The Woman Aroused

Chapter 2

NOTHING MUCH happened in the few months that followed... before Hank died, or was murdered.

I still had his seven grand in the bank and walked around like the cat who is on a diet of canaries. A few weeks after he'd given me the money, when I didn't hear from him, I called him via his sister's. Hank said he had a selling job with some sort of chemical company, that he had paid five hundred bucks under the well-known table for a top-floor apartment at 29th Street and 2nd Avenue. “Hated like the devil to hand out black-market dough, but I had to get out of Marion's house, and even a hotel room isn't good for us. One thing, walking up those damn five flights of stairs should keep me slim.”

Hank seemed in a good mood. But a month later when I called him at his office he snapped, “George, for Christsake leave me alone. Sorry, didn't mean to go up in the air like that, but... eh... I've got a lot on my mind. I don't want you hooked up to me, can't have anything happen to that money... might need it for a getaway and...”

“Getaway? I repeated. “Not really, Hank.”

“No but... look, Georgie, if you want to help me, leave me alone... until I can explain this mess. Okay?”

That was that. I went on in my usual (and oh so comfortable) rut, playing the horses, bulling at the office... taking care of all my personal wants and whims. I saw Paul Draper dance twice, went up to the Apollo on 125th Street to watch some excellent—if mechanical—tap dancers, and attended the dance recitals at the Needle Trades School and the 92nd Street Y—and of course danced whenever I felt in the mood. Flo and I went through two reunions. The first lasted a long time—almost a week—and ended when we began arguing over how hamburgers should be cooked, which led to some snide remarks on my part concerning her housekeeping, and we took off from there. I think I was the “victor.”

The second reunion was in July, when I had my two week vacation. Flo managed to get hers then too, and with much tender weeping we arranged for a cottage out at Southampton. The cottage turned out to be one of those plain, wooden affairs, furnished very simply. The first day we were there Flo said she didn't think much of it and wished we had one of the big summer places we passed on the way out. I mentioned I had a distant cousin in Easthampton, a boring and rather rich old man who manufactured some sort of insect powder. He had a big house.

Flo insisted we ought to go right over and visit him and maybe stay there for a week or so. She accused me of being a snob and ashamed of her when I refused—I hadn't seen that branch of the family for nearly 15 years, and hadn't cared for them the few times I did see them. And as it happened, at the moment I was very proud of Flo—she really looked fine in a cool, long, summer dress, and a large straw hat.

When I protested that I wasn't a snob, that I wanted to be alone with her in our little cottage, she walked out with this parting shot, “That's the coldest crap in town.”

This was so sudden, so absolutely vulgar, I was speechless, utterly defeated. From the way Flo enjoyed saying it, I knew this was some clever line she had heard at a party, had been carefully saving and nourishing it for just such an occasion. The end result was I had spent $150 to be alone in a cottage (Sky Oil, perhaps in an effort to impress upon their employees the advantages of saving, always gave us our vacation money after we returned from our vacation. Of course advancing myself a few hundred wasn't any trouble to me—with Hank's seven thousand in my account.)

I went over in my mind the few friends I had. Joe would be much too loud and tiresome for two weeks, even if he could get the time off. Mr. Henderson wouldn't be bad, but if he should dunk a hamburger covered with ketchup and mustard in his coffee, as I saw him do one evening after a poker game, I'd be unnerved. Beside, I didn't like to leave the house on 74th Street alone, and he was taking care of Slob.

I waited a day to see if Flo would return, then wired Joe to come down for the week-end, and Flo's brother, Eddie, to come after the balance of the two weeks.

Joe had recovered from the shock of his son, Walter, returning from Germany in May. For some unknown reason, at the last moment Joe decided I must be on hand to welcome the returning prodigal. I had a ticket that night for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo's Rouge et Noir, which is one of these traditional ballet things, but Alicia Markova was dancing, and of course she was worth seeing. But Joe was jumpy as a cat and I had to be with him.

The kid was due in at eight and Joe and I had dinner together and a few drinks. Joe talked incessantly. “Crazy feeling, seeing Walt after all these years. Only three, but I mean... you know me, I say everything is in transit, flexible, so I didn't expect the boy to be the same, but...”

“Stop it. He'll be bigger, stronger, and after a while you'll find he's a k>t tougher—grown up,” I said.

