The World According to Garp

ribs. “And don't tell your friends where they can come sniffing around after it,” Garp says. “Don't even use the phone.”

“I don't even know her name, man,” the kid whines.

“And don't call me “man',” says Garp.

“Okay, man,” the kid says. Garp feels a pleasant dryness in his throat, which he recognizes as his readiness to touch someone, but he lets the feeling pass.

“Please walk away from here,” Garp says.

A block away, the boy calls, “Good-bye, man!” Garp knows how quickly he could run him down; anticipation of such a comedy appeals to him, but it would be disappointing if the boy weren't scared and Garp feels no pressing need to hurt him. Garp waves good-bye. The boy raises his middle finger and walks away, his silly robe dragging— an early Christian lost in the suburbs.

Look out for the lions, kid, Garp thinks, sending a blessing of protection after the boy. In a few years, he knows, Duncan will be that age; Garp can only hope that he'll find it easier to communicate with Duncan.

Back inside, Mrs. Ralph is crying. Garp hears her talking to the dog. “Oh, Bill,” she sobs. “I'm sorry I abuse you, Bill. You're so nice.”

“Good-bye!” Garp calls up the stairs. “Your friend's gone, and I'm going too.”

“Chickenshit!” yells Mrs. Ralph. “How can you leave me like this?” Her wailing grows louder; soon, Garp thinks, the dog will start to bay.

“What can I do?” Garp calls up the stairs.

“You could at least stay and talk to me!” Mrs. Ralph shouts. “You goody-goody chickenshit wingding!”

What's a wingding? Garp wonders, navigating the stairs.

“You probably think this happens to me all the time,” says Mrs. Ralph, in utter rumplement upon the water bed. She sits with her legs crossed, her kimono tight around her, Bill's large head in her lap.

Garp, in fact, does think so, but he shakes his head.

“I don't get my rocks off by humiliating myself, you know,” Mrs. Ralph says. “For God's sake, sit down.” She pulls Garp to the rocking bed. “There's not enough water in the damn thing,” Mrs. Ralph explains. “My husband used to fill it all the time, because it leaks.”

“I'm sorry,” Garp says. The marriage-counsel man.

“I hope you never walk out on your wife,” Mrs. Ralph tells Garp. She takes his hand and holds it in her lap; the dog licks his fingers. “It's the shittiest thing a man can do,” says Mrs. Ralph. “He just told me he'd been faking his interest in me, “for years'! he said. And then he said that almost any other woman, young or old, looked better to him than I did. That's not very nice, is it?” Mrs. Ralph asks Garp.

“No, it isn't,” Garp agrees.

“Please believe me, I never messed around with anyone until he left me,” Mrs. Ralph tells him.

“I believe you,” Garp says.

“It's very hard on a woman's confidence,” Mrs. Ralph says. “Why shouldn't I try to have some fun?”

“You should,” Garp says.

“But I'm so bad at it!” Mrs. Ralph confesses, holding her hands to her eyes, rocking on the bed. The dog tries to lick her face but Garp pushes him away; the dog thinks Garp is playing with him and lunges across Mrs. Ralph's lap. Garp whacks the dog's nose—too hard—and the poor beast whines and slinks away. “Don't you hurt Bill!” Mrs. Ralph shouts.

“I was just trying to help you,” Garp says.

“You don't help me by hurting Bill,” Mrs. Ralph says. “Jesus, is everyone bananas?”

Garp slumps back on the water bed, eyes shut tight; the bed rolls like a small sea, and Garp groans. “I don't know how to help you,” he confesses. “I'm very sorry about your troubles, but there's really nothing I can do, is there? If you want to tell me anything, go ahead,” he says, his eyes still shut tight, “but nobody can help the way you feel.”

“That's a cheerful thing to say to someone,” Mrs. Ralph says. Bill is breathing in Garp's hair. There is a tentative lick at his ear. Garp, wonders: Is it Bill or Mrs. Ralph? Then he feels her hand grab him under his track shorts, and he thinks, coldly: If I didn't really want her to do that, why did I lie down on my back?

