Naked Came the Stranger (5 page)

Ernie Miklos was beyond effort and he made no effort. He just lay
there and let it happen to him. And as it was happening, it was
different, lazy. He didn't know it could be that way, goddam.

"I'm going to come," he said.

"Come on," she said. "Come on all the way home, Ernie."

"Oh, God, no, no," he was screaming again.

He knew what was happening, knew somehow that it was going to
happen. And then Ernie felt it. She shoved the ice in, the big rock
candy mountain, the fucking iceberg, and then his scream died and his
whole being oozed forth and he felt he would drown in what was
happening.

"Oh my God!"

Together, like garden snakes, they contorted, moaned, gasped,
clenched and throbbed. Fucking eternity, Ernie thought, fucking-A
eternity! Ernie found what Cervantes and Milton had only sought. He
thought the fillings in his teeth would melt. And even afterward, the
throbbing went on.

"Are you all right?"

"God, God, God," he said.

"Ernie…."

"Get me home," he pleaded. "Get me home."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Home," he said.

Gillian managed to dress both of them, managed to half-carry him
to the car. It was only three blocks. Ernie felt the fire burning
from his stomach to his head. He stumbled from the car and watched
Gillian pull away. He staggered to the back of the house, fell
blindly against the portable bar. He heard the bottles crack against
the brickwork and the sound of the ice bucket hitting. The fire
burned in his chest and he felt he was falling.

Laverne heard the splash and turned on the pool lights. She saw
the bar turned over and the broken glass, and then she saw Ernie
floating face down in the deep end of the pool. From that distance
she didn't notice the ice cubes floating in the water beside him.

Billy: Later today, Gilly, we'll be talking to an
especially interesting guest, Creighton Schwartz, the editor
of
Hammer and Nail.
That's the country's leading do-it-yourself
magazine.

Gilly: It should be fascinating, Billy. Especially to all our
listeners in suburbia.

Billy: No question about it.

Gilly: I know that our neighborhood is an absolute beehive of
home projects.

Billy: When you think of it, it's incredible the way do-it-
yourself has taken hold in this country in the last few years. And
it's not just the men. There are lots of women who can paint and
hammer with the best of them.

Gilly: I know. Some of my best friends do it themselves. Billy:
Of course, lots of couples do it together.

Gilly: That's true, Billy. Actually, that's part of the
American tradition.

Billy: Yes, it's genuine togetherness. Not pseudo togetherness
but the real thing.

Gilly: Right. Doing it together can be a family affair. Billy:
Precisely. A do-it-yourself project represents a way of building
something together. Not just the project itself, but a foundation for
living.

Gilly: Eloquently said, Billy.

Billy: In other words, it's a way of cementing your
marriage.

Gilly: Ummm. Scraping paint side by side. Billy: Putting up
wallpaper together.

Gilly: Pairing on the paneling. Billy: Laying tile in unison.
Gilly: That does sound like fun.

Billy: When you're working together, you're building
together.

Gilly: And that's the solid kind of value that results in a
successful marriage.

Morton Earbrow waited for the sweat to dry. He lay on
rancid sheets, too tired to pull off his boxer shorts and grope in
the darkness for his pajamas. And there, in the dark, he could hear
the clicking, the familiar clicking, the clicking which would
continue until sleep dulled his senses.

"What time is it?" he called out. "What time is it anyway?"

"One-fifteen," his wife answered.

But the clicking didn't stop. The pattern of sound didn't even
change. She was down at the foot of the stairs scraping paint. She
was down there with her can of McBry's paint remover and a scraper.
She was down there wearing rubber gloves. She was down there scraping
paint and it was Saturday night.

"Why don't you quit for the night?" Morton asked.

"Quit now?" she said.
Click-click-click.
"When I'm almost
finished? Few more minutes."

He knew the clicking would go on and he would fall asleep and in
the morning Gloria, she of the golden hair and honeydew breasts,
would be draped over the other side of the bed. She'd still be
wearing slacks and sweatshirt, too exhausted to undress.