“Hell, I'm not worrying,” Joe said. “But it's the small things. Like, how do I welcome him? He didn't say if he was coming by train or plane, so I'll meet him at the house, but this is a big deal for both of us, I want to make it a celebration. Do I take him out, or do we sit around the house and gab? If he was coming in earlier, like now, I'd take him out for a big feed, start from there. But eight o'clock... I don't even know if I should have a bottle around the house. You know Walt—always shy and reserved, and what the hell, he's still a kid and, well...”

“Take it easy. Bring in some beer and...”

“Beer? Great.” Joe boomed as if I'd really thought of something. “Sure, he certainly drinks beer. Beer and snacks, and we sit and shoot the breeze about Berlin, give the kid a chance to shoot his mouth off—they like that. Then you can leave—I'll be over the hurdle and don't ask me what hurdle. Think I ought to get the kid a job for the summer, or let him take it easy till school starts in September?”

“Why don't you ask him? And stop worrying.”

Joe grinned. “Want to know the truth—when Walt was little I used to hate his guts sometimes. I didn't blame him for Mady dying, but... he was a drag on me, especially not having a woman to look after him. But now, well by God, I'm the proudest father out. I haven't done bad with the company—think where I'd be if I'd of had a college education? Under the G.I. Bill, Walt can go to Harvard, Yale, any of them tony schools. Can you see the picture in a brace of years when I bring the kid down to the big boss. Walt will have one of them crew hair-cuts and be dressed casually—but expensive duds—and I tell the big boss, 'Sir, there's my son, Walter. Just graduated Amherst...' Hot damn!” Joe smacked his big hands together like a kid.

We bought several quarts of beer, pretzels and cold cuts. Joe wanted to buy cigars but said, “Kid probably doesn't smoke yet. He might smoke a rope to make me feel good and get himself sick.”

At Joe's apartment we spent a few minutes dusting the place. While I put the cold cuts and pretzels out, washed some glasses, Joe changed his tie and shirt, shaved. We sat around, listening to the radio and talking; Joe retelling stories about what a good kid Walt was... the time the teacher told Joe the kid must have a wonderful mother because the boy was so well mannered, and when Joe said he was a widower, she shook Joe's hand, said God bless him... and hot air like that.

At eight-thirty I was tired of Joe gassing about how lonely the apartment had been without the kid, not really a home... and when I thought of all the tramps Joe had had in the place...

By nine Joe was a nervous wreck, wondering why the kid didn't come, and rambling on and on, to keep himself from going to pieces. He was in the middle of a speech about train wrecks, maybe Walt was hurt on his way home... that's the way it always happens... when the bell rang.

We both jumped and ran for the door. Walt was standing there, his uniform neat and pressed, a high polish on his shoes. He was dragging a barracks bag that seemed almost as tall as the kid. He hadn't put on much weight or gained any height, but you only had to look at his sharp little face, the shrewd eyes, the cigarette carelessly pasted on his lip—to see he was a man, a tough little squirt. He and Joe hugged each other awkwardly, and as Joe shut the door, Walt straightened his shirt. Joe said, “Son, you remember Uncle George?”

“Sure. Howya, Jackson,” the kid said, brushing the corporal stripes on his sleeves as he shook hands with me. There was a strong odor of whiskey on his breath.

We sat down, Joe and I on one side of the room, the kid on the couch beneath the picture of his mother. He looked around, said, “Place looks the same.”

“You bet, haven't changed a thing. Wanted home to look exactly the way you remembered it,” Joe said. “Guess home looms pretty large to a soldier.”

“Yes and no,” Walt said. I was fascinated by the cigarette actually pasted to his lips, it went up and down when he spoke like a tail wagging. “Germany isn't rugged, at least not in Berlin.”

There was a moment of silence, then Joe suddenly bounced to his feet. “My God, I forgot the beer! You drink beer, Walt?”

“Yeah, I'll take an amber. Had a couple with some of the guys at the station, why I'm a little late.”

“Couple of what?” Joe asked, although he must have had a whiff of the kid's breath too.

“Whiskey. Bastards charge you fifty cents a shot here. Over in Berlin we get a goddamn glassful for a dime.”

