Chapter 8
Boy-O languidly walked to Sarah's house. THE town was still quiet, but not for much longer. Mornings in summer before the sun turned itself loose were nice. Boy-O promised himself that he would get up every morning and walk the streets before they got cluttered with people. Then he laughed at himself. I'm in love, he thought. It was more than foolish, it was idiocy. Love. He'd laughed at it, envied it, but never had it-Not even with the chick who relieved him of his virginity. From the start it had been Boy-O Carter on the make and anything outside the bedroom stood for nothing. Then when he was sixteen and had found that the easiest way to make yourself at home in a strange town was to make one of the local sisters or mothers or maiden aunts, even the bedroom backed itself into a box marked business. Love was strictly for the people who couldn't spell "bed."
And now here he was promising himself that it was the morning that tasted so good to his senses and not the memory of the night before.
And it was a lie.
The truth was Jeanni. The truth was that Boy-O had lost any desire for any woman but Jeanni. It began to look like even Sarah Revere was going to get off easy. He wasn't hungry for anything any more, except a place where he and his girl would make out from one side of tomorrow to the other.
Immediately he began to plan where he'd take her. Chicago was the nearest big city that sounded appealing to him. That was out. He didn't want to put her anywhere near her past. Come to think of it, it might do some good to put some distance between him and the women he'd known. What stinking city in this country had he skipped over? Not Frisco or Baltimore, Boston or New York, not Detroit or New Orleans, Philadelphia or Cleveland. Everywhere his mind turned, it uncovered some cast-off mama who would be panting in her shower over Boy-O Carter.
He began to panic. There had to be somewhere he and his chick could start clean, where she could wash the hustler off and he the smell of pay-as-you-go stables. There'd be somewhere, there had to be, where he could claim his freedom.
Boy-O hunched his shoulders over the problem. He started by states to remember the country, and the sidewalk under his feet turned into a map of the states with X's through the towns he'd studded in.
Which is why he wasn't prepared to find Ben Johnson's rough farmer's hands on his shoulders, blocking his path to Sarah's
"You ain't going in there."
Boy-c looked up quickly at the fat frowning face of Sarah's fiance. She'd described Ben to him and with that fat face it could be nobody else. "Who are you?" He stalled for time. He didn't think Ben was alone but he didn't dare shift his eyes around the shrubbery. Ben couldn't know that Boy-O was the least off guard. He'd try to back them down first.
"Sarah's boy friend and future husband that is who I am."
"Oh. Well, you're a lucky man. She's a sweet kid."
"Not any more she ain't. Not since the day you came to town. What made you think you could just undo a girl, like that?"
"Now Ben boy, don't jump to conclusions. How do you know I've been fooling with your girl? You aren't taking the word of the neighbors. Why they're so hard up for scandal, they'd steal from their own grandmother to stir things up."
"It ain't just gossip. You told me yourself." So Mrs. Crane had talked to her husband, and Jed had come along for the ride. Boy-O took the opportunity to look quickly through the bushes. Two more pairs of shoes crouched behind the fir tree.
Four of them. The odds were a little unbalanced.
"Come on, boy," he said to Ben Johnson. "You aren't taking brother Crane's word for this, are you? Not knowing the problem he's got with his wife. And you know about that, don't you Ben? Because I passed you in the morning yesterday and you were hot-footing away from his bed at the time."
It was a chance. Still, Boy-O knew that the Johnson farm was not far, and in all likelihood Ben had sampled Mrs. Crane's wares.
"Huh?" Jed didn't know which way to look and Boy-O could see the same confusion seep into Ben's face.
They were a hell of a pair.
"Don't let him stop you, Mr. Ben." So one of the lurking sons of Main Street was old Gus. The odds were looking better and better. One punch for Gus and a shove for Jed Crane and Boy-O had only two of them to contend with.
"Go on, Mr. Ben. What about Jeanni Jensen? Didn't we just see her drive by? Didn't he just ruin her reputation too?"
"Yeah," said Ben Johnson.
"Yeah," said Jed Crane.
Things weren't looking good. Boy-O was running out of time and he couldn't discover who the other assailant was. Well, he'd have to take his chances.
He didn't really feel like fighting. The suckers had picked a good time to get at him. Make love the night long, he told himself and take the consequences.
"You're fools to tangle with me," he said, backing himself into a better position. "I used to be welterweight champ of the West Coast. I'm murder in a fight."
"Yeah. I don't believe a word you say."
Okay, Ben you're first, Boy-O thought to himself. He held a tight and extended arm. "C'mon Ben, let's call this off."
"Ben, don't you dare," Jed Crane said in a shrill voice."
Ben looked at Jed and that was Boy-O's signal.
