The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [279]
The glamour of getting plastered on beers in the local tavern, the long deep conversation. I got a girl, Gert, I tell you she can't be beat. She's beautiful, look at her picture. It's a goddam shame the helling around I do, cheating on her and writing lovey-dovey letters.
Hell, boy, she ain't missin' any bets either.
Now, don't say that, or I'm gonna take offense. She's pretty goddam pure.
All right, all right, just take it from my point of view. What she don't know won't hurt her.
He considers this, begins to giggle. I gotta tell ya the truth, that's the way I feel about it. Have a beer.
I wish I could tell you boys (slightly drunk) just what the hell this is all gonna mean to us years from now. We're storin' up memories, and that's a fact. They ain't, all right I said ain't even if I am in college, but shit I'm just plain folks, they ain't a one of you I'll ever forget, that's the goddam Lesbian truth.
What the hell you talkin' about, Brown?
Damn if I know. (Laughter.) Tee hell with the physics test tomorrow. I just got helling in my blood.
Amen.
In June, after he has flunked out, it is hard to face his father, but he comes back with resolutions.
Listen, Pop, I know I've been an awful disappointment to you, and it's a damn shame after all your sacrifices, but I just don't think I'm cut out for that kind of work. I ain't gonna make any apologies about my intelligence 'cause I still think it's as good as anyone's my age, but I'm the kind of a fellow who needs something he can get his teeth into better. I believe I'm cut out for selling or something like that. I like to be around people.
(The long sigh) Maybe, maybe. No use cryin' over spilt milk is what I say. I'll talk to some of my friends.
He gets a job with a farm-machinery company, is making fifty dollars a week before his first year is out. He introduces Beverly to his folks, takes her to see Patty, who is now married.
Do you think she liked me? Beverly asks.
Sure she did.
They're married in the summer, and settle down in a six-room house. He's up to seventy-five dollars, but they're always a little in debt; liquor runs to twenty or twenty-five dollars a week counting what it costs them to go out.
Still, they don't have a bad time. The wedding night is a shambles but he recovers quickly, and after a decent interval their lovemaking is rich and various. They have a secret catalogue:
Lovemaking on the stairs.
Beverly's profanity in heat.
Experimenting with costumes.
-------------------. (He will not give it a name because he has heard it in places he would not mention to her. She will not because she's not supposed to know it.)
And of course there are the other things that seem to have no relation. Eating meals together until it gets boring.
Hearing each other tell the same stories to different people.
His habit of picking his nose.
Her habit of adjusting her stockings on the street.
The sound he makes when he spits into a handkerchief.
The way she gets sullen after an evening of doing nothing.
There are mild pleasures too: Discussing the people they meet.
Relating the gossip about their friends.
Dancing together. (Merely because they are good dancers. A random phenomenon.)
Telling her his business worries.
There are neutral things: Riding in their automobile.
Her bridge and mah-jongg club.
His clubs: The Rotary, the High School Alumni Association, the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Going to church.
The radio.
The movies.
At times when he is restless he has a bad habit of spending an evening with his bachelor friends.
Bachelor Folklore: The only thing I got against marriage is people are just too disinteresting to be forced to spend their lives together.
Brown: You don't know what you're sayin'. Wait'll it's there for you, nice and steady, an' not worryin' about gettin' caught. The thing to do with women is to try it. . .
Folklore (dirty jokes): Sacrebleu, the ninety-eighth way.
The middle of the night: Now, go 'way, leave me alone, Willie, I thought we agreed to lay off for a couple of days.
Who did?