Joe was staring at him bug-eyed, and I said brightly, “I'll get the beer.” I brought in three bottles and glasses. Joe poured and Walt held up his glass, said, “Here's to you, Pop. You, too, Jackson.”

We drank and Joe said, “Guess you must of had plenty of good German beer over there.”

Walt screwed up his thin face. “Kraut beer is a lot of crap. About the same as this, and the krauts are such hustlers, they'd water their own pee if they could grab a buck out of it. Hey Pop, still smoke a pipe?”

Joe nodded.

Walt reached over lazily, pulled the barracks bag to him. He dug out a box, threw it to Joe. “Jesus!” Joe said, opening it, his voice high with excitement. “George, look at this, a set of two meerschaum pipes! Genuine, meerschaum.”

I examined the white bowls and yellow stems, all set in a gaudy red plush box, carefully handed them back to Joe. “They'll color up nicely,” I said to make conversation.

“Walt, you didn't have to bring me nothing as expensive as this,” Joe said, so pleased I thought he'd burst with pride.

“Got lot more stuff,” Walt said, digging into the barracks bag again. He came up with a tan-leather camera case, handed it to Joe. “How's this? I got a couple of 'em.”

“Some camera,” Joe said, opening the case.

The kid laughed softly, said to me, “Get him—the square. Some camera. Pop that's a Leica, the camera. You can hock it for a hundred bucks any place in the world, sell it for two hundred. Five years ago you could have got a grand. Sure, I'm loaded with junk—including perfume you can give your girls.”

“What girls?” Joe asked a little too quickly.

“Aw come on, you ain't that old,” Walt said grinning. He pointed to the cigarette hanging from his thin lips. “In Germany this still means a girl, if you ain't too particular. Couple candy bars or a pack of butts means all night. For a carton of butts you can get a blonde midchen that's good as anything in the movies. Those kraut babes are built for it. Got you some perfume too, Jackson.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Joe hesitated, then said, “Well, guess you're a man now, know all about girls.”

“I had a clap two weeks after I hit Berlin.”

“Walt! You never wrote you were sick...?”

“Who was sick? Nothing to it now. Give you a couple of shots of penicillin and you leave the hospital the same day, ready to do more bedwork. Plenty of VD over there, but once you get a steady piece, you don't have to worry.” The kid sucked on his cigarette and it was out. He took out a lighter, lit the butt, blew out a heavy cloud of smoke through his nose. “Got a couple of Swiss lighters, too. Nothing little Walter skipped.”

I wanted to leave, I didn't like the look on Joe's big face: as if something was hurting him and he didn't understand what it could possibly be. He needed a skinful, but quick.

We didn't talk for a while and the kid lit another cigarette. The way his-cigarette hung from his lip if he had smoked king size he would have burned his tie. Walt asked if we were still the big wheels at Sky Oil, and a lot more small talk. Joe just sat there, staring at the kid and, for the first time since I had known him, speechless.

Walt stood up, stretched, walked over and turned on the radio. He went from station to station, listening to each for a split second, then shut the radio off. Taking a handful of pretzels he went back to the couch. “Radio's a piece of junk. Going to buy us a television set, one of these slick combination jobs—radio, phono, and television. Got a lot of buying to do. Need suits, shirts, shoes—the works.”

Joe smiled weakly, “Sure, have to buy you a suit. I... eh... was wondering about this summer. I mean, I can get you a job at the office before you start college in September. Of course if you want to rest this summer, that's okay with me. Say, hope you've been giving school a lot of thought, like I wrote you. Any idea what college you want to attend?”

“I have been giving it a lot of thinking,” Walt said slowly. “Fact is, I may not want to go to school. Thinking of opening me a package liquor store.”

“What?” Joe jumped as if about to strike the kid.

“Sure, as a vet I get a preference and it's a good business—stock can't spoil or get old. And if the depression comes, people only hit the bottle more, so...”

“By God, you'll go to college! What the hell you think I sent you into the army for?” Joe shouted.

“Relax Joe, he's just come home. You can talk this over later when...” I said.

Walt gave me a cool grin. “That's okay, Jackson, might as well get this straightened.” He turned to Joe. “Now look Pop, I ain't the little snot-nose kid that went out of here three years ago. I'm an operator, a slick one, a real smart little bastard, if I say so myself. I've learned to hustle—big-time hustling. College is okay, but I haven't time for that now. Maybe later I'll take something in business administration—polish up my hustling.”

