Damnation of Adam Blessing (5 page)

“That’s not true,” Adam began, but before he was able to finish, Shirley Spriggs came across in her kimono, and threw her arms around Adam as though they had always known one another as fast friends.

“You be nice to Shirl while I fix my face,” Dorothy told Adam.

After she left, Adam asked Shirley Spriggs to dance. Immediately, he regretted it. The invitation was declined, but it had succeeded in launching her on a long explanation of why she was not going to dance for two years. It was a tribute to someone who was dead.

“It was Flight 791 out of Shannon,” she said, “and it could just as well have been me, Adam. I knew Ginger Klein like I knew my own mother, only of course she was
my
age, and she was engaged and everything to this dentist. She had a half-a-karat diamond he gave her right on her wedding finger when the plane went down, and a wallet she bought him in Florence and everything — all lost in the ocean, and it was going to be her seventy-sixth trip too, and after that she was going to marry; well, when I think of it — ” and she was unable to continue for a few moments. Adam lent her his handkerchief, and he realized she was rather high as well; quite drunk, in fact. Her next words were thick and teary: “It was one of those fweak — freak things, plane just blew up; we face it every trip but never think — ” she could not finish.

Dorothy Schackleford flew across the room to guide Shirley Spriggs into the bathroom.

“Gingy wouldn’t want you to break down like this, Shirl,” she said. “You know how Gingy was.”

Adam lighted a Gauloise and some seconds later the boy named Norman wandered over with the girl who said
“Mais oui.”
Her name was Rose Marie Scoppettone, which meant “big gun” in Italian, she said; and then she said: “What smells like manure?”

“My cigarette,” said Adam. “It’s a Gauloise.” As he looked about him at the collection of foreign matchbooks and ashtrays, he wished suddenly that he had bought his own pack of Chesterfields. Birds of a feather, he thought tiredly.

Norman said, “Oh, I thought it might be a dung-hill,” at which all the girls giggled, inspiring him to repeat the quip three more times.

Adam danced with a girl named Eloise Siden, who booked New York-Caracas, and smelled of garlic. She danced Adam off into a corner.

“Shirley’s a mess,” she said in a confidential tone, “Gingy Klein was her best friend. They were like sisters. Gingy was going to live with us. We got Dotty instead.”

“Good,” said Adam. “I mean, I’m glad you could get someone.”

“You know, Dotty’s got a case on you, mister.” “Me? She hardly knows me, Shirley.” “I’m Eloise, remember?” “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mind telling you she could be very serious about you, Adam.”

“You must be mistaken, really.”

“Listen, mister, I know! Dotty’s a great girl too. A guy would be fortunate.”

They were very nearly standing still as they moved to the music. Adam edged into a corner of the room.

Eloise Siden said, “You don’t have a special girl or anything do you?”

“No,” said Adam. “But — ”

“Don’t But with me, mister,” she said out of the corner of her mouth, “I’m giving you the straight poop and I expect the same from you. I’m from Texas, and we don’t fool around much down there.”

“Well,” said Adam, “I just don’t know Dorothy well. I don’t know her well at all.”

“You don’t think you’re too good for her or anything like that, do you?”

Adam felt his face get red. “No,” he said.

“I thought you might have that idea. I thought to myself, ‘Kid, if that’s what that fellow has up his nose, just toddle on over there and give him the word.’ Okay,” she said, squeezing his shoulder, “no hard feelings. I just want it down in the record, Adam.”

Norman danced up beside them and said, “What brand cigarettes you smokin’ pard’ner,” grinning widely at Eloise Siden as he said it — “dung-hills?”

There was another round of guffaws; then the music was over and the girl whose name meant “big gun” in Italian was shuffling through the records for another L.P.

“I just hope Shirl’s O.K.,” said Eloise. “Boy, I mean, she was thrown for a looper by that plane crash.” “Why don’t you go see?” said Adam. “You know, that’s a thought. A gooder!”

“Yes, go see.”

“I’ll be back di-rectly. Don’t go away, friend!” She gave his shoulder another healthy squeeze, and winked meaningfully. “You and Dot’s got to get to know one another better, right quick!”

