The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [168]
Mr. Judd and I are planning to go to Paris. The petits-fours and the melting ice are set before them.
I'll tell ya, tomorrow do you want to ride in with me to see those auto races at Indianapolis? Bill Hearn asks.
Poor Robert, he's falling asleep, Ina says, nudging him with her elbow.
My it's hot, Mrs. Judd says.
Ina reaches up and turns on the bed lamp. Bill, how could you have asked the Judds where Mount Holyoke was? If you don't know something don't ask so many questions about it.
So what if their daughter does go there? I ain't afraid of the damn Judds, I want to tell you something, Ina, that society stuff don't impress me 'cause the truth of it is it's the money that counts, and we ain't got a daughter to worry about, and as far as Robert goes with all the books he reads he ain't gonna be much on the social end anyway, not so long as you're never around the goddam house, and he's got a nigger cook for a mother.
Bill, I wish you wouldn't talk that way.
Well, you can't change a sow's ear, Ina. I got my business and you got your social engagements, and each of us oughta be happy. Only it seems to me you could give a little time to Robert, that kid's a big kid, and he's healthy, only he's like a cold fish, and there's just no life in him.
He's going to camp this summer, and we're starting him at Country Day in the fall.
The truth is we shoulda had another kid, or a bunch of them.
Let's not go into that, Bill. Ina is settling down under the covers.
No, not from your end anyway, I swear, Ina.
Bill!
Now, fellows, the counselor says, if you're a good fellow you co-operate and if you're square and honest you do your part of your duties. Who was it that left his bed undone this morning?
No answer. It was you, Hearn, wasn't it?
Yes.
The counselor sighs. Fellows, I'm going to give this tent a demerit because of Robert.
Well, I don't see why you have to make a bed when you just got to take it apart at night. The kids snicker.
What's the matter, Hearn, are you filthy, how were you brought up if you don't make a bed? And why didn't you come out like a man and say you were guilty?
Aw, leave me alone.
Another demerit, the counselor says. Fellows, it's up to you to make Robert behave.
Only he wins back the demerits at the team boxing matches that afternoon. He shuffles in clumsily against the other kid, his arms tired from the heavy gloves, and swings his fists desperately.
His father has come up to see him for the day. Sock it to him, give it to him, Robert, in the head, in the stomach, give it to him.
The other kid jolts him in the face, and he pauses for a moment, drops his gloves, and dabs at his outraged nose. Another punch makes his ear ring. Don't let up, Bobby, his father shouts. A missed punch travels around his head, the forearm scraping the skin on his face. He is ready to cry.
In the belly, Robert.
He swings out feverishly, flailing his arms. The other kid walks into a punch, sits down surprised, and then gets up slowly. Robert keeps swinging at him, hitting him, and the kid goes down again, and the referee stops the fight. Bobby Hearn on a TKO, he shouts, gives four points to the Blues. The kids yell, and Bill Hearn is putting a bear hug around him as he climbs out of the ropes set up on the grass. Oh, you gave it to him, Bobby, I told you to give it to him in the belly, that was the way to fight, kid, goddam, I got to hand it to you, you're not afraid to step in and mix it.
He wiggles out of the hug. Leave me alone, Pop, let me go, and he runs away over the grass to his tent, trying not to cry.
There are the summers in Charlevoix, the expanding house in the Chicago suburb, the world of long green lawns, and quiet beaches, and croquet courses and tennis courts; there are all the intimate and extensive details of wealth,