2
When James was
younger, just after his father’s funeral, his mother’s sister, a
shy and unmarried woman named Nella, stayed with the family for
three months till, as she put it, Mrs. Hogan “saw that there were
things still worth living for.” It was Nella’s habit to bathe in
the downstairs bathroom, where the tub with the claws and the wall
with the nymphs on it sat in the rear of the house. Nella always
waited till everyone had gone to sleep before bathing. The family
was too polite to ask why, of course, respecting their aunt as they
did, even if she was “eccentric” as their mother had rather
shamefully said of her one day.
One night, when he
badly needed a drink, and had found his mother in the upstairs
bathroom, James had gone downstairs, thinking he’d get water from
the kitchen, which the colored maid had cleaned only that
afternoon. He descended the stairs in darkness, liking the way
winter moonlight played silver and frosty through the front window.
Then he heard the sighing from the back of the house, from the
bathroom.
At first the sound
reminded him of pain. But why would Nella inflict pain on
herself?
On tiptoe, sensing he
should not do what he was about to do, James went down the hall to
the bathroom. The closer he got the more pronounced the moaning and
the signing became.
He was about to raise
his hand and let it gently fall against the door when she said,
“Oh, Donald; Donald.” And that stopped him. Was there a man in
there with her?
He did not knock.
Instead he did what so many comedians in vaudeville did. He fell to
one knee and peered through the key hole.
Aunt Nella was nude.
The body she had kept modestly hidden was beautiful and womanly and
overwhelming to him. She leaned against the wall with the nymphs so
that he could see her clearly, her eyes closed so tightly, her
mouth open and gasping, her hand fallen and moving quicksilver fast
at the part in her white legs. “Oh, Donald; Donald.” And he saw now
that she was alone and only summoning the man as if he were a ghost
who could pass through walls and visit her, touch her as she now
touched herself.
He never forgot how
Aunt Nella looked that night; she would forever be the woman with
whom he compared all other women, and for many years after, in
stern midwestern February and in soft mid-western October, he would
see her there projected on his ceiling. Oh, Nella; Nella (just as
she’d called out for Donald). Nella.
Just after his third
drink, just after Uncle Septemus disappeared down the hall, just
after the door closed and the girl came in and dropped her shabby
dress to her wide hips, James thought of Nella, thinking the most
forbidden thought of all, that he wished it were Nella he was with
on this most important of nights, and not some chubby farm girl
with bleached hair and the smell of too-sweet perfume.
The whorehouse shook
with the relentless happiness of player pianos (one up, one down)
and the even more relentless happiness of girls determined in their
somewhat sad way to show the men a good time. He could smell
whiskey and cigar smoke and sweat, and could see the flickering
shadows cast by the kerosene lamp on the sentimental painting of
the innocent but somehow erotic young prairie girl above the brass
bed. James supposed that that was how all the girls saw
themselves-idealized and vulnerable in that way, not crude and
harsh and defeated as they really were.
She came over and
stood by him and said, “My name’s Liz.”
“Hi, Liz.”
She smiled. “It’s all
right if you look at them. That’s why I took my dress down. So you
could see them.”
He couldn’t stop
staring at her breasts. He’d raise his eyes and look into her eyes
or he’d glance up at the painting above the bed but always his eyes
would drop back down to her breasts.
She reached out and
took his hand. Touched it in such a way that he could tell she was
making some character judgment about him. “You’re not a farm boy,
are you?”
“No, ma’m.”
She giggled. “I ain’t
no ’ma’m,’ I bet I’m younger than you. I’m fourteen.”
He didn’t say
anything. Stood straight and still, heart hammering.
“You want to kiss
first?”
“I guess so,” he
said.
“You don’t know what
to do, do you?”
“I guess not.”
“You look mighty
scared.”
He said
nothing.
“If you just relax,
you’ll enjoy yourself.”
He said
nothing.
“You kinda remind me
of my brother and that’s kinda sweet.” She leaned forward and
kissed him gently on the lips. “That feel good?”
“I guess so.”
