The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [261]
Lovemaking on the stairs.
Beverly's profanity in heat.
Experimenting with costumes.
-------------------. (He will not give it a name because he has heard it in places he would not mention to her. She will not because she's not supposed to know it.)
And of course there are the other things that seem to have no relation. Eating meals together until it gets boring.
Hearing each other tell the same stories to different people.
His habit of picking his nose.
Her habit of adjusting her stockings on the street.
The sound he makes when he spits into a handkerchief.
The way she gets sullen after an evening of doing nothing.
There are mild pleasures too: Discussing the people they meet.
Relating the gossip about their friends.
Dancing together. (Merely because they are good dancers. A random phenomenon.)
Telling her his business worries.
There are neutral things: Riding in their automobile.
Her bridge and mah-jongg club.
His clubs: The Rotary, the High School Alumni Association, the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Going to church.
The radio.
The movies.
At times when he is restless he has a bad habit of spending an evening with his bachelor friends.
Bachelor Folklore: The only thing I got against marriage is people are just too disinteresting to be forced to spend their lives together.
Brown: You don't know what you're sayin'. Wait'll it's there for you, nice and steady, an' not worryin' about gettin' caught. The thing to do with women is to try it. . .
Folklore (dirty jokes): Sacrebleu, the ninety-eighth way.
The middle of the night: Now, go 'way, leave me alone, Willie, I thought we agreed to lay off for a couple of days.
Who did?
You. You said we were getting too used to it.
Forget what I said.
Ohhhh. (Exasperation and submission.) You're just an old hound dog, that's all you are. Always wanting to put it in something. (The alloy of tenderness and irritation, unique to marriage.)
There are external shocks. His sister, Patty, gets a divorce, and he hears talk, merely the faintest suggestions, but he is worried. He asks her, subtly he thinks, but she flares at him.
What do you mean, Willie, Brad coulda had the divorce instead of me?
I don't mean anything, I'm just asking you.
Listen, Willie-boy, you don't have to be looking at me thataway. I am what I am, that's all, you understand?
The shock enters, burrows deeply, and explodes sporadically for months to follow. There are times in the middle of the day when he halts in the middle of a report, catches himself looking at his pencil. You're not such a roughneck, Patty says, slim and crisp and virginal, the older sister -- half mother.
Memory as the flagellant. I don't understand it a goddam bit. What the hell makes them change that way, why can't a woman stay decent?
You'll never be like that, will you, Beverly? he says that night.
Aw, no, honey, how can you even think it?
They are very close for the moment, and his troubles spill out. Honestly, Bev, keeping up with everything makes me go so goddam fast; I get so I just want to take a breath, you know what I mean. A man's own sister, it puts quite a stir in you.
In the barrooms, in the smoking cars, in the locker room at the golf club they are talking about Patty Brown.
I swear, Bev, I ever catch you in anything like that, I'll kill you, so help me I'll kill you.
Honey? You can trust me. But she is thrilled by the sudden burst of his passion.
I feel a hell of a lot older, Bev.
On the eighteenth he lines up the putt, estimates the roll of the green. It is a five-foot shot and he should make it, but he knows suddenly that he's going to fail. The handle of the putter thonks dully against his palms as the ball rolls short a foot.
Missed again, son, Mr. Cranborn says.
Just not my day, I guess. We might as well get back to the locker room. His palms still hold a numb uncertain feeling. They stroll back slowly. You come to Louisville, son, and it'll be a pleasure to take you out to my club, Mr. Cranborn says.
I might take you up on it, sir.
As they shower, Mr. Cranborn is singing "When you wore a tulip and 1 wore a. . ."