Hare in March (11 page)

“He won’t fall for that, Swanny.”

“Try it. Tell him you feel guilty; you want him to stop in for an hour, at least, and see his family. He can meet us at the Cheetah later.”

“In an hour?”

“No, darling. We’ll ditch him for three or four hours. We’ll say we’re eating over at the Mayfair, and that we’ll meet him there. But we won’t eat there. He’ll come to the Cheetah eventually; he knows we’re going there.”

“It’s awfully unkind.”

“Oh, darling, he’s so nowhere.”

“He is?”

“Look, Lois, he’s cute. God, he’s very cute. I’d like to string him for a lamp. But honey, he isn’t with it. That’s what’s wrong with chemistry. It can happen with a fry cook, for God’s sake.”

“He’s not
that
bad!”

“Darling, Lotus, look, I’m not insulting your boyfriend; he’s very cute, and I can see where you’d hear some music there, but really, sweetie, it’s that strange little high music no one else hears — but dogs, maybe. Tell him to go visit his family.”

Charles heard Lois sigh; then he heard Swanny dancing around the room again singing: “They Didn’t Believe Me,” along with Dinah Washington, and Charles shrugged and screwed up his courage, and walked in with his drink, and took his chances.

He said, “Lois, can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“In private.”

“Your lips, your eyes, your dough, your hair, is in a class beyond compare, you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever rolled,” Swanny was singing.

Lois followed him into the kitchen.

She said, “She just says things like that to shock people. She’s never rolled a man in her life.”

“I was thinking: I have to get my mother an Easter gift. I ought to find out from my father what she wants.”

“I know what I want.”

“You just got your Easter gift.”

“I still know what I want for Easter.”

“Anyway — I was thinking. Would you mind if I left you here? I could meet you later.” He hoped for an explosion, an “I certainly
would
mind.”

She was wrapping a strand of her hair around her first finger; she said, “I want something from the Kaleidoscope, and I want it to be vinyl.”

“It
is
Celui you wear, isn’t it?” He laughed; now he could not fathom her not coming with him; this was their day; all of it had been for her.

“This is
my
apartment, too,” she said, “but it’s a secret, for she is suffering from a serious mental illness and has not long to live. She thinks she’s me.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“You want to leave me here.”

“Unless you want to come with me. We could go to the Plaza for drinks, the way we planned, and then we could have dinner someplace, maybe up in the Eighties.”

“Some cheap Charley’s.”

“No, I’ll take you someplace nice.
You
can decide. But remember what you’ve got on. We can’t go every place.”

He loved the crazy purple pants and the yellow sweater. A poor boy, slipped over her head, became a very rich boy.

“Charles?”

“What?”

“Will you meet us later?”

In the other room, Swanny was singing, “And when you tell them, and you’re certainly going to tell them, that I’m the broad who took your loot from you, they’ll never believe you, the fuzz won’t believe you — “

“Will you, Charles? She’s really very nice. She just likes to pretend she’s taking every man in pants for his money.”

“She
took
the South American, didn’t she?”

“What do
you
care?”

“I don’t. I just want you to come with me. Don’t you want to come with me?”

“Of course I
want
to!” “Then come.”

“I can’t and you know I can’t! I can’t be rude to my best friend!”

“What about me?”

“I’d feel
very
guilty if you didn’t go see your family while you’re in New York.”

“You surprise me at times. It’s sweet of you to think of my folks.”

“What kind of a girl do you think I am?”

The phone rang then. It didn’t ring; it made the same ding-dong sound as a doorbell, but Terry Swan flew into the kitchen and picked up the small blue Princess sitting on the counter, and said, “Hel-lo, there.”

Lois said, “I love a bell chime. When I get my own apartment I’m going to have a bell chime.”

Swanny was saying, “Oh, darling, I’m
sorry!
My mother’s ill and I have to visit her tonight.”

Lois put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

Charles went into the living room and got his overcoat from the closet; the closet was lined with wallpaper which depicted a genteel demoiselle handing a flower to a kneeling knight.

He put on his coat and stood there for a moment, hoping Lois would come in from the kitchen.

