Jimmy
was only 47 when he died of a heart
attack.
At the funeral, Donnie, after their marriage
of almost 20 years, still looked like an innocent little boy though he
must
have been in his mid-thirties. During
the service I remembered the story of how they had met. When I
got back home I decided, third party
though I was, that it was one of the best such stories I'd ever
heard.
It's not my story and I don't take
credit. It was Jim and Donnie's.
 OME
BATTLE-WEARY VETS, getting
their
G.I. money, went into
such things as gas stations or hamburger joints. With us it was
interior decorating. We had met in the Army, not in Anzio or on
the beaches of Guam,
but in a bar called Mutti's in Bavaria.
I was the toothpaste rationer for Company K, Jerry was the fastest
typist in the CO's office and Guy was the butch one of the mob.
He drove a motorcycle and delivered
important messages, many of them to flouncy-looking town houses in
Munich.
I had lived in Santa Monica before the
war and it seemed
natural to return. Besides, everyone we
knew was heading for one coast or another.
So we pooled our resources and opened La Maison d'Trois. I knew
about interiors, Jerry was an artist
and Guy handled all the ordering, shipping and moving. As I said,
he was butch, kind of. Believe it or not, we actually
prospered. Guy was getting fed up with
being the business end and he was a great outdoorser, so he suggested
that we
start giving our clients landscaping service.
Without my paying much attention, he made arrangements with a local
greenhouse to supply us with plants, or whatever they supply you
with.
When the first rosebushes arrived, so did
Donnie.
I said "Wow!" Jerry mumbled "Mercy!"
and
Guy roared "Jesus Christ!!", which is a fair indication of how Donnie
went over. For his 15 years he had
grown in all the right directions. He
muscled the rosebush off the truck and asked, "This for you
guys?"Jerry said, "Heavens yes!" and Guy went over and heaved it
inside the door, saying "Let a man handle it, sonny!". I didn't
say much of anything. Later on that afternoon, when I was trying
to concoct a Louis XIV interior, I kept seeing Donnie's hard little
rear in
those overly-tight work pants when I should have been seeing scalloped
chair
backs. Two days later, when the truck
came back with more bushes, Donnie saw a sign Jerry had made for the
loading
door at the rear of the shop: THROUGH THESE DOORS PASS THE MOST
BEAUTIFUL
ROSEBUSHES IN THE WORLD. "You guys
dig roses?" he asked me. I gulped
and explained that it was a decorator's fetish.
Little by little we got to know Donnie
better. Guy would show him handstands and such
athletic stuff and Jerry would explain the aesthetics of matching
wallpaper and
drapes. I didn't do much except
look. He had been shipped out to his
aunt in Santa Monica after his parents' divorce because they thought
the
climate would be "good for him.”
They had ditched him and he knew it.
His aunt was well enough off, but his father insisted he work, so he
had
gotten the job of helping a neighbor who ran a greenhouse. He was
a brash kid, all quips and sass, but
I sensed he was a bit on the overly-sensitive side and covered it up
with his
disarming smile and sharp tongue.
He was rather envious of us, being in
the war and all, and
used to ask embarrassing questions about fighting the Germans. I
gave him a story about lobbing toothpaste
tubes at them when the ammunition ran out.
Guy had actually monitored messages near the front and used to tell
hair-raising
tales of fighting off pockets of resisters.
Donnie would look at him with big eyes and then ask, "All those
Germans wear khaki underwear, too?" He wasn't a dumb kid by any means,
which should have told me something.
Now I'm no saint. I
have been accused of being slightly dull, but there were some moments
that I
did go a bit wild. Wild enough so that
when an occasion arose I even visited the Black Hole of Santa
Monica.
The Black Hole was a concrete block john on
the beach, so named because it had no electricity and after dark it was
a black
hole in more ways than one. Anything
went, or came, if you prefer, after sunset.
Occasionally I got the urge to go down there, if for nothing else than
the sound of the surf, or whatever it was, incessantly lapping.
I never played the game fairly.
I always lit a match to see if I were going to be lowering my
standards too much. I had a traumatic
experience once, being matchless, when I discovered that my
only-too-willing
partner had been -- Jerry! I took so
much ribbing around the Maison that I erased the Black Hole from my
mind for a
long time.
My natural reticence seemed constantly
in the way of my ever
making out much. Possibly I was a
masochist, because I enjoyed watching the moon (or Donnie, if you won't
accept
my metaphor) as it passed through our sky every two or three
days.
I had been pretty carefully inculcated with
the idea that when a birth certificate says "under l5" you either
leave it alone or pack your diddles for a nice long stay in the
pokey.
