Crowned Heads (22 page)

She looked again for Bud, who was waiting for her at the bar, filling the half-emptied grapefruit juice can from the bottle of
ricea.
He took her arm and propelled her through the back door, where some of the others had gone, then across the yard of the cantina to the rear of the next building, where people had grouped themselves as an audience around a series of wire pens housed under a ramshackle roof set on posts. Lanterns hung from the posts, and in their flickering light she saw the face of the man called Ávila. He was standing behind one of the pens, in which was a large
culebra de cascabel.
Bud put his arm around Lorna’s waist and drew her to a position where they could watch as the man took up a chicken whose leg had been tied to one of the posts. Holding its wings against its body, he extended the chicken toward the wire screen. The snake coiled, and its rattles sounded a warning. The chicken struggled frantically, and made muted sounds in its throat. Lorna wanted to look away, but couldn’t, she watched with the others in fascination. The snake’s rattles sounded like the dried gourd seeds in a maraca. On its back were the same bright diamond designs that bordered the rattan around the windows and doors of Lorna’s cabaña; the same as in Bob Somers’s wall prints. Ah, they said, the
culebra de cascabel,
the snake of the rattles. The man lifted the top of the pen and thrust the chicken inside; it flew to the corner opposite the snake and stood trembling. The rattling ceased and the snake struck. Lorna stared as, fangs bared, it uncoiled and flew across the pen to bite the chicken. It drew back, then struck again. The chicken moved, wobbled, toppled. People applauded. Bud was drinking from the grapefruit juice can, then handed it to Lorna; she felt it burn as it went down. When she looked again, the chicken’s wings were flapping, and occasionally it kicked, while the snake waited, watched. Then whatever movement the chicken made was only motor reflex, and it was dead. Thinking it was all over, Lorna started to move away, but Bud gripped her arm. The snake was sliding along the bottom of the pen, and curling up around the dead chicken. It unhinged its enormous jaw and slid the chicken’s neck in under the fangs and began ingesting the bird. Lorna could not stop watching with the others. It was a disgusting process, and when the entire body of the chicken had disappeared, inflating the snake’s neck to the size of a small football, she finally yanked away from Bud and ran back across the yard. The cantina was practically empty—even the mariachis had gone to see the show—and she hurried out through the front. She passed the church and went across the bridge. The lights were off at Joan’s; they must have gone to bed. Were they making love? She was at the yacht club when she heard the mariachis start up again in the cantina; the dancing would probably go on all night. She walked along the sand, thinking first of Emiliano, then of Richard, then of Bob Somers, then of Emiliano again, and hearing the lilt of the marimbas, the rise of the muted trumpet, and she was crying. Whatever happened to the good old days and “Elmer’s Tune”? Someone was running along the sand behind her. He came upon her with a rush and a low chuckle; it was Bud, with his grapefruit juice can and
ricea.
He wanted her to come back and dance, but she would not, so he walked along with her. She said the chicken and the snake was a horrible sight, but he only laughed and said it was something she could write home about.

Home, she thought, engulfed in a wave of emotion she could only faintly understand. Sobbing, she threw herself against Bud and felt his arms go around her. She laid her face against his chest until her tears subsided, and she let him walk her along the wet sand, his arm encircling her back. When they got to the hotel she didn’t want to go to the bar, so they went instead to her patio, and sat in the moonlight, and poured from the grapefruit juice can into her drinking glass, which they shared until the can was empty. Then Bud suggested smoking a joint, so they shared it between them. Then he came and put his arms around her again and held her, and said he wanted to take her inside. No, she said, he’d tell everyone. No, he said, he wouldn’t.
Eck cetera.

