Part 9 (1/2)
”You stayed late at the Lakin party?” Penny asked, as Gordon settled into their Boston rocker.
”No, I just stopped off to buy some things. Wine.
The party was just another back-slapping thing.” The image of Roger Isaacs or Herb York slapping a venerated philosopher on the back, like Shriners on a binge, didn't really fit, but Gordon let it go.
”Who was it?” Penny said, showing dutiful interest.
”Who were they recruiting?”
”A Marxist critic, somebody said. He mumbled a lot and I couldn't make out much of it. Something about capitalism repressing us and not letting us unleash our true creative energies.”
”Universities are great for hiring Reds,” Cliff said, blinking owlishly.
”I think he's more of a theoretical communist,”
Gordon temporized, not really wanting to defend the point.
”Do you think you'll hire him?” Penny asked, ob-.viously steering the conversation.
”I don't have any say. That's the Humanities people.
Everybody was being very respectful, except for Feher. This gUY was saying that under capitalism, man exploits man. Feher poked a finger at him and said, yeah, and under communism, it's vice versa.
That got a good laugh. Popkin didn't like it, though.”
”Don't need Reds to teach you anything you can't learn in Laos,” Cliff said.
”What did he say about Cuba?” Penny persisted.
”The missile crisis? Nothing.”
”Hum.” Penny said triumphantly. ”What's he written, this guy, anyway?”
”There was a little stack of his publications. One-Dimensional Man one of them was, and--”
”Marcuse. That was Marcuse,” Penny said flatly.
”Who's he?” Cliff murmured, pouring himself some Brookside into another gla.s.s.
”Not a bad thinker,” Penny admitted with a shrug.
”I read that book. He ”
”Learn more about Reds in Laos,” Cliff said, heft- !
ing the gallon jug so he could pour by resting it on his shoulder. ”Filling 'em up here?” he invited, looking at their gla.s.ses.”I'll pa.s.s,” Gordon said, holding his palm over his gla.s.s mouth, as though Cliff would pour into it anyway.
'ou've been in Laos?””Sure.” Cliff drank with relish. ”I know this stuff isn't up to that of yours---” gesture with gla.s.s, a ruby red slos.h.i.+ng-- ”but it's one d.a.m.n sight better'n stuff over there, I'll tell you.””What were you doing?”He looked at Gordon blankly. ”Special Forces.”
Gordon nodded silently, a bit uneasily. He had gone through graduate school with a student defer-ment.
”What's it like over there?” he asked lamely.”s.h.i.+tty.-”What did the military people think about the Cuban missile settlement?” Penny asked seriously.”O1' Jack earned his money that week.” Cliff took a long pull of the wine.”Cliff is back for good,” Penny told Gordon.
”Right,” Cliff said. ”R 'n R forever. Flew me into El Toro. I knew o1' Penny was around here somewhere so I called up her old man and he gave me her address. Caught a bus down.” He waved a hand airily, a s.h.i.+ft of mood. ”I mean, it's okay, man, I'm just an o1' friend. Nothing big. Right, Penny?”She nodded. ”Cliff took me to the senior prom.”
”Yeah, and did she look great. Ridin' shotgun in a pink evenin' gown in my T-bird.” Abruptly he began to sing ”When I Waltz Again with You” in a high, wavering voice. ”Boy, what c.r.a.p. Teresa Brewer.”Gordon said sourly, ”I hated that stuff. All that high school hotshot business.”Cliff said levelly, ”I'll bet you did. You from back east?””Yes.””Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront, all that? Boy, it's a mess back there.””It's not that bad,” Gordon murmured. Somehow I 6 9.
Cliff had hit upon a precise similarity. Gordon had kept pigeons on the roof for a time, just like Brando, and had gone up there to talk to them on Sat.u.r.day nights when he didn't have a date, which was pretty often: After a while he had convinced himself that dating on Sat.u.r.day night didn't have to be the center of a teenage life and then sometime after that he had got rid of the pigeons. They were filthy, anyway.
Gordon excused himseft to get some more wine.
When he came back with a gla.s.s for Penny the two of them were remembering old times. Ivy League styles; hot-wiring cars; the Ted Mack Varie Hour; the irritating retort. ”That's for me to know and you to find out”; Sealtest ice cream; Ozzie and Harriet; Father Knows Best; ducka.s.s haircuts; the senior cla.s.s re-painting the water tower overnight; girls who popped bubble gum in cla.s.s and left, pregnant, in their junior year; My Little Margie; the dips.h.i.+t president of the senior cla.s.s; strapless evening gowns that had to be wired to stay up; penny loafers; circle pins; Eloise, who ruined her crinolines falling in the Pool at the all-night party; getting served in bars where they didn't give a d.a.m.n about your age; girls in straight skirts so tight they had to get on a bus stepping up sideways; the fire in the chem lab; beltless pants; and a parade of other things that Gordon had disliked at the time as he burrowed into his books and planned for Columbia, and saw no reason why he should be nostalgic about now. Penny and Cliff remembered it as dumb and pointless, too, but with a differently soft and fond contempt Gordon could not summon up.
”Sounds like some kind of country club.” He kept his voice light but he meant it. Cliff caught the disapproval.
”We were just havin' fun, man. Before, you know, the roof caved in.”
