Boys and Girls Together (2 page)

‘You're not an intellectual.'

‘I can talk about Kiev as well as she can. How would you feel if I did that?'

‘I'd stop you.'

‘Why? Why would you stop me?'

‘Because I know it would make you unhappy.'

‘That's what
you
think. I'm going to do it, too.' She was finished soaping her body, and now she sat back in the water. ‘Will you scrub my back?'

He began to scrub, and she said, ‘Do you want to get in with me and bathe, too?'

He scrubbed hard and saw the smooth pink skin turn red. ‘I won't spoil your bath, and I've got to get the chili and drinks.'

‘You're being a crook again and you know it. Something I said has stopped you from being horny and you're trying to pretend you want to be nice.'

‘Don't be silly. I'll take a shower after we eat. You finish your bath and take a shower and I'll have everything all set. I just wanted to brush my teeth and shave.'

‘You wanted to look at me, because I'm a girl's body.'

‘I like to look at you all right. Shall I scrub some more?'

‘Scrub a lot. Scrub all the way down. Scrub anywhere you like.' She stretched out in the water and waited to see where he would scrub. He scrubbed where she hoped he would, and she watched his face to see if she could guess what he was thinking, and then she said, ‘When I was in Kiev there was a member of the Party there who asked if he might show me the Theatre for Children Orphaned by the Revolution.'

‘Oh?'

‘He was one of the most brilliant men I ever met. He had black hair, black skin, and a very black thing, too, as I later happened to notice.'

‘Oh?'

‘We went straight to the Theatre, but of course it was empty because it was one o'clock in the morning. He was so brilliant. He lived for the Party. He lived for it night and day. We had the party on the stage all over the floor and furniture of a set that was supposed to be a Russian millionaire's parlour before the revolution.'

‘O.K. Now get the hell into the shower and take your time about drying and combing your hair. Comb it straight down, long, and don't pile it upon top of your head on the theory that it makes you look seductive.'

‘Don't you want to hear any more about Kiev?'

‘You're not an intellectual.'

‘Well, what did
she
say that was so much better than what I said?'

‘She emphasised the wonderful new life that was going to come out of Communism. She didn't mention any man with black hair and black skin. I'll go fix the chili and get the drinks.'

‘Don't you want to tell me something about Kharkov?'

‘It was full of bores, the same as San Francisco, or
any other place. Get into the shower and turn on the cold water.'

‘Do we
have
to have chili?'

‘Why?'

‘I'm not hungry any more. Are you?'

‘Not if you're not.'

‘Let's just drink.'

‘O.K. Take your time.'

‘You take yours, too.'

He went out and fixed himself another drink. He was thinking when the doorbell rang and he thought, ‘If this is some stupid friend, I'm just going to have to tell him I'm working and can't stop just now.'

He opened the door and it was Charley Flesch and his wife Ellen.

‘Hi,' Ellen said. ‘Daisy asked us over after dinner. We got a sitter for the kids after phoning about a dozen of them and we came right over.'

They were both in now and he was showing Charley where to put his hat and coat. He'd told her never to ask people over without letting him know, so now here they were.

‘How've you been? Sit down and I'll bring you a drink. Daisy's had a rough day and she's having a shower. Scotch?'

‘Scotch is just what I've been dreaming about all day,' Charley said. ‘Is there enough for a stiff one to start and a couple of mild ones to keep it going?'

‘There's plenty. Ellen?'

‘The same, thanks, Dick, but let me help with the glasses or something.'

‘No, just sit still. I'll only be a minute. Turn on the radio if you like, or both of you come along and pour them the way you like them.'

‘Yes,' Charley said, ‘that's the thing to do.'

At the bathroom door he called out cheerfully, ‘Oh, Daisy, can you hear me?'

The shower water was going but he heard it stop, and then he heard her say, ‘Do you want to tell me something about Kharkov?'