• • •

The moment she turned, Adam made his way rapidly down the hall and out the door. He ran down the two flights of stairs, out into the street. Then he ran all the way to the One Hundred Eighty-first subway station.

• • •

Standing inside on the platform, while he waited for the D train, he mopped the perspiration off his face. He had left behind his copy of
Art News.
Momentarily, he studied the graffiti on the posters. He came to one which was the blow-up of that week’s
Our Time
magazine — the picture of a man. Someone had drawn spectacles and a mustache on his face; someone else had scribbled across the face in red crayon:
His stuff stinks! Don’t eat it!
… As the D train approached, Adam glanced down at the printing under the man’s picture. It said:

At one Hundred Twenty-fifth Street, where Adam changed to a local, he bought a copy of
Our Time
from the vendor.

The sharp sound of the outside buzzer interrupted Adam’s reading. His watch said eleven-thirty. The phone had rung four or five times since he had come back to the apartment that evening, but he had not bothered to answer it. He was convinced it was Dorothy Schackleford, calling to see why he had run off.

On the table beside Adam was a bottle of Clos de Vougeot, which he had taken from Billy’s wine closet. Adam had already drunk a little more than half. As the ringing of the buzzer became more insistent, Adam crossed the living room determined to get rid of Dorothy Schackleford as quickly as he could. Pressing the release button, Adam was angry. He had been enjoying himself for the first time since Mrs. Auerbach’s death. Sipping the wine and reading about Luther Schneider, the cool breeze from the garden wafting in on him, he had forgotten for a while about everything. A Gauloise hung from his lips. It was strange, he had a taste for them now.

He heard the noise of high heels on the black-and-white marble outside; then two bleeping rings of his doorbell. Before he opened the door, he loosened Billy’s Countess Mara tie, and mussed up his hair, hoping the dishevelment would add credence to his story, that he was suddenly taken ill. A migraine, he would say, remembering how suddenly Mrs. Auerbach’s migraines used to occur. So sure that it would be Dorothy Schackleford, Adam did not recognize his caller immediately.

“It’s
you,”
she said. “I thought it would be you.”

Charity Cadwallader was not exactly smiling, but regarding him instead with a sort of amused curiosity. She was taller than Adam had remembered, or her heels were higher this time. Adam could not be sure whether she was slightly taller than he was. He was so stunned by her appearance there that his mind could fasten only on the insignificant particulars: she was wearing a different watch this time, a larger one, silver and shell-shaped; her black hair was pulled back in a chignon; and now he noticed the color of her eyes, green — like a cat’s. Adam’s fingers rushed to straighten his tie, smooth back his hair.

She was already inside the apartment. “I rang,” she said, “two times. Don’t you answer phones?” “I thought it was someone else.” “I’m sorry, Addie, but Billy
promised
he’d drop off my tennis racket before he left. I have a tennis date tomorrow.”

“I haven’t seen it here.” He hated her calling him “Addie” as Billy always did.

“It’s here, all right.” She glanced in the living room. “Billy got off all right?”

“Yes.”

“Earlier I saw the lights from the street. I didn’t know for sure who was staying here. Billy mentioned someone would be living here.”

“Would you like a drink?”

“I don’t like liquor, but Billy keeps celery tonic around. On the rocks, please.”

While he was breaking ice, she walked back and forth. “I hope Billy’s father’s all right. He’s very close to him, isn’t he?”

“I guess so.”

“Guess? … Billy always talks about him. Does he look like Billy?”

“Mr. Bollin was always ill. He’s sort of frail. He’s a little man.”

“Funny, I pictured him as a big, heavy sort.” “He’s very kind, too.” “And Billy isn’t.” “I didn’t say that.”

Adam handed her a glass of celery tonic. “Do you live in the neighborhood, Charity?”

“Off Park, next block…. Billy told me about your partner’s death. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” Adam said. “It was sudden. I’ll have a lot more responsibility now.”

Charity Cadwallader did not really sit down, but perched on the edge of the conch-shaped couch, as though she were having the drink on the run, with little enthusiasm.

She said, “Billy and you grew up together, hmmm?”

“I was an orphan. Some of the ‘better-off’ families in Auburn picked out an orphan to invite to dinner now and then. Mr. Bollin picked me.”

