But in the Pension Taschy, Bogus was distracted when he thought of East Gunnery. Reading over what he'd written, he decided he didn't like it. The tone seemed wrong to him, so he tried again, beginning after the line, '... when your belly button turned inside out.'
We hid Couth and his Volkswagen in the lower field and walked up the long driveway to your father's farm. Here comes the child bride with a bundle in her belly! And I suspect I accused you of cowardice for not writing some word of this to your parents.
'I wrote them about you, Bogus,' you told me. 'Which is more than you ever warned your parents.'
'Only not about your condition, Big,' I remarked. 'You said nothing about that.'
'No, not about that,' you said, tugging your tight raincoat away from yourself, trying to create the illusion that your coat was swollen only because you had your hands in your pockets.
I looked back at Couth, who waved a little fearfully, looming out of his sunroof like some hairy, human periscope.
'Couth can come up to the house too,' you said. 'He doesn't have to hide in the field.' But I told you that Couth was shy and felt better hiding in the field. I didn't mention that I thought we might appear more forgivable if we walked in alone, or that it would be nice to know that Couth and his car were safe in the pasture, in case I had to leave.
The most anxious time, I think, was when, passing by your father's jeep, you said, 'Oh, my father's home too. God, Father, Mother, everybody!'
Then I reminded you that it was Sunday.
'Then Aunt Blackstone is here too,' you said. 'Aunt Blackstone is quite deaf.'
They were eating dinner, and you kept your hands in your raincoat pockets, twirling your coke-bottle shape around the dining-room table, saying, 'This is Bogus. You know, I told you! I wrote you!' Until your mother began to glide her eyes down your front. Biggie, and your deaf Aunt Blackstone said, 'Hasn't Sue put on the old weight, though?' to your mother. Who stared rather stonily. And you said, 'I'm pregnant.' Adding, 'But it's all right!'
'Yes! It's all right!' I cried out witlessly, watching your father's unmoving fork, dripping pot roast and an onion, poised an inch from his open mouth.
'It's all right,' you said again, smiling at everyone.
'Of course it is,' said Aunt Blackstone, who hadn't really heard.
'Yes, yes,' I mumbled, nodding.
And your deaf Aunt Blackstone, nodding back to me, said, 'Certainly yes! All that fat German food in her, putting the old weight on. Besides, the child hasn't skied all summer!' And looking at your dumbstruck mother, Aunt Blackstone said in her shrill, clear voice, 'Gracious, Hilda, is that any way to greet your daughter? I can remember you always put the old weight on and off, any time you pleased ...'
While at the Taschy, two bidets flushed simultaneously, and Bogus Trumper lost the memory part of his mind. And perhaps other, closely related parts of his mind, as well.
25
Getting Ready for Ralph
IN THE FISHY dark, the turtle murk of Tulpen's apartment, Trumper sat up in bed hopping mad and as rigid as a cigar-store Indian. Lately he'd developed a habit of furious fuming. He would concentrate fiercely on not moving at all, on simulating a brooding statue. It was a sort of isometric which eventually exhausted him. He was having trouble sleeping again.
'Oh, come on, Trumper,' Tulpen whispered to him. She touched his wooden thigh.
Trumper concentrated on the fish. There was a new one who especially irked him, a beige sort of blowfish whose gross practice was to smear its translucent lips against the aquarium wall and belch little trapped bubbles against the glass. Unable to escape, the gas would bounce back into the fish, which would then swell up. As it grew larger, its eyes got smaller, until suddenly the air pressure inside it would propel it away from the glass, rather like a balloon someone has blown up and then released. In reverse, the beige blowfish would careen about the tank like a rotary motor broken loose. The other fish were terrified of it. Trumper wanted to prick it wit
h a pin at the pinnacle of its swollen state. The fish always seemed to be facing Trumper when it began to bloat itself. It was a stupid way of antagonizing the enemy; the fish should have known better.
Actually, Trumper disliked all the fish, and his present irritation was enough to set him to imagining how he would dispose of them. Go out and buy a terrifying fish-eating fish, an omnivore which would scour the tank of every other swimming, crawling, gliding thing - and then eat all the shells, rocks, algae, and even the air hose. Then it would gnaw its way through the glass, let the water out and die for lack of oxygen. Even better: flopping about on the dry aquarium floor, it would have the good sense to eat itself. What an admirable omnivore! Immediately he wanted one.
The phone rang again. Trumper didn't move, and the sidewise glance darted in Tulpen's direction convinced her that she'd better not answer it, either. A few minutes before, he had answered the phone, and that call had been partially responsible for his destructive impulses toward helpless fish and for his cigar-store-Indian imitation.
It had been Ralph Packer who had called. Though Bogus and Tulpen had just gone to bed, Ralph wanted to come over right away with Kent and several thousand dollars' worth of movie equipment. He wanted some footage of Tulpen and Bogus going to bed.
'Jesus, Ralph,' Trumper said.
'No, no!' Ralph said. 'Just going to bed, Thump-Thump. You know, domestic stuff - bathroom routine, teeth brushing, taking off clothes, little familiar affections, shit like that ...'
'Good night, Ralph.'
'Thump-Thump, it won't take half an hour!'