The Hotel New Hampshire Part 18

'What?' Egg said.

Frank didn't dare say 'Sorrow' with Father in the restaurant, and none of us would allow Egg to be bullied; Egg was safe, and he knew it. Egg was wearing his infantry combat uniform; Franny had told me that she thought Frank probably wished he had a uniform like that, and that it made Frank mad every time Egg wore a uniform - and Egg had several. If Frank's love of uniforms seemed odd, it seemed natural enough for Egg to love them; no doubt Frank resented this.

Then I asked Franny how Junior Jones's sister was going to get back to Philadelphia once New Year's was over and the Dairy School started again. Franny looked puzzled, and I explained that I didn't think Junior was going to drive his sister all the way back to Philadelphia, and then come right back to Dairy for school, and he wouldn't be allowed to keep a car at Dairy. That was against school rules.

'She'll drive herself back, I suppose,' Franny said. 'I mean, it's her car - or I think it is.'

Then it dawned on me that Junior Jones's sister, since they were bringing her her car, had to be old enough to drive. 'She's got to be at least sixteen!' I said to Franny. car, had to be old enough to drive. 'She's got to be at least sixteen!' I said to Franny.

'Don't be frightened,' Franny said. 'How old do you guess Ronda is?' she whispered.

But the thought of an older girl was intimidating enough without imagining a huge huge older girl: a bigger, older, once-raped girl. older girl: a bigger, older, once-raped girl.

'It's reasonable to a.s.sume that she'll be black, too,' Franny said to me. 'Or didn't that occur to you, either?'

'That doesn't bother me,' I said.

'Oh, everything everything bothers you,' Franny said. 't.i.tsie Tuck is eighteen and she bothers the h.e.l.l out of you, and she'll be here, too.' bothers you,' Franny said. 't.i.tsie Tuck is eighteen and she bothers the h.e.l.l out of you, and she'll be here, too.'

That was true: t.i.tsie Tuck referred to me, publicly, as 'cute' - in her rich, rather condescending way. But I don't mean that; she was nice - she just never regarded me at all, unless it was to joke with me; she was intimidating to me in the way someone who never remembers your name can be intimidating. 'In this world,' Franny once observed, 'just when you're trying to think of yourself as memorable, there is always someone who forgets that they've met you.'

It was an up-and-down day at the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, getting ready for New Year's Eve: I remember that something more p.r.o.nounced than even the usual weave of silliness and sadness seemed to hang over us all, as if we'd be conscious, from time to time, of hardly mourning for Iowa Bob at all - and conscious, at other times, that our most necessary responsibility (not just in spite of but because of because of Iowa Bob) was to have fun. It was perhaps our first test of a dictum pa.s.sed down to my father from old Iowa Bob himself; it was a dictum Father preached to us, over and over again. It was so familiar to us, we wouldn't dream of not behaving as if we believed it, although we probably never knew - until much later - whether we believed it or not. Iowa Bob) was to have fun. It was perhaps our first test of a dictum pa.s.sed down to my father from old Iowa Bob himself; it was a dictum Father preached to us, over and over again. It was so familiar to us, we wouldn't dream of not behaving as if we believed it, although we probably never knew - until much later - whether we believed it or not.

The dictum was connected with Iowa Bob's theory that we were all on a big s.h.i.+p - 'on a big cruise, across the world.' And in spite of the danger of being swept away, at any time, or perhaps because of the danger, we were not allowed allowed to be depressed or unhappy. The way the world worked was not cause for some sort of blanket cynicism or soph.o.m.oric despair; according to my father and Iowa Bob, the way the world worked - which was badly - was just a strong incentive to live purposefully, and to be determined about living well. to be depressed or unhappy. The way the world worked was not cause for some sort of blanket cynicism or soph.o.m.oric despair; according to my father and Iowa Bob, the way the world worked - which was badly - was just a strong incentive to live purposefully, and to be determined about living well.

'Happy fatalism,' Frank would speak of their philosophy, later; Frank, as a troubled youth, was not a believer.

And one night, when we were watching a wretched melodrama on the TV above the bar in the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, my mother said, 'I don't want to see the end of this. I like happy endings.'

And Father said, 'There are no happy endings.'

'Right!' cried Iowa Bob - an odd mixture of exuberance and stoicism in his cracked voice. 'Death is horrible, final, and frequently premature,' Coach Bob declared.