His left flashed in the morning light and caught Ben in the soft stomach. Boy-O moved in close and raised his knee at Johnson. There was a soft squashing sound as he connected. Boy-O stepped forward neatly and pushed Ben onto the sidewalk.
Then he danced free, side-stepping lightly in a crouched position. City fights have it all over these lawn games, he said to himself, careful just the same to keep his attention on the spot where the feet crouched in the bushes.
"C'mon Jed. You're next aren't you? You want to join your friend Ben in the gutter?"
Ben was vomiting and groaning, his face hanging into the gutter.
Jed backed away and Gus pushed him forward.
"Look, don't push me," Jed cried. "If you're so anxious, you go fight him."
The one in the bushes came forward then. It was Ed, the joker from the bar. What in creation is he doing here, Boy-O asked himself.
"Stand back boys. Looks like I got to finish this one off."
Boy-O laughed. "Get finished, you mean. Come on, Daddy, come to mama." He slammed his fist into his hand and the smacking sound bounced off the wall of Sarah's house.
Ed advanced slowly, imitating Boy-O's stance, and letting his hands hang loose.
"You're a punk," he said.
Boy-O flexed his lithe muscles and kept circling. Suddenly Ed reached out and pulled Boy-O to him. Boy-O got there first with a right in the middle, but it was a bad punch that carried little weight and didn't even throw Ed off his aim.
A fist bit into Boy-O's jaw, sending him reeling back a few steps. But before he could recover Gus and Jed had latched on to his arms and were pinning him in place.
That was the plan. And it had worked.
Boy-O didn't have time to free himself. Ed moved in again and sent his farmer's fists tearing into Boy-O's middle and then they loosened his teeth and connected with his eye.
He twisted in his captors' arms but he was too weak to offer much resistance, and again and again his body was barraged with blows.
They left him in the street, picked up Ben Johnson and began to carry him to the car they had parked around the corner. Boy-O raised himself onto one arm and wiped the blood streaming from his mouth. He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't work. And he couldn't catch his breath.
His right eye was almost closed and his left one had begun to swell at the forehead. That old cut had opened too, the blood gushed down his face. He didn't see the yellow convertible pull up at the curb, but he heard the car door slam and he turned his head in her direction.
"Jeanni, for God's sake, get home. I'm all right."
"You are not. You are a mess." She knelt beside him and peered into his face. "Can you walk? I'll take you inside."
"Get out of here. Leave me alone."
"Okay then. We'll aim for the car. You wanted to see your father while you were here. We'll get him to paste you together."
"Jeanni, please."
"Lean on me, darling. I'm afraid you've got no other choice."
Boy-O muttered under his breath, but he had to do as she said. All his efforts to rise on his own had failed. He leaned against her and she half dragged and half carried him to her car.
She gunned the engine and the car jerked into gear.
"You drive like a maniac," he said.
She passed him a clean handkerchief and he mopped at his face. "God, you're unattractive," she said. "I don't think you'll be able to make a living off your looks any more."
"Shut up."
She laughed. "It's just as well. Now you'll have to be faithful to me."
"What the hell were you doing here anyway?" He'd had enough of coddling, and was trying to dig through his pockets for a cigarette.
"I drove past the house and saw them sitting on the curb waiting for you." She smiled. "Well, I didn't ask them if it was you they were after or anything, I mean. Let's just say that it was a lucky guess."
"Ha, ha."
"Don't smoke now. Your lip is knocked into smithereens."
"Look, I didn't ask you to pick me up."
"You're a hell of a pickup." Her tone was light but still forced. Jeanni didn't really feel like laughing. He didn't look like himself and she was frightened.
"You're a hell of a chick."
Boy-O sucked in his breath and the cigarette hurt his lips but the sting there couldn't compare to the throbbing in his head and so he stopped listening to it. He laughed ruefully.
"What's funny?"
"It's a gas. I mean, it's a real gas. The first girl whose reputation I worry about throws it to the winds and lets all the neighbors know that she didn't run out of gas after all."
She didn't laugh. She slowed the care to a stop m front of a modest white frame house that had a shingle hanging outside it that said, "Dr. Troy Willis."
"I'll just be a minute."
"Where are you going?"
"To get him to help me with you."
"Oh, for God's sake, I can walk. Just get the car door for me, will you, baby?"
"All right."
She came around to his side of the car and opened the door. He looked up at her through his squinting, swollen eyes and smiled. "You know what I said to myself walking to Sarah's?"
"No," she answered, helping him to his feet and supporting as much of his weight as she could. "Here, lean on me. I'm strong."
"Sure you are," he said sarcastically.
The rest of his thoughts were lost in the effort it took to get to the front door. He was sure the whole town was watching from behind its curtains. Well, let them. What did he care?