”Things look okay to me.”
”Yeah, well they're not. Get over there, in mud up to your a.s.s, and you'll find out. The c.h.i.n.ks are ! 7 0 Gregory Ben fordnibblin' away at us. Cuba gets all the newspaper s.p.a.ce, but where it's really happenin' is over there.”He finished his wine, poured another.”I see,” Gordon said stonily.”Cliff,” Penny said brightly, ”tell him about the dead rabbit in Mrs. Hoskins' cla.s.s. Gordon, Cliff took--””Look, man,” Cliff said slowly, peering at Gordon as though he were nearsighted and waving a fingererratically in the air, ”you just don't--”The telephone rang.Gordon got up gratefully and answered it. Cliff began mumbling something in a low voice to Penny as Gordon left the room but he couldn't make it out.He put the receiver to his ear and heard among the hiss of static his mother's voice say, ”Gordon?
That's you?””Uh, yes.” He glanced toward the living room and lowered his voice. ”Where are you?””At home, 2nd Avenue. Where should I be?”
”Well ... I just wondered ...””If I was back in California again, to see you?” his mother said with irritating perception.”No, no,” he paused a fraction of a second, about to call her Mom and suddenly not wanting to, with Special Forces Cliff within earshot, ”I didn't think that at all, you've got it all wrong.””She's there with you?” Her voice warbled high and faint, as though the connection were getting weak.”Sure. Sure she's here. What do you expect?”
''Who knows what to expect these days, my son.”Whenever she called him ”son” he knew there was a lecture on the way.”You shouldn't have left like that. With no word.””I know, I know.” Her .voice weakened again. ”My cousin Hazel said I was wrong to do that.””We had things to do, places we'd planned to takeyou,” he lied.
.was so She couldn't find the word.
TIMESCAPE.
”We could have talked about ... things. You - know.”
”We will. I'm not feeling so good right now but I hope I can come out there again soon.”
”Not so good? What do you mean, Mom, not so good?”
”A little pleurisy, it's nothing. I threw away money on a doctor and some tests. Everything is fine now.” ”Oh, good. You take care of yourself, now.”
”It's nothing worse than that strep throat you had, remember? I know these things, Gordon. Your sister was over for dinner yesterday and we remembered how--” and she was off in her usual tone of voice, recounting the events of the weeks, tracing an implied return to the fold of the wandering sister, of making cabbage soup and kugel and flanken and tongue with the famous Hungarian raisin sauce, all for one dinner. And after, the ”thee-yater,” the two of them taking in Osborne's Luther (”Such a fuss about things!”). She had never budged his father downtown to lay out his good hard money for such things,'
but now the process of reclaiming her children justified such small luxuries. He smiled fondly, listening to the easy flow of words from another, earlier life three thousand miles away, and wondering if Philip Roth had heard of Laos yet.
He had a picture in his head' of her at the other end of the long copper cord, her hand at first clenched white around the telephone receiver. As her voice softened he could sense the hand relax, the knuckles not so pale now. He was feeling good as the call ended. He hung the heavy black receiver back into its wall mount and only then recognized the choking gasp of repressed crying coming from the living room.
Penny was sitting on the couch beside Cliff, holding him as he sobbed into his cupped hands. ”I didn't... We was goin' across this paddy, followin' a bunch of Pathet Lao from 'Nam back to where we knew they were runnin', toward the Plain of Jars. I ! 7 2 was with this a.s.shole platoon of 'Nam regulars, me and Bernie Bernie from our cla.s.s, Penny--and ...
this AR opened up right on us, an' Bernie's head jerked... He sat down in the mud an' his helmet fell into his hands, he was reachin' up for his face, an' he started to pick somethin' up out of the helmet and he fell over sideways. I was down behind him with the AR fire goin' right over us. I crawled up to him an' the water was all pink aroun' him and that's when I knew. I looked in the helmet and what he was tryin' to get out was part of his scalp, the hair still stuck in it, the round musta run up inside there an' gone in his brain after it smashed his jaw.” Cliff was speaking more dearly now, heaving great sighs as the words tumbled out and his palms worked in the sockets of his eyes. Penny hugged him and murmured something. She reached over his broad shoulders and kissed him on the cheek with a sad, vacant gesture. Gordon saw with a sudden, gnawing shock that she had slept with him somewhere back in those rosy high school days. There was an old intimacy between them.Cliff looked up and saw Gordon. He stiflened slightly and then shook his head, his mouth a blur.
He sniffed. ”It started to G.o.dd.a.m.n rain,” he said clearly, as if resolved to go on and tell the rest of it no matter who was there. ”They couldn't get any choppers in to us. Those p.i.s.sa.s.s 'Nam pilots won't come in under fire. We was stuck in this little grove of bamboo, where we pulled back to. Pathet Lao and Cong had boxed us in. Me and Bernie were advisors, not supposed to give orders, they'd put us in with this platoon 'cause we weren't s'posed to make contact at all. Ever'body thought with the rainy season comin' on they'd pull out.”He hoisted the Brookside jug and poured himself another gla.s.s. Penny sat beside him, hands folded demurely in her lap, eyes glistening. Gordon realized .he was standing rigid, 'halfway between kitchen and I ? a living room, arms stiff. He made himself sit in the Boston rock/.