Brass Bed Read online

  “It’s the truth that those goliards must have been pretty interesting,” Jolly said. “I can understand your finding them interesting, Felix.”

  “I thought I might be able to write a novel about one,” I said, “but it hasn’t been going very well.”

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t like it when things don’t go well for you.”

  “Things frequently don’t go well for me.”

  “I’m so terribly sorry. It makes me want to cry when things don’t.”

  “Would there be any money in a novel about goliards?” Fran said.

  “Not as much as there is in real estate,” I said.

  “Oh, well,” she said, “there’s not as much money in anything as there is in real estate. That’s axiomatic or something.”

  She sat down and crossed her legs again, looking up at Sid, who was still looking out the window.

  “Why don’t you behave?” she said. “Why do you have to just go on and on sulking?”

  “I’m not sulking,” Sid said. “I’m not sulking at all.”

  He sat down on the arm of her chair, and they began to talk quietly. Jolly came over and took one of my hands in both of hers.

  “Aren’t you glad you came?” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “I was certain you’d be glad. Why aren’t you? Doesn’t it make you feel good to see me again?”

  “It makes me feel terrible.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Yes, I know, but tell me anyhow.”

  “Because it’s an aggravation.”

  “Do you think of me and want me when we’re apart?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “When is it worst? The thinking and wanting, I mean.”

  “At night. When I’m lying in bed.”

  “That’s true. I knew you’d say that because it’s worst then for me too. Is it any satisfaction to you to know that I’m lying in bed and wanting you too?”

  “Very little. I try not to think of you lying in bed.”

  “Oh. I see. Because Kirby’s there with me, you mean. Yes, I can see that it wouldn’t be pleasant for you to think of that.”

  “Well, let’s quit thinking of it, then.”

  “I’m quite sure I’d be miserable if it were the other way around and someone was lying with you.”

  “No one’s been lying with me.”

  “I expect that someone will, though, sooner or later, and I’ll be perfectly miserable about it. Do you think I ought to quit sleeping with Kirby?”

  “It’s none of my business. I would like, please, not to think about it at all, one way or another.”

  The front screen opened and shut. Footsteps approached in the hall, and Kirby Craig came into the room. He was wearing a white suit and white shoes, and he looked very rich and handsome and genial. Probably he was quite nice in his own way, and it was remarkable how much I hated him.

  “Hello, you folks,” he said.

  Jolly let go of my hand, and Sid got off the arm of Fran’s chair, and Fran stood up deliberately and set her empty martini glass on a table.

  “Have you come to hit someone in the eye?” she said.

  Kirby got red in the face, and suddenly he did not look at all pleasant. The red did not spread evenly under his skin, but had a kind of mottled appearance, like liver blotches, and seeing him like that gave me some satisfaction in a small way.

  “Come off it, Fran,” he said. “You get fresh with me, I’ll spank your butt.”

  “I believe you,” Fran said. “You are just the big, virile man to do it. I have never seen a bigger, more virile man in all this big, virile world. God, I admire you tremendously!”

  “Just be a good girl, that’s all.”

  “A man who would black his wife’s eye should be thrashed,” Sid said suddenly.

  “Thrashed! Thrashed, for God’s sake!” Fran threw her arms up into the air and sat down again in the chair. “Why must you constantly interfere, Sid? I was absolutely confounding this big, virile man, and you have reduced the entire dramatic scene to an utter farce.”

  Kirby was looking at Sid ominously.

  “Who’s going to thrash me?” he said.

  Sid stood up very straight and looked dignified. In spite of handicaps, he really did. He wasn’t big or impressive, but somehow he managed to look quite dignified.

  “You needn’t try to terrify me,” he said. “I’m completely impervious to your brutish behavior.”

  “You’re just a God-damn coward,” Kirby said. “You wouldn’t fight if I spit on you.”

  “Fighting is vulgar,” Sid said. “I don’t fight.”

  He walked over to the hall and turned.

  “With neither men nor women,” he said.

  He went out, and Fran began to laugh. On her face was an expression of mixed amazement and admiration.

  “You know, that was damn good, wasn’t it? That remark about neither men nor women. I’m amazed that old Sid would think of something like that. It must have been irony or something, wasn’t it? Was it irony, Felix?”

  I didn’t answer. Jolly went over and set her glass on the table beside Fran’s and then returned and faced Kirby.

  “At the risk of being hit in the other eye,” she said, “I must say that Sid is right. You are very vulgar, Kirby.”

  “Don’t needle me, Jolly,” Kirby said. “Just don’t needle me.”

  “May I feel your muscle?” she said. “It would be a great thrill for me if I were permitted to feel your muscle.”

  “All right, now,” Kirby said. “All right.”

  “Hit her in the eye, Kirby,” Fran said.

  Kirby turned and walked over to the table and picked up the shaker. It was empty again. He began putting gin and vermouth into it, and his hands were shaking badly. He was extremely frustrated and angry, and I could understand how it had happened that he’d lost his head and let Jolly have one.

