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By Root 5048 0

he mixed the drinks, Coverly looked out of the window into the Frascatis’ back yard. There he saw the young Frascati girl in a white bathing suit that accentuated every line of her body but the crease in her buttocks. Her brother was spraying her gently with a garden hose. There was no horseplay, there were no outcries, there was no sound at all while the young man dutifully sprayed his beautiful sister. When Coverly had mixed the drinks he carried them out. Josie had begun to talk about her mother. “Oh, I wish you people could have met my mother,” she said. “I wish you kids could have met my mother.” When Betsey asked Coverly to fill the glasses once more he said they were out of rum. “Run down to the shopping center and get a bottle, honey,” Josie said. “It’s that kind of a night. We only live once.”

“We only pass this way once,” Betsey said.

“I’ll get some,” Coverly said.

“Let me, let me,” Max said. “Betsey and I’ll go.” He pulled Betsey out of her chair and they walked together toward the shopping center. Betsey felt wonderful. It’s that kind of a night, was all she could think to say, but the fragrant gloom and the crowded houses where the lights were beginning to go out and the noise of sprinklers and the snatches of music all made her feel that the pain of traveling and moving and strangeness and wandering was ended and that it had taught her the value of permanence and friendship and love.

Everything delighted her then—the moon in the sky and the neon lights of the shopping center—and when Max came out of the liquor store she thought what a distinguished, what an athletic and handsome man he was. Walking home he gave Betsey a long, sad look, put his arms around her and kissed her. It was a stolen kiss, Betsey thought, and it was that kind of a night, it was the kind of a night where you could steal a kiss. When they got back to Circle K, Coverly and Josie were in the living room. Josie was still talking about her mother. “Never an unkind word, never a harsh look,” she was saying. “She used to be quite a pianist. Oh, there was always a big gang at our house. On Sunday nights we all used to gather around the piano and sing hymns you know and have a wonderful time.” Betsey and Max went to the kitchen to make drinks. “She was unhappy in her marriage,” Josie was saying. “He was a real sonofabitch, there’s no two ways about it, but she was philosophical, that was the secret of her success; she was philosophical about him and just from hearing her talk you’d think she was the happiest married woman in the world but he was …” “Coverly,” Betsey screamed. “Coverly, help.”

Coverly ran down the hall. Max was standing by the stove. He had torn Betsey’s dress. Coverly swung at him, got him on the side of the jaw and set him down on the floor. Betsey screamed and ran into the living room. Coverly stood over Max, cracking his knuckles. There were tears in his eyes. “Hit me again if you want to, kick me if you want to,” Max said. “I couldn’t punch a hole in a paper bag. That was a lousy thing for me to do, you know, but I just can’t help myself sometimes and I’m glad it’s over and I swear to God I’ll never do it again, but Jesus Christ Coverly sometimes I get so lonely I don’t know where to turn and if it wasn’t for this kid brother of mine that I’m sending through college I think I’d cut my throat, so help me God, I’ve thought of it often enough. You wouldn’t think, just looking at me, that I was suicidal, would you, but so help me God I am an awful lot of the time.

“Josie’s all right. She’s a darned good sport,” Max said, still speaking from the floor, “and she’ll stay with me through thick and thin and I know that, but she’s very insecure, you know, oh she’s very insecure and I think it’s because she’s lived in so many different places. She gets melancholy, you know, and then she takes it out on me. She says I take advantage of her. She says I don’t bring in the money for the food. I don’t bring in the money for the car. She needs new dresses and she needs new hats and I don’t know what she doesn’t need new and then she