Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [32]
Nicole was really scared of what she was getting herself into. She couldn't figure out why she was doing it. It was the first time she'd chased after a guy since Doug Brock, and that was the only dude who'd ever sent her away. Brock was a lot older, and she had sure liked him. Nicole had been working at a motel in Salt Lake for a little while, and he lived around the corner, and mentioned something one day about paying her to clean his house. Once he got her in, it turned out pretty terrific and he told her to come over anytime. One night she couldn't sleep and was tired of being by herself, so she walked over. It was two in the morning. He came to the door naked and said, What the hell you doing at this hour? Then he got rude, and mentioned some other guy, and told her he didn't want anything to do with a chick who was going with somebody else. He was just like a foreman when he said it-which happened to be what he did for a living. Right after, he said he was busy with another girl, told her right there at his door at two in the morning. That was gross. Nicole never went back to see him. In fact, she had hardly thought of him until now, going back to Sterling's, when she had to wonder if Gary would still be around.
Then she became really scared of what she might be getting into. In fact her heart was so high, she could have been breathing some strange gas making her half faint, half exhilarated. She had never felt anything so strong as this before. It was as if it would be impossible to let this guy go.
His car was still there and she parked right behind. The kids were asleep in the back seat so she left them. It was safe to leave kids on a quiet street like this. And went up and knocked on the door, even if it was still cracked open a little. She heard him say something just before she knocked. It was incredible but she heard him say, "Man, I like that girl."
When she went in, he came over to her and he touched her, didn't grab her for a big kiss, but just touched her lightly. She felt really good. It was all right. She had done the right thing. They sat on the couch for a couple of hours and they laughed and talked. It hardly mattered if Sterling was in the room with them or not.
After a while, when it was obvious she was going to stay, they went out to the car and picked up the sleeping children and put them in the house and laid them still sleeping on Sterling's bed, and went on talking.
They did hardly anything but laugh. They had a great big laugh about counting her freckles and the impossibility of that because he said you couldn't count freckles on an elf. Then, in the quiet moment that followed a lot of this laughter, he told her he had been in prison for half of his life. He told her in a matter-of-fact way.
While Nicole wasn't afraid of him, she was scared. It was the thought of getting mixed up with another loser. Somebody who didn't think enough of himself to make something of himself. She felt it was bad to float through life. You might have to pay too much the next time around.
They got to speaking of karma. Ever since she was a kid, she had believed in reincarnation. It was the only thing that made sense. You had a soul, and after you died, your soul came back to earth as a new born baby. You had a new life where you suffered for what you had done wrong in your last life. She wanted to do it right so she wouldn't have to make another trip.
To her amazement, he agreed. He said he had believed in karma for a long time. Punishment was having to face something you hadn't been able to face in this life.
Yes, he told her, if you murdered somebody, you might have to come back and be the parents of that person in a future century. That was the whole point of living, he said, facing yourself. If you didn't, the burden got bigger.
It was getting to be the best conversation she ever had. She had always thought the only way