speck of dust. The sun was turning into an amphetamine rain-a crazy 110-volt shower.
“Jesus, they really got to want that stupid check,” said Betty.
I glanced over my sunglasses at the ladies, swallowing a scoopful of whipped cream and candy sprinkles.
“It’s not just the check. They want to build a lasting monument to their beauty.”
“They got to be crazy, leaving those kids out in the sun like that…”
The ladies’ jewels glinted in the sun. We could hear them sighing and bitching from across the street. I looked down, trying to concentrate on my peach melba. Madness is everywhere. Not one day goes by without human misery pouring forth before your very eyes. It doesn’t take much. Small details: some guy who catches your eye at the local market, just getting into your car or buying a newspaper, closing your eyes in the afternoon and listening to the sounds of the street-or having to deal with a pack of chewing gum that has eleven sticks in it. It doesn’t take much to see that the world is always laughing behind your back. I rid my mind of all those women, because I knew them too well-I didn’t need any more examples. I didn’t plan on hanging around. They could stay there burning to a crisp on the sidewalk if they wanted-we were going back to the beach. Nothing but sea and sky, a giant umbrella, the reassuring clink of ice cubes on glass. I drew a line through the sidewalk and the women-crossed them out-then stood up confidently and went straight to the bath room. I realized later that it’s a mistake to underestimate the enemy. Still, we don’t have eyes in the back of our heads.
I was gone for quite a while. There were pay toilets and I was out of change. I had to break a bill at the cash register. The thing kept flushing by itself, and the stall door was on a timer… All in all I wasted a lot of time. When I got back to the table, Betty was gone. I sat down. A thin veil of worry came over me. It suddenly seemed to be much warmer out. I noticed that she hadn’t finished her dessert-the vanilla ice cream glistened. I was hypnotized by it.
I came to, thanks to the women yelling across the street. I hadn’t paid attention to what was going on-just some flock of seagulls squawking in the sun for no reason-then I saw that they were genuinely upset. They were looking in my direction. One of them in particular seemed especially shook up.
“Tommy! Oh, my little Tommy!” she screamed.
I figured that little Tommy had gotten sunstroke, or melted, like snow. It didn’t tell me where Betty was.
I was going to yell to them that I wasn’t a doctor, when I saw a dozen of them start across the street. I was going to yell that there was nothing I could do, but something stopped me. They stepped over the little wall that separated the café from the sidewalk, and surrounded me. I tried to smile. Tommy’s mother seemed totally out of her mind-she ogled me as if I were Quasimodo, and her friends weren’t much better. I was getting bad vibrations. Before I could figure out what was happening, the woman threw herself at me, demanding that I give her her child hack. I fell over backward in my chair, baffled. I scraped my elbow. I stood up. Thoughts were going through my mind at the speed of light, but I couIdn’t manage to grab hold of one. The woman burst into tears, shrieking as if she wanted to burn me at the stake. They had formed a semicircle around me. They weren’t bad looking, but at that precise moment I was probably not their type. One second more and they would jump me, I knew it. I knew, too, that I was going to have to pay for the heat, the wait, their boredom, and a hundred other things that weren’t my fault. This got me so mad I couldn’t even open my mouth. One of them had sky-blue fingernails-this in itself would have made me sick under normal circumstances.
“That girl you were with…” she hissed, “I saw her take off with my son…!”
“What girl?” I said.
By the time my words hit their ears, I had already jumped over three tables and was halfway inside the restaurant. I left them in the dust. Pack of witches. I heard them roaring, hot on my heels. I managed to close the door of the men’s room before they got me. They didn’t have the key. I held the door, looking around frantically. The waiter was finishing taking a piss. He raised his eyebrows. I pulled out a wad of bills. He agreed to hold the door for me. Behind the thin wooden panel, inlaid with cardboard Masonite, you could hear the women pounding and screaming. It was the kind of door you can go through like a ricecake, with one good kick. I stuffed two more bills in his pocket. Then I climbed out the window.
I found myself in a small courtyard leading to the kitchen. The garbage cans were overflowing, rusted in the sun. A cook came out, wiping the sweat off the back of his neck. I got an idea. Before he could open his mouth, I pulled out a bill and stuck it in his pocket, smiling. He smiled back. I felt like I had a magic wand-like with a little practice I could make doves appear. I took off through the back door, out into the street. I hotfooted it. I ran up the street, turning off at intersections, doing the sorts of things you can still do at thirty-five if you’ve stayed in shape. Leaping over parked cars, for example, or pulverizing your personal record for the four-hundred-yard dash-all the while looking behind yourself. After a while I thought I’d lost them. I stopped for a minute to catch my breath. There was a chair. I sat down.