“What was Billy like?”

“Mean,” said Adam.

She laughed at that. “I’ll bet!”

“Did he ever tell you that he used to keep snakes? He had a regular herpetorium in his cellar. It was a reptile house as fancy as any zoo’s.”

“He said he used to like snakes. Tell me about it.”

“He had this cobra,” said Adam. “He called him ‘Poopsy.’ Poopsy ate six-foot black racers. Billy’d put one in the cage with Poopsy, and Poopsy’s head would peer around a corner of the water tank, and then there’d be a motion like lightning. The black snake would make one desperate attempt for his life. He’d try to coil around Poopsy’s throat, but before you knew it — you couldn’t even see it, it was so fast — this black head would be caught in Poopsy’s jaws, and Poopsy’d draw this fighting black snake inside him.”

Charity Cadwallader had no particular expression on her face, merely listened.

“Poopsy’d pause for breath now and then in the process of eating him,” Adam said, “but he’d get him down, inch by inch…. I used to stand there shaking, wet clear through my clothes from perspiration.”

“I’ve never much liked snakes either,” she said, “What else?”

“Billy used to tease me a lot. One day he was behaving very differently toward me. He was going to move soon, and he said since we wouldn’t be seeing each other much, we ought to try to get along better…. Another thing about Poopsy, he wouldn’t eat little snakes, only big ones. There were never enough big ones available, so Billy had to produce one artificially. He had a black-snake cage. Up in the top of this cage-tree, there’d be a whole bunch of little ones hanging. They were all twisted together like rain worms, all knotted up. Billy’d look for the biggest in the bunch, and then he’d disentangle them until he got it. I only saw him get bitten twice doing that. He was good at it.”

Charity said, “I can imagine.”

“He’d pull this snake out of the bunch, Charity, and then he’d hold him, squirming and wiggling by the tail.” Adam looked into her eyes, wondering why she seemed completely bland about his story, not like most women when snakes were discussed. He said, “Then like the lash of a whip, Billy would whirl the thing through the air and there’d be a snap!”

“The snake would have a broken neck, is that it?”

“That’s right.”

“Then?”

“Then, Adam said, “Billy would stuff frogs down the dead snakes throat, to make him look bigger, so Poopsy would eat him.

“Very clever.”

“Yes … clever.” Adam wondered why he wished she had been afraid at the story, and not so cool and unconcerned.

“You were telling me about one day in particular.” “Not very interesting. You have to be afraid of snakes to know how I felt.” “Tell me.”

“Billy said we were going to turn over a new leaf. He said he wanted me to help him feed Poopsy. More moral support than anything else. Usually the Bollin’s chauffeur went along with Billy for the feeding, but it was the chauffeur’s day off. I agreed to go along. Billy told me to turn my back, if I wanted to while he broke the black snake’s neck.”

“And you wanted to.”

“Sure! Well, I told you! I was afraid of snakes.” “Go on.”

“After I turned around, the next thing I knew, that snake was around my neck, and down my shirt, and I began to run up the stairs, trying to pull my shirt off, but mostly going crazy! I was really afraid of snakes.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“You can’t imagine what that’s like unless you’re afraid of them too.” “And then?”

“It turned out it was only a garter snake. It didn’t bite me or anything…. But I didn’t get over it for days. I remember I stayed for dinner at the Bollins’ that night, but I couldn’t eat. Billy’s father knew something was wrong. He knew Billy pretty well. I wouldn’t tell him what happened, but he knew, and I remember that before we went into the dining room that night, Mr.

Bollin put his arm around my shoulder and said: ‘Adam, I’d be very proud if you were my boy.’ ”

Charity did not say anything for a few seconds; then she said, “And you always wished you were.”

“No … I envied certain advantages Billy had.”

“Money.”

“Yes. Money.”

“People with money fascinate you, don’t they, Addie?” “No. They don’t
fascinate
me.”

“But you like to read about people like Luther Schneider?”

Adam blushed, picked up the copy of
Our Time
from his chair, and put it beside the wine bottle on the table. “I could have been reading any article in there.”

“But your face is so red.” There was a pause. She did not smile. Then she changed the subject abruptly. “I can’t imagine you fat.”