  “I think I’d better go,” I said. “Could I drop you somewhere, Fran?”

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll just stay here and see if anything interesting happens.”

  “I’ll go to the door with you,” Jolly said.

  “That isn’t necessary. I can find my way out.”

  “Just the same, I’ll go with you. It’s quite time someone around here started remembering his manners.”

  I went out into the hall and down to the door with Jolly following. At the door, I turned, and we stood there close together but not touching. She looked somehow small and very sad with her fine black eye.

  “I love you,” she said. “Darling, darling, I love you.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, “but it doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.”

  “It’s because of Kirby,” she said. “It’s Kirby who keeps us from getting anywhere.”

  “There is a legal and accepted way of eliminating Kirby,” I said.

  “I know what you mean, and I have explained carefully that it is impossible.”

  “I know you have, and so there is obviously no point in talking about it any more.”

  “If only he were to die,” she said. “Everything would be so simple if he would only die.”

  She said it quietly and wistfully, like a small child wishing for an impossible favor. I went on out to the Chevvie, which was still willing to run, and drove away.

  3

  WHEN I GOT back to the apartment, Harvey Griffin was there waiting for me. He’d brought six cans of cold beer and had plugged one and was sitting there drinking it and reading the printing on the can between swallows. He was a stocky guy with freckles and sandy hair that stood erect at the crown of his head and fell over his forehead in front, and he taught mathematics at the college and had an algebra class for the summer. The algebra class bored him considerably, and as a consequence his beer consumption had increased in proportion. He said it was surprising what a support beer could be to algebra. He was a bright, ugly, likeable guy, a
nd next to the goliards he was the best relief I had from things, and I’m not so sure, looking back on it, that he wasn’t even better than the goliards.

  “Hello, Harvey,” I said.

  “Hello, old boy,” he said. “I just came on in.”

  “Sure. That’s the way to do.”

  “I brought six cans of cold beer. The other five are in the refrigerator.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I took off my coat and tie and threw them on the bed and went into the kitchen. Getting one of the cans of beer from the refrigerator, I plugged it and carried it back into the other room. It was chilled just about right, and you could feel it drop and hit and start working for your welfare. I sat there with the cold beer working inside me and kept hearing Jolly wish quietly that Kirby would die.

  “It’s good beer,” I said. “It’s good and cold.”

  “Yes, it is,” he agreed. “Every can is a good half-quart of cold beer.”

  He emptied his can and sat rolling it around in his hands until I’d emptied mine and caught up with him, and then he took the empties into the kitchen and plugged two full ones and brought them back.

  “How’s the algebra class going?” I said.

  “To hell with the algebra class. I don’t want to talk about it. How’s the history class going?”

  “I don’t want to talk about the history class.”

  “I can understand your feelings, old boy, and I’ll certainly respect them. Do you suppose we could find a topic of conversation that neither of us would object to? How’s your private life these days?”

  “Extremely dull. I’ve got more or less interested in goliards.”

  “No fooling? How’d you happen to get interested in goliards?”

  It was significant that he didn’t have to ask me what goliards were. As I said, it isn’t likely that most people know anything about goliards, and Harvey was a mathematician and couldn’t reasonably have been expected to know about them, either, but the point is, he did know about them, and he was a hell of a bright guy and knew a lot of things he wasn’t required to know.

  “There’s a little about them in the history course,” I said, “and I just sort of picked them up.”

  “That’s fine, old boy. It’s very good to be interested in something. Now that you’ve picked up these goliards, what are you going to do with them?”

  “I’ve been trying to put one in a novel.”

  “Oh, say, now. A goliard ought to go damn well in a novel.”

  “That’s what I thought myself, but he doesn’t seem to be.”

  “No? That’s odd. I’d think a goliard would go right along.”

  “The truth is, I think it’s me more than the goliard that doesn’t go. I can’t seem to get into it the way I should.”

  “I find myself very interested in this novel, old boy. Perhaps I could give you an idea or two that would shake you loose.”

  “All right. What would you suggest?”

  “Well, to start with, I’d suggest a sexy duchess.”

  “There’s already a sexy duchess.”

  “Really? And you can’t get into it? You’re in pretty bad shape, old boy.”

  “Of course I haven’t actually reached the sexy duchess yet. I’m only on page fifty-four.”

  “There’s, your trouble right off. No wonder you can’t get into it. All the way to page fifty-four and haven’t reached the duchess yet. You should have her in with a bang.”

  “Is that a pun?”

  “Damn good, isn’t it? I didn’t really intend it, though, to be perfectly honest about it. That’s the way with puns, I find. They just pop in unexpectedly. Who else is in the novel besides the sexy duchess and the goliard?”

  “There’s the duke, of course. You have a duchess, you have to have a duke.”

  “That’s logical. Very sound reasoning,” Harvey said.

  “Then there are some university students and clerics and a fat tavern keeper.”

  “Why a fat tavern keeper? Why fat, I mean.”

  I said, “I don’t know. Fat tavern keepers are the usual thing.”