But Terry Swan had hung up on her caller. She was telling Lois,
“That
was this awful man who manufactures ant farms; he
claims
he’s only forty-eight, darling, but he
looks
like he’s taken his first step out of Shangri-La, and he wears those Countess Mara ties that blind you with all the swirls and curlicues, and he cuts all his meat up in teeny little pieces before he eats, no matter
where
you are, Twenty-one or Clos Normand, I could just die of embarrassment, but he has tickets to everything and he’s very big in the world of little gifties from Tiffany’s, so I’m very sweet when he calls and — “

Charles left.

Really, Peter Hagerman was celebrating. In the Unmuzzled Ox.

Near ten o’clock, on the night of the Inferno.

Because he had had a very close call early this afternoon.

Look at it this way: there were 150 micrograms of d-lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate in each sugar cube. He had put all four, wrapped in Saran Wrap, into the thermos. If they had not fallen out of their wrappings and melted into the ice cubes en route to his rendezvous with Shepley; if things had worked out the way he had planned them, and he had slipped the sugar cubes into Shepley’s drink, Shepley would probably be ape now in Rockland State booby hatch.

Which was what Hagerman had hoped for, before reason had done battle with his rage: he had hoped to make Shepley flip,
really
flip. It had been planned very carefully; up to a point, it had gone over as though they had rehearsed:

“I hope some of the brothers saw you packing up the hamper, Shepley.”

“I saw to it. But it was a pain in the ass lugging it out here.”

“Oh, you have it rough, man! I’m going to be out a hundred and fifty dollars, and you gripe about lugging a picnic hamper out on the bus. You did take the bus?”

“No, I flew. I’m Superpledge.”

“Well, Shep, you pulled a pretty super swindle on me.” “You asked for it.”

“You’re right. Shep, I’ve cooled down since our little talk. You may think I’m still p.o.’d, but I have to hand it to you. You’ve got guts.”

“And I’m not going to back down, Hagerman.”

“Hell, is that what you think I think? You think I think that? I know when I’m licked.”

“Then let’s get it over with.”

“I’ve got to stall for about fifteen minutes. Some of the other actives are down the road. I want to wait until they go before I take off. See, they think I’m up here making you go through all kinds of hell. See, I’ve got to maintain my image, mother-lover.”

“Yeah. Your image.”

“I’m not a bad egg when you get to know me, Shep. Want a drink?” “All right.”

“We’ll toast your initiative, want to? Are there paper cups in the hamper?”

“Yeah, but what’s
that?”

“It’s port.”

“Port?”

“Hell, it’s good stuff. Sandeman’s Tawny.” “Isn’t that a little sweet?”

“I’ve got some ice to cut it. If you don’t want it, well — ”

“I suppose I can choke it down.”

“Let me get us some ice from the thermos.”

“Hagerman?”

“What?”

“Why don’t we get the business over with first?” “Sure, Shep.”

They had made the exchange: a roll of tape for a roll of bills; then Hagerman had gone over and picked the thermos up from the ground, and unscrewed the lid.

The sugar cubes were dissolved, so was the dream of Shepley going off his rocker, going so far off his rocker he’d wind up like someone who’d had a lobotomy performed on him; if six hundred micrograms of the stuff couldn’t do that, rain couldn’t get you wet.

There would be nothing to fear from Shepley again, nor from Blouter.

But it had not worked out, had it? And really, Hagerman was celebrating. He really was. He was singing all the old Pi Pi songs — he knew them all by heart, all the verses of all of them, and he was teaching them to Thorpe who was so pie-eyed his head was hanging by a thread, and he had put Charles Shepley clear out of his mind; the boy didn’t exist, that was a fact.

Thorpe was talking about some goddam girl and how they used Saran Wrap when they made out, and even the mention of Saran Wrap did not bug Hagerman.

Nothing could.

Not even Old Len and Peg Beauty, if they were to stroll in arm-in-arm wearing sandwich boards with Greecemark written on them.

Hagerman ordered another round of beer. Then he got up and went back to the phone booth, and by now he knew the number by heart, so he just closed the door and slipped a dime down the slot, and dialed.

“Hello?”

“The Congs are going to kill Turtle.” He waited for the click and the dial tone, but this time she didn’t hang up.

She said, “Why do you think so?”

“Because you never gave a
damn
about him, Matilda!” “How do
you
know that?”

Hagerman was not stupid; she was trying to hold him on the line so the call could be traced. Well,
that
took time.

