Sacred Monster

Flashback 17B

The Malibu kitchen was clean again, once more carefully tended and polished. The television set was gone from the small white table, the fingerprints were gone from the refrigerator, the hanging copper pots gleamed as before, and everything was in its place with a bright shining face.

At the butcher-block island, Jack stood, neatly and absorbedly preparing a peanut butter sandwich on pumpernickel bread. From some other room in the house came a sound rather like a clap or a slap; Jack looked up, attentive, listening, but the sound was not repeated. He returned to his peanut butter and his pumpernickel.

Buddy entered the kitchen, rubbing the side of his face, but when he saw Jack his hand dropped immediately to his side and he forced a kind of careless but lopsided grin, saying, “Hey, how’s it goin’, Dad?”

Jack smiled at him. “I say Nietzsche was right: Happiness is a woman.”

Lorraine came into the kitchen, looking grim and flexing the fingers of her right hand. When she saw Jack and Buddy, she dropped her hand to her side, ignored Buddy, and spoke lightly to Jack, saying, “Oh, hello, darling.”

“Hello, darling,” Jack said.

Buddy was awkward in the presence of these two together. Trying to hide the fact, he scuffed his feet and behaved in an elaborately casual manner. “Well, I’m off,” he said, too brightly. “I’ve been invited to watch the Rams scrimmage. Wanna come along, Dad?”

“Another time, Buddy,” Jack said. His eyes and attention were on Lorraine.

“Sure,” Buddy said, and did too large a farewell wave, saying, “See you guys.”

“So long, Buddy,” Jack said, smiling at Lorraine.

Buddy left, his lips twitching, and Lorraine crossed to the butcher-block island, saying with some amusement, “A peanut butter sandwich, darling?”

With an easy laugh, Jack said, “We can’t be intellectual all the time, darling.”

With an easy laugh, Lorraine said, “I only meant, darling, you didn’t offer one to me.”

“Would you like one?” Jack asked her. “Be delighted to make it for you.”

“Thank you, darling,” Lorraine said, and leaned on the butcher block to watch.

Jack started another sandwich, absorbed and happy in his work. Lorraine watched for a moment, and then said, “Darling?”

Still concentrating on the job at hand, Jack said, “Yes, darling?”

“There’s something I don’t understand, darling.”

“What’s that, darling?”

Lorraine hesitated, then went ahead: “Buddy, darling.”

With a quizzical laugh, Jack glanced at her, then back at his sandwich-making. “Buddy, darling.” he echoed. “What’s not to understand about Buddy?”

“His place in your life, darling.” Lorraine said, her manner firm.

“Darling,” Jack said, “he’s my oldest friend in all the world.”

“Yes, I know,” Lorraine said dryly, “you ate sand together.”

Cheered by the memory, Jack said, “Oh, did I tell you about that, darling?”

“Yes, you did, darling.” Lorraine took a deep breath, then plunged ahead, saying, “But your relationship with Buddy must have changed since then. You aren’t in that sandbox anymore.”

“Well, of course not,” Jack said, chuckling as though she were making jokes.

“And to a recent arrival on the scene, darling,” Lorraine persisted, “it does look awfully as though Buddy is a mere sponge.”

“Oh, darling!” Jack said, reproachful.

“A sponge,” Lorraine repeated, inexorable. “A wastrel. A parasite. He lives on you, darling, borrows money he never repays, treats your possessions... as though he owns them.”

“Is it wrong, darling,” Jack asked, pleading prettily for understanding, “to be generous to an old friend?”

“It goes beyond generosity,” Lorraine insisted. “It’s almost as though Buddy had some hold over you, some—”

Quick, urgent, Jack said, “Why do you say that?” And added, as an afterthought, “Darling?”

Casual, not noticing the force of his reaction, she said, “Oh, I don’t mean anything as melodramatic as blackmail, darling, as though you’d committed a murder or something—” She broke off and looked with some surprise at the sandwich Jack had been making. “Why, darling,” she said. “You’ve stuck the knife right through the bread.”

Jack held up the knife, the pumpernickel slice impaled on it. His voice hoarse, he said, “I’ll start another sandwich... darling.”

“But all unknown to all of us, a cloud was hanging over our heads, completely unsuspected. A cloud named Rubelle Kallikak.”