'So what?' my father said.

'Right!' cried Iowa Bob. 'That's the point: So what?'

Thus the family maxim was that an unhappy ending did not undermine a rich and energetic life. This was based on the belief that there were were no happy endings. Mother resisted this, and Frank was morose about it, and Franny and I were probably believers of this religion - or if, at times, we doubted Iowa Bob, the world would always come up with something that seemed to prove the old lineman right. We never knew what Lilly's religion was (no doubt it was a small idea, kept to herself), and Egg would be the retriever of Sorrow, in more than one sense. Retrieving Sorrow is a kind of religion, too. no happy endings. Mother resisted this, and Frank was morose about it, and Franny and I were probably believers of this religion - or if, at times, we doubted Iowa Bob, the world would always come up with something that seemed to prove the old lineman right. We never knew what Lilly's religion was (no doubt it was a small idea, kept to herself), and Egg would be the retriever of Sorrow, in more than one sense. Retrieving Sorrow is a kind of religion, too.

The board that Frank had found with the paw prints on it and the Sorrow holes in it, looking like the abandoned crucifix of a four-footed Christ, seemed ominous to me. I talked Franny into a bed check, although she said Frank and I were nuts - Egg, she said, had probably wanted to keep the board board and had thrown the and had thrown the dog dog away. Of course the intercom revealed nothing, since Sorrow - whether he was thrown away or hidden - was no longer breathing. There was a strange blowing sound, like the rus.h.i.+ng of air, from 4A - at the opposite end of the hall from Max Urick's static - but Franny said there was probably a window open: Ronda Ray had made up that bed for Bitty Tuck, and the room had probably been stuffy. away. Of course the intercom revealed nothing, since Sorrow - whether he was thrown away or hidden - was no longer breathing. There was a strange blowing sound, like the rus.h.i.+ng of air, from 4A - at the opposite end of the hall from Max Urick's static - but Franny said there was probably a window open: Ronda Ray had made up that bed for Bitty Tuck, and the room had probably been stuffy.

'Why are we putting Bitty way up on the fourth floor?' I asked.

'Because Mother thought she'd be here with Nasty,' Franny said, 'and that way - stuck up on the fourth floor - they could have some privacy from you kids.'

'From us us kids, you mean,' I said. 'Where's Junior sleeping?' kids, you mean,' I said. 'Where's Junior sleeping?'

'Not with me,' Franny said crisply. 'Junior and Sabrina have their own rooms on the second floor.'

'Sa-bree-na?' I said.

'That's it,' Franny said.

Sabrina Jones! I thought, and experienced a catacylsmic closing of the throat. Seventeen and six-foot-six, I imagined; goes about 185, stripped and towel-dried - and she can bench-press 200 pounds.

'They're here,' Lilly came and told us at the switchboard, in her wispy voice. The sight of the size of Junior Jones always took Lilly's breath away.

'How big is she?' I asked Lilly, but of course everyone looked enormous to Lilly; I would have to see Sabrina Jones for myself.

Frank, indulging in a moment of overt self-consciousness, had dressed himself in his bus driver's uniform and was playing doorman at the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re. He was carrying Bitty Tuck's luggage into the lobby; Bitty Tuck was the kind of girl who had luggage. She wore a sort of man's suit, but it had been tailored for a woman, and even a sort of man's dress s.h.i.+rt, with a b.u.t.ton-down collar and tie, and everything - except the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which were extraordinary, as Junior Jones had observed: they were impossible to conceal even in the most mannish costume. She flounced into the lobby behind Frank, who was sweating with her luggage.

'Hi, John-John!' she said.

'Hi, t.i.tsie,' I said, not meaning to let her nickname slip out, because only Junior and Franny could call her t.i.tsie and not receive her scorn. She looked at me scornfully and rushed past me, embracing Franny with the strange shrieks her kind of girl seems to have been born making.

'The bags go to 4A, Frank,' I said.

'Jesus, not now they don't,' Frank said, collapsing with Bitty's luggage in the lobby. 'It will take a team effort,' he said. 'Maybe some of you fools will get excited enough to actually have fun fun doing it, during the party.' doing it, during the party.'

Junior Jones loomed in the lobby, looking capable of hurling hurling Bitty Tuck's luggage up four floors - including Frank with the bags, I thought. Bitty Tuck's luggage up four floors - including Frank with the bags, I thought.