She laughed. “You
sure ‘guess’ about a lot of things.”
He said
nothing.
She took his hand
again. She led him over to the bed. They sat on the edge of it, the
springs squeaking. She was prettier in profile than straight on. He
wanted her to be pretty. On a night like this you wanted your girl
to be pretty. He wondered if he’d be so scared now if he were
sitting here with Marietta. Or Nella. That was a terrible thought
and he tried not to think it, about sitting there with his own
aunt, but he couldn’t help it.
He said, “Do you go
to school?”
She turned and looked
at him. “Do I go to school?” She smiled and patted his hand.
“Honey, they wouldn’t let girls like me in school.”
“You got
folks?”
“In South
Dakota.”
“Do they-”
“Do they know what I
do? Was that what you were gonna ask me?”
“I guess.”
“No. They don’t know.
A year ago I run off. This was as far as I got. I wrote ’em and
tole ’em I’m working for this nice woman.” She laughed. “Miss Susan
is nice; that part of it ain’t a lie.”
He sat on the edge of
the bed and stared down at his hands. They were trembling. “We
don’t have to do anything. I wouldn’t ask for my money back, I
mean.”
“You afraid you can’t
do it?”
He didn’t say
anything.
“A lot of men are
like that. Even when they’ve been doin’ it regular all their lives.
They just get kinda scared and they get worried if they’re gonna
make fools of themselves but, heck, you’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“Sure. I mean, we’ll
take it real slow. We’ll lay back on the bed and just kind of hold
each other and take it real slow. I like it better that way
anyway.”
“You do?”
“Sure. More like we
care about each other.”
“You want to lie back
now?”
“You talk good, don’t
you?”
“Good?”
“Proper-like.”
“English is one of my
best subjects.”
“She laughed. “Honey,
none of ’em was my best subject. I’m thick as a log.”
“You ready?”
“Any time you
are.”
“And I just lie
back?”
“You just lie
back.”
“I don’t take my
clothes off yet?”
“Not yet. I’ll do
that for you later.”
“And then we just… do
it?”
“That’s right. Then
we just… do it. But maybe I should teach you a little trick.”
“A trick?”
“I ain’t a beautiful
girl, honey. I know that. I got a nice set of milk jugs but that’s
about it. So Miss Sue tole me about this little trick to pass on to
men.”
“What sort of
trick?”
She giggled. “You’re
getting scared again, honey. It’s nothing to be scared about at
all.” She leaned over and touched his chest. He liked the weight
and warmth of her pressed against him. “You got a
sweetheart?”
James thought about
it. Should he even mention Marietta’s name to a girl like this? “I
guess.”
“Well, then, while
we’re doin’ it, you close your eyes and pretend I’m her. It’ll be a
lot better for you that way.”
“But isn’t that kind
of-” He shook his head.
“Kind of what?”
“Won’t that kind of
hurt your feelings?”
She looked up at him
in the soft flicking lampglow. How hard she seemed, and yet there
was a weariness in her young gaze that made him sad for her. She
was fourteen and no fourteen year old he knew looked this weary.
“Nope,” she said. “It won’t hurt my feelings at all.”
But for some reason
he didn’t think she was telling him the truth. For some reason he
thought she might be happy to hear what he said next.
“I’m happy to be with
you,” he said.
“You are?”
“Sure.”
“Well, that’s nice of
you to say.” She pointed to her mouth. “Let me finish chewin’ my
gum so my breath gets good and sweet.” She finished chewing her
gum, then set it with surprising delicacy on the edge of the bureau
and lay back down next to him.
“Would you like it
better if I turned the lamp out?” she said.
“Yeah, maybe that
would be better.”
So she turned the
lamp out.
He lay there in the
darkness listening to both of them breathe.
After a time she
kissed him and it was awkward and he felt nervous and afraid but
then she kissed him a second and a third time and it felt very nice
and he began stroking her bleached hair and she took one of his
hands and set it to her breast and then everything was fine, just
fine, and all the whorehouse noise faded and it was just them in
the soft shared prairie shadows.