Chapter 2
AT SEVEN, ONE EVENING ABOUT a week later, Joe Brody passed a phone booth. He remembered something, stopped and searched his pockets. Finding the number, he entered the booth and dialed, not knowing exactly why. When the voice sounded at the other end of the line, however, the answer dawned on him. It was Helen Carter's voice, and it was in the hopes that she and not her younger sister would pick up the receiver that he had dialed. He wanted to feel the older girl out, to learn if there was a chance he might date her. "A hundred and fifty smackers"-the phrase repeated in his thoughts. He was short of money, and he often heard that an older girl could be made to pay for a young man's love. "If you work it right, of course," was the way Rudy Gowan put it. "You got to give them a sample first, and make diem crave it." (As if Rudy would know-innocent, rosy-cheeked Rudy, who still blushed sometimes, and always doubted you, when you told him you'd done so and so with this or that babe!
Helen Carter's laughter sounded in the receiver. There was a note of doubt, possibly fear, in it.
"But Joe dear, you're mistaken. You think I'm Sue, I've been trying to tell you that-"
"I know who you are," Joe cut in impatiently.
Helen Carter couldn't believe it. "Joe, you're mistaken. Why, I'm old enough to be your-" Aghast, she blushed to the roots of her hair.
He persisted, anger and then desperation in his voice.
"You've got to give me a break! ... I fell for you that night. I know it sounds fantastic, I know you don't believe it, but why don't you-"
She shook her head in confusion and lowered the phone so that she couldn't go on hearing the dunning, pleading voice. Suddenly she raised it again, and spoke into the mouthpiece:
"All right, I'll see you Joe. But only for an hour. to convince you that you're mistaken. I really shouldn't ... what will Sue think?"
"It was a blind date, Helen. You know how it was. There's nothing between Sue and me, honest...." It was funny, Joe thought, staring unseeingly at the dialing instructions, how he could detect the dishonesty in his own voice, seeing that what he was saying was true ... it had been a blind date, of course; it was the thought of what he had in mind for Helen that made his voice gruff.
"I really shouldn't, Joe ... What was that? Meet you at the Regent? ... the Regent Theatre? ... yes, I heard you ... I get off the subway at the last stop. That's Coney Island, isn't it? You'll be waiting for me ... nine o'clock; yes I'll be there, Joe. But only to convince you ... bye...."
Sure, you convince me! Joe grinned at the receiver as he replaced it. He was pleased with himself. Nothing to it, you just had to know how to follow up a hunch ... But he was uneasy when he left the telephone booth.
Helen placed the phone on its hook and for a moment stood over it, staring down at it. She raised her fingertips to her flushed brow and thought over what had happened. She had agreed to date Joe Brody, the quiet, good-looking boy whom Sue had brought home a week ago. A young boy, twenty, at most. How awful! And what would Sue think if she found out? What if he! ... Oh God, she had let herself in for something! Why? Why must misfortune dog her tracks. And it was misfortune, it was really! She had given in only to soothe him. She was altogether too submissive. She would be more firm next time. Never again! Oh, never, never again!
. . Regent Theater, was that what he'd said, She must write it down or she would forget. Nine o'clock.
She scampered about the room, searching for pencil and paper.
What she had thought of herself was true. It was her nature to be submissive; she had been so all her life and would probably go on being so till the day she died. And it was true also that misfortune dogged her tracks. It was because she was submissive that misfortune dogged her tracks-the two went together.
As a child she had been happy enough. Her parents had adored the rather plain, quiet little girl because she was modest and undemanding. But her parents had died young and her childhood had been abruptly cut short. They had left her money enough to continue her education, but now she must take care of herself, and must shoulder the responsibility of caring for her baby sister.
When she was done with college she went out into the world. There were the men in her life; for men are attracted to submissiveness. They had taken her and used her and left her when their need for her was on the wane.
At thirty-one, after much soul-searching, she had decided that she could not have a man she loved. Not if she really loved him, for then he would use her and abandon her, as all the others had done. She knew her weakness, how she was tempted all the time to give in. Love was dangerous. She could not have a man she loved. This decision led to another: she would settle for less than love.
