Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [105]
So she went in and greeted Monica with "Good morning" and picked her up and loved her and gave her a bath and got her ready for the day.
When the light came through the window, April and Gary dressed and he drove her home. As he dropped her off, he said, "April, whatever last night was like, I want you to remember that you'll always be my friend and I'll always care about you."
She went in the house and nobody was there. Kathryne was off driving Mike to work and April started sweeping the floor. Right in the middle of it she said out loud, "I'll never get married, never."
Kathryne had stayed up all night waiting for Gary and April. By five, she must have fallen asleep, and then the alarm went off not long after. She had to take her son Mike up the Canyon every morning to where he worked for the Forest Service, a twenty-mile trip up twisting roads, and after a day and night of cigarette smoke, the fear in her lungs felt ready to whistle up a storm with every breath. Then she came back down the Canyon to her house, walked in the door and there was April enthroned like a zombie in the kitchen chair.
"Where in the hell have you been?" April did not answer. She just sat and stared. "Were you," Kathryne asked, "with that dirty crumb all night?" For all the easing of her fear, there was still no relief. She just felt sick. My God, April was in a trance. "Damn it," Kathryne shouted, "Did you stay with Gary all night?"
Suddenly April screamed. "Leave me alone! Can't you leave me alone? I know nothing." She ran in the bedroom. "You're nosey," she cried from the other side of the door.
"I can't do anything about it," Kathryne said to herself. She was just thankful the child was home. It was one more wall Kathryne was holding up with her life.
Chapter 15
DEBBIE AND BEN
Debbie was feeling a little off one day and Ben kept wanting to take her to the doctor. She was pregnant, after all. But there were eleven kids over from the Busy Bee Day-Care Center, and Debbie didn't have the time. Ben finally raised his voice a little. At which point she told him he bugged her. That was the worst fight they ever had.
They were proud that was the worst fight. They saw marriage as a constant goal of making each other happy. It was the opposite of that song, "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." They kind of promised each other. They weren't going to be like other marriages.
Debbie was five feet tall and didn't weigh a lot more than a hundred pounds. Ben was six-five and weighed one hundred and ninety when they were married. Two years later, he weighed two-ninety, and looked big and fat and fine to Debbie. He was always going on a diet or splurging. He would lift barbells to try to keep in shape.
For a young Mormon couple, they lived well. They had steaks in the freezer, and loved to go out and get pizzas. They learned to make even better pizzas at home. Ben would cover every square inch with meat and cheese. They also dressed well and they managed to meet a $I00 payment each month on their Pinto. Ben could have been the huge man who gets out of the little Pinto in the TV commercial.
They worked hard, however. Ben kept trying to get back to his courses in business management at BYU, but it took two to three jobs a day, plus Debbie managing the day-care center, in order to keep abreast with what they spent living happily with each other. So they hardly needed friends. They had their baby, Benjamin, who was their first priority, and they had each other. That was all of it. It was enough.
Debbie didn't know about matters outside the house. She knew a lot about plastic pants and disposable diapers and just about anything to do with children in the day-care center. She was terrific with kids and would rather mop her kitchen floor than read.
Since she didn't have a driving license, however, she couldn't go to the grocery store, the laundromat, or anywhere without Ben.
She also didn't know their bank accounts nor their debts. She lived in a world of two-year-olds