Chapter 16
SHE HAD BEEN RIGHT-we fought. We argued violently, then lapsed into sullen silence. She finally persuaded me to leave the apartment and get something to eat with her.
"You look as if you haven't had a solid meal in a week," she told me angrily.
We went downstairs, got into her convertible and went to a drive-in on the edge of town. I wanted to order beer but Alice insisted on hamburgers and malts. By then I was tired of fighting with her. The carhop brought the hamburgers and I forced myself to eat one.
It was dark by then and the neon signs of the drive-in had flashed on. The parking area was dimly lit. Cars were coming and going. One parked next to ours. Two men were in it. They looked like a couple of tough waterfront characters. I noticed that they were highly interested in us. They stared at Alice, then at me.
The carhop took their orders and left. Presently she brought a tray with two bottles of beer to their car. Both men were still staring at me.
They drank their beer, got out of their car and slowly walked over to where we were sitting. I felt sudden apprehension. Alice was talking about her family's plans for the summer. I lost track of what she was saying. The two men had come up beside the car. I put my hamburger down. Alice broke off in the middle of a sentence.
One of the men put his hands on the door beside me. "You're Mark Harris, ain't you?" I could feel trouble in the air like a thunderstorm. "What if I am?"
"I heard you were supposed to be on a bus this afternoon. How come you missed it?"
So that was it. At first-since Alice had found me through my family-I had thought the men might be my father's emissaries. But evidently Fred Turner was checking to see if I had obeyed his instructions.
I looked at the two men again. The closest one to me was short and stocky. A nasty scar ran down one side of his face. He stank of tar and dead shrimp and I recognized a header's callus on the hand he rested on the edge of the car door. His companion was big, dark and confident.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alice's face. She had turned pale. I had no desire to be a hero. I made a quick motion toward the ignition key. If we had not been in a convertible I might have gotten the engine started and into gear. But the scar-faced thug beat my hand to the keys. He jerked them out and tossed them away.
He said, "It's too bad you didn't make the bus."
I was scared but I was also mad. Alice's half-finished malt was on the console between the bucket seats. I picked it up and threw the mushy contents into the guy's face. He took a step backward, swore and began to paw the slop out of his eyes.
I jumped up to stand on the seat. The big guy made a grab at me. I kicked him in the face. He spun backward. Alice screamed as I tumbled over the side of the car and sprawled on the gravel.
A well-aimed kick found my ribs. Fiery pain ripped through me.
By then other people at the drive-in had noticed us. I heard doors slamming and people yelling. Alice was standing up in the convertible, screaming her head off.
I tried to fight. But the scar-faced shrimper outweighed me by a good thirty pounds and he was as solid as a rock. He and his friend got me pinned down and started working me over. I felt as if my body were being pushed through a hammer mill. Blows and kicks dazed me. A fist rammed into my belly and the breath gushed agonizingly out between my bloody lips.
That seemed to end it. Through a haze I saw the two guys standing over me. The header looked down at me.
He said, "Don't you miss no more buses. This town ain't healthy for you any more."
He gave me a parting kick in the side. Then he and his buddy got into their car and drove away.
I was vaguely aware of Alice standing over me, sobbing as she wiped the dirt and blood from my face with her handkerchief. By then a crowd had gathered around us. I did not want to get involved with the law on this and I figured somebody would have put in a call to the local cops. I told Alice to help me into the car and to take me home.
With her help I managed to stagger into the convertible. She drove back to my apartment. The cool night air felt good on my face but I was one big ache from head to foot.
"I should take you to the hospital," Alice said.
"I'm all right," I mumbled. "Just get me home to bed."
Alice helped me up to my pad. Then she insisted on calling a doctor. The guy came out, checked me over and gave me a shot.
I heard him say to Alice, "I can't find anything seriously broken. I think a few days in bed and some good nursing will have him back on his feet. Keep him quiet and-"
His voice faded away as the shot took effect and I sank into a pleasant state of euphoria and then into a dreamless sleep.
