Ruth is in no humor to see it. "Well you are a nut," she says.
It annoys him that she is too dumb to see that he is really sore. The way she shook her head "No" at him when he was gagging it up annoys him; his mind goes back over the minute again and again and every time snags on it. He is angry about so many things he doesn't know where to begin; the only thing clear is he's going to give her hell.
"So you and that bastard went to Atlantic City together."
"Why is he a bastard?"
"Oh. He's not and I am."
"I didn't say you were."
"You did too. Right back in there you did."
"It was just an expression. A fond expression, though I don't know why."
"You don't."
"No I don't. You see your sister come in with some boyfriend and practically pee in your pants."
"Did you see the punk she was with?"
"What was the matter with him?" Ruth asks. "He looked all right."
"Just about everybody looks all right to you, don't they?"
"Well I don't see what you're doing going around like some almighty judge."
"Yes sir, just about anything with a pecker looks all right to you."
They are walking up Warren Avenue. Their place is seven blocks away. People are sitting out on their steps in the late spring air; their conversation is in this sense public and they fight to keep their voices low.
"Boy, if this is what seeing your sister does to you I'm glad we're not married."
"What brought that up?"
"What brought what up?"
"Marriage."
"You did, don't you remember, the first night, you kept talking about it, and kissed my ring finger."
"That was a nice night."
"All right then."
"All right then nothing." Rabbit feels he's been worked into a corner where he can't give her hell without giving her up entirely, without obliterating the sweet things. But then she did that by taking him to that stinking place. "You've laid for Harrison, haven't you?"
"I guess. Sure."
"You guess. You don't know?"
"I said sure."
"And how many others?"
"I don't know."
"A hundred?"
"It's a pointless question."
"Why is it pointless?"
"It's like asking how many times you've taken a crap. O.K. I've taken a crap."
"They're about the same to you, is that it?"
"No they're not the same but I don't see what the count matters. You knew what I was."
"I'm not sure I did. You were a real hooer?"
"I took some money. I've told you. There were boyfriends when I was working as a stenographer and they had friends and I lost my job because of the talk maybe I don't know and some older men got my number I guess through Margaret, I don't know. Look. It's by. If it's a question of being dirty or something a lot of married women have had to take it more often than I have."
"Did you pose for pictures?"
"You mean like for dirty books? No."
"Did you blow guys?"
"Look, maybe we should say bye—bye." At the thought of that her chin softens and eyes burn and she hates him too much to think of sharing her secret with him. Her secret inside her seems to have no relation to him, this big body loping along with her under the streetlamps, hungry as a ghost, wanting to hear the words to whip himself up. That was the thing about men, the importance they put on the mouth. Rabbit seems like another man to her, with this difference: in ignorance he has welded her to him and she can't let go.
With degrading gratitude she hears him say, "No I don't want to say bye—bye. I just want an answer to my question."
"The answer to your question is yes."
"Harrison?"
"Why does Harrison mean so much to you?"
"Because he stinks. And if Harrison is the same to you as me then I stink."
They are, for that moment, the same to her – in fact she would prefer Harrison, just for the change, just because he doesn't insist on being the greatest thing that ever was – but she lies. "You're not at all the same. You're not in the same league."
"Well I got a pretty funny feeling sitting across from you two in that restaurant. What all did you do with him?"
"Oh, I don't know, what do you do? You make love, you try to get close to somebody."