Then, from the towering, near-empty dorms round us, I hear the harpsichord cut off. The last chord hangs above me so long that I half expect it to crash on both of us. I help myself and Lydia up, and hold her flush against me; there's so little thickness to her that I can feel her heartbeat at her spine. She lifts her young, wet face to me: such a fine-boned face. If I had a face that angular, I'd be afraid to roll over in my sleep, fearing I'd break off a piece. Yet she lifts her vulnerable face to me.
My mustache doesn't bear such close scrutiny, so I kiss her quickly. She can't keep her lips still, so I back off, keeping her hand. When I start to walk her along, I pull her closer beside me. Down the boardwalk to the river, I feel her slight, sharp hip jab me; she tries to fit her angles and her springy step to my bearlike swaying. Over the river and into town; after wordless practice, we finally walk well together.
I see our reflection in the storefront windows. We are superimposed over a mannequin with flowered panties and a matching bra, a purse on her arm. Then our image changes. See the next frame; we are superimposed, over the face of a sullen beer drinker, over the pale neon of a flashing pinball machine, over the heavy back of the pinball player, who appears to be furiously mounting the machine. Next frame: we are superimposed over nothing at all - over a dark vacant storefront window, with only a sign in the bottom corner of our image. The sign says: to let. I've read it twice before I realize I've stopped walking and am aiming our faces at this storefront glass. Her face and mine, close together. She looks surprised at herself, but happy.
But see me! My hair is wild, my eyes are mad, my mouth is uncontrollably grinning; my face is a grimace, as tight-skinned and as blotchy as a clenched fist. Behind our faces a small crowd slows and gathers, pausing just long enough to squint into this storefront, to see what's caught our eyes; they hurry on as soon as they see our unmatched faces - practically bolting away, as if my askew features scare them.
'I can see you anytime,' says Lydia Kindle, speaking down to the sidewalk, 'Just you tell me when.'
'I'll call you.'
'Or you can give me a note,' she says, '... in the language lab.'
'Sure, a note,' I say, thinking: Jesus! Notes in the language lab?
'Or anything.'
'Sure, anything,' I say, and she fidgets a moment, waiting for me to take her hand again.
But I don't. I manage a smile - a dissected face in the storefront, with a grin as convincing as a skeleton's. Then I watch her swish off the curb, dally to the crosswalk, turning to give me a wave; I watch the window glass and see me raise my arm stiffly, from the elbow, as if the wires which help me to bend are somehow overwound or crossed.
Then I dally along behind her, pretending aloofness to the proud flick of her rump. But I notice people staring at my knees, and when I stoop to wipe off the tatters, the blood and gravel, I lose sight of Lydia.
Oh, sympathy and comfort. It's a queer thing that when you're given a little, you only want a lot.
Because I went home to Biggie and caught her stooped in the hall outside the bathroom door, flopping braless in one of my T-shirts, crammed into a pair of my Levis, so tight on her that she couldn't do up the fly. Colm played in the hallway between us, intent on smashing together two trucks. And Biggie, rolling a pail of ammonia cleanser out the bathroom door, caught me looking at her as if her strength at that moment had overcome me and left me gaping at her as if she were some animal, ugly and scary and able to eat me whole.
'What are you gawking at?' she asked.
'Nothing, Big,' I said. But I was aware of the vision of myself in the storefront window and couldn't meet her eyes.
'Well, I'm sorry if I don't look pretty enough for you,' she said, and I winced. She advanced on me, down the hall, prodding the ammonia pail along with her foot, having to bend her body to do this and sending one of her boobs askew - one swung out at her side while the other rode high and straight at me. As if I wasn't already intimidated enough.
She said, 'Bogus? What's wrong with you, anyway? Did they call off the game?' She lifted my face up with her broad hand.
Then I saw her mouth go slack, and at first I thought it was the sight of my storefront face that shocked her. Not recognizing, at first, that it was an angry look she gave me, and not tasting - until just that moment, with my tongue licking over my dry lips - Lydia Kindle's pale-orange lipstick at the corners of my mouth and on the bristles of my mustache: tangerine love.
'You bastard!' said Biggie, and brought up from the pail a soggy cleaning rag, first swatting my face with it, then wiping it smartly across my mouth. Perhaps it was the ammonia that started my eyes watering, with those fumes so strong under my nose.
I blubbered, 'I lost my job, Big.' She gaped at me and I repeated, 'I lost my job, Big. I lost that fucking job ...' And I felt myself dropping down to my raw knees, brought to them, I felt, too many times in just one day.
Biggie started to brush by me, but I caught her around the hips and hugged her, repeating over and over, 'I lost the job, the job!' But she snapped her knees up and caught my chin; I bit my tongue and felt the sweet blood trickle down my throat. I grabbed her again, looking for her face and found her suddenly close to me, down on her knees too, and saying in her quiet, calm way, her other way, 'Bogus? What was the job to you, Bogus? I mean, it was a bad job, wasn't it? And it was never bringing in enough so that we'll notice it's gone ... Right, Bogus?'
But that ammonia is strong stuff. I was beyond the hope to talk; I could only grab the waist of Biggie's T-shirt to dab my gory mouth. Biggie pressed me against her; she's so solid I hardly made a dent, but I found my usual spot, hugged between bosom and thigh. I let Biggie croon to me there in her low, flat-sung voice, 'It's all right, Bogus. Now really, it's OK. It's all right ...'
Perhaps I would have contested the point with her if I hadn't seen Colm, all through with bashing trucks and coming our way - quite curious to know what sort of helpless creature his mother was mothering now. I hid my face against Biggie and felt Colm lightly poking my back and ears and feet to try to find exactly where I must have hurt myself. For the life of me, I can't say for sure where it was.
'I've got a present for you ...' Biggie's rich voice drifts down the hall, comes back, sinks in. She hands it over. A job-losing present for the oddly unfaithful! Colm paws at the label while I translate the Hungarian. From Milo Kubik's Peoples Market one precious eight-ounce tin of my favorite Ragout of Wild Boar in Medoc Sauce. Milo Kubik, the refugee gourmet. He esca
ped from Budapest with memories, and actual tins of this and other ragouts. Thank God he made it, I say. I know that if I had been in Budapest - a bottle of boar-marinade in my pocket, a snifter of paprika in my crotch - I would have been caught.
12
Do You Want to Have a Baby?
TULPEN WENT HOME early, but Bogus and Ralph Packer stayed late at the Christopher Street studio, playing with the sound track of Down on the Farm.
The hippie commune called the Free Farm had taken over about four acres of undeveloped land belonging to a local liberal arts college. They planted a garden and invited real farmers in the area to come share their harvest and plant gardens of their own. The college had several hundred acres of undeveloped land. The college authorities asked the Free Farmers to leave, but the Free Farmers said they were simply using unused land. Unused land was a crime against humanity; all over Vermont there are farmers without enough land. The Free Farmers would stay on college land until the pigs threw them off.