Queenie (16 page)

We look to Cutchy, our representative.

He says, “Ma’am, they’re taking us through all the crimes in history, and then asking us what to do about them. Or saying, ‘Go do.’”

“Well in my day, they didn’t ask,” she says brightly.

It’s warm and reflective in our room, being so near the furnace room, and I am thinking how much cozier it is to bear the intellectual burden of the world in congress, instead of like nine weeks ago when I was doing it all by myself. And have like a glass of wine while you’re doing it, meanwhile stretching your flesh in a new jumpsuit, of which when you brought it home a whole floorful of girls approved. Plus the boys who are staying overnight with them.

Turns out Sherry is having her own thoughts about the comforts here. Being clean always unsettles her. She says, uneasy, “Hang around here, and you begin to feel you could almost do without men.”

“Can it,” says Oomph. “It’s only an hour since you got back.”

And I am thinking dreamily what one bf the faculty said to me—or maybe to the air—after his political science class; talking to them privately makes you feel like a stool pigeon here, maybe they feel the same. But in the end each side keeps moving to keep the lines open.

“Doctor Werner, you know him, you know what he said to me?” I say. “He said, ‘And how are all you devils stewing in your broth?’”

And I think right away, devils or not, yes we’re like that here; any of my brethren moves an arm, I feel it in the leg. Youth is the broth! And maybe political science is my major!

Cutchy says, “Anybody hungry?”

Mrs. O. says, “Who is this man Werner?—what a nerve! With what we pay for you to go here!”

And that’s it, folks. Whatever they say unites us against them in the end, Oomph says. But I know money is the worst. Especially when you’re living on theirs. Beyond a small diamond sold, I’m not, because of a shockeroo of a scholarship, that turned up after I sent in my application essay. But I can feel it in the others, through the broth.

It’s terrible to watch your friends close in on an oldie. Who doesn’t even know. And to find you almost like it.

It starts with Oomph saying in a silvery voice, “Hungry, Cutchy? My mother’s taking us out to supper.”

And Cutchy moving in as if he’s only any undergrad after a free meal. “You mean she’s taking us all?” But like the poor hen doesn’t know what he’s got in his hand. Behind his back. Which she doesn’t.

She’s looking up at him, like the pinched expression Werner has put on her face has carried over to him. But it’s still a social gesture.

After all, they’re only hitting her for dinner, I think. On her alimony.

They’re not going to serve her up on a trencher with an apple in her mouth and the same hard, rosy china glaze I saw on a suckling once—
long pig
. Then why do I think of it?

Because Cutch is kind of looming over her, six-four to her five-eight. “Awful nice of you, Ma’am, when in your day boss lady like you would give water boy like me the white feather.”

She snaps back, “What’ve you been reading, what’dy’a mean in my day, that was World War One!” But it’s her last snap. “You mean you’re…you’re——?”

On the run? Evading? What will she say, if she can say it?
Dodger.
“Watch their eyes,” Cutch is always telling us, “how they grow foxy with the law, their bones are loaded with it.” Even Sherry is intent.

He says, “Ma’am, you think we albinos naturally like basements, à la moles, or something?”

Sherry says softly, “Moles are brown.” It’s only she knows his hang-up, like we all know each other’s here. He’s not even an albino, much less a black one. It’s his put-on. He’s probably only one of those pale blond types with broad noses and frizz hair; why he’s from Princeton. And he’s not evading because he has to, at least not at the beginning; he started out here on an exchange. If he went in for credit, he’d even be near the top; he does more work than any of us. Head to toe, hair to draft card, it’s his put-on. Which is holding him up. Like a white plume. The reference, Dr. Werner, is to Cyrano.

Mrs. O. says nervous, “Oh, of course. It’s just—Oomph’s father is Navy; it’s just her background.”

Oomph says freezing, “Lean on the alimony, Mother. Not on him.”

And I’m with her. Background—how dare they mention it. Oh I’m getting politically minded all right!

Cutch says, “Ma’am—I confuse all wars.”

“Oh, so do I,” she says. Brightly. “I agree.”

“So do we,” I say earnestly. “That’s why he’s in our basement.”

Cutch flips me a look. Nix. Nix on the amity. And of course he’s right. “No Ma’am,” he says, “you can’t agree with me. I can’t allow that.”

