Rabbit, Run - John Updike [46]
“That’s what I did!” Rabbit cries, delighted by how much they have in common. “I drove as far as West Virginia. Then I thought the hell with it and came back.” He must try to stop swearing; he wonders why he’s doing it. To keep them apart, maybe; he feels a dangerous tug drawing him toward this man in black.
“Should I ask why?”
“Oh I don’t know. A combination of things. It seemed safer to be in a place I know.”
“You didn’t come back to protect your wife?”
Rabbit is wordless at the idea.
Eccles continues, “You speak of this feeling of muddle. What do you think it’s like for other young couples? In what way do you think you’re exceptional?”
“You don’t think I can tell ya but I will. I once played a game real well. I really did. And after you’re first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate. And that little thing Janice and I had going, boy, it was really second-rate.”
The dashboard lighter pops. Eccles uses it and quickly returns his eyes to his driving. They’ve come down into the outskirts of Brewer. He asks, “Do you believe in God?”
Having rehearsed that this morning, Rabbit answers promptly, “Yes.”
Eccles blinks in surprise. The furry lid in his one-eyed profile shutters, but his face does not turn. “Do you think, then, that God wants you to make your wife suffer?”
“Let me ask you. Do you think God wants a waterfall to be a tree?” This question of Jimmy’s sounds, Rabbit realizes, ridiculous; he is annoyed that Eccles simply takes it in, with a sad drag of smoke. He realizes that no matter what he says, Eccles will take it in with the same weary smoke; he is a listener by trade. His big fair head seems stuffed with a gray mash of everybody’s precious secrets and passionate questions, a mash that nothing, young as he is, can color. For the first time, Rabbit dislikes him.
“No,” Eccles says after thought. “But I think He wants a little tree to become a big tree.”
“If you’re telling me I’m not mature, that’s one thing I don’t cry over since as far as I can make out it’s the same thing as being dead.”
“I’m immature myself,” Eccles offers.
It’s not enough of an offering. Rabbit tells him off. “Well, I’m not going back to that little dope no matter how sorry you feel for her. I don’t know what she feels. I never have. All I know is what’s inside me. That’s all I have. Do you know what I was doing to support that bunch? I was demonstrating a penny’s worth of tin called a frigging MagiPeeler in five-and-dime stores!”
Eccles looks at him and laughs, his eyebrows all surprise now. “Well that explains your oratorical gifts,” he says.
This aristocratic sneer rings true; puts them both in place. Rabbit feels less at sea. “Hey, I wish you’d let me out,” he says. They’re on Weiser Street, heading toward the great sunflower, dead in day.
“Won’t you let me take you where you’re staying?”
“I’m not staying anywhere.”
“All right.” With a trace of boyish bad temper Eccles pulls over and stops in front of a fire hydrant. As he brakes racily, something clatters in the trunk.
“You’re coming apart,” Rabbit tells him.
“Just my golf clubs.”
“You play?”
“Badly. Do you?” He seems animated; the cigarette burns forgotten in his fingers.
“I used to caddy.”
“Could I invite you for a game?” Ah. Here’s the hook.
Rabbit gets out and stands on the curb and sidesteps, clowning in his freedom. “I don’t have clubs.”
“They’re easy to rent. Please. I mean it.” Eccles leans far over, to speak through the door. “It’s hard for me to find partners. Everybody works except me.” He laughs.
Rabbit knows he should run, but the thought of a game, and his