“Later? What the hell you think...” Joe said.

“Know what I got in my pocket, six thousand bucks, all good American green stuff! And in the sole of my army shoes at the bottom of the barracks bag, I have another five grand in money orders—all made out to me.”

Looking stupid with astonishment Joe mumbled, “Six and five...”

“Eleven grand,” Walt said proudly. “Also got some jewelry—rings and stuff, but the stones may be phony.”

“Walt, how did you get that dough?” Joe asked, his voice taking on an almost stern, comical 'father's' tone.

“By using my head,” Walt said, his voice cocky. “The country yokels went crazy getting a girl for a couple of cigarettes. Right from the start I got smart—I let those dopes buck for the stripes, get stupid-happy over selling a jit candy bar for a buck. I sucked around, got in with the medicos, formed a partnership with the supply sergeant. We sold big stuff—medicine, cases of food and clothing. Even had a cracker with us that made a still and we refilled old whiskey bottles. Know what a bottle of whiskey, real whiskey, will bring in a German night club?”

Joe didn't (or couldn't) speak, and I said I had no idea.

“At least a hundred bucks. We sold them our bootleg stuff—and it wasn't bad whiskey either—for fifty. Hell, what I got is peanuts.. If I'd been a field officer, or if my partners hadn't been so damn yellow, we'd have cleaned up a hundred thousand, at least.”

The room was heavy with silence, broken only by Walt crunching pretzels. He stood up, stretched. “I'm kind of tired. Played crap all the way across, so I haven't had too much shut eye. Came out with a little over four hundred. Those jokers didn't have no real dough on them, and here they're coming back to the States. Well, tomorrow I'll look around, get orientated, as they say in the soldier's manual.”

He dragged his barracks bag into the bedroom. Joe still sat there, looking miserable and sick. I thought how odd it was that it took the army to bring out the Joe in Walt. Joe was always talking about a “sideline to make easy dough. Get us a mail-order racket, where you sit on your can and watch the dough roll in.” Before, Walt had been so reserved and quiet you wouldn't have thought he was Joe's son....

Walt came out of the bedroom, shirt off, khaki undershirt showing off his wiry shoulders and arms. He had another cigarette hanging on his lower lip. He stopped at the entrance to the bathroom, said, “Joe, we got to get a bigger apartment. Look around for that tomorrow, too.”

“Nothing wrong with this,” Joe said, looking up at the picture of his wife.

“It could be fixed up, but it's too small. I need a room for myself. You know, whenever I shack up. I want....”

“You want... Listen, this is my house and it's what the hell I want that goes! You'll do what I tell you to, understand!” Joe shouted, his fat face flushed.

Walt stood there, the smile on his thin face mocking and cool. “Don't go off the handle, Pop. Maybe I'll get my own apartment—with a room for you. We'll see, I got a lot of plans to work out.” He made a motion toward me as if he was firing a pistol, walked into the bathroom and shut the door gently.

Joe stood up, looked around wildly, then picked up the box of pipes, was about to hurl them at the wall. I grabbed him. “Easy. He's young, been through something you and I will never know about. Give him time.” .

Joe nodded, tears in his eye. “Yeah. I'm okay, Georgie. It's... he was such a good kid and I looked forward to having him back. Now... now I feel like a damn stranger in my own house.”

I was glad to walk out of Joe's house that night, thankful I was free of his problems and those of all fathers. I suppose one reason Flo and I never stayed together was my desire to lead the simple life—duck other people's neuroses. I had enough to do worrying about my own complexes—or lack of them.

Joe soon snapped out of it. Later, when he was down at the cottage for a week-end, he was back to normal, full of admiration for Walt—the same admiration he'd have for anybody with eleven thousand.

When Joe left, Eddie—Flo's kid brother—came down. He was a handsome kid, tall and with a big skinny frame, and the only member of her family I liked.

We were on the beach early Monday morning and Eddie's serious, quiet, talk was a relief from two days of Joe's gabbing. We sunned ourselves, talked of going over to Sag Harbor and fishing for blows. Eddie said he'd called Mr. Henderson before he left, who said Slob was fine, coming up for his meals regularly. I wondered if the cat ate the old man's concoctions—cats are smart.