So this thirty-one year old spinster who all her life had put herself out for others, and been used by them and then abandoned, had finally settled for a childless widower named Henry Kohler. This young man-he was forty-five-had qualities in his favor. He was intelligent, well-read, worldly. He had good manners, danced nicely, dressed immaculately. By profession he was an attorney and his future seemed assured.
But there was the debit side of his character-qualities that made him less than lovable to even so warm a human being as Helen Carter. For one thing he had no sense of humor. He frowned readily and smiled rarely, and when he did smile his face seemed contorted, twisted out of shape. A minor failing perhaps; but add to this the facts that, as humorless people often are, he was also demanding and aggressive, and was a stickler for details. And to sum it up, there was the man himself. He was short and stocky, wore rimless glasses, was starting to lose his hair.
It was him that she meant of course, when she said, "And Henry, what if he-?" Not that she had thought of herself as being unfaithful to him in any way. Hardly that. Why, Joe Brody was only a boy-a confused boy! Besides, she was going to see him only to prove to him that he was mistaken.
Midnight and he was walking her along a dark deserted street. He had promised to take her to the subway and escort her home. She was becoming uneasy. Not that she doubted him-he was taking her to the subway, she was convinced of this. Why would he lie to her? He had been so straight-forward and honest all evening long, so pleasant and gentle. He had walked her along the boardwalk, and chatted and laughed with her, and bought her things. Little things-a frankfurter and a root beer, a frozen custard, a ball of pink cotton candy-; but coming from him, who was so young and probably not working yet, they meant much.
"Here it is," he announced suddenly.
She looked in the direction in which he nodded and saw a shabby wooden building, tall, gray and ugly. She took hold of his arm and smiled nervously up at him. "But Joe, you promised."
"I know what I promised. But I want you to come up to my room and have a nightcap with me now." He turned to her angrily. "You're not that anxious to be rid of me, are you?"
"No, it isn't that. But I don't drink, Joe-I told you that. And you said you didn't either-remember?" She clutched at his arm anxiously. "Please please, dear, do take me to the...."
His eyes were narrowed. Damn her! She wasn't going to get away so easy. He began to talk loudly. He knew she was afraid of making a scene.
"Please Joe-oh please! Don't talk so loud! People will hear you. You'll waken everyone in the building!" Above all things she dreaded making a public display of herself.
"I'll go with you. Yes, I'll go with you! But hush, hush-oh please, do be quiet!"
He led her through a dark smelly hall and up a long winding stairway which creaked at every step. Then through a narrow corridor to a door which stood ajar. Beyond this was a room, tiny and cramped, which contained a huge old-fashioned bed, a closet made of cardboard, and a dresser with a cracked mirror.
The moment they were in the room he shut the door. He came at her, smiling cruelly. She tried to resist.
"No! I should say not! What is the meaning of this? You-you-"
His mouth clamped down, shutting off the flow of words. He stuck his tongue between her lips, forced it into her mouth. She squirmed and gasped, her head swam. "Oh God!" she pleaded silently. No-not with him, a boy. Nasty, nasty young scamp! Oh, how would she ever explain ... Sue and Henry.
He had his hand on her breasts, massaging them roughly. He forced her back, back to the bed. She tried to break loose, escape. He ripped her blouse in opening it.
"See-see what you've done now!" she scolded. Then, in panic: "No, oh no, please!" His hands were on her thighs, pinching the flesh, lifting her skirt. "Oh, my God! Good heavens, you young monster! No! Oh-oh, no!"
The words seemed to congeal in her throat. It had suddenly become too serious for words, for protests. The realization struck her like an electric shock and her struggling contorted body was all at once drained of resistance. It was no longer subject to her will. In that split second when her defenses fell and her struggle for breath died, she felt the last fragile layer of her frilly underwear ripped downwards with the sound of tearing silk over the hot heavy flesh of her belly. Belly ... it was as though she hung on the word, a word which under normal circumstances she winced to hear spoken. A small wind. And fear. And a hard knuckle at her groin. And the sweat. And the pain as the knuckle ground into the sensitive gland. And his hard forehead at her mouth. And ... Joe!