She told herself next morning, with her awful hangover, that she remembered little of what had happened, but she couldn’t convince herself of this, for even with its fuzzy edges, she could vividly recall most of the rest of the night. He made love to her—Bud, who, like Emiliano, was young enough to be her son; but that didn’t matter. When it was over, though, she had felt—she didn’t know exactly how, but she was sad, and she’d thought that if they made love again she would be able to find joy. But he had said he was tired, and that the bed was too narrow, so he had left her. And then someone else had come in, this was Gil, and she’d let Gil make love to her, and she had her eyes closed, and when she opened them she saw that they were not alone: Bud had returned and the two others with him, and they were watching and after Gil both Barry and Dick wanted to make love to her, and they kept telling her she was really fabulous, really great, Lorna, sensational, and she wanted to show them how great, how fabulous she could be, and then, suddenly, they were all gone, and she heard them talking as they went along the walk, laughing about Stan Wyckoff and saying she wasn’t really so great after all, there was this girl in Cincinnati, and she had stumbled from the bed, out onto the patio, where she hung over the railing, shouting at them, telling them what she thought of types like they were, not caring how loud her voice was or who heard her screaming….

By the time breakfast was over there wasn’t anybody who didn’t know about it. She took her coffee and rolls at the corner table, with
Atlas Shrugged
propped up in front of her, and paid assiduous attention, then smiled brightly at Rosalia, who served her. Rosalia wasn’t smiling back, though.

Later, under her umbrella, in a bikini she hadn’t worn before, Lorna sat waiting for her depression to pass. She always felt guilty after such foolishness, nothing more, nothing really to get upset about. Her book was on her knees, but she was not reading. She was watching Emiliano, over by the turtle basin. He was wearing cut-off Levi’s with frayed edges, the denim bleached nearly white against his bare brown legs. She thought a picture with the turtles would be nice, and she had her camera with her in her raffia bag, so she brought it over to where Emiliano was squatting. Along the protruding knobs of his spine she could see golden blond fuzz, and there were gold hairs mixed in with the darker ones on his forearms. She said how gay the dancing had been last night; he said
sí, señorita,
that was all. She asked him to tell her about the turtles, and he said they were sea tortoises, their meat was in the stew she’d had two nights ago. Oof, she said, making a face;
turtle.
She snapped several pictures of the turtles, including Emiliano generously in the shots, and then called to Cupie to snap the two of them, never mind the turtles. Emiliano seemed reluctant and stood rigidly beside her when she put her arm through his and smiled for the camera. She could see Rosalia going by, carrying a load of bedding out back. As she went into the laundry room she stopped and gave Lorna a little jealous look, but Lorna tilted her chin defiantly and placed her leg next to Emiliano’s.

Los pies,
she told him,
muy bonitos.
Very pretty feet. He ran off onto the beach, his brown legs working against the bright sand, the muscles in the backs of his thighs tensing and elongating, the calves bunching. She did not know the Spanish for legs.

When he had gone she insisted Cupie come over to the horse
palapa
with the camera and take another picture. There were a lot of people on the beach, and she hoped they were watching as she hugged the littlest burro to her, putting her cheek right next to its head and telling Cupie to hurry, catch this one, and she hugged and smiled while the rest of the roll was exposed, and everyone could see that she would never hurt the little creature.

That afternoon the tennis players left. Secluded in the library, she watched them go out in the small boats to the larger one. They were wearing their alligator shirts and had their tennis rackets in matching green covers, and they held up their drinks at the rail, toasting Miriam and the other secretaries, who waved fluttering scarves at them and shouted that they would see them in Mexico City. Lorna wished them the joy of that; she was not unhappy to see Bud and the others leaving, but she told herself, whatever blame you could put on the
ricea,
they were not very nice boys.

She watched the boat out of sight, and heard the music die away, saw the beach grow calm again. She wondered how long she had been at Boca, but had no precise idea. One day had melted into another in succession, and she could only mark one from the other by the bad things that had happened to her. This day she had got sunburned, that day she had seen the stingray, that other day she had struck the burro, last night she had got drunk. Today she was back on the wagon, where she would stay. She ate only a little dinner, but all her dessert—chocolate cream pie—and tried to read. She heard the dancing from the bar. She went and lingered on the edge of the patio, hoping to catch Emiliano’s eye, but he did not throw it. When everyone had left she sat at the bar and had an orangeade. Steve asked when she’d started smoking again. She didn’t really, she said, she’d just picked these up—they were the French kind, like Jack smoked. Oh ho, watch out for Jack, Steve said. He mentioned her bill, which had remained unpaid that week; she said money was being wired. No problem, he told her, be our guest. She mentioned the possibility of a trip to New York; shopping, theaters, Fun City. He came around the bar and sat on the next stool and put his knee against hers. Have a drink, he said. No, she was on the wagon. Sure, have one, he said. Well, maybe just one.