Alice hung around the apartment for the next few days, playing Florence Nightingale. I think she was almost glad I'd gotten beaten up. For once she ran the show without getting any lip from me.
She kept bugging me about leaving town.
"Mark, I'm afraid of what's going to happen. You should get away."
I couldn't figure her. Why would she give a damn?
After a few days I was up and limping around. Alice had to leave for a day. She had to attend to some family business. She promised to be back early that evening.
The silence of the apartment screamed at me. I was healing on the outside but my guts were all churned up with hate and pain and loneliness. Alice had carted oft or dumped all the booze in the place. But I had some money. Early in the afternoon I limped downstairs to the nearest liquor store. It was my first venture out since the beating. I was surprised I was able to get around as well as I did. I took the bottle back up to my apartment and sat there in loneliness and misery, drinking by myself. I don't know if it was the booze, the loneliness, the beating or what Alice had said about Nell, but suddenly I knew I had to see her.
I limped across town, half drunk and half insane.
I went straight to Nell's home. I didn't give a damn whether or not Fred was there. I almost hoped he would be.
But his car was not in the garage or driveway. I walked across the patio and banged on the back door. Nell came out of one of the back rooms of the house. She wore a white bathing suit. It made me remember the time when we were kids-the time I had peeked through the hole in the wall of our summer cottage and watched her peel a white bathing suit from her lovely body.
Her eyes flew wide when she recognized me. She opened the door.
"Mark-what on earth happened to you? Fred told me you had left town."
"I almost did," I mumbled. "After his thugs worked me over I almost left town in a pine box."
She looked stricken.
"Oh, Mark-"
She caught my hands and pulled me into the house. She led me to a couch. We sat down and I felt the soothing balm of her fingers caressing my bruised face. Tears spilled out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She kissed my bruises.
"Mark, honey, tell me exactly what happened."
I told her everything.
"Cousin Fred plays real mean."
Nell paled.
"Mark, maybe you should leave for a while. I thought we had him fooled. I didn't dream he suspected us."
"He knows everything," I said, bitterly. "He even knew about your taking out the boat the night before he had me beaten up."
Nell looked even more distressed.
"I'll leave, Nell. But I want you to go with me." I grabbed her hands, held them tightly. "You love me-you know you do."
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I do, Mark. I always have. Ever since that summer when we were children-"
"All right. You don't love Fred, do you?"
She shook her head.
I drew her to me, kissed her fervently. Insane furies throbbed in my mind.
Her lips parted under mine. We could not kiss without unleashing raging storms in both of us.
"Mark, Mark-" she moaned, writhing in my grasp. "Don't, honey-you're driving me crazy. It's too dangerous-"
She was right about the craze in us. My fingers ripped the flimsy bathing suit from her. All reason was blotted from my mind.
My own clothes fell into a heap beside the couch. Nell's naked flesh merged with mine. Her arms and legs clamped about me. Her head fell back. She was drawing shuddering, sobbing breaths through her clenched teeth. Her nails dug into my shoulders. She moaned.
The universe spun in a tight circle around us. Nell was the beginning and end of everything for me.
Suddenly rough hands seized me. The raging fantasy of the moment shattered against harsh and ugly reality. Clawing hands dragged me from Nell. I heard her scream as a curious echo from some past nightmare. I spun around-in a blur I saw Fred's livid face.
I felt like an actor in some grotesque farce. The three of us were locked in an emotional compartment that was thick with hate and lust and jealous rage-and shot through with crude comedy, a joke told to often. Fred could have been Paul Edwards, who also had surprised me with Nell-or Dr. Reed, who had caught me with Sandra Clinton. I sensed a key of sorts in the repetitive pattern of my experiences but this was no time to figure it out.
I dressed quickly. Nell crouched, naked and shivering. She tried to get into her bathing suit but Fred grabbed it out of her hands. Then he slapped her across the face.
Rage exploded in me. I leaped at him. His fists slashed out, pounding me against the wall. He moved fast for a big man. His blows awakened all hell in my half-healed body. For a moment I was paralyzed with pain.
