Cradle (29 page)

He walked forward with her to the front of the stage, their hands wrapped together
in a tight hold. This was her special moment. She was near tears as she heard the
applause grow again. He stood aside and she bowed gracefully to the audience. She
finished her bow, took his hand again with a delightful squeeze, and backed up into
the line with the cast.

Melvin, Marc, and Amanda were all backstage while they were dressing. Enthusiastic
congratulations were everywhere. Melvin particularly seemed ecstatic. He admitted
that he had had some misgivings during rehearsals, but said everyone had been wonderful.
The director confided to Winters that the bedroom scene with Tiffani had been ‘superb—couldn’t
have been better’, as Melvin literally danced out of the dressing room door.

Winters was overwhelmed with a myriad emotions. He was pleased with his performance
in the play and the audience reception, but other more personal things were on his
mind. What had happened to Betty and Hap? Why had they left at intermission? In his
mind’s eye, Winters imagined Betty watching his love scene with Tiffani. He had a
momentary panic as he convinced himself that she had known, from out in the audience,
that her husband was not acting at all, that he was every bit as aroused as the character
he was playing.

What had occurred with Tiffani he could not begin to understand and could not even
think about without starting to feel guilty. While he was putting back on his Navy
uniform, he allowed himself to taste again her kisses on the bed in the play and to
feel the sexual tension while they smoked together in the alley. But beyond his awareness
of his arousal he would not go. Guilt was a depressing emotion, and on his successful
opening night he did not want to be depressed.

When Commander Winters walked out of the men’s communal dressing room, Tiffani was
waiting for him. Her hair was back in pigtails, her face scrubbed free of makeup.
She looked again like a little girl. ‘Commander,’ she said, almost with servility,
‘would you do me a favour, please?’ He smiled his assent. She beckoned to him and
he followed her out into the hall adjacent to the backstage quarters.

A red-haired man about the commander’s age was standing in the hall, nervously smoking
a cigarette and pacing. It was obvious that he felt uncomfortable and out of place.
Next to him was a tawdry brunette, in her early thirties perhaps, chewing gum and
talking to the man in a whisper. The man noticeably relaxed when he saw the commander
in his uniform.

‘Well, sir,’ he said to Winters when Tiffani introduced him as her father, ‘it’s good
to meet you. I don’t know much about this acting business, but I worry that it’s unhealthy
for my daughter sometimes.’ He winked at his wife, Tiffani’s stepmother, and lowered
his voice. ‘You know, sir, with all the wimps and fags and other weirdo actors, a
man can’t be too careful. But Tiff told me there was a real Navy officer, a
bona fide
commander, as part of the cast. At first I didn’t believe her.’

Mr. Thomas was definitely getting signals both from Tiffani and his wife. He was talking
too much. ‘I’m regular Navy myself,’ he blurted out as Winters remained silent, ‘almost
twenty-five years. Signed up when I was just a boy of eighteen. Met Tiff’s mother
two years later—’

‘Daddy,’ Tiffani interrupted him, ‘you promised that you wouldn’t embarrass me. Please
just ask him. He probably has things that he needs to do.’

The commander had certainly not been prepared to meet Tiffani’s father and stepmother.
In fact, he had never for a moment even thought about her parents, although as he
stood there, listening to Mr. Thomas, it all made sense. Tiffani was, after all, only
a junior in high school.
So of course she lives at home
, he thought.
With her parents
. Mr. Thomas was looking very serious. For about a second Winters felt fear and the
beginning of panic.
No. No
, he thought quickly,
she can’t have told them anything
.

‘My wife and I play bridge,’ Mr. Thomas was saying, ‘duplicate bridge, in tournaments.
And this weekend there’s a big sectional in Miami. We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning
and coming back very late on Sunday night.’

Winters was puzzled. He was lost in this conversation. Why should he care what the
Thomases did with their free time? At length Mr. Thomas came to the point. ‘So we
had called Mae’s cousin in Marathon and asked her if she would pick my daughter up
after the show tomorrow night. But that would mean Tiff would have to miss the cast
party. Tiff suggested that maybe you would be willing to see her home safely from
the party and’—Mr. Thomas smiled pleasantly—‘keep a fatherly eye on her while I’m
off playing bridge.’