'Hey, the fun is here,' said Junior Jones. 'Here's the fun, man.'

I tried to see past him, or around him, to the doorway. For a terrified second I actually looked above above him, as if his sister, Sabrina, might be towering there. him, as if his sister, Sabrina, might be towering there.

'Hey, Sabrina,' said Junior Jones. 'Here's your weight lifter.'

In the doorway was a slender Negress, about my height; her high, floppy-brimmed hat perhaps made her appear a little taller - and she wore heels. Her suit - a woman's suit - was every ounce as fas.h.i.+onable as Bitty Tuck's attire; she wore a cream-coloured silky blouse with a wide collar, and it was open down her long throat to just a glimpse of the red lace of her bra; she wore rings on every finger, and bracelets, and she was a wondrous bitter-chocolate color, with wide bright eyes and a wide mouth smiling, full of strange but handsome teeth; she smelled so nice, and from so far away, that even Bitty Tuck's shrieks were diminished by the scent of Sabrina Jones. She was, I guessed, about twenty-eight or thirty, and she looked a little surprised to be introduced to me. Junior Jones, who was awfully quick for his size, moved far away from us fast.

'You're the weight lifter?' said Sabrina Jones. the weight lifter?' said Sabrina Jones.

'I'm only fifteen years old,' I lied; I would be fifteen very soon, after all.

'Holy cow,' said Sabrina Jones; she was so pretty I couldn't look at her. 'Junior!' she yelled, but Junior Jones was hiding from her - all the many pounds of him.

He had obviously needed a ride from Philadelphia, and not wanting to disappoint Franny by not showing up for New Year's Eve, he had acquired his older older sister, and his sister's car, under the pretense of getting her a date with me. sister, and his sister's car, under the pretense of getting her a date with me.

'He told me Franny had an older older brother,' Sabrina said, sorrowfully. I suppose Junior might have been thinking of Frank. Sabrina Jones was a secretary in a law firm in Philadelphia; she was twenty-nine. brother,' Sabrina said, sorrowfully. I suppose Junior might have been thinking of Frank. Sabrina Jones was a secretary in a law firm in Philadelphia; she was twenty-nine.

'Fifteen,' she whistled through her teeth, which were not the bright white of her brother's gleaming mouth; Sabrina's teeth were perfectly sized and very straight, but they had a pearly, oyster hue to them. They were not unattractive teeth, but they were the only visibly flawed part of her. In my insecurity, I needed to notice them. I felt cloddish - full of bananas, as Frank would say.

There's going to be a live band,' I said, and regretted saying so, immediately.

'Hot dog,' said Sabrina Jones, but she was nice; she smiled. 'Do you dance?' she asked.

'No,' I admitted.

'Oh well,' she said; she was really trying to be a good sport. 'You do do lift weights?' she asked. lift weights?' she asked.

'Not as much as Junior,' I said.

'I'd like to drop a few weights on Junior's head,' she said.

Frank lurched through the lobby, struggling with a trunk full of Junior Jones's winter clothes; he couldn't seem to navigate successfully past Bitty Tuck's luggage, at the foot of the stairs, and so he dropped the trunk there - startling Lilly, who was sitting on the bottom step, watching Sabrina Jones.

'This is my sister Lilly,' I said to Sabrina, 'and that was Frank,' I said, pointing to Frank's back as he slunk away. We could hear Franny and Bitty Tuck shrieking somewhere, and I knew that Junior Jones would be speaking to my father - offering his condolences for Coach Bob.

'h.e.l.lo, Lilly,' Sabrina said.

'I'm a dwarf,' Lilly said. 'I'm not ever going to grow any bigger.'

This information must have seemed, to Sabrina Jones, to fit rather perfectly with her disappointment at discovering my age; Sabrina did not appear shocked.

'Well, that's interesting,' she said to Lilly.

'You are are going to grow, Lilly,' I said, 'At least, you're going to grow a going to grow, Lilly,' I said, 'At least, you're going to grow a little little, and you're not not a dwarf.' a dwarf.'

Lilly shrugged. 'I don't mind,' she said.

A figure pa.s.sed swiftly across the landing at the turn of the staircase - he had a tomahawk, he wore war paint and little else (a black loincloth with coloured beads decorating the hips).