Jeanni rang the bell, and propped Boy-O up against the doorjamb. She pressed on the bell two or three times.
"Take it easy. Take it eay. I'm not going to die."
Dr. Willis was long in coming to the door; when he did get there, it was obvious he'd been gotten out of bed.
"Yes? Oh. Jeanni, give me a hand."
"I'm not dead. I can walk," Boy-O said.
"Lean on me, son." He almost carried Boy-O into the next room, where he stopped for breath. Then he said, "Jeanni, make i pot of coffee." He pointed a trembling finger. "The kitchen is that way."
When he got Boy-O into the office, he cupped his head in his hands and peered into his face. "They gave it to you good, I have to say that."
"Thanks."
"It looks like I'll have to take a stitch or two in that forehead."
"Don't worry about it, Doc. It's an old wound from another war. It didn't get stitched before."
"I am the doctor here, Boy-O. Lie down on the table." He turned away and began selecting instruments and medications. "You certainly are a mess," he said.
"Why the hell is everyone here so damned concerned with my looks? I'm not running in any beauty contest."
"You had your mother's looks," the doctor said and applied alcohol gently around the wounds.
"Leave my mother out of this."
Doctor Willis had eyes that were as blue as Boy-O's. "Shut up and let me work," he said.
Boy-O fell asleep before the good doctor finished his treatment. The doctor covered him with a blanket and left him sleeping there.
"Coffee's ready, doctor."
"Good."
"Shall we wake him up?"
"Good heavens no. The coffee was for me. Let him sleep there for a while. I'll move him upstairs later."
When Boy-O came to, he was upstairs in the spare bedroom. Late afternoon sun was streaming through the window, and Jeanni was sitting reading in a chair next to the bed.
"Close the blinds, will you?"
"Is the light too much?"
"Uh-huh." He felt miserable, and the sight of Jeanni only made him feel worse. He'd come back to Swanik's Landing to give the town what for and he'd collected the goods instead. She closed the blinds and crossed the room to him.
"How do you feel?"
"Terrible. How do you feel?"
"Fine. You're in love with me, you know."
Boy-O turned to look at her, sitting beside him at the edge of the bed. The light filtering into the room through the blind magic on her features, softening the proud line of her nose, and warming her green eyes. Her hair flowed lavishly on her shoulders.
He reached out and stroked one of her breasts.
"You do feel better," she said.
"Not as good as I will feel. Hey, baby, lie down beside me."
"You're not Tarzan you know, and with your face looking that way, you're not Gregory Peck either."
"Hummm," he said letting his hand drop back onto the covers and falling asleep again.
When he awoke again, it was night in Swanik's Landing. Jeanni was curled up on her chair sleeping. He stretched his body, muscle by muscle and slowly sat up. Each part of his body ached in a hundred different ways.
He pulled himself to his feet as quietly as possible and walked painfully to the mirror.
Jeanni had been right. He looked terrible. One eye was horribly colored besides being swollen shut. Doctor Willis had bandaged the area around his old scar and padded the bandage, Boy-O thought, to make it look worse than it really was.
His lower lip stood way out and throbbed its ugliness at the world.
He began to wonder if he would ever look the same as he had before. "You're a mess," he said to himself in the mirror.
Jeanni had begun to rouse herself when Boy-O walked over to her and crouched by her chair. Jeanni was too good to be true.
He ran his hand through her shining hair. "Hey, baby, are you up?"
"Boy-O, you're out of bed!" Her eyes and her smile betrayed the gentleness she tried to keep out of her voice. As awful as he looked, as little as she could see of his eyes, the glint in them was still there. She couldn't forget what had happened at the motel. She didn't want to forget what he had taught her and what she'd given him. Between people like us, she thought to herself, what goes on in the bedroom is more important than anything else you can mention. His face, she wondered, will it look like the waiters' faces at Hades-will he end up looking like a movie gangster?
"Jeanni, do you know how you're looking at me?" She shook her head. "Like I was someone on the moon or something. You're a thousand miles away from me, baby. Were you on the moon?"
"Yep." She leaned toward him and kissed his cheek gently. "Get back in bed," she said. "Only if you go with me."
"All right, all right." Boy-O limped back to his bed, and lay down, careful to leave half of the mattress for her. "I'm really beginning to fall apart, you know? No fight ever got to me like this!"
"That wasn't a fight, my love, that was attempted murder." She lay down beside him, and turned on her side to gaze into his eyes. "You see, that's the price you have to expect to pay in your field. It's one of the risks like heart attacks are for stock brokers." She smiled at him and rubbed the back of his neck gently.
"And the business I'm in, what's that?"
"The business. Giving the ladies the business, giving the business to the people. You're in the getting even field, the revenge market, the hate works." She smiled as she said that and rubbed her lips along his neck.
