The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [139]
Ya want me to toast a hot dog?
Let's just talk, Roy.
Around them, the couples with whom they have come have deserted the fire and are giggling in the shadowed hollows of the beach. A girl screams in mock fright, and he strains at the noise; uncomfortable, he thinks he hears the liquid slapping sounds of love.
Yeah, it's been a swell night, he repeats. He wonders if he can make love to her, and becomes suddenly shy. (She ain't like that, she's the pure kind, a good religious girl.) He feels guilty with his desire.
There's lots of things I'd like to talk to you about.
Sure, Roy.
Well, you know, we been goin' out for a coupla months, you know, what do ya think of me? He flushes at the crudeness of it, at the part of his mind that hopes for a physical issue. (The giggles become louder on the beach.) I mean do ya like me?
I think you're really swell, Roy, you know you are a gentleman, you're not fresh like all the other fellows.
Oh, yeah. He is disappointed, vaguely humiliated, and yet he generates some pride. I got other things on my mind.
I know, you always seem to be thinking, you know, Roy, I never know what's going on in your head, and I'd like to know because I think you're different.
How?
Well, you're shy, I don't mean shy but you're nice.
You should heah me talkin' to the guys. (They laugh.)
Oh, I believe you're just the same with them, you wouldn't be any different. (Her hand drops abstractedly on his knee, and she jerks it away with embarrassment.) I wish you'd go to church more often.
I go pretty regularly.
Yes, but there's something bothering you, I wonder about it, you're a mystery.
Yeah? He is pleased.
Roy, you always seem so angry about something, it worries me. My father was talking about you, and he said you're in Christians United, I don't know anything about politics, but I know one of them, Jackie Evans, was a nasty kid.
Aw, he's all right, it's just something with the club, you know they were tryin' me out, but it's nothin' much.
I wouldn't want you to get in trouble.
Why?
(She looks at him, her eyes passive and calm. This time she puts her hand on his arm.) You know why, Roy.
His throat is tense and his chest aches with warmth and hunger. He shivers as he hears the girl giggling again. This is swell out here at City Point, he says. (The thick lusting dreams at night for he knows not what.) I'll tell ya, Mary, if I was goin' steady -- his voice is strong with his sense of renunciation -- I wouldn' be hangin' around with them so much, 'cause you know I'd be wantin' to see more of you.
You would?
He listens to the lapping of the surf. I love ya, Mary, he says suddenly, holding himself stiff and cold, troubled delicately by a passing uncertainty.
I think I do too, Roy.
Yeah. After a while he kisses her gently, then hungrily, but a corner of his mind has retreated and become cold. Oh, I love ya, kid, he says huskily, trying to cauterize the doubt. His eyes stare away. City Point is so beautiful, she says.
In the night they cannot see the garbage that litters the beach, the seaweed and driftwood, the condoms that wallow sluggishly on the foam's edge, discarded on the shore like the minuscule loathsome animals of the sea.
Yeah, it's something, he says slowly.
Hey, theah, Roy, how's the old married man, how's it feel gettin' it steady, what do ya say?
Aw, it's okay. (He shivers in the September dawn that lifts bleakly over the gray stone pavement and the slatternly wooden houses.) Jesus, it's cold out, I wish the goddam polls'd open.
I'm glad you're with me today, Roy, you know we think you're all right, but we ain't seen much of ya.
Aaah, well, I quit the CU, he mumbles, and I thought maybe the boys were you know not so glad to see me.
Well, ya shoulda told 'em, but between you an' me, the club is gonna lay off 'em for a while, started gettin' pressure from on top, clear out of the state I heard. It always pays to stick