Winters instinctively glanced at Tiffani. For just a few milliseconds he saw a worldly
look in her eyes that tore through him like a fireball. Then she was a little girl
again, entreating her father to let her go to the party.

The commander played his role well. ‘All right, Mr. Thomas,’ he replied. ‘I’ll be
glad to help you out.’ He patted Tiffani fondly. ‘She deserves to go to the party,
she’s worked hard.’ He paused for a moment. ‘But I have a couple of questions. There
will certainly be champagne at the party and it will probably go real late. Does she
have a curfew? How do you feel about—’

‘Just use your own judgment, Commander,’ Mr. Thomas cut him short. ‘Mae and I trust
you completely.’ The man reached over and shook Winters’s hand. ‘And thank you very
much. By the way,’ he added, as he turned around to leave, ‘you were great, although
I must admit I was worried when you were necking with my daughter. The fag that wrote
the play must have been one weird dude.’

Tiffani’s stepmother mumbled thanks over her chewing gum and the girl herself said
‘See ya tomorrow’ as the three of them walked away. The commander reached in his pocket
for another cigarette.

Betty and Hap were both asleep, as Commander Winters knew they would be, when he finally
arrived home around eleven o’clock. He walked softly past his son’s room but then
stopped outside Betty’s. Basically a considerate man, Winters spent a few seconds
weighing Betty’s sleep against his need for an explanation. He decided to go in and
wake her up. He was surprised to find that he was nervous when he sat down on the
side of her bed in the dark.

She was sleeping on her back with a sheet and a very thin blanket both pulled up neatly
to within about two inches of her shoulders. He shook her lightly. ‘Betty, dear,’
he said. ‘I’m home. I’d like to talk to you.’ She stirred. He shook her again. ‘It’s
Vernon,’ he said softly.

His wife sat up in bed and turned on the light on the end table. Underneath the lamp
was a small picture of the face of Jesus, a man wise beyond his thirty or so years,
with a full beard, a serious look, and a glow approximating a halo behind his head.
‘Goodness,’ she said, frowning and rubbing her eyes, ‘what’s going on? Is everything
all right?’ Betty had never been particularly pretty, but in the last ten years she
had ignored her looks altogether and had even put on twenty pounds of ungainly weight.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I just wanted to talk. And to find out why you and Hap left the
show just after the intermission.’

Betty looked him directly in the eyes. This was a woman without guile, even without
nuance. Life was simple and straightforward for her. If you truly believed in God
and Jesus Christ, then you had no doubts. About anything. ‘Vernon,’ she began, ‘I
have often wondered why you choose to perform in such strange plays. But I have never
complained about it, particularly since it seems to be the only thing that has excited
you in a good way since Libya and that awful beach incident.’

She frowned and a cloud seemed to cross her face momentarily. Then she continued in
her matter-of-fact way. ‘But Hap is no longer a child. He is becoming a young man.
And hearing his father, even in a play, refer to God as a “petulant old man” and a
“senile delinquent” is not likely to strengthen his faith.’ She looked away. ‘And
I thought it was equally disturbing for him to watch you groping with that young girl.
All in all,’ she said, glancing back at her husband and summarizing the entire issue,
‘I thought the play had no values, no morals, and nothing worth staying for.’

Winters felt his anger building but struggled with it, as he always did. He envied
Betty her steadfast faith, her ability to see God clearly in every daily activity.
He himself felt distant from the God of his childhood, and his fruitless personal
searches had not yet resulted in a clearer perception of Him. But a couple of things
Winters did know for certain. His God would laugh with and have compassion for Tennessee
Williams’s characters. And He would not be pleased by bombs falling on little children.

The commander did not argue with Betty. He gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek
and she turned off the light. For just a moment he wondered,
How long has it been? Three weeks?
But he couldn’t remember the exact time. Or even whether or not it had been good.
They ‘fooled around’, as Betty called it, whenever her awareness of his need overcame
her general lack of interest.
Probably about normal for couples our age
, Winters thought, somewhat defensively, as he undressed in his room.