‘No. It's Ellen and Charley. I'm getting us all a drink. Hurry along and join us.'

Her silence was too long, but maybe Ellen and Charley didn't notice. She was remembering that she had as a matter of fact asked Ellen to come over after dinner and she had forgotten all about it, so now here they were all set to start drinking and they wouldn't be gone until after midnight.

‘Hi, Ellen, hi, Charley,' she called out suddenly. ‘I'll be out in a minute.'

‘Well, how's the writing game?' Charley Flesch said.

‘I'm practically retired. You know how it is with women who are supposed to look after your kids. First, they're wonderful, and then all of a sudden they're a bigger problem than the kids, a bigger problem than the bride, a bigger problem than marriage itself. You know you ought to fire her, but you don't do it, because you don't want to have to do all that work yourself, but the bride keeps telling you every night in bed what a dog the woman is with the kids, how she pretends to love them but actually hates them, how she keeps trying to teach them her idea of manners, how she is for ever comparing them with her own grandchildren who are so much more intelligent and handsome and well-behaved, and how she secretly slaps them because the little boy himself told her so, and then at last you give her a bonus and send her away, and that's what happened three months ago. So naturally I've been out of touch with the writing game. How are things in the barber game?'

‘You'd think it was the same thing,' Ellen said. ‘You'd think being a barber and being a writer was the same kind of thing.'

‘Shut up, please,' Charley said cheerfully. ‘I'm drinking and I'm happy. I know being a barber isn't the
same as being a writer, but neither is being anything else. Am I right, Dick? And since nothing is the same as being a writer, it's just as much fun for a writer to compare notes with a barber as it is with anybody else.'

‘Except maybe with another writer,' Ellen said.

‘No,' Charley said. ‘Dick don't like talking to other writers. How do I know? I read it in one of his books, the one you gave us for Christmas, Dick, It's right in there some place. You come right out in there some place and say you don't give a shit for writers. Pardon the expression, Ellen.'

‘You just shut up or talk clean,' Ellen said. ‘Just don't get too smart just because Dick's not like other famous people.'

‘Shut up, for God's sake,' Charley said. ‘I was only quoting Dick. Am I right, Dick? I never knew writers used words like the words barbers use, but I know different now. I know at least one writer who uses the words barbers use. Dick is the one who said he don't give a shit for writers. It wasn't me.'

‘Now you just stop it,' Ellen said. ‘It's one thing for Dick to write something and another for you to say it. He probably meant something you don't understand.'

‘What did you mean, Dick?' Charley said.

The man laughed, although he wished to God Daisy hadn't gone to work and asked them over tonight, because here they were, like two earnest and comic
characters in a bad movie, each of them a little too impressed by his name because it was so often in the papers and because a name in the papers signified so much to them, and he said, ‘To tell you the truth, you're
both
right about that crack I made, but let's talk about something that makes sense. Ellen, tell me about Ronald and Greta.'

‘Oh, they're the same as ever. God, the things they say, the things they do. Greta gets up from her nap this afternoon and says, “Mama, why do girls have those?” You know what she means—up here—so I been reading them damn books that tell you all about everything and I figure I've got to tell her the real reason, but I just can't remember it, so finally I tell her it's so you can tell girls from boys, but she comes right back and says she's a girl and not a boy, so where's hers and she starts squawking because she hasn't got hers. Them damn books.'

‘You could tell her girls have them because they're pretty and because boys like girls to have them, couldn't you?' Charley said.

‘All right, wise guy, so if I said that, wouldn't she still come right back and say she wanted hers
now
? What good would it do to say that? That doesn't make her any happier than what I told her.'

‘Ah, you could have told her girls have them because boys like to see them and take hold of them, couldn't you?'

‘You just shut up. And don't stare at mine like a damn calf.'

