Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [271]
Verna Baker, however, had started screaming,-which made Charley finally speak up and say, "Knock it off, Ma. You tell him I'm 18." That was how Kathryne remembered it.
Same day, they drove back to Provo, and Kathryne's mother said, "Charley can sleep on the couch." He actually did that first night.
The following morning Charley came over with his friend George, and they went riding around all day in George's car, until Kathryne told Charley to have her home at 10 P.M., which he did.
The following night, George and he came over again, but George finally drove them over to this motel called Back of the Pine-Trees and Charley got out to get a room. Kathryne started carrying on, at which point George said, "Get out. You're married to him." "I'm not," said Kathryne, "you take me home." "I'll tell you what, Nicky," George said-they used to call Kathryne "Nicky" after her middle name, Nicole-"you can go with me, or you can go with him."
Kathryne had no choice. Nothing to do but go in and say hello to Charley. God, they were kids.
They'd fight and make up, fight and make up, and one time, in one of those fights, he enlisted in the Service. They didn't even find out she was pregnant until months later. She had missed periods so many times that she never noticed the real misses. When she started to feel a lump in her stomach, and it got larger, she thought, I bet I got a tumor, and went to the doctor by herself, really scared. When she found out it was a baby, she nearly died of embarrassment. The doctor said, "Are you married?" She didn't have her ring on. The one Charley had bought was too big, and they were waiting for her to grow into it. So when she said she sure was married, she could see the doctor didn't believe her. When he asked where her husband might be, she said he had just finished basic training, only then he asked where Charley was stationed, and she couldn't even remember the name of the fort, just said, "He's in the Army. Somewhere, you know." That doctor was so positive she wasn't married that when Charley came home a couple of weeks later, Kathryne hauled him down there with her for the second medical exam.
The way Charley looked at it, he and Kathryne had been married so long, one of them couldn't start thinking without the other. Two mules in traces. Brooding about how they got into marriage. Charley couldn't even tell himself now what interested him then. He still got mad remembering how Kathryne told him they had to get married because she was pregnant. Pretending she didn't want to marry, boo hoo, but her mother sat them down, and Charley had said, "Well, it don't matter to me." By the time he found out Kathryne wasn't pregnant, by God, she was.
Over the years, he must have dropped a total of $500 to different lawyers for starting a divorce. She'd start bawling and say, "What am I going to do? Can't raise the kids by myself." He'd back out every time, say "Forget about it, you know," and lose his down payment to the lawyer. They were the kind of thoughts to put Charley in a thorough state of gloom. His luck was typical of his life. By the time they reached the hospital, he couldn't even bear to sit down. Kept thinking about Nicole and how much he used to love her. Damn if he wouldn't see Uncle Lee getting drunk. Felt ready to kill Lee, that greedy child-molesting bastard.
They were no sooner in the door than Charley began to move around restlessly, and look at people as if he didn't know whether to glare, bust out, or bawl. Finally he had to leave, and Kathryne settled in for another vigil. Immediately a fellow came up and said he was from the National Enquirer, associated with Jeff Newman, and the paper needed a better