But he was not able to sleep as he lay quietly in the dark underneath the sheet. The
feeling of arousal that had been so intense first during the play and then again out
in the alley continued to call to him. With pictures. When he closed his eyes he could
again see Tiffani’s soft and flirtatious lips blowing out the last of the smoke that
had been deep within her lungs. His mouth could still taste those passionate kisses
that she had forced upon him during the bedroom scene. And then there was that special
look when her father had asked him to take care of her at the party. Had he imagined
it?

Several times Commander Winters changed positions in his bed, trying to dispel the
images in his mind and the nervousness that was keeping him awake. He was unsuccessful.
Eventually, while he was lying on his back, he realized there was only one possible
release from this kind of tension. At first he felt guilty, even embarrassed, but
the waves of images of Tiffani continued to flood into his brain.

He touched himself. The images from the day sharpened and began to expand into fantasies.
She was lying on top of him on the bed, as she had been in the play, and he was responding
to her kisses. For a brief second Winters became frightened and held himself in check.
But a desperate surge of longing removed his last inhibition. He was again an adolescent,
alone in his rich imagination.

The scene in his mind changed. He was lying naked on a huge king-size bed in an opulent
room with high ceilings. Tiffani approached him from the lighted bathroom, also naked,
her long auburn hair cascading over her shoulders and hiding the nipples of her breasts.
She took a last languorous pull from her cigarette and put it out in the ashtray beside
the bed, her eyes never leaving his as she slowly, almost lovingly, expelled the last
of the smoke from her mouth. She climbed into the bed beside him. He could feel the
softness of her skin, the tingle of her long hair against his neck and chest.

She kissed him gently but passionately, with her hands behind his head. He felt her
tongue playing enticingly across his lips. She moved her body into position next to
him and pressed her pelvis into his. He felt himself rising. She took his penis in
her hand and squeezed lightly. He was completely erect. She squeezed again, then gracefully
raised her body up and inserted him deep inside her. He felt a magical moist warmth
and then exploded almost immediately.

Commander Winters was staggered by the power and the intensity of his fantasy. Somewhere
inside him a voice cried for caution and warned of dire consequences if he let this
become too real. But as he lay spent and alone in his suburban home, he pushed his
guilt and fears aside and allowed himself the unrivalled bliss of post-orgasmic sleep.

Sloppy Joe’s was an institution in Key West. The favourite bar of Hemingway and his
motley crew had managed to adapt quickly to the multifaceted evolution of the city
it had come to symbolize. Many denizens of the old city had been almost apoplectic
when the bar had forsaken its historic location downtown and moved into the vast shopping
complex surrounding the new marina. But even they grudgingly admitted, after the club
reopened in a well-ventilated large room complete with sound stage and excellent acoustics,
that the Tiffany lamps, long wooden bars, narrow mirrors from ceiling to floor, and
memorabilia from a hundred years in Key West had been tastefully rearranged in a way
that retained the spirit of the old bar.

It was altogether fitting that Angie Leatherwood should perform as the headliner at
Sloppy Joe’s during her brief and infrequent returns to the city of her birth. Troy’s
glib tongue had originally talked the owner, a transplanted fifty-year-old New Yorker
named Tony Palazzo, into giving her an audition when she was still nineteen. Tony
had heard her sing for five minutes and then had exclaimed, punctuating his comments
with wild hand gestures, ‘It’s not enough that you bring me a black girl who’s so
beautiful she takes your breath away. No, you bring me one who also sings like a nightingale.
Mama mia. Life is not fair. My daughter Carla would kill to sound like that.’ Tony
had become Angie’s biggest fan and had unselfishly promoted her career. Angie never
forgot what Tony had done for her and always sang at Sloppy Joe’s when she was in
town. She was like that.

Troy’s table was at the front centre, about ten feet away from the edge of the stage.
Nick and Troy were already seated at the small round table and had finished their
first drinks when Carol arrived about five minutes before ten-thirty. She apologized
and mumbled something about parking in Siberia. As soon as she sat down, Nick pulled
out the envelope of images and both men told her that they had found the pictures
fascinating. Nick began asking questions about the photographs while Troy summoned
a waiter. Nick and Carol were involved in an earnest conversation about the objects
in the fissure when the new drinks reached the table. Nick had just mentioned that
one of the objects looked like a modern missile. It was ten thirty-five. The lights
flashed off and on to announce that the show was beginning.