Chapter 8
The day passed.
The sun moved across the sky in her old course, the usual afternoon breeze made the trees sigh, the normal number of automobiles and pedestrians moved along Main Street, and the cash registers in the stores rang an average number of times.
It was an ordinary day in town, in all respects.
There was no warning in it anywhere of the night to come.
On the way home from school that afternoon, George Link was met by a friend named Wally Sands. George wasn't particularly happy about having company on the way home; his mind was still dwelling on the events of the evening before, and he would have preferred to be alone with his thoughts.
But that was out of the question when Wally was around. Once the guy got talking, all hope was lost.
Today Wally seemed even more talkative than usual. He kept making stupid jokes, laughing inanely at them, and punching George lightly in the arm. He was acting, George decided, as if he had something important on his mind and couldn't wait to spill it out.
"Hey, Wally," he said, cutting into the middle of the latest long-winded sentence. "What the hell's eating at you today?"
"Why nothing George," Wally smiled foolishly. "What makes you think....?"
"Cut out the crap, Wally. I know when you got some bug up your tail. You either tell me about it, or walk on and leave me be. One or the other."
Wally laughed nervously. "I ain't supposed to tell anybody, George. It's a secret."
George shrugged. "That ain't never stopped you before. Let's hear it."
"Well-you're a friend, so I guess maybe it would be all right. But you got to promise not to let it get around. Promise that, George?"
"Wally, will you stop beating around the damn bush and spill it?"
"Okay, okay. It's well-it's only that I'm getting some tonight."
"Getting some? You mean, you lined up a gal to bag?" George's interest perked up.
Wally nodded. "Yes, sir-I lined me up a real nice one, George. Set of boobs on her like you never saw, and this big fat butt-end...." His powers of description failed him, he finished by scooping up an imaginary pair of buttocks in his hand.
"Yeah?" said George, lifting his eyebrows. "That sounds like a whole lot of tail. You're going to bag her, you said?"
"Tonight," Wally answered. "I asked her right out at lunch today-asked her if she'd let me-and she just looked me up and down and said yes. Boy, I can't hardly wait!"
"What's her name, Wally?" For some reason an image of Solveig Hinkle sprang into his mind. Could this little clunk have gotten the nod from Solveig? Was he going to waltz in and score where George had never even tried? The idea was so maddening that George felt his face getting red. "Is it anybody I know, Wally?"
"Well, yeah," said Wally. "You should know her. I mean, you must have seen her around her Pa's store, even if you never met her to talk to."
If it's Solveig Hinkle, thought George, Wally Sands is going to die right here in the middle of this road.
"What the hell is her name?" he shouted.
Wally seemed shocked by the violence of the question and his voice stumbled all over itself to answer. "It's Abigail Tate, George-you know, the grocery man's daughter."
For a few seconds George simply couldn't believe it. Then the anger in him drained away and began to be replace by something else. He threw back his head and brayed insanely with laughter.
Willie stared at him. "Hey," he said, annoyance in his voice. "What's so funny about that? Huh?"
George tried to answer, but it was impossible. The wild laughter had taken hold of him completely. It was all he could do to stay on his feet and keep from falling down and rolling madly on the ground.
Could you beat that? he thought. Four times he had ridden her last night-four times with everything he had-and already she'd lined up a fresh stud. And of all people, stupid Wally Sands; a guy who was so damned stupid that he didn't even recognize a girl who would go for just anybody at all as long as he talked to her.
What was even funnier was the long and elaborate plan of attack George had gone through to get at Abbie-sending off for that bust cream, putting up with her teasing and fooling around, waiting for just the right time to get her where he could get at her-when all the while he had only to ask for it, ask her right out the way Wally had.
He thought of the hayride of a couple of weeks before, and the warm handfuls of Abbie's breasts, and the feeling of her body lying close to his own. Why, he probably could have had her right then and there-just pulled some hay over them, thrown up her dress, and yanked off her drawers; if she had even been wearing drawers.