Eddie was getting red from the sun and I stared at the ugly scar that looked like twisted burnt skin on his left shoulder, and the small scar farther down his back—where the bullet had come out. The slug had done something to one lung—exactly what I never knew—but he wasn't able to do any heavy work, received a full pension from the government. He rolled over on his back, dug his toes into the sand and laughed. “This is the life, sun and the sea air and no sweaty clothes on. I feel as if no other world existed but this beach and the pretty girls in their brief suits. My headache is gone, too.”

“Something wrong?”

“My head's been throbbing... for the last few months.”

“Sounds like a cold, or one of these new X sicknesses. Been to a doctor?”

“Sure, he said it was mental, that I worry too much. George, has the world gone mad, or is it merely me? My God, I read the headlines, listen to the news over the radio, and my head becomes full of pain. And on rainy days when I can feel my wound and I hear this war talk... another war and my wound isn't properly healed yet. It doesn't make sense.”

“Far back as I can remember, there's always been some sort of war talk. Hell, we can't let Russia, or anybody else, walk over us.”

“Nuts,” Eddie said. “We ought to learn by this time that war never settles anything. But it seems nobody learns, all they do is forget. Look how the vets forget the things promised them. Mention the Four Freedoms now and it sounds like double talk. Ah, headache starting again.”

“Maybe the sun's too strong for you? Had your eyes examined recently?”

Eddie turned over so he faced me. “Funny, that's exactly what the doctor asked. He was a fellow from my old outfit. He gave me a thorough check-up. Said to forget the world and the headlines for a while.”

“That's good advice?”

“Good? It's impossible! We never worry about cars but we keep our eyes open when we cross the street. How can we shut our eyes when it seems the world is going out of its way to get knocked down by a tank.” He dug up a little mound of sand with his fingers, made a tunnel through it with a finger and the mound collapsed. “George, how do you plan, think of anything decent, when such blundering headlines leave you in a cold sweat?”

“You take it too seriously,” I told him. “Doc find anything wrong with you?”

“Said I was suffering from some sort of nervous tension, something like combat fatigue. Odd thing was, he didn't realize he's a victim too, for he said it with a straight face, as though one could and did live in a vacuum. That's what this war of nerves, this strain in the air, has done to him—a fellow who was calm and crafty on the battlefront, now he walks around with his eyes shut. I really blew my top when he told me, Eddie, what are you worrying about? Suppose war does come—you're exempt with your wound.' Jesus, I felt as though my head was coming apart. A fellow I once respected talking like that. George, we've all gone off the beam.”

“Well he was right,” I said, feeling in the mood for an argument. “I don't pay much attention to the saber rattling because I'm over age. Now if I was younger—I'd worry plenty.”

He sat up. “You really mean that. This selfishness, this sickness, has infected you too.”

“Let me tell you the facts of life—we translate the law of self-preservation into... be selfish, take care of old number one. It's the way of our world, and don't shut your eyes to that.”

“Sure, if the world ran smoothly, if everybody had enough food, security, I'd say leave me alone, I'd say being selfish works. But we live in the midst of needless misery and want, and that's wrong... unnecessary!”

I smiled. “Be careful, you're talking like a Communist. The sand is probably crawling with the FBI.'

“Another symptom of our sickness—name calling. I don't give a damn if I'm called Red, Blue, or Black—I've seen suffering, horrible stupid suffering, and I can't live with it. Couldn't live with myself if I did. Maybe you can. You've never seen it and you're... you're...”

“I'm smug and comfortable,” I added. “Another fact: your Commie friends say a man's thinking is determined by his pocketbook. Very true. I'm comfortable, my status quo is fine. And the corollary: Communism doesn't scare me, under it I'd probably live much the same as I do now. I have no capital to lose. For all I know, Communism may be the next logical step in our industrial development. Back in the feudal days, the industrialists were looked upon as the dangerous wide-eyed radicals. As Joe says, everything is transit. But I'm not going to get myself in an uproar over Communism, or capitalism. Why do you?”

“Why do I what?”