She was free now and she had the sudden image of her nakedness from the navel down, her body thrusting whitely downwards like a new banana from its skin, half-peeled, open, her knees crooked, a floating feeling ... sailing on it, seas, the winds freshening, the hot rasp of his breath at her cheek, like sandpaper ... My child is raping me! My son is raping me....
... Pigs, five white sows, wobbled down her belly on little trotters towards the dell, the well, the valley-o. For long before, in-the country, on the farm, was the smell of straw and eggs and dung ... that was what she could remember. In her print frock fluttering upwards with the straw hard and prickling under her young thighs. It was her uncle's farm in upstate New York to which she had come with her young sister after the death of her parents. The young man was in the Marine Corps. It was the last day of his leave and he was posted to a unit which took part in the recapture of Guadalcanal. Davis-that was the young manls name-had agreed that when they were married they would take little Sue with them. He was going to be an engineer. But suddenly, in her first year of college, she had received the news of his death. It had been all the more necessary then for her to complete her own studies successfully. Helen's position was not unlike that of a young war widow, her lover dead and an infant for whose upbringing she was responsible ... the only difference was that she could expect no pension from the government. She had thrown herself unselfishly into her work, taken her degree, and, after graduation found a good position in a publishing house in New York. From the beginning she was a mother before she was a wife; and this was the root of the series of unhappy affairs she had with men. Submissive, motherly and kind, men had used her without considering her seriously.
And now this! It was only now that the knowledge of his remarkable resemblance to David came over her. Joe seemed to be the same age as David had been when he was cut in half by a hail of tracer bullets. It was as though after all these intervening years during which Sue had grown up and Helen had grown more and more motherly David had returned, impulsive as ever, demanding. David! And all the accumulated tenderness stored up in secret memories over the years was suddenly flowing outwards to this strange and demanding boy Joe whom she identified with that other who, no less urgently, had had his will of her in the barn so many years ago....
Afterwards, it wasn't surprising Joe was gentle with her. He kissed her tenderly on the lips and hugged her to his strong young chest. He was really very young, and mixed-up, and lovable, trying so hard to be tough and a rebel. It occurred to Helen that she might just be the woman Joe needed to make him more mature, a fine man.
"Silly, you really are a silly," she murmured now. "You shouldn't have-it was nasty of you. Why, I could have had you arrested for doing that ... Supposing I had ... Not that I would have, but just supposing." She caressed the firm flesh of his upper arm. "You really are a child. You really are!"
And when he had dozed off, she thought of him as precisely that. A cruel man-child who had done his mischief for the day, and now lay with his head upon her breast, sleeping the untroubled, innocent sleep of a child. For the present, for this night, he was hers. Tomorrow there might be consequences, but she would think of that tomorrow.
"Who was the babe?" Rudy asked.
"What babe?" Joe bared his big teeth in a grin.
They were on the beach, lying side by side. The sun beat down, a ball of fire, but they had recently emerged from the water and were damp and cool.
"You know what babe. The one you sneaked out of the house this morning!"
"Her?" Joe liked to tease his friend. "She was no babe."
"Pretty good imitation, then. What would you call her?"
Joe pondered the question a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "An old bag. She's thirty-one, you know. Told me so herself."
"Thirty-one!" Rudy was surprised. "How'd you happen to meet her, how'd you get her up in the room?"
Joe told him all about it, laughing, sparing no details. Rudy listened with mouth agape, staring at him, occasionally interjecting a remark of his own. "No kidding! ... Aw, you're kidding now!"
Afterwards, Joe said that he intended to get away this winter, it was too cold for him. "I always did want to go to Florida-see what it was like."
"What about this babe and her hundred and fifty per?"
"What about her?"
"Well, if you go to Florida-"
Joe cut in, "She and her money are going to help me get there!"