Guy liked them small and weak and about his
own age. Jerry, while having less of a
conscience than stupid me, was so passive that the other fellow did
all, or
most, of the work. Since both were my
junior by a few years and much more cruise-bait than I, I was the one
that
always seemed to like movies or listening to the radio. Since we
had taken over the Heavenly
Landscaping (as Jerry called it) and Guy was busy planting and selling,
I had
given up some of my free time to do the bookkeeping. I really
didn't care.
There had been a fabulous German named Johann in Bavaria that had me
reeling, but when we were shipped home, I knew that might be the last
real
thing for me for quite a spell.
Guy's affinity with Donnie didn't help
much, though I had
long grown used to Guy plucking the tender leaves from the top of the
tree. Donnie wasn't an athlete, but he
had a springy build and was interested in surfing and tumbling, which
were
right in Guy's repertoire of Impressive Stunts. They were
constantly disappearing with their balsa boards in the
direction of the beach for an afternoon.
It was preferable to having them play Jumping Bean in our warehouse,
with Donnie in a pair of tight white gym shorts. At such times I
tried to hide myself in the midst of Chippendale
and Fyffe, but it seemed that whatever I wanted was always in the
warehouse. It was like Dante
unaccompanied by Virgil to go through there then.
The suspense was terrible.
Jerry and I kept wondering when-where-how Guy would Make It. But
Guy was strangely noncommittal about his
progress, and after a few weeks of bouncing about on both dry land and
water, I
had to ask him point blank.
"It's the funniest game I ever
played," Guy told
me. "Sometimes I think it's just
at the point of getting there, when it freezes solid. I think he
knows the score and is just playing me along for a
sucker. If he were a few years older
I'd like to toss him in the back seat some night and strong-arm
him.”
Knowing Guy, I knew he might. Despite this, the surfing and
backroom
antics kept going on. It finally got to
the point where I went to the Hole a couple of times without my matches.
As I've said, Maison d'Trois was
making money. Guy's little greenery experiment proved a
great success, too. So when the year
came to an end, I took my nice fat bonus and went out and put it on a
new Caddy
convert. Middle-class as hell, but what
else did I have to spend it on?
The day they delivered it, I didn't
feel like I should have,
especially having never thought I'd get within a block of buying a car
like
that. I drove it around, admired it,
jammed the pedal to the floor and put the top up and down, but it was
all just
horseplay and didn't really give me a lift.
I guess I was depressed, not having anyone to impress with it.
Guy had taken Donnie to the beach, and the
Fyffe chairs didn't appreciate the gleaming paint job or the
horsepower.
I was in a stinking mood, considering I'd
just saddled myself with 24 payments.
That night I motored down to the beach
and sat looking at
the Black Hole for a few minutes. Two
people came out, rather hastily, and then it looked dead.
Finally, in the dim moonlight, I saw someone
who didn't look like he was a fat old Auntie go in. I opened the
door of the Caddy, groped for my matches, and went
in too.
Trying to find a black cat in a coal
bin at midnight was
about the sensation. I felt the rough
surface of the cinder blocks slide past my hand; my hard-soled shoes
made
sounds like Dracula. Whoever was in
there couldn't help but know he had a visitor.
By that time my imagination and my pent-up glands had set me on
edge. I was ready to jump anybody, even
if it turned out to be Sidney Greenstreet.
I stood for a moment at one of the little slots and could hear someone
breathing nervously beside me. I struck
a match. If it were Jerry again...
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" I
yelled at
the top of my lungs, not knowing what kind of an answer I wanted to
hear. I dropped the match to the floor as Donnie
threw his arms around me and glued his mouth to mine.
I could go through all that old bit
about pinwheels and
skyrockets and rides to the moon and the rest, but why bother?...
I took him out to the car and kept tight
hold of him. Both of us were shaking.
"Man! What a
bus!" Donnie said when he got into the Caddy. I opened the other
door, slid in, and wheeled it out toward
Malibu. Donnie was purring over the
chrome and gadgets.
"All
right, young man," I said sternly, "what
were you doing in that place?"
Donnie smiled his hundred-watter and
replied slyly,
"Well, what were YOU doing in there?"
"I know what I was doing in
there.
Now tell me your side of the story.” He loosened up and it all
came out. He had been having little soirees downtown
and getting himself done and paid, mostly by people he wouldn't want to
have
known in the daytime. He'd heard about
the Hole and wondered if he could meet anyone he liked.
"How about Guy?" I said
fearfully.
"You know he's been chasing you for
weeks now."
"That big side of beef!" he laughed
good-naturedly. "He doesn't want a
love affair, he wants a wrestling contract.
