Eventide - Kent Haruf [78]
He bent and kissed her again and put his arm around her and poked his hand down into the loose front of her blouse. She slapped at his hand.
Don’t, she said.
Why what’s wrong here?
What do you think is wrong.
Hell, I’m ready to go. Soon as I take a shower.
I’m not going anywhere with you. I told you. You can just get the hell out of here too.
Honey, now this ain’t like you, he said. This don’t sound like my girl.
She took up her glass and took a long drink. He watched her.
You got to quit that drinking. That’s what it is. You’re already drunk and we ain’t even got out of the house yet.
He took her glass away and walked across the kitchen and poured the gin into the sink. Laverne came up out of her chair. She stumbled toward him and slapped him hard in the face.
Don’t ever tell me what I can do in my own goddamn house. Her eyes were wild. She brought her hand up and slapped him again.
You crazy bitch, he said.
He hit her smartly in the face with his open hand, and she spun half around and sat down all at once on the floor.
I’m going to go shower, he said. And you can calm your ass down. Then we’ll get out of here for the night.
When he went back to the bathroom, she stood and grabbed a long metal cooking spoon she’d been stirring their chili with, and lurched after him. He was sitting on the toilet, pulling off his boots, and she began hitting him over the head and about the shoulders with the heavy spoon, spattering chili on his face and shirt and jacket.
Goddamn it, Hoyt shouted. You stupid bitch. Quit it.
He rose up and took hold of her shoulders, spinning her around in the little bathroom, neither of them saying anything at all but both panting furiously, and he grabbed her hand and bent it back until she let go of the spoon. The spoon clattered on the floor. Then he released her, but immediately she scratched desperately at his face, and he shoved her away and she fell backward into the shower curtain, grabbing wildly at anything, and tore the curtain loose from the rod and crashed into the bathtub.
Look what you done, he said. Are you satisfied now?
Help me out of here, she whimpered. Her eyes were wet with tears. She was half wrapped up in the curtain.
You going to quit?
Help me out of here.
Tell me you’re going to quit.
I quit. All right? I quit. You son of a bitch.
You better behave.
He pushed the curtain aside and pulled her by the hand and stepped back, waiting, but she only looked at him. Her makeup had run and her eyes were awash with mascara. Without a word she hurried out of the bathroom and ran through the apartment to the bedroom closet where she grabbed an armful of his shirts, hangers and all, and then rushed back into the front room. He was standing in the kitchen doorway and, when he saw what she was doing, came forward to stop her, but she’d already thrown the door open and flung his shirts through the door out across the stair landing into the night, his flannel work shirts and his good western shirts alike, all drifting and sailing to the ground as in some dream or fantasy.
There, she cried. I did it. Now get out. Get out, you filthy bastard. I’m done with you.
Then Hoyt hit her in the face with his fist.
She fell back against the door and he wrenched it open and went leaping down the stairs to collect his shirts, ducking and bobbing across the yard as he picked them up.
Laverne pulled herself up and shoved the door closed, locked it, and stood looking out the narrow window, panting. She wiped at her nose with her shirt cuff, leaving a smear across her cheek. Her soft woman’s face looked like a Halloween fright mask now. The mass of her maroon hair was all undone.
Hoyt came pounding back up the stairs with his shirts under his arm and tried to turn the knob. Bitch, he said. You better let me in.
Never.
You goddamn bitch. You better open this fucker.
I’ll call the police first.
He hammered on the door, then stepped back and rammed it with his shoulder, glaring back at her through the little window.
You’re going to be sorry for this, he said.
I already am. I