The Followed Man (40 page)

"I don't know," she
said sadly. "I guess I got to do what I got to do, the same as
everybody."

They walked Luke back around to
his truck to say good-bye. Marjorie suddenly stepped up to him, put
her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth. He'd never touched
her before, and hadn't realized that she was just his height, which
seemed strange—strange that he hadn't known it. His arms went
around her broad ribcage, her large breasts squashed alarmingly
against his chest. "It helped so much talking with you, Luke,"
she said. "You make me feel I'm worth something, you know that?
I'm so grateful." She squeezed him hard, forcing some breath out
of him. She seemed a continent, and he thought of her oversized
sexual parts, female parts, which in his mind were muscular and
tough, meant for hard and constant use, yet her mind and emo­tions
were so delicate and fragile they might break. He was prob­ably,
hopefully, wrong.

She held him until he wanted
very much for her to let him go, and finally she did. Good-bye,
good-bye, they called to each other as she and Robin went back to
their cubicle.

He got up into the cab, feeling
free, and had the key in the igni­tion when a small woman in a
white dress came running across the dimly lit parking lot toward him.
At first it might have been a child, but then it was Louise Sturgis.

"Can I get in?" she
asked in her husky voice. He opened the passenger door and she
climbed up. "Well, what did you do for that statuesque broad?"
she said.

"Not much," he said.
"I thought you were in California."

"I changed my mind. Will
you give me a ride home? I'm with a jerk I don't want to be with,
savvy? One of the cripples I told you about. Not that all of you
bastards aren't cripples in one way or another."

"Okay," he said.

She didn't speak until they
stopped in her driveway. "I'm too old for this dating crap,"
she said. "Second-hand goods. The bas­tards are always
peeking at the book, like second-hand car deal­ers. Come in and
have a drink."

In spite of everything that had
happened to him, that might happen to him, his pulse rose at her
offer and he wanted to be in­side her, to slip into her darkness.
It seemed an absurd activity, all that soft wrestling, the changing
of positions, the goatish jerking and plunging. He would have thought
he had outgrown it. He didn't want a woman with all of her sudden
resentments, who didn't want what she wanted, or hated what she
wanted. A crazy lady, he had said to himself once in another, safer
mood.

He thought briefly, as if the
time had been years instead of weeks ago, of the young woman and
child he had seen bathing at the brook pool. Now that young woman had
Helen's face, but it had been so long ago the memory had turned
grainy and bluish, like an old color photograph exposed to too much
light. There had been sweetness in that scene, now changed to loss.

Louise led him into the house,
past the unfinished carpentry of the front hall. Coleman was out, she
said, on some no doubt doomed venture of the heart, some lost cause,
some romantic expedition into the devouring jungle. Poor Coleman.

"You did go away, though,"
he said as she made the drinks.

"My ex-husband, the con
man, is in the money again and I wanted some back alimony. Sordid
story. I went to Fire Island with him for a week. He's really a
pitiful slob. But now he has some nefarious relationship with a
conglomerate called R.I.C. I know it's nefarious or he wouldn't be
involved."

The
Gentleman
conglomerate,
he thought, also into comic books, heavy metals, tennis court
surfaces, razor blades, imported booze and oil. All this, presumably,
for money, power, the world. Right now they could have it, because he
wanted another kind of oil and slippage, the power of touch, nerves
connecting to this woman through more than the epithelium, liveness
to unsheathed liveness—all the nerves that now wove themselves
into his leash.

She sat down next to him on the
couch, her thin shoulder be­neath the silky white, her hair a
black wash. The pale flat paint­ings glowed around the dark
walls. He had asked himself before how it might be possible to make a
woman happy, if it were at all possible. He wanted her because he
wanted to love her.

When they were naked in her bed
he tried to prove to her how sweet and valuable she was. How could
she not turn, all of her, not just her flesh, open and equal? She
seemed enraptured by what he gently did to her. It was all smooth and
mutual, but if to her each new wave of rapture was a theft of power,
then he was help­less, no matter how she warbled and turned
liquid under him and over him. If he could only reach the center that
screamed thief, usurper, alarms and excursions.