Besides, it was fun to keep anyone that hunky on the string for a
while."
We went home and we went to bed and it
was everything that
the years of war and toothpaste had prepared me for. All the way
to the house I kept thinking of how they'd give me
ten years for every one that Donnie had been around, but it was no
use.
I was on the San Quentin Quail Express. It didn't let you off
when you pulled any of
the available things to pull. The
topper came early in the morning when I rolled over and said in a voice
akin to
terror, "My God! It's three
o'clock! What about your aunt?" I
had visions of a stern California dowager leading a whole pack of
vice-squadders to my door.
"Relax!" Donnie said sleepily, as he
curled closer
to me. "She's in L.A. getting soused at a party, or
something like
that. She won't be home for at least
another day-and-a-half.
Besides...” he said
tantalizingly.
"Besides...what?"
"Besides, I don't want to leave."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm in love with you, that's
why!" The
hole in my chest that had been there was suddenly filled by something
that
could have been Donnie's clenched fist.
Needless to say, I got to the office
the next day about eleven. I must have had a shit-eating grin
written
all over my puss, because when I sat down at the desk both Jerry and
Guy were
standing there, looking at me quizzically.
"Well, what is the trouble with you
today, Mary?"
Jerry exclaimed. "That new car of
yours must have come better equipped than the salesman said it did!"
"Let's have it, buster!" Guy
demanded.
For his sake I really didn't want to say
anything, but I managed to blurt out the pertinent details, omitting
the
business about the wrestling contract.
"Why that little son-of-a-bitch!" Guy
roared. "All that time surfing and doing all
that stupid tumbling jazz!" He was fit to be tied. "Day after day
of getting waterlogged
with that brat, so that you could go out to the Hole and take him
home!"
Then he stopped and put his hand on my shoulder. "The best of
everything," he said quietly, "and
lots more in the future."
''I'll need it," I told them.
"He isn't exactly the easiest boy to make mind, and I have a
feeling that sooner or later that aunt of his is going to wonder where
her
nice, innocent, jailbait nephew is spending his time. The worst
of it is, I haven't got the willpower to keep him
away."
At work that day, I began to have
doubts. What if Donnie were just teasing me? What if I had
dreamed it all? What if...well, you know how many ridiculous
things you can think up about a person who's 12 years younger than you
are. Finally, about four in the
afternoon, I asked Guy as casually as I could if any orders would be
coming in
from the greenhouse that day.
"He'll be here.
He called about an hour ago to tell you he wants to stay with you again
tonight."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was too waterlogged to
remember," he
muttered, and went back to work.
Along with the rosebushes came all I
needed to make me
forget how dull I was. "If you go
back there and start tumbling today with those white shorts on," I told
Donnie, "I'm going to drag you into the office and rip them off.
You understand?"
"I sure do," he crooned. "Come
back in about half-an-hour when I'm good and sweaty;
they'll be easier to get off then.” We
just fell on one another, right there in front of God and the
rosebushes, and I
didn't give more than half-a-second's thought to his aunt.
I guess the longer you go the more
luck you think you
have. Whenever I'd get edgy about the
aunt he'd simply bite my ear or...something...and tell me not to get
all het up
about her. And so gradually I pushed
away the image of my being led off with all concerned weeping, and
abandoned myself
to the only real warmth I had ever felt, the only thing that I didn't
have to
imagine but could just reach out and touch.
By the time we had put 40,000 miles on the Caddy it was just as natural
as lighting a match. Donnie would spend
at least three wonderful nights a week with me, and the only knocking
on my
door at those hours was Guy and Jerry, coming to inspect my domesticity
with
Donnie. Then the odometer turned over
to 41,000 and things came to a halt.
I went home early on Wednesdays,
usually. Donnie didn't have afternoon classes, so he
opened up with his key and had a late lunch fixed for the two of
us.
That particular Wednesday it was raining,
which in California should have warned me.
The dark thunderclouds had made driving slow and slippery. When I
got home there was the usual light in
the kitchen. I went into the unlit
vestibule and fell flat on my face.
When I got up I was surrounded by 17 pieces of matched luggage and a
tennis racquet. Donnie waltzed out of
the kitchen with an apron on. I was so
confused that I didn't notice he had nothing else on, which shows you
how
confused I was.
"I'm fixing a celebration!" he said,
flipping the
apron at me.
"Ouch, what?" I replied, feeling my
skinned knee.
"It's ME!" he laughed. I tried
to laugh too, but somehow I cried instead.
"You what? It
looks like everything you own."
"It is," he said cheerfully.