‘You
think
they're yours,' Charley said. ‘They're mine, little woman. You just carry them around for me. And all the rest of it, too. Am I right, Dick? Just because I run a four-chair barber shop that's all paid for don't necessarily mean I don't have a kind of half-assed philosophy of my own, you know. I gave a lot of time to thinking once I got out of high school, and I came to a lot of pretty good conclusions. I may be wrong in a few of them, but only a little wrong. I didn't stand on my feet cutting hair for fifteen years for nothing, you know. I learned a thing or two on my own without any help from any books, and what did it finally boil down to? Them two things.' Charley roared with laughter. ‘Them two, and the two on the other side, and the depot out front, and all of it together in one small package that gets bigger and bigger the more you try to think it isn't anything. Sure you get kids out of it, and headaches, and bills to pay, but so what? It's worth it.'

Now Ellen burst out laughing because she was so thrilled about the things her husband had said and the impression he had made on the writer, and because he never seemed to come alive so boldly as when they were visiting the writer and his wife.

‘You just shut up,' she giggled.

‘You know you love it,' Charley said, controlling his voice so that he would not be giggling, too. ‘You
know damn well what it does to you. The thing Gable used to do to you when you were a little girl going to the movies with a half-dozen other little girls.'

‘Hey!' Daisy called from the bathroom. ‘Wait for me. I want to get in on the fun, too.'

‘Don't worry,' the writer called to her. ‘There's plenty more where that came from. Am I right, Charley?'

‘
Pa
lenty,' the barber said.

‘I'll go get you another.' He took the barber's empty glass.

‘Small, though. At least
smaller
. I start out fast but I can't keep it up for long.'

The man went to get the barber another drink.

By the time Daisy came out of the bedroom, where she had her fixing-up table and her junk, the barber and his wife were singing a favourite song of the barber's, the one about Maggie, when she had been young, and the old man who'd got her for his wife had been young, too. Daisy was really fixed up, she wasn't going to let the arrival of the barber and his wife spoil anything for her, not even if they didn't have sense enough
to get up and go until one or two in the morning. She was fixed up and knew it, and the man knew it, and the barber had to stop singing a second to whistle his admiration, but he went right on singing after the whistle. Daisy and Ellen met one another as girls like to do and touched cheeks, and then Daisy said, ‘Well, what about
me
, where's my drink?'

‘Go and get it,' the man said, because he wanted her to know he knew all about how fixed-up she was. He wanted her not to get too important because she knew how good it made him feel to see her so fresh and young and pretty and eager about the sport that was always there to be had between them.

She gave him the limpid look that always meant the same thing, that always meant all you got to do is tell me what to do and I'll do it, just tell me and it will be done, and then when she knew the man had got the message she lifted her head in an imitation of aloofness and went off for her drink while the singing went right on. When she didn't come back after she had had time enough to fix two drinks he knew what she was up to, so he went after her while the barber and his wife asked one another what else to sing. And there she was as he knew she'd be, her back to him but knowing he'd be there in a moment, the empty glass before her and everything ready to be mixed but nothing mixed. He went to her and took her in his arms and held her very tight, then moved his hands all over, slowly and softly. She lowered the zipper so he'd
not have cloth in the way, but he lifted it and said, ‘Don't be rude to your guests.' And then very loudly so that they'd hear him he said, ‘Never mind sneaking an extra drink in here, Daisy. Get right back where you belong.'

‘Yeah,' Ellen said, ‘we've only had three each, and Charley's drooling already.'

‘And you know what I'm drooling
for
, too,' Charley said.

The man fixed his wife a big one and twisted her head around and held his open mouth to hers after she'd had a sip and the tongue jumped up and tried to take up all the space, but he turned her around and they went back into the living-room together to find the barber and his wife kissing.

‘Well,' the barber said, getting up, ‘we'll be going home now, if you know what I mean.'

‘Ah, sit down,' Ellen said.

‘O.K., you asked for it,' the barber said to his wife, ‘but you know damn well one more drink and when I hit the bed it will be dreamland for me and nothing else.'