He moved his body closer to her, and let his hand caress her waist. "Tell me more," he whispered at her ear and bit the edge gently.
She smiled against his cheek. "Your whole lie of a life has been getting back at people. You've dished the works at them, particularly the women, because you figure somehow in that warped brain of yours that all of the people have that coming. And you've gotten even a hundred times, because you are so damnable handsome." She smiled and touched his swollen lips. "Were so handsome," she corrected herself.
He moved his hand slightly on her back and stroked her. "You've got a nice rear," he said.
"But you were the one who got hurt the most." She moved still closer to him, and her breasts massaged the bruised muscles of his chest. He buried his face against her cool, shining brown hair.
"Does your mother know where you are?" he asked.
"Umm. I called her this morning." She kissed his throat and ears and ran her lips playfully along the outline of his Adam's apple. "Did anybody ever beat you up this bad before?"
"Oh sure. A hundred times. Once in Phoenix, no, I think it was Dallas, I had to spend a week in the hospital." His hands felt their way around and moved up the front of her until he held and squeezed her breast. "You're not that stacked, for a high-priced pro."
"When you get into my class, the size of your boobs doesn't matter as much as what you can do with them." She began to move a little against his touch.
"And what do you do with them?"
Her breath was faster now. He moved his head and let his swollen lips play over her. "Everything," she said. Then, "What the hell are you doing?"
"If you're such a high-priced babe, how come you don't know?"
His hand slipped under her skirt, and pressed hard against her.
"Don't start anything you can't finish," she teased, urging him on all the more and letting her hands touch him all over. She pressed her body against his tentatively and drew in a sharp little breath of surprise. "My god, you're ready. What kind of man are you?"
His hands moved around her and he listened to her groan with pleasure and surprise. "You may not know," he whispered against her ear, "but my real name is not Clark Kent."
It was hard for her to laugh. She couldn't find the breath. She sang against him, her body close, and her lips danced laughingly across his face.
Her hands circled him and got him so ready, he almost couldn't wait. "Easy," he muttered. He pushed her willing body over and rolled against her.
Her arms opened for him and he lay for a moment gathering strength. Then he took her and every tired muscle of his body screamed at the tension. He groaned with the pain.
"Boy-O, are you all right?"
"I can't manage, baby. Help me."
She kissed him and whispered against his lips. "All right."
He smiled in spite of himself, in spite of the disappointment. Jeanni was good, she was real good. He bit at her chin and rolled onto his back.
She lay quietly for a moment and then she drew herself up.
He smiled and lay with his arms under his head, watching her work, watching her sweet breasts bob and shimmer as she did. He forced himself to keep his eyes open against the mounting pleasure, smiling at her. That was a contest of endurance.
Then their breathing grew too hectic and they were off and flying. She fell, trembling against him. "Oh, I love you. I really do."
"Jeanni, Jeanni."
"Umm."
"Nothing. Just Jeanni, Jeanni."
"Boy-O, what's going to happen to us?"
"I'm thinking about that. Jeanni love, I'm thinking about that all the time."
She buried her face against his chest and kissed his arm, sinking her teeth into his bruised muscle. "What have you thought of?"
"Ouch!" He wrapped his hand in her hair. "Take that easy, will you?"
"What have you thought of?"
He pulled her close to him. "How do you feel about foreversville, hon? Do you want to marry me?"
"Yes."
"But I don't know how to play it square, you know that don't you?" His voice was dubious. "I mean, I'm not trained for anything, and I can't think of anything to do."
"Neither am I. We're not exactly used to worrying about our living are we?"
"See, that's the drag. What'll I do, baby, to bring in the bread?"
"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know. Drive a truck I guess or build things."
She didn't say any more, but Boy-O could see all her expensive clothing dancing in her mind and that little yellow dream of a car. "It's not enough, is it?"
"I don't know. It'll damned well be different." She drew away from him and sat up on the bed, straightening his clothes. She lit a cigarette for him and one for herself. "We could buy a farm, I guess."
"With whose money?" He didn't much believe it any more. It was a stupid dream.
"Oh, Boy-O stop it. You know I have money." She looked at him. "But we have to give it a try, don't we? What else can we do but take that chance?"
"I don't know. It's a hard life." i
"You've got to let me try," she said. "I've got to try and see if it's enough. I love you, you big lug."
"Okay. We'll try."
She kissed his mouth and kissed him again. But the kiss tasted bitter. It was just a matter of time.
"I've got to go now. I'll be back in the morning."
She got up and left him alone. Boy-O Carter didn't know whether to dream and plan, or confront his suspicions. The room was dark, and his brain was still pounding from the battle. But he couldn't stand to sleep and he couldn't stand to think.
So he lay there, cursing in the darkness.