All this he knew, but he had to give it one more shot. Pulling his
tortured body from the bed, straightening out his crippled body
– crippled from having painted ceilings in eleven different
rooms – he limped from the bedroom and down the stairs.

"Thought you were going to sleep," Gloria said, never turning her
head from her work.

"Couldn't sleep," he said. "Gloria…."

"Mmmmm," she said.

He had nothing to say and they both knew it. He tried to deliver
the message in another language, a language they had both understood
so long ago. He put his arms around her waist and rubbed his weekend
beard into the dampness of her sweatshirt. He raised his hands until
they touched the honeydew melons that were her breasts.

"Morton! For God's sake!"

"For my sake, Gloria," he said. "It's been so long."

"Soon we'll be caught up,"
click, click, click.
"Soon we'll
be caught up with the house. Then we'll have the time."

"Soon is too late," he said. "Gloria…."

"Think of the house," she said, pointing her index finger at the
woodwork that was finally showing through the layers of paint. "Think
of what we're building, the home our children will have."

"Children," he said. "To have children you've got
to……"

"Mor-ton." It was a warning.

He knew when he was defeated. He slunk back up the stairs, crawled
into the rancid sheets, waited for sleep to hammer him into
unconsciousness. As he sank, he cursed the old house they had
purchased, the structure that was once the carriage house of a
prominent American millionaire. He cursed the suburban community,
cursed the neighbors, cursed the crabgrass, cursed the ceilings he
had scraped and painted, cursed the Long Island Expressway and
finally, just before going under, cursed the rancid sheets. He must
remember to ask Gloria to change the sheets.

In the morning he was better. He was always better in the morning.
The great ache in his groin was subdued and the stiffness in his
muscles seemed gone. He wished he were older. He wished his
recuperative powers were less good. If only he could be fifty and
have the excuse of being tired. But no. He and Gloria were both
twenty-five. They were able to work eighteen hours a day. They
did.

Gloria had left a list on the bureau. "Mow the grass," the note
said. "Prepare for fall seeding." Unquestioning, he pushed the old
mower over the crabgrass. It was automatic labor and he welcomed it.
For he was a dreamer, and he liked tasks that allowed his mind to
wander. There were dreams of coolness and cleanliness, dreams of
clean sheets and women fresh from hot showers, dreams of hands
without blisters and breasts free of sweatshirts. He dreamed of
air-conditioned apartments overlooking urban rivers, of stereo sets
and soft lights. Horny was the word.

Gloria was deep in the bowels of the house, scraping paint that
had been applied at the turn of the century. He was alone with his
dreams and his hand mower. He was thinking of high-rise bachelor
apartments, of building superintendents and professional repairmen,
of plumbers and electricians. Finally he heard the voice.

"Mr. Earbrow," the voice said. "Oh, Mr. Earbrow."

It was a woman's voice, the woman's voice. Gillian Blake was
leaning against the back fence that separated their properties. The
only other time Morton had seen Gillian was at the party. He had
congratulated her on something. What was it? Yes. On being the only
woman in the neighborhood who didn't hang over back fences and offer
advice to neighbors. And here she was hanging over the back fence,
with that soft, frilly housecoat.

"You seem to be working so hard," Gillian said.

"Wouldn't you rather use our power mower? We're not using it
today."

Morton Earbrow found himself staring. Staring hard at her slim,
exciting face. Then staring hard at her slim, exciting body. Her arms
were slim and exciting, too. Lightly tanned arms and a fine coating
of sunbleached hair. Those arms, he decided, had never lifted
anything heavier than a champagne glass. Maybe a tennis racquet
– but that just for effect. She was, he suddenly realized, part
and parcel of his most glorious dreams.

"Thank you, Mrs. Blake," he said, "but…."

"You're welcome to it," Gillian said.

"To it?" He hadn't wanted to say that. He knew he was a fool. He
knew she was talking about the power mower. Despite the phrasing, the
way she talked, the way she looked. Despite all that, she was talking
about a power mower.

In point of fact, Gillian was not talking about a power mower. If
there was anything in the world that held less interest than a power
mower, she couldn't imagine what it might be. It was just that, on
the evidence, the quickest way to Morton Earbrow's heart would
probably be astride a power mower.