  “Exactly. That’s my point. That’s exactly what you ought to avoid. The usual thing, that is. Make your tavern keeper lean, old boy. He’ll be a big hit.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I can make him lean as easily as fat.”

  “You working in any other sexy women?”

  “No. Just the duchess.”

  “That’s bad. You ought to work in another sexy woman.”

  “I thought I’d make the duchess sexy enough to meet all reasonable requirements by herself.”

  “It won’t do. The point is, you have to have competition, to say nothing of a little variety. You could have this goliard torn between these two women, and that keeps everyone reading along just to see which way he’s going to jump, if for no other reason.”

  “Come to think of it, I believe you’re right.”

  “Sure, I’m right. You need some contrast too. You could make the other sexy woman a lowly tavern wench. What do you think of a lowly tavern wench as the other woman?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Sure. The duchess and the lowly tavern wench. You could have this goliard try them both out for a while and then light on one for keeps. You can put a lot of suspense and sex into a situation like that, old boy. Of course you’d have to make up your mind which one you wanted him to light on. It would require pretty delicate handling, you know, to keep from offending everyone who had decided in the meanwhile that he should land on the other one.”

  “Which one would you suggest?”

  “Well, I go for the tavern wench myself. That’s because my heart is with the lowly. You’d be surprised how lousy lowly I am in my sentiments.”

  “I expect you’re right. Most people would certainly be pulling for the lowly wench. Besides, I could make her single, and the duchess, being a duchess, would almost have to have the duke around somewhere for a husband, and it would simplify things not having the husband there to mess things up in the end.”

  “That’s true,” Harvey said. “However, come to think of it, you might turn something like that into a pretty good thing. You could have this goliard land on the duchess, and it wouldn’t work out because of the duke, and then you could end it up with a lot of sad stuff by having the goliard renounce the world and go off to a monastery to be a monk or something. People really go for these tear-jerkers. Sad stuff is almost as good as sex, and when you throw in a little of both, you’ve really got something.”

  “It seems like it. But I think I’d rather have him go for the tavern wench.”

  “Why? Do you insist on a happy ending?”

  “I wouldn’t say that I insist on it, but I think a happy ending might be permissible. In addition, it would be much simpler. Husbands can become quite complicating, you know.”

  Harvey smirked. “That last remark had a bitter sound, old boy. Almost as if there were a certain amount of personal feeling in it.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, what I mean is, how’s Jolly these days?”

  “Jolly is fine, but I don’t believe I care to talk about her.”

  “Pardon me, old boy. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I’m not offended.”

  “It would probably be good for you to talk about her. A kind of catharsis or something.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I really do. Would you care to tell me if you’ve seen her recently?”

  “I have. I saw her this afternoon.”

  “You don’t tell me. I thought you were resolved to stay away from her.”

  “So I was. I was resolved, and for a long time I kept my resolution, and then she called and wanted me to come over and have a drink. I said I wouldn’t go, but then I called her back and said I would, and I went. In the end, I was a weakling.”

  “Weakness is sometimes a great satisfaction. Was it good to see her?”

 
; “No, it wasn’t good. It was bad. Sid Pollock and Fran Tyler were there, and everyone talked nonsense, and then Kirby came in, and everyone insulted someone else. Jolly has a black eye. Kirby hit her in it.”

  “The hell he did! That’s pretty rough treatment even for Jolly, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m positive if I were married to Jolly that I’d frequently want to hit her in the eye, and now and then I might actually do it.”

  “I can understand that, all right. You can’t deny that Jolly certainly has a talent for making you want to hit her in the eye. Among other talents.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Among others.”

  On the way to Nick’s Steak House, I thought about Irene. Irene was Nick’s daughter. She was tall for a woman, and she had a big, exciting body. I said as much to Harvey.

  “Yes,” he said. “What a pity she’s married to that bricklayer.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Bricklayers are generally quite prosperous. On the whole, I’d say, somewhat more prosperous than mathematics teachers. Maybe you ought to take up laying bricks.”

  “Well, I don’t know that I’d want to lay bricks, even for the additional income, but I sure wouldn’t mind Irene.”

  “In this case, the two operations seem to be associated.”

  “I concede that, but I find the thought repulsive. Don’t you find it repulsive?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “That’s only because you’ve got Jolly on your mind.”

  “Forget it.”

  “All right. I’ll forget Jolly and think about Irene, and you forget Irene and think about Jolly. Is it agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “You’ll have to confess, however, that I have all the better of it. Thinking of Jolly quite obviously makes you miserable because she’s all messed up with your nobler sentiments, as well as your baser ones, while Irene is with me strictly glandular and entails no pain. I feel sorry for you, old boy. I really do.”

  “Oh, go to hell,” I said.

  We walked on under the trees and cicadas in the stirring air and came pretty soon to Nick’s. We went inside and sat down at a table covered with a red-checked cloth, and Nick was behind the counter, and so was Irene. Nick’s friendly, fat, Greek face split and opened and exposed shining teeth, and he raised a hand in greeting.