Libra - Don Delillo [154]
He moved his hand around. Wandering hands, Lee thought. An old term, an old thing they said in junior high, what a girl said about a boy. He’s got wandering hands.
“People be nice,” whispered Cap’n Dave.
He seemed to be easing his body lengthwise onto the sofa, arranging himself behind Lee, the hand circling a central area, moving slowly over Lee’s pants. Lee wouldn’t let him undo the belt. They actually grappled for a moment. They fought over the belt buckle without changing positions on the sofa. Lee kept his eyes closed. They hand-fought and slapped at each other. Ferrie was strong. He was using one hand, gripping Lee’s wrist hard. It’s called an Indian bum when you put your hands around someone’s wrist and twist in opposite directions. Another old term, a thing from grade school maybe.
“People be nice, be nice, be nice.”
He seemed to be pressing with his body now. The hand sort of quieting down. Lee put his legs tight together. His eyes were still closed. He felt the rough fabric of the sofa on his face. Ferrie was breathing all over him, covering his head and neck with heavy breath.
Hide the L in Lee.
No one will see.
Then he felt it on his pants, seeping in. He tried not to take it personally. They separated themselves and Ferrie got a towel for him and then put on a robe. This was achieved mostly in the dark.
“When you get back to Dallas, there are some places you ought to know about.”
“I’m going to Mexico City.”
“But when you get back. There’s a place called Gene’s Music Bar. You ought to drop in some night. Or the Century Room, which I hear just opened.”
“What for?”
“Meet people.”
“What kind of people?”
“People you- want to meet. I don’t know Dallas bars myself. I’m passing on the word. Stay away from the Holiday. That’s rough trade. Not for you, Leon.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. Gene’s Music Bar is number one on your list. You definitely want to catch the action. Tell me what it’s like.”
Out came the hashish.
David Ferrie said, “Hashish. Interesting, interesting word. Arabic. It’s the source of the word assassin.”
Jack Ruby liked his juice fresh-squeezed in the morning. He bought eight grapefruits at a clip, grabbing them out of the bin with a steely look, like this is the only thing that can save me. There were grapefruits wedged in every part of the fridge. He liked to slap the surface of a good grapefruit. Dependable. He liked to heft the thing in his hand. The whole business of juice was allied in his mind with swimming laps in a pool or working out with weights. He was a physical-culture nut when he had time.
When he stepped out of the kitchen, that’s when the bachelor chaos began to flow. The place resembled a lost-and-found. To Jack it was okay. He hated and feared a hotel look. All he had to do was recall the time ten years ago when he became depressed over business failures, when money problems were climbing up his back and pressing on his skull. It got so bad he took a room in a cheap walk-up hotel and isolated himself for eight weeks with the shades drawn, eating only enough to stay alive. He was a nothing person. He had no desire to live. It was the one time in his life he was guilty of despair, which is the deepest misery of the spirit, the hardest to overcome.
Maybe this is why Jack had a roommate. To avoid the scariness of being alone. Or was it just his habit of taking in strays, people of untremendous means? George Senator was fifty, a postcard salesman, divorced through the mail, with an eighth-grade education. He’d been in and out of jobs for years, a short-order cook, a novelty man, a salesman of women’s apparel whose territory had been reduced from the entire state of Texas to the jackrabbit wastes. He helped out at the club and cooked Jack a meal now and then, although he didn’t broil things right and could never learn the organics of another person, the little niceties of diet that mean so much.
Coming out of the kitchen with the juice glass in his hand, Jack barely glanced at George, who sat bloated on the sofa in