“Daughter,” she says, “who is this grand duke you’ve got here?”

Oomph ignores her. “Din-din, Cutchy. Stop being a walking wounded. Let’s go.”

But he’s weaving over Mrs. O. and on his toes now, into his song and dance; how high he is will come out in the rhetoric. “You mentioned money, Ma’am,” he says. “And I’ll eat on it. Because I was born eating. But our agreement stops right there. So don’t appropriate me. I was born eating free.”

He was born like the rest of us. But he is carving out his doctrine with his bod. In our basement. Or the college’s.

And Mrs. O. doesn’t get it; he doesn’t expect her to. He expects her not to.

Sherry says, “I’m feeling terribly depressed. Think I’ll stay here and look around a bit.” Her put-on is so near the surface it’s almost her. But she knows that.

Oomph says, “Come on, nymph. There’s always somebody at the Chinese restaurant.”

What’s her put-on?—to be ice cold, I think. And to tell us ours?

“Nymph!” Mrs. O. says through her nostrils and arching herself—maybe to remind us in the fifties she was one, once. And is still at her same weight. She flops in on herself for a mo, thinking, all hollow and tubercular. Then she says in her best high altitude maternity voice, “Where is this man Werner to be found?”

Nobody answers her.

A nymph is not the same as leading with your bod. Our night watches have discussed that. A nymph does it for herself and her
own
hang-ups. Which is why Sherry knows she is borderline.

Meanwhile Mrs. O. is taking us all in as if she never saw us before. In the way that makes you take in yourself. And not like it, if she has anything to do with it. Tell her she doesn’t have anything to do with it though; she’ll collapse. Why else is she hanging around? Counting for something with us is her put-on.

She says exhausted, “What is it you people really
dig
?”

We look at each other. It’s kind of a pure moment for us. She has her uses.

Oomph looks at Cutch almost tenderly. “He wants to walk with the wounded.”

Sherry makes his speech for him. Longer than she could ever do for herself. She even stands up for it. She looks like La Belle France somebody smeared a mustache on. “His granpappy fought to save the Western world for us. His pappy in World War Two just saved his world. We have news for you.” She says it very softly. “We don’t save. Not anything.”

I say, “He’ll eat you. But you won’t agree with him.”

He’s our white plume.

Mrs. O. says, “
Oona,
are you coming to lunch?”

Cutch takes Oomph’s hand at once; he knows she hates her true name—for describing her even before she gets to you. Her mission in life is to describe herself. Oomph takes Sherry’s hand, to say sorry for calling her nymph. Sherry grabs mine, because she’s so proud of herself for acting real. I take Cutchy’s because it’s the rhythm to, and because I deeply admire him for being so colorful.

And there we are—solidarity! E pluribus unum. We are describing ourselves. O happy, that’s what I’m learning here. Put your put-ons together, and they’ll hold you up.

Mrs. O. stomps out alone, saying, “I will not go to lunch with anybody holding an axe.”

Well, you know the old; they’re a value judgment for us.

So we go down to the cellar and have some wheat. The rest of the afternoon we spend making a huge sign for over the archway Cutch hacked out between our two rooms; it looks wonderful there. Black paint on the red top of the receptionist’s desk we snitched during her lunch hour,
WE DON’T SAVE.
One of the Indiana girls wanders in. “What does it mean?” she says.

Anyone who has to ask will never know.

I am hoping I can live up to it. To all of my education.

“Cutchy,” I say, “did your parents want you? Were you a wanted child?”

I already know about Sherry and Oomph. Their parents wanted them like crazy. And got them, Oomph always says with a grin.

“Queenie has a hang-up, she’s always asking,” she says now. She loves my background. And assumes I don’t.

I let her. My motto is: Keep research dark.

“Cutchy, were you?” I say.

It’s a temptation they can never resist, albino or not; it’s sad.

“Sure they did, sure was,” he says proudly. “I was the most wanted boy in Plainfield, New Jersey.”

I am not surprised.

And it’s all only fifty blocks from home.

Dr. Werner, maybe I’m writing this paper for
you
!

Maybe it’ll help you with
your
put-ons. And you can tell the rest of the departments. Sociologically.

Oh, Dr. Werner, I have so much to thank you for. And so many new words to do it in.