I tried to think clearly and calmly. All I had to do, though, was think of her, and it was like a dragon coming and breathing flames on my brain, reducing everything to ashes. It was all I could do to stand back up, but I had the feeling that if I did, the rest would follow. I headed back toward the beach, keeping close to the wall. A warm breeze had come up. I had a mouth full of cotton. I came to the main drag and spotted my car parked in the distance. My first thought was to comb the city behind the wheel, but then I thought: Okay… so there you are-walking around with a kid who just spent two hours in the sun because his mother’s a jerk, and now Tommy’s tongue is hanging three yards out of his mouth-what do you do? Since you are not the kind of girl who goes chopping up little boys in dark alleys… what do you do?
Up the block, standing in the shade of a tree, was an ice cream vendor. I crossed the street, looking around. When he saw me coming, he took the cover off his freezer.
“Single? Double? Triple?” he asked.
“Nothing, thanks. You haven’t by any chance seen a pretty brunette with a little boy about three or four years old, have you?
They didn’t come by to get an ice cream…?”
“Yeah. The girl wasn’t as pretty as all that, though…”
I have often met people who are insensitive to beauty. I’ve never been able to figure out what their problem is, but I’ve always pitied them.
“My poor man, did you see which way they went…?”
“Yes.”
I waited for a few seconds. I ripped my guts open and got out my billfold. The regional customs were no longer amusing-I wanted to jam the whole wad down his throat. A small cloud of steam came out of the freezer. I gave him two bills without looking at him, felt them slide out of my hand.
“They went into the toy store over there. The little boy had blue eyes, Ire was about three feet tall-he got a double-dip strawberry. He wore a medal around his neck. It was about three o’clock. Now, the girl…”
“That’s enough,” I said. “Don’t tell me too much, you’ll lose money…”
The store had three levels. A wan little salesgirl came over to me, with the look one often sees in the eyes of those who work for minimum wage. I got rid of her. There weren’t many people. I combed the ground floor, then went upstairs. I hadn’t forgotten that the savage horde was still hot on our heels; I knew that sooner or later they’d catch up with us. I was starting to get used to this sort of atmosphere-it seemed to follow Betty and me wherever we went. But hey, I told myself, we all have our moments. You have to be patient in life. I went through all the departments without finding her. I felt myself getting warmer, though. Burning, in fact. I went up to the top floor like I was climbing Mount Sinai.
Behind the counter stood a guy smiling, his arm resting on a pile of gift-wrapped packages. He had a manager’s smile, and a double-breasted blazer with an overly exuberant pocket handkerchief. He was none too young-his skin sagged low under his eyes. His hanky looked like a small fireworks display. The minute he saw me he rushed over, grimacing or smiling-I couldn’t figure out which-miming someone washing their hands.
“Excuse me, sir, but this level is closed.”
“Closed?” I said.
I swept the place with my eyes. It seemed empty. On this floor they sold dart guns, cowboy suits, bows and arrows, robots, pedal cars-what you’d imagine. I breathed. I knew Betty was there.
“Perhaps you could come back another time…” he suggested.
“Listen, all I need is a laser missile-launching rifle-no gift wrapping. It’ll just take a minute…”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. We’ve rented the entire floor to a customer.”
“BETTY!” I called.
The guy tried to stop me, but I got past him. I heard him running, cursing behind me as I raced through the shelves, but he couldn’t get near me-my body heat was radiating in all directions. I went all the way to the back of the store. I didn’t find her. I stopped dead. The guy almost ran into me.
“Where is she?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. I started to strangle him.
“Jesus Christ, she’s my wife! I have to know where she is!”
He pointed to a platform with an Indian village on it.
“They’re in the Chief’s Teepee, but she doesn’t want to be disturbed,” he sputtered.
“Which one is it?”
“The one on sale. It’s a very good buy…”
I let go of his blazer, then climbed up onto the reservation. I went straight to the Chief’s Teepee. I lifted the flap. Betty was smoking the peace pipe.
“Come in,” she said. “Come in and sit down with us.”
Tommy was wearing a headdress. He seemed totally relaxed.
“Hey, Betty, who’s he?” he asked.
“He’s the man in my life,” she joked.
I crawled into the tent.
