still in bed so I didn’t ask him to come in. I even pushed him outside, casually, and maybe that’s what got him mad-maybe he wanted to come in and wash his face.
“You must be kidding,” he snarled. “What is it, you get up at ten in the morning and at four in the afternoon? Is the job keeping you awake?”
“Excuse me,” I said. “But I work till sunset every night. That racks up quite a few hours…”
“I see. You have an answer for everything, right?”
“You’re making a mistake,” I said.
I had barely finished my sentence when Betty showed up.
She’d thrown on one of my T-shirts, pulling it down to cover her behind. She gave the owner a look that could kill.
“What right do you have to talk to him that way?” she asked.
“Betty, please…” I said.
“No realIy,” she went on. “Who do you think…?”
The guy stood there with his mouth open. He looked at Betty, tugging at her T-shirt, her nipples pointy and thighs long and naked. His eyes were popping out of his head. He mopped his face with his handkerchief.
“Listen, I’m not talking to you,” he said.
“Lucky for you. But just who do you think you are talking to?”
“I’m talking to my employee.”
She burst out laughing.
“Your employee? You poor old wasted slob… you happen to be talking to the greatest writer of his generation. You get it…?”
“Betty, don’t you think you’re going a bit too…”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” said the owner.
I saw Betty go pale. Furious, she let go of the T-shirt and it snapped up ten inches. You could see her every hair on her crotch. The guy’s eyes were glued. It took Betty a few seconds to figure out what was going on.
“What the hell are you looking at?” she growled.
The man was hypnotized, he stood there biting his lip. She gave him a push and he backed down a few steps from the porch.
“What’s the matter, you never seen a woman before? You going to have a stroke?”
She ran after him, bare-assed, and gave him another push. The guy stumbled and almost fell, just barely righting himself. He flushed.
“If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a sex maniac,” she said.
The scene was so unbelievable and Betty so sexy that I couldn’t even move. I stood on the porch with my mouth open. The owner was green with rage-he beat a hasty retreat, set off against a blue sky. I couldn’t keep from laughing, especially when he fell on his face.
He got back up quickly and took a last look at me.
“Take my advice-get rid of that girl!” he yelled.
Betty was still threatening to go after him, so he turned tail and ran, slapping at his suit coat, making little dust clouds in the air as he went.
She walked past me and went into the house without a word, still trembling with anger. I knew better than to get close to her-it was obvious. I would wait until the storm blew over by itself. At that moment even the writer wasn’t up to the task. The scenery had changed again-once more I found myself in the middle of a crummy little nowhere. I heard her inside kicking the walls. It was time to go back to work.
All afternoon I spied on her from the top of my ladder. If I stood on tiptoe I could see over the roof of number two and into my windows. I rubbernecked without shame, safe at fifty yards. I wondered how much time it would take for a girl in her state to cool down. I saw a few of my boxes sail back out the window, but not the one with the notebooks-not that one. Haha, I thought: HAHA.
Naturally I didn’t get too far on the job. I wasn’t into it. I worked halfheartedly. The day plodded along. She was sitting at the table again, her head in her hands. I couldn’t figure out if this was good or bad. The old fart had gotten what he deserved. Had I?
The owner’s threats spun around in my head, but it didn’t get me down, I imagined myself taking him to the cleaner’s-or the authorities. I just felt a little tired, like when you catch a chill. I also had miles of painting to do. I was finishing off my can of paint when I saw Betty go out onto the porch. I ducked down behind the roof. When I looked again, she was going up the alley and around the corner.
I wondered where she was going. It got me thinking. I went over all possible answers as I whitewashed the wall. It turned out I didn’t even have the time to get worried-one minute later she was back. I hadn’t even seen her come-I saw her through the windows going back and forth, bustling around inside the house. I couldn’t see too well what she was doing-it seemed like she was shaking something in front of her.
What do you know, I said to myself, she’s cleaning. Must be tidying up the house to calm her nerves. I knew she’d make it shine like a new penny.
I worked for another little while, my soul at peace. The sun set, and I rinsed out my paintbrushes conscientiously. It had cooled off. Before I went home I had a beer with the eyeglasses salesman. The sky was an unbelievable red. I lit a cigarette and headed for the house, watching my feet as they walked along. Ten yards before I got there I looked up. Betty was standing in front of the porch. I stopped. Next to her were her two suitcases, and she was looking at me with incredible intensity. I couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing holding my Coleman lamp, lit. The sunset made her hair burn-she was ferociously beautiful. Something smelled like gas. I knew she was going to throw the lamp into the house. For a tenth of a second the idea appealed to me, then I saw her arm describe a semicircle in the air and the lamp flew into the sky like a shooting star.
The house went up like the
“Well, are you coming?” she asked. “Let’s go.”
6
I woke up frowning because the road was so bumpy, and because I was cold. The wind whipped around us in the back of the pickup. It must have been six in the morning. The sun was just coming up. Betty was sleeping with her fists clenched. As luck would have it, we had gotten ourselves a ride from a guy who was hauling fertilizer, and the smell of it first thing in the morning was enough to turn my stomach. The seat next to the driver was full of packages, which is why we had to ride outside in the back. I got a sweater out of Betty’s suitcase and put it on. I also put something around her shoulders. We were going through a forest and it was cold. The tops of the trees were so high that it made me dizzy. The driver tapped on the rear window-a young guy who’d picked us up at a gas station; I’d bought him a beer. He was on his way back from some kind of county fair or something.
He offered us some coffee-I could have kissed him. I grabbed the Thermos and poured myself a few little cupfuls. I lit up my first cigarette of the day, sitting on one of the sacks, watching the road go by. I couldn’t keep from laughing. At my age it was like a new case of acne. Sure, it wasn’t anything fatal. In truth I’d left nothing at all behind me-Betty had stuffed a few shirts and my notebooks in one of the suitcases-it was just that I found the whole thing a little ridiculous. All I needed was Henry Fonda’s hat. Practical girl, she had also rescued my savings from the fire. I felt rather rich; we had easily enough to last us a month or two. I had told her, Look, why hitchhike like a couple of dopes? Why drive ourselves crazy? Let’s take the fucking train. But nothing doing, she was determined that we not spend money unnecessarily. Put out your thumb, she said. But the truth-the real truth-is that she liked it. What she wanted was to leave a pile of ashes behind her and hit the road like in the good old days. Mark the occasion. I didn’t put up a fuss. She was there, hanging on my arm, and that was all that counted, I had picked up the suitcase and stuck out my thumb, laughing.
We’d been on the road for two days, and we were covered with dust. I started missing my shower. I yawned loudly and Betty woke up. Two seconds later she jumped into my arms and rolled her tongue into my mouth. No