Sociologically, college is simple, these days. And biologically.
It’s the end of the secret life.
For any person who already had one to start with. Some kids, like those Indianans, arrive here without one, and will probably stay that way. But for the rest of us, the secret life—when it’s out in the open—is very different.

Dr. Werner, you’re one guy to appreciate that; it’s right in your field. First day of class, when you define your subject, I feel that. When you say political science isn’t a science, and it isn’t even politics, I think okay, there’s the put-on, now can he parlay? And when you never go on to say what it is, I sit right up. And say to myself, “Queenie, this guy shares your interest in the shiftiness of life. He may even be an expert on it.” After our conference, I am sure of it. I rush back to the girls—I mean my roommates—and say, “Whoever said the faculty isn’t teachable? He’s very interested in things that aren’t what they are!”

Sherry says, “Werner sure has the fault of being a looker.” Gloomily.

Oomph says, “Come on, Queenie, freshmen don’t have to settle for faculty. Leave that till we’re seniors and shaky. Sherry, why didn’t the kid tell us she was only holding back for somebody bright?”

What with the openness of life here, they can’t help knowing I’ve been holding back. And with Cutchy always available. I can only hope they haven’t caught on how far back.

So I daren’t refuse the orgy routine. Not even if I had wanted to.

Way it happens, Sherry gets a telegram from her father, volunteering to pay for an apartment, if she and Cutchy want to shack up.

Oomph says, “Obviously, when he was our age they never thought of fucking without first thinking of a place for it. I call that rather sweet.”

He didn’t mention marriage though, I note. Wait till I tell my aunt, how the dirty bourgeoisie is closing in. When she and Oscar get back from Palm Beach. She didn’t wear her diamonds down; they hocked them to get there.

I say, “Why’d your father pick on Cutchy?”

Sherry says, “He’s the one he saw.”

Oomph says, “Why a telegram?”

Sherry explains those can go on the expense account.

Cutch, who is on the floor practicing perfect repose, says, “Could the apartment?” If he could bring his wheat, he says, he would be willing to go. She could still pay for the milk. He knows a neighborhood where it’s still a penny cheaper a quart.

“Pretty thrifty,” I say. “Watch out for Plainfield.”

Cutch says, “You sound just like
her
.”

Both of them swivel. “Which?”

“We’re all sounding alike,” I say. “I’ve noticed that.”

We all three turn on Cutchy. “What about you?”

Then we all three giggle. He has a plummy, furry voice which gets to a girl. To the two of them. I just pay for the wheat.

Cutch says, “Day that happens, I better move.” He’s testing us. He’s not as secure as he acts. Who could be?

We reassure him we can’t do without him, but he’s still doubtful. “Her father’s willing for me, there must be something wrong with me.” Cutchy walks a very pure path.

Oomph says, “Don’t you know the good old parents will do anything to establish us with a guy? Any
one
guy.” Oomph reassures better than anybody. “That way, they count on saving us from the orgies.”

Sherry says, “I can’t convince Dad I
like
it one by one.”

“Orgies——” I say carefully, “I’ve never been to one.

All I know about them is from English thirty-six. De Sade. We have him for his relevance to modern thought.” While I good old Ffolliott speaks to the middle distance beyond us forty pair of panty hose lolling in front of him. “F-folly salivates. Very fuh-Frenchily.”

“He dropped one eff when he was an instructor,” Cutch says. “Put it back when he got his doctorate.” He doesn’t look at me; he is rubbing his axe with emery and oil. Oomph takes out her worry beads and nibbles on them. They’re for men and hippies, and to swing not to suck, but she says any pacifier in a pinch. Sherry takes out her hand mirror and practices her tic, to show to her shrink. Nobody looks at me. At college, even among friends it’s very daring to confess you don’t do something. Particularly in this field.

I still find confession very comforting, Dr. Werner. Better than beads and tics, or even axes. Even though after nine weeks here I don’t believe in God anymore, except when I go home. Everywhere else, He has let the world go hang. But the old habit still gets to me. As a monsignor once said to me, for me it is a perfect release of bad faith.

While what you don’t confess to can remain on the Q.T. Especially among friends.

“Orgies,” says Oomph, spitting her beads out at me. “I thought
you
.”

Sherry takes her left foot out of its sneaker, rubs it on the floor until the sole is black, and looks at it. This is her real tic, which she doesn’t know. “Oomphie. I thought
you
.”