'That was Egg,' I said, watching the dazzled eyes of Sabrina Jones, her pretty mouth parted - as if attempting speech.

'That was a little Indian boy,' she said. 'Why's he called Egg?'

'I know why!' Lilly volunteered; sitting on the stairs, she raised her hand - as if she were in cla.s.s, waiting to be called on. I was glad she was there; I never liked explaining Egg's name. Egg had been Egg from the beginning, dating from Mother's pregnancy, when Franny had asked her what the name of the new baby was going to be. 'Right now it's just an egg egg,' Frank had said, darkly - his wisdom of biology was always shocking, to us all. And so, as Mother grew and grew, the egg was called Egg with increasing conviction. Mother and Father were hoping for a third girl, only because it was going to be an April baby and they both liked the name April for a girl; they were undecided about a boy's name, Father not caring for his own name, Win, and Mother - despite her fondness for Iowa Bob - not really liking the idea of a Robert, Jr. By the time it was clear that the egg was a boy, he was - in our family - already an Egg, and the name (as they say) stuck. Egg had no other name.

'He began as an egg, and he's still an egg,' Lilly explained to Sabrina Jones.

'Holy cow,' Sabrina said, and I wished that something powerfully distracting would happen in the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re... to distract me from my embarra.s.sment at how (it always struck me) our family must appear to outsiders.

'You see,' Franny would explain, years later, 'we aren't aren't eccentric, we're eccentric, we're not not bizarre. To each other,' Franny would say, 'we're as common as rain.' And she was right: to each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread, we were just a family. In a family, even exaggerations make perfect sense; they are always bizarre. To each other,' Franny would say, 'we're as common as rain.' And she was right: to each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread, we were just a family. In a family, even exaggerations make perfect sense; they are always logical logical exaggerations, nothing more. exaggerations, nothing more.

But my embarra.s.sment with Sabrina Jones made me embarra.s.sed for us all. My embarra.s.sment even included people beyond my family. I was embarra.s.sed for Harold Swallow every time I spoke with him; I was always afraid someone would make fun of him and hurt his feelings. And on New Year's Eve at the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, I was embarra.s.sed for Ronda Ray, wearing the dress Franny bought for Mother; I was even embarra.s.sed for the almost live band, the terrible rock group called Hurricane Doris.

I recognized Sleazy Wales as a punk who had threatened me, years ago, in the Sat.u.r.day matinee. He had wadded up a ball of bread, grey with the oil and grime from his auto-mechanic life; he'd stuck the wad of bread under my nose.

'Wanna eat that, kid?' he asked.

'No thanks,' I said. Frank leaped up and ran into the aisle, but Sleazy Wales gripped my arm and held me in my seat. 'Don't move,' he said. I promised I wouldn't, and he took a long nail out of his pocket and drove it through the wad of bread. Then he made a fist around the bread with the nail protruding savagely between his middle and ring fingers.

'Wanna get your f.u.c.king eyes poked out?' he asked me.

'No thanks,' I said.

'Then get the f.u.c.k out of here!' he said; even then I was embarra.s.sed for him. I went to find Frank - who, whenever he was frightened at the movies, always stood by the water cooler. Frank frequently embarra.s.sed me, too.

At the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, on New Year's Eve, 1 saw at once that Sleazy Wales didn't recognize me. Too many miles, too much weight lifting, too many bananas had come between us; if he threatened me with bread and nails again, I could simply hug him to death. He didn't seem to have grown since the Sat.u.r.day matinee. Scrawny and grey-skinned, his whole face the tone of a dirty ashtray, he hunched his shoulders forward in his GULF s.h.i.+rt and tried to walk as if each arm weighed one hundred pounds. I estimated that his whole body, plus wrenches and a few other heavy tools, couldn't weigh more than 130.1 could have bench-pressed him an easy half-dozen times.

Hurricane Doris didn't seem especially disappointed at the absence of a crowd; and perhaps the boys were even grateful to have fewer people staring at them, as they dragged their bright, cheap equipment from outlet to outlet, plugging in.

The first thing I heard Doris Wales say was, 'Move the mike back, Jake, and don't be an a.s.shole.' The acoustic ba.s.s (called Jake), another greasy splinter in a GULF s.h.i.+rt, cringed over the microphone as if he lived in terror of electrical shock - and of being an a.s.shole. Sleazy Wales gave the other boy in the band a lovable punch in the kidneys; a fat drummer named Danny, the boy absorbed the punch with dignity - but with obvious pain.

