The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [258]
And Mrs. Brown nods her head. I allow Jim to show me the way for those political things. She does not add the business about keeping up her home, but you can guess. Nice people, nice family, church on Sundays of course. Mrs. Brown's only violent opinion is on the New Morality. I don't know, people aren't Godfearing any more. Women drinking in bars, doing God knows what else, it isn't right, isn't Christian at all.
Mr. Brown nods tolerantly. He has a few reservations, but after all women somehow just are more religious, really religious, than men, he will say in a confidential talk.
Naturally they're very proud of their children, and they'll tell you with amusement how Patty is teaching William to dance now that he's in high school.
We were worried about sending them to the State University what with the depression and all, but I think we can see our way clear now. Mr. Brown, she'll add, always has wanted them to go, especially since he missed it.
The brother and sister are good friends. In the sun parlor where the maple sofa is flanked by the vase (which had been a flower pot until the rubber plant died) and the radio, the girl makes him lead her.
Now, look, Willie-boy, it's easy. You just don' have to be afraid of holdin' me.
Who's afraid of holdin' ya?
You're not such a roughneck, she says from the vantage of senior year in high school. You're gonna be dating soon.
Yeah, he exclaims with disgust. But he feels her small pert breasts against his chest. He is almost as tall as her. Who's gonna date?
You are.
They shuffle along the smooth red stone of the floor. Hey, Patty, when Tom Elkins comes around to see you, lemme talk to him. I wanna know if he thinks I'll be big enough to get on the football team in a coupla years.
Tom Elkins, that ol' fool.
(It's sacrilege.) He looks at her in disgust. What's the matter with Tom Elkins?
It's all right, Willie, you'll make the team.
He never does get quite big enough, but by his junior year he is the head of the cheer leaders, and he has talked his father into buying him a used car.
You don't understand, Pop, I really need the car. A guy's gotta get around. Like last Friday when I had to get all the crew together to practice for the Wadsworth game, I wasted all the afternoon just running around.
Are you sure, Son, it won't be a wanton extravagance?
I really need it, Pop. I'll even work summers to pay you back.
It's not a question of that, although I think you oughter to keep you from getting spoiled. I tell you what, I'll just talk it over with Mother.
The victory is his and he grins. Far back in his head, quite beneath the surface of his sincerity in this conversation, is the memory of many others. (The youths talking in the locker room after gym period, the profound discussions in the cellars converted to club-rooms. )
Folklore: If you want to make a girl, you got to have a car.
His senior year is fun. He is a member of SG (Student Government) and he manages the School Dance. There are all the dates on Saturday night at the Crown Theatre and once or twice in the road-house out of town. There are the parties on Friday night at the girls' houses. He even goes steady for a part of the year.
And always the cheer leading. He squats, does knee-bends in the white flannel pants, the rough white sweater not quite warm enough in the fall winds. Before him the one thousand kids are yelling, the girls in their green plaid skirts jumping up and down, their knees red from the cold.
Let's give a Cardley for the team, he shouts, running up and down with the megaphone. There is the pause, the respectful hush while he extends one arm, swings it over his head, and brings it down.
CARDLEY HIGH. . . CARDLEY HIGH.
HIIIIIIIIIII SCORE HIIIIIIII SCHOOOOOL
YAAAAAAAAY TEAM!
And the kids are yelling, watching him as he does a cartwheel, comes up clapping his hands, his body turned toward the playing field in an attitude of devotion, of pleading. It's all his. One thousand kids awaiting on him.
One of the glory moments that you pull out later.
In the lag between basketball season and baseball, he takes his car apart, installs a muffler (he is tired of the sound of the exhaust) greases the gear housing, and paints the chassis a pale green.