When she did convulse, skim and
then glide down to come, he did, grateful to her loved center where
he'd left himself. She held him and said nothing. Time had passed in
sleep, he knew, when he woke. The night felt deep, climbing toward
morning. She had turned on her bedside lamp, propped herself on an
elbow and now smoothed him with her squarish hand. When he was wide
awake she said, "Luke Carr fucked me. You want to know who
fucked me? It was Luke Carr that fucked me." She seemed ten­der,
angerless. "He's got a gun, though. Do you have a gun?"

"A real question?" he
asked.

"Yes. Have you got your
gun?"

"It's in the truck,"
he said.

"I'd like to see it. Go get
it."

"We don't need a gun,
Louise."

"I mean it. Go get it. I
want to see it," she said. He looked at her closely, for signs.
Her olive eyes seemed just curious, as when she'd asked him to do
different things to her—to see if he would do them, or to see
what they would be like if he did, he was never certain.

"To hell with the gun,"
he said.

"I'll go get it. Tell me
where it is," she said, then quickly came over him and took him
in her mouth so deeply she gagged and momentarily recoiled. He felt
her breath and the naked little points of her teeth, then her tongue.

"Let's fuck," he said.
"Hell with the gun."

She brought her face over his,
her black hair falling around him. "I'm in heat, don't you know?
I'm dripping for you. But go get the gun."

He entered her, but she wrenched
away. "I just want to see it," she said.

He went out through the hallway,
wondering, not certain how curious or apprehensive he was, barefoot
and naked in the chill darkness. The grass, the trees and the house
were drenched and silent, the road empty. Coleman's Toyota was parked
next to his truck. He took the pistol from its holster and carried it
back through the silent house to the lamplight, where she sat
cross-legged on the white sheets, the heavy black weapon wrong near
her tender nakedness. He took out the loaded clip and put it on her
bureau, then pulled back the slide to make sure the chamber was
empty, the hard clicks of internal stops and cams loud in the room.

"God, what a sound,"
she said. "Is it empty? Let me hold it." Her voice was low,
as if in dread. She took the black gun in both hands. "It's
cold. It's too heavy. God, it's black and cold! It smells of oil."
She put the cold gun flat against her belly and winced at the shock.

"It's cocked," he
said. "Now let me uncock it and put it away."

"But it's empty? It's
empty?" She pressed the gun against her with both hands.

"It's empty. The hammer
would just click against the firing pin," he said, "but it
might pinch your finger. Anyway, come on, let's put it away now."
He reached for it.

"Wait! I want to feel it.
It's warming now." She turned it around so that the barrel end
was against her navel, fitting into that soft depression. "God,"
she said. "It's death, isn't it? That's all it was made for."
She squeezed the gun, her forefingers depressing the grip safety, her
thumbs on the trigger, and the hammer fell with a dull, high
pink,
unreverberant yet powerful as a sledge on an an­vil.

He took the gun away from her so
quickly he twisted and hurt one of her fingers. She looked at him,
holding her finger in her other hand. "That hurt," she
said.

He shuddered out of the horror
of whatever absolute taboo she'd broken. "I'm sorry I hurt you,"
he said. "I shouldn't have brought this thing in here."

"What's the harm if it's
empty?" she said.

"It's the idea."

"The whole ugly, cold thing
is an idea," she said. "You're the one who carries it
around with you all the time."

"I don't point it at myself
and pull the trigger."

"You're too squeamish. You
know what I'd like you to do?" Her eyes were bright with an
idea, her teeth showing. "I'd like you to cock it, and I'll get
on my hands and knees, like this." She got on her hands and
knees, her behind toward him, her dark round anus in its condensed,
pigmented skin, her vagina wet amber wrinkles in the black silk.
"Now," she said. "Now. Put the end of it up my ass.
Put it in deep and pull the trigger. I want to feel it."

He wanted and did not want to do
what she asked. He could not do it. It was clear to him he could not
do it, not with the ghost shell and projectile, his too close
knowledge of that murderous process.

"You can't do it," she
said.

"You're right. You've got
me," he said.

She turned over, her legs apart,
thighs leading down to her silky places. "And you thought you
could do anything the kinky bitch wanted."