“It’s crease-resistant,” said the store manager, behind me.
I looked at Betty and nodded.
“Hey, you know his mother’s looking all over for him? You know, we ought to get out of here…”
She sighed, looking put-out.
“Okay. Give us five more minutes,” she said.
“No way.”
So saying, I leaned over and picked Tommy up under my arm. I almost got a tomahawk in the ear. I blocked it in midflight.
“Don’t complicate things, Tommy, sweetheart,” I said.
I walked over to the store manager. He was standing there, stiff as a tin soldier.
“We’re going to leave him with you,” I said. “His mother’s coming by to get him in five minutes. Tell her we couldn’t wait.”
He looked like I’d told him he was getting a tax audit.
“What do you mean…?”
I shoved Tommy into his arms, then felt Betty’s hand on my shoulder.
“Wait just a second,” she said. “I want to pay for all the presents.”
We had to move fast. Navigate through reefs, calculate all risks. I got my money out, sensing a serious rise in my fever. Then one of two things happened; either I started getting delirious, or I heard voices coming from downstairs.
“Okay, how much?” I asked.
The aging playboy let go of the kid, concentrating on his calculations. He closed his eyes. In my nightmare, the stairway l was trembling under the footsteps of a furious posse. Tommy l grabbed a bow and arrow from a shelf. He looked at Betty.
“An’ I want this, too.”
“Shut up and behave yourself,” I snarled.
The manager opened his eyes. Ile smiled, as if waking from a pleasant dream.
“I don’t know… Should I count the bow, too?”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
Tommy started crying. I grabbed the bow out of his hand and threw it as far as I could.
“You’re beginning to piss me off,” I told him.
By now I felt the floor shaking under my feet. I was about to grab the salesman and shake a figure out of him, when a loud clamor swept through the floor like a sinister, fiery wind. I saw the women surge forth at the other end of the store. No one will believe me, but I swear I saw lightning coming out of their eyes-there were sparks all over the place. I gave Betty a sad look.
“Run, baby. Run,” I said.
I hoped to be able to hold them off until Betty made it to the emergency exit. Instead of taking off, though, she just let out a sigh and stood there, her feet nailed to the floor.
“It’s no use… I’m tired,” she murmured.
The women were halfway to us, screaming. They engulfed the shelves like a frothy wave. I threw my money in the air. The tacky old guy ran under the shower, his arms reaching up toward Heaven. I made my move with lightning speed-pivoted on one leg, picked Betty up in my arms, took off for the emergency exit, and sprang out into the light, in under four seconds.
I didn’t look back to see if anyone’s hand got caught in the door. I slammed it behind me and went out onto the fire escape overlooking a small street. I put Betty down. I held the door closed once again. I was in the same bind as before, only this time luck was on my side-I didn’t have to pay anyone to get out of it. There was an old metal bar leaning against the wall. I spotted it just as the pounding began on the other side. An angel must have left me that bar-it was exactly the right length to wedge under the doorknob. Let them scream, I thought. I wiped my forehead. A blinding light pulsated all around us, hissing. Betty stretched herself. She smiled, and it almost put me over the edge. I ran down a whole flight of stairs, howling, then climbed back up on my tiptoes. Things were lightening up a bit behind the door. Betty was almost laughing. I motioned for her to hush.
“We won’t go down, we’ll climb over the roof,” I whispered.
The roof, it turned out, was actually a huge terrace-a sort of sun-filled swimming pool. We hopped over the parapet. One last list pounded the door, then there was silence. I went straight to the shade. I sat where the sun could hit only my legs. I reached out for Betty to come sit next to me. She seemed astonished to find herself there.
My plan was less than terrific. It involved a big risk, and this made me nervous. All they’d have to do was use their heads a little, and we’d be cornered-tarred, feathered, and burned at the stake. Still, I didn’t have much choice. To try to make a run for the car, I’d have needed a girl who was very together.
This was not the case. Mine, it turned out, had lead in her shoes. I waited for a minute, then, taking every possible precaution, I went to scope out the main drag. The herd was running along the sidewalk. Those in the lead had already turned the corner. The sky was perfectly blue. The sea was calm and green. There was no beer in sight-nothing that could have distracted me. I walked across the terrace to see what things were like on the fire-escape side. In passing, I grabbed Betty by the chin and kissed her, thus summing up the situation.
“I want to go home,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll be on our way in five minutes.”