Hagerman said. “What kind of encouragement did you ever give him, Matilda?”

“I love Joey. He’s my only son.”

“Your only son. Tch, tch, tch. I’m impressed.”

“Why do you want to torment me?”

“You tormented
him,
didn’t you? You underestimated
him,
didn’t you?”

“You read the piece in
The Far Point Record,
is that right?”

“Victor Charlie’s captured him. Matilda; he’s being tortured right now. If you listen real hard, you can hear him screaming … Yeeeowww!”

He hung up.

When he went back to the booth and sat down, Thorpe said, “It must be hard with Janish so far away. You mish her?”

Then Thorpe’s head hit the table; the beer glass smashed to the floor, and a waiter hustled over. “Eighty-six,” he said.

Really, Peter Hagerman was invulnerable.

“I apologize for my companion,” he said. He said, “Come on, pledge, let’s call it a night.”

With the waiter’s help, Hagerman got Thorpe out into the street. At the curb, Thorpe vomited.

Hagerman waited it out patiently. Then he got Thorpe into the car, and he drove him down Route 9W to a Mobil station. He steered him into the rest room, where Thorpe got sick again.

“Clean yourself up,” said Hagerman. “I’ll wait outside.”

There was just enough time for Hagerman to step into the phone booth and pay the dime and hear Matilda Holt’s hello.

Said Hagerman, “Yeeeeeeeeowwwwwwwwwww!”

Then he went inside and bought a ginger ale from the vending machine, and handed it to Thorpe, when Thorpe came out of the men’s.

“Soothe your tum-tum,” he said, handing it to Thorpe, smiling.

• • •

Bud Burroughs said to his mother, “You make the best mashed potatoes in the world!”

“I don’t use mixes. You want another helping, dear?”

“Thanks … It’s more than not using mixes. We don’t use mixes at the house, but ours don’t taste like this.”

“I put a little sour cream in. And lots of butter.”

“They sure are good.”

“Then you should come home more often, Buddy.”

“Oh, Mom, you know how that would look. Running home to my mother. Anyway, I have to pay for the meal whether I’m there or not; I might as well get my money’s worth. Or Dad’s money’s worth.”

“I wonder where your father is? He went off duty two hours ago. It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“He’s probably out collecting graft from the local bars.” “Buddy, I don’t like that talk.” “I’m only
kidding.”

“There’s not a policeman in this state as honest as your father.”

“Hopkins would be pleased to hear that.”

“Dick Hopkins is honest, too. I don’t know any who aren’t.”

“Mom, I was only kidding.”

“You’re always saying things like that, though; they aren’t funny, Buddy. There’s nothing funny about them.” “Okay, I won’t say them anymore.”

“I think it’s that roommate of yours, that Hagerman. I think he puts ideas in your head.” “You’ve never even met him.”

“I wish you’d bring him home. I’d like to meet him.”

“Mom, I told you — he’s not an average guy. You’d be uncomfortable, and he’d be uncomfortable…. He’s sort of cynical. You know?”

“I just have to listen to you to know.”

“But he’s a nice guy. Take tonight. You know, it’s Hell Night at the frat. Well, Peter knows I’m not good at that kind of stuff; you know, ordering the pledges to do these crazy stunts. He lets me skip it. All the other actives have to do it — that’s why there’s no dinner at the house tonight. But Peter lets me off.”

“I thought Hell Night was against the college rules.”

“Oh,
Mom!”

“Isn’t Hell Night against the college rules?” “Mom, can’t you ever forget about rules and laws; is that all you worry about, rules and laws?” “I respect rules and laws, Buddy.”

“I respect your fine, rich, thick, country-style brown gravy. May I have some more?” “Oh,
you!”

She laughed, and picked up the gravy bowl, and carried it into the kitchen.

Then Arnold Burroughs came in the front door and called out, “It’s me!” as he did every night of his life, and Bud’s mother called back, “Is that you, dear?” as she did every night, and Arnold Burroughs answered, “I’m home.”

Bud Burroughs said, “How do you two ever remember all that?”

“Hi, Buddy! All what?”

“You know. It’s me. Is that you, dear? I’m home.”

His father mussed Bud’s hair playfully and said, “It took twenty-three years of practice. Who let you out of prison?”

“It’s Hell Night. I’m too much of an angel to participate.”