Before I could move again he said, "You just stand there, Mark boy. Fighting ain't gonna get you nowhere. Your fun with my wife is all over. This is the end."
I had no idea of what he meant. Was he going to kill us? I wished to hell I were all in one piece. I wanted to take him apart.
Nell cowered on the couch, her shame underscored by her nakedness. She covered her face with her hands.
Turner looked at me, at her and back to me again. His smile was cold and ugly.
"You two thought you had me fooled. Hell, I've known for weeks about what was going on. It went on last summer, too, when you were here. I figured, okay, let her have her fun with you. Let her get it out of her system like she did with the others. With the others it was just a few weeks and she'd get tired of them."
His words were spinning around in my dazed brain. What was he talking about?
He went on, "But with you it's different. She don't seem to get tired of you. She keeps wanting it from you. It was bad enough-the two of you sneaking around on the beach or out in my boat or in motel rooms. But now in my own home and in broad daylight." He shook his head. "That's too much." Then he said, "Ah right-you want her so much, go ahead, take her. Take her on out of town with you. I won't even try to stop you."
I was bewildered by his sudden change of attitude. Had he flipped? I didn't really care. The only important thing was that he was giving Nell her freedom.
I moved toward the couch.
"Nell?"
Fred broke in loudly.
"You want him, Nell? Go ahead, go to him." Nell was looking at Fred. Her face was chalky. Her trembling lips formed words. "No-no, Fred. Please." Fred scowled at her.
"Tell the kid you want him, why don't you? You don't want to stay with me no more."
She whimpered, crawled off the couch and stretched out her hands to him.
"No, Fred. Please, honey-"
My insides turned to ice. I stared at her. Nell was begging Fred not to make her leave.
The two of them were looking at each other. I was unable to analyze the emotion in Fred's eyes. Everything was there from agony to lust and a rage to kill.
He said hoarsely, "I thought you wanted to go with him."
Nell sank to her knees. Before my shocked eyes I saw her grovel in front of that fat pig of a man. I saw her crawl on the floor before him, pleading and begging.
"Don't throw me out, Fred. I'm sorry about this. I swear it won't happen again. I swear it never will. Please give me another chance-"
Fred's face turned from granite to putty. I saw him come apart inside. For a moment I saw his naked soul in his eyes. It was a shocking thing to see. He looked old and gray and pathedc.
"I wish you'd stop making me scare you, Nell," he said. "I don't like your doing things that make you afraid of me." Fred turned to me. He said, in a voice that was almost apologetic, "Nell just can't leave men alone. I always take her back. She's young and beautiful. A man like me is apt to forgive a woman that young and beautiful a lot of things. I know she don't love me. I know it's my money and the things I can give her that make her stay. But I'll keep her on those terms. I don't figure you want to hurt her-but she'd be real scared, living with you and being what she is. Reckon she was born to live scared." He gestured helplessly with his pudgy hands. "Better leave her alone-"
Suddenly I had to vomit. I made it to the bathroom. Later I leaned over the sink, weak and trembling, staring at my reflection in the mirror. After a while I washed my face. I got out of the house without seeing either Nell or Fred again. I went to a bar and sat drinking until dark. I left the place and walked aimlessly. After a while I saw a car coming down the street. It stopped close to me.
I heard Alice Rawson's anxious voice. "Mark?"
I hesitated, then got into the car. She asked me where I wanted to go.
I said, "Anywhere, just so it's away from this town."
We drove with the top down. I lay back wearily, looking up at the stars. I wondered what they knew about my future. Another college, maybe. But the army would probably get me first. My mind was too tired to think.
I was suddenly an adult. A little drunk and not too bright-but a grownup. My love for Nell had been a young thing-and as such it had probably once been beautiful as all things young are beautiful. But nobody can stay young forever and today had been ugly.
It would be ugly forever. Nothing could change it back to what it might once have been. But today was almost over.
Alice took one hand from the wheel and put it in mine. It felt warm there.