Doris Wales was a woman with straw-blonde hair whose body appeared to have been dipped in corn oil; then she must have put her dress on, wet. The dress grabbed at all her parts, and plunged and sagged over the gaps in her body; a lover's line of hickeys, or love bites - 'lovesucks,' Franny called them - dotted Doris's chest and throat like a violent rash; the welts were like wounds from a whip. She wore plum-coloured lipstick, some of which was on her teeth, and she said, to Sabrina Jones and me, 'You want hot-dancin' music, or slow-neckin' music? Or both?'

'Both,' said Sabrina Jones, without missing a beat, but I felt certain that if the world would stop indulging wars and famines and other perils, it would still be possible for human beings to embarra.s.s embarra.s.s each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete. each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete.

Doris Wales, some months after the hurricane that was her namesake, first heard Elvis Presley's 'Heartbreak Hotel' when she was actually in a hotel. She told Sabrina and ine that this had been a religious experience.

'You understand?' Doris said. 'I was shacked up with this guy, in an actual hotel, when this song comes over the radio. That song told me how to feel,' feel,' Doris explained. "That was about half a year ago,' she said. 'I haven't been the same since.' Doris explained. "That was about half a year ago,' she said. 'I haven't been the same since.'

I wondered about the guy who'd been shacked up with Doris Wales when she had her experiences; where was he now? Had he he been the same since? been the same since?

Doris Wales sang only only Elvis Presley songs; when it was appropriate, she changed the Elvis Presley songs; when it was appropriate, she changed the he's he's to to she's she's (and vice versa); this improvisation and the fact, as Junior Jones noted, that she was 'no Negro,' made listening to her almost unbearable. (and vice versa); this improvisation and the fact, as Junior Jones noted, that she was 'no Negro,' made listening to her almost unbearable.

In a gesture of making peace with his sister, Junior Jones asked Sabrina to dance the first dance; the song, I remember, was 'Baby, Let's Play House,' during which Sleazy Wales several times overpowered his mother's voice with his electricity. 'Jesus G.o.d,' Father said. 'How much are we paying them?'

'Never mind,' Mother said. 'Everyone can have a good time.'

It seemed unlikely, although Egg appeared to be having a good time; he was wearing a toga, and Mother's sungla.s.ses, and he was keeping clear of Frank, who lurked at the edge of light, among the empty tables and chairs - no doubt grumbling, to himself, his disgust.

I told Bitty Tuck that I was sorry I'd called her t.i.tsie - that it had just slipped out.

'Okay, John-John,' she said, feigning indifference - or worse: feeling true indifference for me.

Lilly asked me to dance, but I was too shy; then Ronda Ray asked me, and I was too shy to refuse. Lilly looked hurt, and refused a gallant invitation from Father. Ronda Ray swung me violently around the floor.

'I know I'm losing you,' Ronda told me. 'My advice: when you're going to pull out on someone, tell them first.'

I was hoping Franny would cut in, but Ronda wheeled us into Junior and Sabrina, who were clearly arguing.

'Switch!' Ronda cried, gaily, and took Junior away.

Hurricane Doris, in an unforgettable transition of slopped-together sound, crushed instruments, and Doris's strident voice, switched gears and gave us 'I Love You Because' - a slow, close-dancing number, through which I trembled in the steady arms of Sabrina Jones.

'You're not doing so bad,' she said. 'Why don't you put a move on that Tuck girl - your sister's friend?' she asked me. 'She's about your age.'

'She's eighteen,' I said, 'and I don't know how to put a move on anybody.' I wanted to tell Sabrina that although my relations.h.i.+p with Ronda Ray was carnal, it had hardly been a learning experience. With Ronda, there was no foreplay; s.e.x was immediate and genital, but Ronda refused to let me kiss her on the mouth.

'That's how the worst germs get spread around,' Ronda a.s.sured me. 'Mouths.'

'I don't even know how to kiss anybody,' I told Sabrina Jones, who seemed puzzled at what - for her - was a non sequitur.

Franny, who didn't care for the way Ronda Ray was dancing the slow number with Junior, cut in on them, and I held my breath - hoping Ronda wasn't going to come after me.

'Relax,' said Sabrina Jones. 'You feel like a ball of wire.'

'I'm sorry,' I said.