"I can't even pretend to
kill the kinky bitch," he said.

"You don't mind putting
your other thing in there."

"It's not a gun."

"Why don't you take your
fucking arsenal and go home?"

"I don't want you to be a
kinky bitch."

"But I am, right?"

Unanswerable woman logic.

"And who the hell are you?"
she said. "What right have you to want me to be anything you
want me to be?" She was shrill, and he thought of being
overheard.

"I want you to make me feel
good when I make you feel good," he said, thinking that it was
possible she faked it all, all the moans of pleasure. It was
possible. He could be near tears, or he could redefine everything.
What he thought sounded stupid—that she should find his
intensity fulfilling, defining. Helen had—or had she? Marjorie
would—or would she? Jane? Certainly Jane had wanted and found
pleasure in his maleness, or in something about her clandestine visit
to his mountain. And then he thought, Leave this. Leave it. Somewhere
there is a cool uncomplicatedness that can be tested by time.

In the next week and a half he
didn't leave the mountain at all. He finished his stonework, except
for the upper part of the chim­ney, and went on. The cabin took
on shape, now, as though it hadn't been quite seriously a house
before. The first log, bolted to the footings, seemed rough, bent and
uneven compared to the straight lines of the cement and sawn joists;
in this part of the con­struction he would have to use his eye,
and match one log's char­acteristics with another's, trimming and
shaping with adz, ax and chain saw. Splines of thin pine furring
would fit in grooves down the length of each log, to tighten as the
logs shrank down upon themselves. The logs were fresh and clean, and
though heavy were of a density and texture that pleased him and felt
good to his hands. He ran out of milk for his coffee, bread and
vegetables, but put off going down the mountain. He ate whatever he
found in cans. Jake had to eat dry chow with water, which he ate but
not without reproachful looks. In the middle of the second week the
cabin walls were up and ready for windows, doors and the sills that
would carry his rafters. He was out of cigarettes, so could not smoke
with his celebrational drink.

At night he slept as he had as a
child. He lay down on his cot, slept, dreamed, and woke at first
light, the night having passed as if in an instant.

One morning he woke to the heavy
tatting of rain on the tent, so he decided to go down for supplies.
And the mail, which he didn't want. He wanted nothing to happen out
there, but of course the bashings and dismemberments, plots and
betrayals would go on. The hurt, the neglected; the last week and a
half—it was August now, he calculated—had been pure, with
a pure pur­pose cleanly fulfilled, no crazy unhappy vengeful
creatures sight­ing in on him. He put a canvas tarp in the truck
to cover his sup­plies and went down the mountain, planning to
eat breakfast at the Welkum Diner in Leah.

When he passed Louise's and
Coleman's house he had to look at it. Coleman's Toyota was there.
Then he was past it—an old house like many others. George's
truck was gone from his driveway. Then the high road to Leah.

He would get his mail last. At
Follansbees' he shopped for food and whatever else caught his eye,
taking interesting things from shelves, vegetable and meat counters
with a pleasant lack of ac­countability. Everything was just for
him, except for the canned dog food, so he could take anything into
his cart. Everything fit into the wide cab of the truck, so he didn't
need the tarp. He had deliberately shopped while hungry, and now went
to the Welkum Diner and ordered coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs,
ham, home fried potatoes and English muffins with blueberry jelly. He
could eat anything. He wanted to read nothing, write nothing, not
talk; he wanted to put a roof on his cabin, to make doors and glaze
windows to look out of beneath the sturdy roof. At night the deer
came to the brushy pasture; he would, when the cabin was com­plete
and furnished, prune and fertilize the apple trees around the field,
free up hawthorn, maybe in season plant concord grapes, autumn olive
and other food and shelter shrubs for the wild mammals and birds. He
would leave aspen for the partridge, near the spruce that was their
shelter. He would make a pool near the brook, and let the brook trout
grow into giants. It would be a temperate paradise. Ducks would breed
there—black ducks and wood ducks. Bear would come to glut
themselves on the apples and shit great piles of sweet smelling seeds
and cores. Bless the wild, the independent, those who minded their
own business.