"The mower is in the garage," she said.

"Well, thank you, Mrs. Blake," he said.

Morton vaulted the fence easily, and walked beside her to the
garage. It was cool in the garage, cool and dark. He could see
through an open door what must be a den. Cooler and darker. There was
a couch in the den. Gillian leaned in the doorway and looked at him.
He could feel that aching sensation in his groin, and he turned away
and looked at the power mower.

"You work very hard," Gillian said. "I hear you working at night,
too."

"Well, the house needs a lot of … work," he said.

"Don't you ever just sit around and relax?"

"Not very often," he said. "It's an old house."

"My husband doesn't sit around and relax either," Gillian said.
She wondered whether she was going too fast. "But our house is a new
house. It's just that he's never home any more. He has work in the
city."

"You both work in the city," Morton said. "I mean I've heard the
show."

"I'm surprised," Gillian said. "Very few men listen to us."

"Well, I, uh, better be going," Morton said. "Lots of mowing to do
today. We're going to be seeding later on."

"Really?" Gillian said. "How interesting."

Morton thought that was delivered in an ambiguous manner, but
decided against pursuing it.

"Maybe you had better test the mower before you go," Gillian said.
"It hasn't been used in some time."

Morton Earbrow took the machine out into the sunlight beside the
swimming pool. He looked at the water, at the small waves stirred up
by the wind off the Sound, and he looked at the mower. He realized it
was a fine machine, a self-propelled rotary, with a 3 1/2-
horsepower, 4-cycle engine, not to mention an automatic starter, a
push-button hydraulic fuel pumper, an automatic compression release
an a die-cast magnesium alloy housing unit. A beautiful machine,
actually, and Morton Earbrow wondered why he couldn't drum up more
enthusiasm. He flicked the switch, the machine came alive, purred for
a full minute and died.

"Something seems to be wrong," he observed.

"Oh, I hope it's nothing serious," Gillian said.

"We'll have it fixed in a jiffy," Morton said.

He spoke with confidence. And there was, in truth, no reason why
Morton Earbrow should have doubts. He had in the past few months
repaired chain saws and drills and sanding machines and hand saws and
hammers and lathes and he had never yet encountered the machine that
could resist his skillful touch.

As he began testing the ignition system, the spark plugs, the
distributor, the carburetor, Gillian disappeared. When she came back
she carried a cold beer for him. When she came back she was wearing a
bathing suit. It was a strange bathing suit, Morton decided, a
bathing suit with openings in unexpected places – a bathing
suit that seemed to be held together by shoelaces. He accepted the
beer and turned back to the lawn mower.

"You mean you'll be able to put all those pieces back again?" she
asked.

"Oh, it's not too complicated, actually," Morton said.

"But I can't seem to isolate the trouble."

"But that's wonderful," Gillian said. "When something goes wrong
we always have to call in a man."

Morton Earbrow returned home for his wrenches and screwdrivers.
When he came back, Gillian was in the pool. She swam nicely,
especially when one considered the slimness of her arms, which was
precisely what Morton was considering. He returned his attention to
the machine slowly, regretfully and, for once in his life, to a
machine that seemed to be getting the better of him. Of course,
Morton Earbrow had no way of knowing that Gillian had emptied a
shaker of salt into the gas tank earlier in the day.

His wife appeared but once. Precisely at noon, wearing Bermuda
shorts and sweatshirt, she came over and handed him a liverwurst
sandwich. No mustard. She disappeared again into the bowels of the
house.

Gillian spent the afternoon stretched out on the striped chaise
lounge. She thought briefly about Ernie Miklos and felt a twinge of
sorrow. She hadn't wanted it to end that way, nothing quite so
violent as that. It was sorrow tempered with relief, though; she
might not have gotten him home. And how would she have explained
that? The sun was striking her full force now, and she shifted from
her stomach to her back. She was aware also of the heat of Morton
Earbrow's gaze every time she twitched a muscle. At that moment she
inhaled – just for effect, just to see what would be the
reaction of her little home handyman. Before exhaling, she had the
satisfaction of hearing a wrench drop.