Whipple's Castle (64 page)

Susie's door was ajar, so he went straight on in through the empty kitchen. The toaster was still on the floor with the piece of toast sticking half out of it like a dead tongue. He heard a gag, that despairing sound, and ran to Susie's bedroom. Her light was on, and she lay across her bed. The white balloons of her buttocks gleamed pure and cool; her bathrobe was all up around her waist, and her head hung down on the dark side of her bed.

“Again?” she said, and retched. “Didn't you get your rocks off? Can't you see I'm
sick?
Get out of here! Ugg, ugg!” Liquid splashed, with a metal-bowl sound. “Glaag! Oh, oh!” she said. “Get out!” she sighed in despair. “Oh, oh, oh!” She lost her breath, and heaved. Her hand clutched the spread, and the great pure virginal moons of her shivered and clenched.

She raised her head and looked. “Horace! Oh, my God!” She pulled her bathrobe down, turning as she tried to pull it out from under her. He saw the dark cloud between her legs, dark as a piece of twilight, furred brown as a rabbit pelt.

“I'm sorry, Horace. I'm sick,” she said quickly. “Go out to the kitchen and I'll be out in a mintue.”

“You're sick,” he said. “Lie down.” He pressed her back, his hand on her chest. He took the vomit to the bathroom and flushed the thin brownish stuff down the toilet. He found a sponge under the kitchen sink and cleaned up the splashes, then cleaned the basin. With a washcloth damp with cool water he came back and washed the sweat from her face and neck.

“Oh, Christ.” She sighed. “I'm so drunk. I'm stinking drunk. Give me a cigarette.” Her hand waved weakly toward the table. He got her a cigarette and lighted it for her. She took a long drag and immediately heaved, and he caught the cigarette and a string of drool in the washcloth. Her hair was all brown strings pasted to her head.

“Go away, Horace. Go away. Go home.”

“No,” he said. “I'm going to take care of you.”

He went to the bathroom, rinsed out the washcloth with soap and came back to wash the old make-up off the bottom half of her face.

“You're washing me,” she said. “You're
washing
me.”

“Do you feel better?”

“Oh, God, no. I stink.”

“You ought to take a bath, then.”

“I stink all over.”

He went to the bathroom, turned on the tub faucets and waited for the water to warm, then went back to her.

“The tub's filling,” he said. “Come on.”

When she closed her eyes, the brown hollows under them made him melt with tenderness. He touched those soft places. She opened her eyes and looked at him almost with horror. “What are you doing?”

“I just touched your eyes.”

“Horace, what are you doing here?”

“From now on I'm going to be taking care of you.”

“I don't understand you. I've never made you happy.”

Something odd happened to her mouth, as though it weren't her moving it. “You've always made me happy,” he said.

“I've made everybody else happy. I've made everybody happy but you.”

“Come on. The tub's filling. It'll run over.”

“I've got this thing makes them happy.” She laughed, and retched, but not so badly as before.

“Come on.” He took her by the arms and stood her up. She began to fall back, so he put his arm around her and began to walk her down the hall.

A door banged open behind them and Sam Davis came staggering out in his long underwear. The wrists, neck and fly of the underwear were all worn brown. He stopped, his pinkish eyes bugging out.

“Jesus Baldheaded Christ!” he yelled. “What the shit are you doing?”

Susie's head lay on Horace's shoulder, her bare feet dragging on the floor.

“Never mind,” Horace said. The bathtub would run over if he didn't get there soon, but now Sam Davis ran around in front of them and blocked the way, his brown crotch sagging like a diaper and his scrawny arms braced against the wallpaper.

“I've got a right to know!” he yelled. One hand slid down the wall and he nearly followed it to the floor.

“Get out of our way,” Horace said. When Sam didn't, he walked over him, and Sam fell down like several sticks.

“Christ, you didn't have to do that,” Sam whined from the bathroom door. “You hurt me. I ought to call the cops.”

“Oh, God,” Susie said, and retched.

“Well, Jesus,” Sam said plaintively, “I'm your father and you ain't got a blessed stitch on under that bathrobe. Jesus, I got a right to think I ought to be told something. Besides, I got to take a leak so bad I can taste it.”