“Please don't do that,” he says. She can certainly feel he's not interested, and she lets him go. She lies down beside him, then rolls away, putting her back to him. The bed sloshes violently as Bill tries to wriggle between them, but Mrs. Ralph elbows him so hard in his thick rib cage that the dog coughs and abandons the bed for the floor.

“Poor Bill. I'm sorry,” Mrs. Ralph says, crying softly. Bill's hard tail thumps the floor. Mrs. Ralph, as if to complete her self-humiliation, farts. Her sobbing is steady, like the kind of rain Garp knows can last all day. Garp, the marriage counselor, wonders what could give the woman a little confidence.

“Mrs. Ralph?” Garp says—then tries to bite back what he's said.

“What?” she says. “What'd you say?” She struggles up to her elbows and turns her head to glare at him. She heard him, he knows. “Did you say “Mrs. Ralph'?” she asks him. “Jesus, “Mrs. Ralph'!” she cries. “You don't even know my name!”

Garp sits up on the edge of the bed; he feels like joining Bill on the floor. “I find you very attractive,” he mumbles to Mrs. Ralph, but he's facing Bill. “Really!”

“Prove it,” Mrs. Ralph says. “You goddamn liar. Show me.”

“I can't show you,” Garp says, “but it's not because I don't find you attractive.”

“I don't even give you an erection!” Mrs. Ralph shouts. “Here I am half-naked, and when you're beside me— on my goddamn bed—you don't even have a respectable hard-on.”

“I was trying to conceal it from you,” Garp says.

“You succeeded,” Mrs. Ralph says. “What's my name?”

Garp feels he has never been so aware of one of his terrible weaknesses: how he needs to have people like him, how he wants to be appreciated. With every word, he knows, he is deeper in trouble, and deeper into an obvious lie. Now he knows what a wingding is.

“Your husband must be crazy,” Garp says. “You look better to me than most women.”

“Oh, please stop it,” says Mrs. Ralph. “You must be sick.”

I must be, Garp agrees, but he says, “You should have confidence in your sexuality, believe me. And more important, you should develop confidence in yourself in other ways.”

“There never were any other ways,” Mrs. Ralph admits. “I was never so hot at anything but sex, and now I'm not so hot at sex either.”

“But you're going to school,” Garp, says, groping.

“I'm sure I don't know why,” Mrs. Ralph says. “Or is that what you mean by developing confidence in other ways?” Garp squints hard, wishes for unconsciousness; when he hears the water bed sound like surf, he senses danger and opens his eyes. Mrs. Ralph has undressed, has spread herself out on the bed naked. The little waves are still lapping under her rough-tough body, which confronts Garp like a sturdy rowboat moored on choppy water. “Show me you've got a hard-on and you can go,” she says. “Show me your hard-on and I'll believe you like me.”

Garp tries to think of an erection; in order to do this, he shuts his eyes and thinks of someone else.

“You bastard,” says Mrs. Ralph, but Garp discovers he is already hard; it was not nearly so difficult as he imagined. Opening his eyes, he's forced to recognize that Mrs. Ralph is not without allure. He pulls down his track shorts and shows himself to her. The gesture itself makes him harder; he finds himself liking her damp, curly hair. But Mrs. Ralph seems neither disappointed nor impressed with the demonstration; she is resigned to being let down. She shrugs. She rolls over and turns her great round rump to Garp.

“Okay, so you can actually get it up,” she tells him. “Thank you. You can go home now.”

Garp feels like touching her. Sickened with embarrassment, Garp feels he could come by just looking at her. He blunders out the door, down the wretched staircase. Is the woman's self-abuse all over for this night? he wonders. Is Duncan safe?

He contemplates extending his vigil until the comforting light of dawn. Stepping on the fallen skillet and