What a dope he'd been for not seeing that from the first.
What an idiot, for thinking that Abbie Tate had to be wooed and coaxed and gifted onto her back.
What a moron, for never giving up his silly idea that sex was the most important thing in the world, when as far as good old Abbie Tate was concerned it was only a good way to pass the time.
George just stood there in the middle of the road and laughed with all the power in his lungs, because he knew that if he stopped laughing he would have to go and kill something.
Wally was getting mad. "You quit laughing and talk to me, George" he shouted. "I don't like people laughing at me. You act like there was something wrong with the idea of me having fun with Abbie Tate, and you better explain that before I haul off and punch you one."
George finally got his laughter under control. When his eyes had cleared, he found Wally directly in front of him, his face red with anger, his fists balled at his sides.
"Hoooo," George said, letting out a long breath. "I ain't laughed like that since...."
"Don't kid around with me," Wally snapped. "I mean it. I want to know what's so damn funny."
"Now, now," George said, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. "Just simmer down, Wally. I ain't laughing at you. How could you know about Abbie Tate? If nobody ever told you about her, you'd never guess it, Wally."
"Yeah? Well, you never went out with her, so how do you know?"
George threw a friendly arm around the other's shoulders. "Sure I did, Wally. On the hayride-remember? You was with Lucy Wynn and I was with Abbie?"
Yeah, George thought to himself-you was with Lucy Wynn, and I laid her once, and she wasn't no better than Abbie.
"The hayride?" Wally's brows drew together. "Was that Abbie Tate you was with? It was so dark there I didn't even notice."
"That was old Abbie, all right," George replied. "That was the night I found out her big secret."
"What big secret? Come on George-you tell me what's so funny about bagging Abbie Tate?"
"Well," George said, grinning broadly, "the truth of the matter is, Wally, that Abigail Tate ain't got no boobs."
Wally froze in his tracks. "What the hell do you mean by that? I saw her a couple of hours ago with my own eyes and she's got a pair...."
"Did you feel her, Wally?"
He made a face. "Of course, I didn't feel her. How could I feel her at high noon on Main Street? But I got a good look at her, and...."
"She ain't got a thing in front, Wally. That great pair you saw is all foamy rubber from a mail-order house. Without all that rubber, she's got about as much as you and me."
"I'm telling you she pads herself up so she's got any size at all. Why, without them rubber boobs of hers, she's flat as your Ma's table. I felt it with my own hands, Wally, right there on that hayride."
The expression on Wally's face made George very happy. As soon as he got over his initial shock, Wally wouldn't wait five minutes to start spreading the news that Abbie Tate was a human washboard. Wally was like that.
"Man," he said, "I never would have thought. Boy, that's some secret, George."
"Well, you know," George said, lowering his voice confidentially, "I didn't want to tell you about it. But when you started talking like you was going to make some fun with her, I figured I better warn you in advance, the way a friend should."
Wally nodded. "That was real friendly George. I appreciate that."
"But, listen-don't go spreading this around. I mean, it ain't Abbie's fault she never grew no boobs, and I happen to know she's real sensitive on the subject. So just keep it under your hat. Unless, of course, you get a chance to pass the word on to a friend, the way I did."
"Oh, sure," Wally said distractedly. "I won't breathe it to a soul. I ain't like that, George."
George smiled. Gradually his smile filled his whole face.
It was stupid revenge in a way; there were too many people in town who would know from their own experience that it wasn't true. All the young studs who had grabbed Abbie bare, the way George himself had, would know that she had no need for rubber padding. But there were just as many people who had never touched or looked at Abbie, and if George was any judge of this town and its ways, they would believe the story as if it had been written in the Bible.
Maybe sex wasn't so important after all.
Maybe hurting people was the most important thing in the world.
George strolled on down the road, never realizing that the town had gotten him at last.
"Four times," Abbie said. "Four times in a row, I swear you never saw such a bull as that George Link."