“I was … very. I ate cake all the time. I ate it when I was terribly happy, and when I was very sad, and in between because I felt neither way. I had to work like the devil to get down to a normal weight. But I did it.”

“Congratulations.”

“Sarcasm?”

“No. I like people who are determined…. Now that you’ve come into a little money, I suppose you’ll catapult it to millions, is that what you want to do with your new inheritance?”

“Sure,” said Adam, “I’m on my way to becoming another Luther Schneider, or a Billy Bollin. How about that?”

“Billy’s in his twenties and has an ulcer, and Luther Schneider has a son who’s deranged and a wife who drinks. What will you come down with?”

You, Adam wanted to say.

He said: “Money will do things
for
me, not
to
me…. Besides, money didn’t make Luther Schneider’s boy crazy, and I doubt that it made his wife drink. He enjoys his money, what’s more. He collects fine silver, raises orchids — before the war he even trained horses that ran at Ouilly, in France. That doesn’t sound like a miserable existence!”

“It sounds as though you read the article in
Our Time
very, very thoroughly.” “You have me,” Adam said.

Charity Cadwallader laughed for the first time. “Promises. Promises.”

• • •

She had three more celery tonics before she called her home and left the message. The gist of it was that if her parents wanted to know where she was, she was staying with a girlfriend. Then she called the girlfriend, waking her up, making her promise to cover for her if anything should happen. Adam could hear both conversations from the garden.

When she rejoined him, she took the brandy snifter from his hand. “Don’t drink any more, Addie. Wine and brandy don’t mix.”

“Adam.”

“All right — Adam.”

She pulled him to his feet, and he felt her arms reach up around his neck, the same gentle way she had kissed him when she had first crossed the living room, a few hours earlier. He kissed her, slowly, thinking of nothing else, and she seemed to enjoy it with a certain calm. When he had first kissed her that night, he had blurted out a long speech about feeling a great warmth for her the first time he ever saw her, but she seemed uninterested in any declarations or clarifications, so he dropped it. They had talked about Billy, and she had said once quite emphatically that she hated Billy, but she would not elaborate.

After the kiss in the garden, she said, “You don’t really want to finish your brandy, do you? It’ll make you drunk, Adam.”

They went inside, and it embarrassed Adam a little that she wanted him to take a shower with her first. In the shower, Adam realized that he was quite drunk already.

• • •

When he woke up in the morning he thought she was gone. Instead, she was in the kitchen making coffee, washing last night’s glasses. He hurried into his pajamas and went out there, and she greeted him with a half smile. “Don’t kiss me,” she said when he came close to her. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

He leaned against the wall and watched her for a bit. Then he said. “Look, I’m sorry. I was just too drunk.”

“It doesn’t make any difference.”

“These last few days have been upsetting, too.”

“It happens all the time. Don’t think about it.”

“It doesn’t happen to me,” Adam lied.

“Well, it did last night,” she said pleasantly. “Let’s forget it. There’s orange juice in the pitcher there. If there’d been fresh oranges I would have squeezed some. I’m afraid it’s frozen.”

“Are there any eggs?”

“None. Sorry.”

“I’ll slip on something and get some. Look, Charity, wouldn’t you like a big breakfast?” “All right.”

“I won’t be long,” he said.

She said, “I’ll have my shower while you’re gone.”

• • •

As Adam was leaving, the shower was running. He would buy sausages and rolls, he decided, and he would find some place where he could buy flowers. He took all the money he had with him, which was fifty-two dollars, the last of his cash. He knew why he took so much when he passed the jewelry store on Madison Avenue, after he left the grocery and the florist. He paid thirty-two dollars for a pearl teardrop on a tiny gold chain.

When he returned, she was gone. The note was on the kitchen table.

That was it.

He felt like weeping or punching something. Instead he left all his purchases, including the small bunch of violets and the jeweler’s box, on the Etruscan chair in the living room, and he flopped on the unmade bed. He lighted a Gauloise, smoked it halfway down, then still in his clothes, hugged the pillow that smelled faintly of her perfume, and fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed of her in a fit of fifty or more snapshot glimpses, like the dream of someone drugged. When he woke up, he was perspiring in his clothes, the phone was ringing; it was after three in the afternoon.