After he closed the bar he brought his flashlight and showed her to her cabaña. He wanted to come in; she wouldn’t let him. Come on, we all know about you, he said. She slapped him and heard his laugh as he went back down the walk.

It was dark and quiet. She sat smoking and staring at the terrazzo floor. She admitted to herself that she was bored, and that somehow things weren’t panning out again. She tried to read; the lantern light danced; her eyes felt itchy. She took her raffia bag and went out along the pathway to where they stored the housekeeping supplies; she put bars of soap with
Los Cinco Palmas
on the wrappers, and boxes of tissues, and other things in the bag and took them to her cabaña and hid them. She slept badly and next morning brought
Atlas Shrugged
back to the library, chucked it on the shelf, and began a Mickey Spillane.

She kept wondering how Emiliano was in bed.

She was having dreams, and the dreams were about the snake. She wasn’t stupid, she knew perfectly well what that was supposed to mean, and she imagined the doctor’s dry amusement if she told him the dream. It was purely phallic. The dream snake was long and large and thick, dark, without designs, without scales. They said snakes were cold-blooded, but this was warm and she circled it with her hand, measuring its circumference, staring at the eyes that stared at her. She did not know what she was to do with the snake, or what she wanted to do, but it was not a part of the dream that the snake should bite her. She could not tell if it was supposed to be an abstract representation of something or a person, but it seemed that she knew the snake and it knew her. A mutual recognition; but who was he, this snake? In the dream she wasn’t frightened; it was only afterward, when she woke up before daylight, that she was frightened.

She smoked and thought and thought and smoked. Faces swam before her unconscious vision, close and then far away. She reached out to none of them; they were familiar but uninteresting, the faces of men she had known, who had not been able to give her what she sought. She tried to see past the faces into something else, some part of herself that remained hidden, both to her and to the doctors. She tried to see past herself into the vague, unaccountable void that lay all around her. It was not unfamiliar territory; she had viewed it many times before. She had struggled for more years than she could count, trying to see somewhere beyond herself, past anything to do with family, children, career, friendship, dreams of success, even love, and she thought of some nice man with a kind face, a silver-haired uncorrupt gentle placating intelligent generous man whose hand she loved the touch of, not in any overt sexual way, for this was no profane fantasy, but rather a grandfatherly person, not unlike, perhaps, Bernard Baruch, with his rimless glasses and hearing aid and briefcase on a Washington park bench, and the touch of his hand doming the top of her head would be like a benediction. He would know what was right and proper, what was wrong and ignoble. He would tell her. Or sometimes she thought he might even be a priest, a good Catholic priest (she had discussed this with Bee Marsh after her and Willie’s conversion), and she had avidly watched Bishop Sheen, that hypnotic Irish prelate with the fascinating eyes, on television, and the way his long ascetic hand made the sign of the cross or, fingertips touching, formed devout peaked church roofs, or, holiest of all, toyed with his pectoral cross as he spoke, and she thought how a man like that could make her feel cleansed and purified. For there was a God. She knew it, believed it. But where she came from, in those Protestant churches she had been forced to attend, He had not shown His face nor had His countenance ever shone upon her. There was a time, long ago, when she had thought the world was good; it was something like Columbus believing the world was round when everybody said it was flat. She had this feeling in her, and this need. Everyone had needs, of course, but to her, hers seemed special—and unfulfilled. There had to be a way that all things could be made comprehensible to her. She had gone from one possibility to another, looking, sampling, testing, examining. She had read Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale and watched Billy Graham’s revivals for Christ on TV. She did not feel like a better person. She had investigated something called Biofeedback. She had listened to people talking about Transcendental Meditation. She had attended lectures. Nothing much had happened. She had heard about Scientology and had gone to the meetings and had read some material; it seemed easy at first, then became difficult. She hadn’t gone to another meeting. She had heard of something called Mind Control lectures. Nothing. Intermittently she had taken courses in self-hypnosis, in speed reading, and had participated in ladies’ yoga breakfasts.