“What do you mean it’s Hell Night?” His father’s smile vanished, and he stood there without removing his coat, waiting for an answer.

“Now don’t
you
start, Dad. You know darn well the frats still take their pledges out for fun and games. It’s really just one night. Just one night.”

“Like tonight?”

“Yeah. You going to arrest them or something? Take your coat off.”

Arnold Burroughs took off his coat, but he didn’t walk to the closet with it; he pulled up a chair next to Bud and sat down. He said, “Is tonight the night?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe there
is
something to it.” “Something to what?”

“We thought we had a psycho on our hands, but maybe there
is
something to it.” “To
what?”

“Are the eggheads in this fraternity you belong to against the war in Vietnam?”

“Some of them are, I suppose.” “Anyone in particular?” “I didn’t take a poll.”

“Bud, don’t give me any of your wise-guy answers; we’ve got a serious situation on our hands.” “What is it?”

Then Burroughs’ father told him about Matilda Holt, and her drunken visitor, and the subsequent obscene phone calls that were continuing even as Arnold Burroughs had left the station.

Ida Burroughs had joined them around the dinner table, and she was shaking her head and exclaiming “Oh,
no!”
at intervals, and when her husband had finished, she looked across at Bud and said, “You see?”

“Do I see what?”

“What we were talking about earlier. About respect for rules and laws.”

“Mom, for Pete’s sake! Nobody from Pi Pi would do a thing like this! For Pete’s sake!”

“If it is someone from that fraternity of yours, mister, you’ve spent your last day there!” said Arnold Burroughs. “But it isn’t!”

“Well, I don’t like to think it is. But you tell me it’s fun-and-games night, and this happens the same night. And the boy told Mrs. Holt that he was from the college.”

Bud Burroughs gave an exasperated sigh. “Do you think that someone from the college would
say
he was from the college?”

“Well, I didn’t think so when I heard it, but I didn’t know this was some sort of special Halloween at your place, either.”

“Dad!”

“And the boy
was
drunk. Mrs. Holt said he could hardly walk. He might not have known what he was saying.”

“It’s nobody from Pi Pi, I can tell you that.”

“We haven’t had any other complaints; where are your Pi Pis?”

“They’re not running wild in the streets ringing Mrs. Holt’s doorbell.”

“This boy was in a car.”

“Did she get the license number?”

“She was too upset. She didn’t even know what color the car was.”

“Everything that goes wrong in this town gets hung on the college.”

“We give you kids a lot of leeway, Bud.”

“Anyway,” said Ida Burroughs, “I’m glad Buddy isn’t involved. He was here all night, and I can swear to that.”

“Mother, no one from the fraternity or the college was involved! How about the high school kids in this town? I did some pretty wild things when I was in high school.”

“High school kids aren’t driving around in cars after six at night.”

“Oh, that’s really using your head, Dad. If they’re drunk, why aren’t they driving around after six? You mean, because it’d be breaking the law?”

Arnold Burroughs slammed his fist down on the table, rattling the plates and silverware, sloshing the milk in Bud’s glass over the side. He said, “Look, Bud, I’ve had enough of your sarcasm! I didn’t work overtime, trying to help some woman who’s frightened out of her wits to come home to a fresh kid who thinks the Far Point police are a bunch of fatheads! That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

“No, Dad.”

Ida Burroughs said, “You see, Buddy? You go too far.” “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Well, you put this in your pipe and smoke it, Buddy! If this
has
got anything to do with the monkeyshines those Little Lord Fauntleroys you live with classify as fun-and-games, you’re going to be classified as a dropout quicker than you can say Pi Pi! You’re going to college to get an education; you’re privileged to live in a fraternity where you can learn to be a gentleman, but you’re not privileged to be a Vietnik, or a beatnik, or any other nutnik! Do you understand, Bud?”

Ida Burroughs said,
“He
didn’t do anything, Arnie. He was here with me all night.”

“Do you understand, Bud?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want to hear about you or anyone you know causing harm to anyone. If I hear you or anyone you know caused harm to anyone, I’ll put you down on the assembly line at F.P.B…. And that goes for tonight, a year from tonight, or four years from tonight!”

“Yes, sir.”

“The whole damn lot of you ought to live through one hour of what our boys live through every day in Vietnam; then you’d really know something about hell!”