I shrugged. “Stop it, Eddie. Why are you set to change the world single-handed? Your pension is about thirty bucks a week, you need only another year to finish your accounting, and you can take it under the GI Bill for free. You and Flo are the only kids. When your folks die, you'll come into a few thousand, and from Flo you'll inherit the house, and whatever she has socked away—which must be plenty. That's the future—but in the present, once you've graduated college, you could work a few hours a day, and with your pension, live very comfortably. Sounds a little hardboiled, but then I consider myself a realist, and facts are hard.”

“You're merely salving your conscience, rationalizing.”

“Could be. Aren't you doing the same with your weeping for poor humanity?”

“George, I can't stand by. Here's a little war yarn I never told you. You remember me before the war, an eager beaver at school, had a lot of the push that drives Flo. I was like that up till April 20, 1945. We liberated Auschwitz that day. It was sickening work, but easy in a way—little chance of running into a bullet. And there were the sick and the dying, the bloated stomachs of the starving—all that you probably saw in the newsreels. Outside the camp—the Nazis were getting ready to ship them someplace I suppose, we came upon a flat car piled with bodies, all looking like horrible skeletons in their ragged stripped uniforms. Skull heads, arms and legs covered with tight skin, caved-in cheeks, staring eyes. They were lying out in the cold like a stack of neatly piled wood... all dead. And then one of these skeletons raised himself. Somehow he was still alive. He looked at me, this pale dead-man, and all he did was smile... and die. The bodies didn't mean much to me till then. Why I damn near went crazy at the thought that here was a fellow like myself, starved of everything, even the ordinary kindness we never think about... and he gave me all he had left, a smile. I see that smile sometimes in my nightmares—the pathetic smile, as if he was forgiving me for all the craziness we've made in the world. Or maybe he was greeting me as another human. You talk about selfish; all right, I'm selfish as I can be... I don't want that to ever happen to another human on the face of this world... because that human might be me!”

“They say they have camps like that in Russia,” I said, enjoying baiting him—it was an easy lazy way of passing the time.

He looked at me with sad eyes. “You're like a witch doctor with magic words. Today when something goes wrong, we say the magic word—Russia. They say, they say... this I saw! If they have torture like that in the Soviet Union, then I'll fight them. Only so far I don't believe it because they haven't any reason for concentration camps. You yourself said you have nothing to lose under socialism and you're better off then...”

“Relax, Eddie, we're only batting the breeze. Flo tells me you live in a flea-bag room, spend all your time at meetings and picketing. Why don't you go back to school, reach a stage of personal comfort, then work for the good of others? Since we agree this is a selfish world.”

“George, you talk like a man from another world. How could I sit in a classroom, think of debits and credits, the hollow things, when I feel fascism in the air, see them getting set for more flatcars of humans shorn of everything, even a smile? Why I'd...” He set up, held his head in his hands. “Damn headache has returned again.”

I sat up. “My fault, I was egging you on. Let's forget talk. We'll take a swim to cool off, then go fishing. Blowfishes are the most amazing and stupidest creatures in the world. Even beat us humans.”

We didn't go in for any more heavy talk, fished and swam for the rest of the week, had a swell time. And then on the Friday before my week was up, I received a special delivery from Flo. There were two newspaper clippings in the envelope, nothing else. One was dated the same day, that Friday, and was merely a death notice, cold, impersonal, that read:

CONROY,—HENRY, beloved brother of Marion.

Services at Universal Chapel, 10 a.m.

Service private.

The other clipping bore a Wednesday dateline. It was a half column story about Hank falling out of a window of his fifth story apartment, as he was standing on a ladder, hanging some curtains. It said Hank must have lost his balance, crashed through the partly open window to his death. His wife, Lee Conroy, was using the basement washing machine at the time of the accident...

I put the clippings down and was full of strange thoughts. First (and quickly) a wild thought that I now had seven thousand dollars... if I wanted to keep the money. Then vague puzzled thoughts: What an odd way for poor Hank to the... he was always so careful. Why wasn't he being buried from a church? Why no mention of his wife in the obituary notice? And above all, why the rush to bury him?

These were tiny thoughts, the big one was the tempting idea that nobody knew I had Hank's money. It was a hideous thought, well mixed with my sincere sorrow over Hank's death... yet there wasn't any point in denying—especially to myself—that it was very much in my mind.

It was a fact.