Still holding Susie, Horace bent down and turned off the faucets. “All right,” he said, and walked Susie out to the hall. Sam shut the door, and they heard the splashing. Susie breathed on his neck, the sour smell of her hair and her vomit breath surrounding him. She leaned against him and she seemed to be getting drunker.

“Poor Horace,” she said. “Oh, my, I'm so drunk. I'm such a drunk. I'm a filthy drunk. I'm a filthy old bag, Horace. Horse. I'm a slut. I'm a great piece of ass as the whole town knows I can't say no to anything that wears pants.”

“Be quiet.”

“I just want everybody to be happy, Horsie-Horse. I never played with your pickle, though, did I? I never played your piccolo?”

He would wash away all that, and they would begin again. He would tear down all that—this house—with his bare hands, and all it meant. The wallpaper exuded that rotten slime. It smelled of sweat.

“‘Susie Davis, in a dream, took on the Leah football team.' Haven't you ever sang…sung that at a picnic?”

“Be quiet now,” he said.

Sam came out of the bathroom. “I'd still like to know what you got in mind,” he said.

“I'm going to give Susie a bath,” Horace said.

“What? You're what?”

Horace moved Susie into the bathroom and removed her bathrobe, revealing great, achingly pure expanses of her delicate flesh. He rolled up his sleeves and lowered her into the tub. Sam stood in the door with his face averted, arguing.

“What gives you the right to look at all of her like that? Jesus Christ!”

“I'm going to make her clean again.”

“Jesus, you sure do give funny answers. You're gitting me all confused.”

Horace soaped her hair, and wrung the suds through it. His rough hands squeezed and rinsed the long brown hair. “Ah,” Susie sighed.

“I'm gonna git me a beer,” Sam said.

Horace soaped her neck and shoulders, then her sandpapery armpits. She leaned forward obligingly, as if in a dream, as he washed her back. He washed her all over, his hands at times seeming to sink deep into forbidden places, quicksand places. Her hard breasts, the pink nipples, her thighs and calves and feet; he washed the deep complications of her sexual place, amazed at his right. Under his ministering fingers passed the button of her anus. He left no part of her unclean.

Sam came back to argue, keeping his face turned so he would catch no glimpse of his daughter.

“You sure got a lot of gall,” Sam ventured.

“I'm taking Susie away,” Horace said. He lifted her out, and she stood leaning against him as he dried her. His shirt and pants were all wet in front.

“Taking Susie away?” Sam looked, this time, and quickly, guiltily looked away. “What d' you mean, take her away?”

“Away,” Horace said. He put her bathrobe around her and led her back to her room.

“Oh, Horace,” she said. “What in the world are you doing?”

“You may be the goddam janitor,” Sam said, “but it don't follow you got a right to come in here and wash my girl!” A gust of drunkenness hit him and he rolled along the wall. Without spilling his beer he fell to one knee. “I ought to call the cops,” he said.

“It's too late for you,” Horace said.

“What? What?”

“All you are is a drunk.”

“I'm a
farmer!”

“You're a drunk.”

“I'm a farmer! Susie, ain't I a farmer? Tell him!” Sam began to blubber. “If he takes you away, what happens to me? Answer me that! What happens to me?”

“If I don't take her away, what happens to her?”

“It ain't fair!” Sam cried.

Horace let her down on the bed and pulled the spread over her. From her bureau he began to gather her clothes.

“Horace, what are you doing?” She tried to get up on her elbow, but fell back with a groan. “I'm so drunk. It's got me.”

“I'm getting your clothes together.”

“What happens to me?” Sam cried.

“You've taken money from Gordon Ward,” Horace said.

“Who says so?” Sam was terribly indignant.

“I've seen. Do you think I'm blind? I know everything. He buys your liquor for you.”

“It ain't true!” Sam was truly indignant; no one could be accused of such a thing. Horace saw his true indignation. Sam could not believe how things could be summed up.

“Daddy,” Susie called in a sick voice. “Let me talk to Horace. Go away and leave us.”

“Well, I don't know, now,” Sam said. “It don't seem right, somehow, to leave him in here when you got no clothes on.”

“Shut up, Daddy. Go get yourself another beer.”

“It don't seem proper.”

“Oh, God!” Susie groaned.