"Now you're going to have to make an
honest man out of me!"
"What do you mean?" I asked, knowing
damn well
what he meant.
"It just isn't practical for me to
live someplace else
and try to be your lover," he said with painstaking care. "That
makes good sense, doesn't
it?"
"Sure," I replied, feeling my throat
go dry as a
Fyffe chamber pot. "Sure, it makes
sense to me. And you. How much sense will it make to your
aunt
when she drags me off to prison? Jesus,
how soon do you think she'll find out?
Maybe we've got time to get this all back to your place before she
knows!"
"Oh, I've told her all about it!"
"ALL about it?" I said, wondering how
I'd like a
number instead of a name.
"ALL about it.
Why lie?''
"Why? Why, I
don't know...don't know anything...at all," I mumbled. How long
would it take to get into Mexico?
"I've got to finish fixing the soup,"
Donnie said
as he turned around, trooping back into the kitchen, giving me the last
view of
my most cherished possession.
"Stir it carefully, honey, I'm in it
right up to my
neck.” I sat down on one of the 17
pieces of matched luggage.
What could I do? If
I ran off to Mexico it would leave the business to ruin, and worse,
leave
Donnie and me without each other. If I
took him with me, it was a sure-fire way of getting caught. If I
stayed, I went bye-bye to the
pokey. Simple, huh? There was only one thing to do. I
had to go see Donnie's aunt. If I made a clean breast of it, told
her how
much we meant to each other, maybe, just maybe, she might not send me
up for
anything more than corrupting a minor.
Feeling like the Marquis de Sade going before the Legion of Decency, I
took my twisted hat in hand and without saying anything took off for
the house
near the office that I knew she owned.
It was a ten minute drive that took five-and-a-half years off my life.
It was one of those big, modern,
overly-expensive houses
that kept us in the business we were in.
I pulled the Caddy up the driveway and rang the bell, expecting a
frothing Valkyrie to open the door and hurl imprecations at me in a
grand
operatic manner. Instead a maid opened
up and smiled at me. "I've come to
see Mrs. Silverton," I said
meekly. She giggled. "Oh, you mean Miss Silverton," she
said as she let me in. Well, at least
there would be only one to face. I
followed the maid into the house that had obviously been decorated much
more
expensively than our firm could ever manage.”
Just a minute,"she said.
During that minute I had an hour to
think, but I
didn't. I was scared out Of my
mind. I could feel myself composing
dozens of different ways to begin telling the aunt how much I loved him
and how
much he loved me, but somehow all of them either made me out to be a
lecher or
just inarticulate. Finally the maid
came back. "Miss Silverton will
see you in the study," she chimed.
She led me to the doorway of a large, oak-paneled room filled with
books. I was surprised that no
three-headed dog barked at me as I tiptoed in, my hat in hand.
The first thing I remember was the
lighted end of a
cigarette. NO, come to think of it, the
first thing was a foot. It was
bare. It protruded from the leg of the
tightest pair of yellow lounging pajamas that I think I've ever
seen.
The color of her long hair almost matched
the pajamas, or as nearly as any bottle could make it. The
aforementioned cigarette glowed from a
long ebony holder which was clamped between frighteningly reddened
lips.
Two massacred eyes gazed at me
pitilessly. I was too scared to
speak. The aunt remained silent. I sweated.
Then she smiled, malevolently.
My hat was now in a square knot.
Still she said nothing. I
swallowed. I had to say something! I did.
"You see, Miss Silverton, it's like
this about
Donnie. He isn't just a kid, you know,
and well we decided that sometimes you just can't help yourself when it
comes
to falling in love, and believe me we really do feel that way about one
another
and there really isn't anything bad about it as we both think we know
what
we're doing and besides I hope you understand that I had no intention
of him
ever really leaving home at all or I would have done something to have
stopped
him though God knows I really do love him enough to feel that maybe he
knows
what he's doing despite the fact that he's only 15 and God Miss
Silverton it
never occurred to me that he was actually that young when he started
telling me
how much he loved me you know I would do just about for him including
sending
him back home here to you where I'm sure he belongs and would be much
better
off while he had to go to school every day and...you see...I do really
do care
for him...he's too young...but he knows...what he's doing...l'll send
him
back...if..only...you won't...some drastic action... the
police...everyone will suffer for..."
She looked at me.
'Please, Miss Silverton!
' I implored. A moment of
dreadful silence.
"You really love him?"
Startled, I said, "Oh God, yes!"
trying to keep
the lust out of my voice.
"Well, for Christ's sake, keep the
little fruit!"
she roared at me.
So what could I do?
I kept the little fruit!
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