Marge Webster strolled beside her, swinging her belt-wrapped schoolbooks against her leg. She listened to Abbie's description of her adventures with barely concealed envy.
"Yeah," she said. "Four times in a row is a lot, I guess."
Abbie felt silent and surveyed the afternoon with satisfaction. The soreness she'd expected to result from George's pounding hadn't materialized after all, and she had awakened that morning fresh as a daisy. Then, at noon, she had accepted a date to go playing around with Wally Sands, one of the few boys in town she had never lain down with. Wally probably wouldn't be any damned good, but Abbie had a feeling that he would eventually start paying for his fun with a gift or two, the way George had. The prospect was very pleasing.
And Abbie also enjoyed having the upper hand over her friend, whose sex-life, if you could call it that, was limited to the repetition of one stupid thing.
Marge cleared her throat. "I got some last night too."
"Oh?" Abbie pretended to be interested. "Who from?"
"Oh you know, Abbie. Nobody new."
"Carella, huh? How was it? He do anything interesting for you-?"
Marge dropped her eyes. "No," she said, "Same as ever."
Abbie smiled. "Well, you're entitled to your ways, Marge, but I swear I don't understand what you get out of that."
"It's fun," Marge said. "Mostly because he hates doing it so much. That's the best part."
"I tell you, Marge-you can have it. Give me a regular man like that George Link, and I got all I want. Four times in a row. Boy, that was really something."
Marge's head hung even lower, and she didn't reply.
Abbie decided it was a very nice day indeed.
The men of Main Street drifted onto the porch of Carella's barber shop a little later than usual that afternoon. It was past five when the pipes and cigars and cigarettes all were lit, even later before the conversation started to roll.
There was a lot more silence than usual and quite a bit of pondering. Promising bits of talk never seemed to develop, and no one looked at his neighbor today. If a dispassionate observer had been present, he might have decided that the men on the porch were either strangers or enemies.
Giacomo Carella stood leaning in the doorway of his shop, watching the dying glow of the sun and thinking about Marge Webster. Now and then he glanced at the men around him-the men of the town which produced such creatures as Marge.
Hermann Hinkle wondered silently what Gully had up his sleeve. He'd been puzzling all day over those stolen blankets, and failed to make any sense out of them. For some reason, his thoughts would veer off Gully occasionally, and drift to the subject of his daughter and her almost non-existant social life. But what did those two things have to do with each other?
Simon Tate's musing were equally divided between thoughts of his wife and black fears about The Phantom Five. He had come to the conclusion that the robbery of his store had been done by local adolescents, but that thought didn't cheer him at all. There were some mean young men in the town, and if a bunch of them decided to start harassing him, he could look forward to some rough times ahead.
Gar Smith mouthed his cigar, and worried. He wasn't able to shake his conclusions about Gully, and had gone to bed last night still mulling it over. The morning hadn't brought any easing of his apprehension; in fact, that apprehension had grown as the day wore on. The shades in the windows of the Herald office had remained drawn since early this morning, and no sign of Gully had been seen anywhere in town. Gar was convinced that Gully was up to something, and that big trouble was brewing. He could almost smell it in the air.
Willie Link sat on the steps, chain-smoking his hand-rolled cigarettes. He too sensed something amiss. He had gone home last night to find his son George almost as plastered as Gully Fry, lying incoherent with Willie's personal bottle empty at his side. The sight surprised Willie so much that he hadn't even bothered to beat George up. When he awakened in the morning, George had already left for school.
He was puzzled by George's actions. He knew that his son rarely drank anything but beer, and could usually hold it well. Seeing George passed out like that made him realize that there were some things that he didn't know about his son, after all. And that made him think more seriously of what Gar had said about young men and the mistakes they could make with young women. Could George have done something stupid last night? Was that the reason he'd gotten so drunk? The town was very quiet. Willie didn't like the feel s of it at all.
And so the men sat, silent for the most part, each of them oppressed with his separate guilts and fears.
And not one of them realized that the things about which they felt guiltiest, the thing which they feared most, was the town itself.