I flattened myself against a wall and watched the women arrive. In my opinion their relentlessness had something unhealthy about it-as if they were trying to solve some racial problem. I couldn’t let them see me. I flattened myself like a pancake against my little piece of wall. It was all I could do to keep from lighting up a cigarette. I heard them babbling down below. Then I heard the sound of galloping. I stuck my head out and saw them heading back up the street, elbows pumping. Who knows? Maybe those little cunts were off, foaming at the mouth, to see contacts in high places.
I went back and sat down next to Betty, thinking that we might get out of this alive after all. I took her hand in mine and played with it. I felt her resist. The sun had calmed down, gotten over its hysteria-stopped forcing itself into every shadow. The light dimmed from high beams to medium. The terrace turned into a rectangular island of tar paper. It was nearly pleasant out. I can tell you in all honesty that I’ve known worse places than that. No sense exaggerating.
“See? You can see the ocean…” I said.
“Um-hm…”
“LOOK OVER THERE, SOME GUY’S WATER SKIING ON ONE LEG!”
She didn’t look up. I put a lit cigarette in her mouth. I crossed my legs, staring at a spot on the horizon-there was nothing special about it, it just pleased me.
“I don’t know why you did this,” I said. “I don’t want to know, and I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just forget it ever happened.”
She nodded slowly, without looking at me. I was content with this as a response-a flutter of eyelashes or the squeeze of a finger would also have done the trick. Though I never completely understand what some people say to me, I could roam around in Betty’s silences without ever getting lost-it was like walking down the street of my hometown. I knew her better than I knew anything else in the world-at least eighty-five percent of it… something like that-so well, in fact, that I was never even sure she was moving her lips when I heard her talk. You’ve got to admit that sometimes life fills you with wonder, really knows how to get to you. And guys like me are the biggest pushovers.
We stayed there for a while, not saying anything. Strangely enough, I started to feel my oats again. I felt a smile spread across my face. I felt like I had the world by the short hairs. I could have pulled them if I wanted to. I didn’t. I just let it all melt, like chocolate in the sun-not in my hand. I felt there, truly right there. I had no hesitations about taking the helm. It was the least of my worries. I’d never felt better on a terrace than at that moment. I strutted across the tar paper like a pilgrim entering the gates of Jerusalem. I could have given forth with a sweet little poem, but there was no time to waste thinking seriously-I had to get us out of there.
“Okay,” I said. “You think you can run?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“No, I mean run-I mean REALLY run, you get it-I’m talking like in the Olympics, and no looking back. Not like the last time.”
“Right. Run. I know what run means. I’m not a moron.”
“Great. I see you’re feeling better already. Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough. If you can’t make it, wait for me here-I’ll swing by with the car to pick you up.”
She made a face at me, then jumped to her feet.
“You can talk to me that way when I’m eighty-five…”
“I won’t have the strength,” I muttered.
Before going over the parapet, I went and checked out the street. The women were nowhere to be seen. Betty and I went down the fire escape on the front side of the building, our born again legs hurrying us along. We hung by our hands from the bottom rung, then dropped to the sidewalk and took off up the street like bats out of hell.
Of all the girls I’ve known, Betty was by far the fastest runner. Running next to her was purely and simply one of the things I loved best. Usually, however, I preferred doing it in a more serene setting. This time, I didn’t glance next to me to see her breasts dancing, nor did I ogle at the flush that rose in her cheeks. No, none of that-just a delirious dead run for the car.
We slammed the doors. I turned the key, and off we went. Pulling out onto the street, I almost burst out laughing. I felt it rising in my belly. Then I saw one of the women running alongside us. The windshield exploded. Glass fell like raindrops onto our legs. By sheer reflex, I managed to spit out a piece that had flown into my mouth. I put my foot to the floor, and tore out of there. Cursing, I zigzagged down the avenue, people honking behind me.
“Jesus fucking Christ, get down!” I yelled.
“Did we blow a tire?”
“No. They must have hired a hit man!”
She bent over to pick up something, by her feet.
“You can slow down now,” she said. “It was just a beer can.”
“A full one?”
We drove twenty-five miles, with our hair in the wind. Our eyes teared a little, but it was nice out and the sunset was lovely. We chewed the fat. Whoever invented the automobile must have been an illuminated, solitary genius. Betty had her feet stuck in the glove compartment. We stopped at a garage that had a sign: “WINDSHIELDS-IMMEDIATE INSTALLATION” We didn’t even get out of the car while the guys did the job. We probably got in their way, but who gives a shit?