Muttering and complaining, Sam went out of the room.

“Haven't you got a suitcase?” Horace said.

Susie sat up and tried to look at him. She held the spread across her chest, and her damp hair fell over her shoulder and back. “What?” she said.

“A suitcase,” Horace said.

“What you doing?”

“I'm going to pack your things. You've got to tell me what you want to wear.”

She had fallen back. “Sick, Horsie. Can't you see ‘m sick.”

He leaned over her and grabbed her face. “Listen!” he said, shaking her face back and forth. Her lips slid over her teeth; he had made that grimace with his hands, and he was afraid he hurt her. She opened her eyes.

“Can I make you happy, Horsie? I think I'm going to sleep, so hurry up.”

“No!” he shouted. “Wake up! You're acting crazy!”

She tried to wake up, he could see. She shook her head. “I don't get it,” she said in a rational voice. “What is it, Horace? If you want to, go ahead. Go ahead if you want to.” She began to pull the spread from her body, and he pulled it back and held it to her shoulders.

“I want you to go away with me,” he said clearly. “Do you understand? I've saved up a lot of money, and I want to take you away from Leah. We can go right now. I've got it all planned.”

“Give me a cigarette.”

“Don't you understand, Susie?”

“I'm not thinking too good, Horace.”

He held the match to her cigarette and she took a long drag. The blue cone of smoke sighed from her throat, and her eyes flickered.

“Susie, please listen to me!”

“Get me a beer. Maybe that'll wake me up.”

“You don't want a beer!”

“I want to make you happy, Horace. It makes me happy to make you happy.”

“Will you go with me?”

“Oh yes, yes. Anything you say, Horace.” She dropped the cigarette and he picked it up and put it in the ashtray.

“Do you understand what I want? Susie! Do you really understand?”

“Yes, Horace.”

If only he could pick her up right now and take her out of this house. But he couldn't think of a place. If only he had learned to drive when David tried to teach him, instead of freezing up tight. He groaned. If he could get her dressed he could call Grimes' taxi. But he couldn't lug her out like a sack of meal. Grimes would take one look and tell him to put her to bed, enjoying it all immensely too.

“Listen, Susie!”

“Cigarette.”

He handed her the cigarette.

“Listen, Susie. I'm taking you away. We're going to start all over again, like when you were a little girl. Remember? You and me.” His words seemed all at once hopeless, a weird echo of something hopeless he had heard before.

“Okay.”

She didn't understand at all.

“You're so sweet, Horsie. Oh my, I feel so clean and so sleepy.”

Suddenly he was discouraged. He couldn't fight her lethargy, her absent mind. Even if he managed to take her away now, it wouldn't be Susie, it would only be that bright flesh and hair he had washed and dried. He would have to leave and continue his own preparations. He hadn't even thought to pack a suitcase for himself, and he didn't want to spend their money on clothes. Evidently she didn't have a suitcase. Her drawers were full of silky female things, and strange boxes and ointments she'd probably need. These petty considerations had him caught, like a haunting blow from the past when elbows and angles always reached for him and stung him. For a second his vision turned red and he considered tearing the doorframe out of the wall. This grimy, sill-rotten building, bought with a cheat and a lie, with its stinking drains and sweating pipes.

He shouldn't leave her here even for a moment.

Susie moaned and rolled toward him. “Gimme cigarette.”

He pushed her back. “Go to sleep.”

“Mmm.”

He put his hand on her breast; beneath the rubbery flesh was the even beat of her heart. She half woke. “Did you come, Horace? Did you like it? Did you do like to give me a baby?” With a sigh, she slept.

He melted, and wrung his face with his hands. He couldn't leave her unprotected. He considered the possibility of the eight o'clock bus to Wentworth Junction; could he get her organized by morning? He would have to leave her here for a while with no defenses, not even her wits, with that broken fool her father. Gordon Ward might come, or Keith Joubert, Donald Ramsey, Bruce Cotter, Junior Stevens, even David. No, he would keep his plan for a while longer, reorganize it and perfect it. He would consider things like suitcases this time, and train reservations. He would know their destination. It would be Springfield, Lawrence or Providence, not just some vague city to the south. He would present the plan to her not in breathless desperation but with calm strength.