Man Descending

And then there was Gene. I must say I’ve always enjoyed watching him operate. I mean, even on the telephone he looks so sincere I could just puke. It’s not unconscious by no means. My brother explained to me once what his trick is. To look that way you got to think that way is his motto. “What I do, Billy,” he told me once, “is make myself believe, really believe, say… well, that an H-bomb went off, or that some kind of disease which only attacks women wiped out every female on the face of the earth but the one I’m talking to. That makes her the last piece of tail on the face of the earth, Billy! It’s just natural then to be extra nice.” Even though he’s my brother, I swear to God he had to been left on our doorstep.

Of course, you can’t argue with success. As soon as Gene hung up and smiled, Powers knew he was diddled. Once. But my brother don’t show much mercy. Twice was coming. Nancy Williams had a cousin staying with her for Christmas vacation. She wondered if maybe Gene could get this cousin a date? When Powers heard that, he pretty nearly went off in his pants. Nobody’ll go out with him. He’s fat and he sweats and he never brushes his teeth, there’s stuff grows on them looks like the crap that floats on top of a slough. Even the really desperate girls figure no date is less damaging to their reputations than a date with Powers. You got to hold the line somewhere is how they look at it.

So Ernie’s big yap cost him fifteen dollars. He blew that month’s baby bonus (which his old lady gives him because he promises to finish school) and part of his allowance. The other five bucks is what he had to pay when Gene sold him Nancy Williams’ cousin. It damn near killed him.

All right. Maybe I ought to’ve said something when Gene marched fat Ernie over to the Bank of Montreal to make a withdrawal on this account Powers has had since he was seven and started saving for a bike. He never got around to getting the bike because he couldn’t bring himself to ever see that balance go down. Which is typical.

Already then I knew Ernie wasn’t taking the cousin to no Christmas Dance. I’d heard once too often from that moron how Whipper Billy Watson would hang a licking on Cassius Clay, or how all the baseball owners get together in the spring to decide which team will win the World Series in the fall. He might learn to keep his hole shut for once.

The thing is I’d made up my mind to take the cousin. For nothing. It just so happens that, Gene being mad, he’d kind of forgot he’s not allowed to touch the old man’s vehicle. Seeing as he tied a chrome granny knot around a telephone pole with the last one.

Gene didn’t realize it yet but he wasn’t going nowhere unless I drove. And I was going to drive because I’d happened to notice Nancy Williams around. She seemed like a very nice person who maybe had what Miss Clark says are principles. I suspected that if that was true, Gene for once was going to strike out, and no way was I going to miss that. Fuck, I’d have killed to see that. No exaggeration.

On the night of the Christmas Dance it’s snowing like a bitch. Not that it’s cold for December, mind you, but snowing. Sticky, sloppy stuff that almost qualifies for sleet, coming down like crazy. I had to put the windshield wipers on. In December yet.

Nancy Williams lives on the edge of town way hell and gone, in new company housing. The mine manager is the dick who named it Green Meadows. What a joke. Nobody lives there seen a blade of grass yet nor pavement neither. They call it Gumboot Flats because if it’s not frozen it’s mud. No street-lights neither. It took me a fuck of a long time to find her house in the dark. When I did I shut off the motor and me and Gene just sat.

“Well?” I says after a bit. I was waiting for Gene to get out first.

“Well what?”

“Well, maybe we should go get them?”

Gene didn’t answer. He leans across me and plays “Shave and a haircut, two bits” on the horn.

“You’re a geek,” I tell him. He don’t care.

We wait. No girls. Gene gives a couple of long, long blasts on the hooter. I was wishing he wouldn’t. This time somebody pulls open the living-room drapes. There stands this character in suspenders, for chrissakes, and a pair of pants stops about two inches shy of his armpits. He looked like somebody’s father and what you’d call belligerent.

“I think he wants us to come to the door.”

“He can want all he likes. Jesus Murphy, it’s snowing out there. I got no rubbers.”

“Oh, Christ,” I says. “I’ll go get them, Gene. It’s such a big deal.”

Easier said than done. I practically had to present a medical certificate. By the time Nancy’s father got through with me I was starting to sound like that meatball Chip on My Three Sons. Yes sir. No sir. He wasn’t too impressed with the horn-blowing episode, let me tell you. And then Nancy’s old lady totes out a Kodak to get some “snaps” for Nancy’s scrapbook. I didn’t say nothing but I felt maybe they were getting evidence for the trial in case they had to slap a charge on me later. You’d have had to see it to believe it. Here I was standing with Nancy and her cousin, grinning like I was in my right mind, flash bulbs going off in my face, nodding away to the old man, who was running a safe-driving clinic for yours truly on the sidelines. Gene, I says to myself, Gene, you’re going to pay.

At last, after practically swearing a blood oath to get his precious girls home, undamaged, by twelve-thirty, I chase the women out the door. And while they run through the snow, giggling, Stirling Moss delays me on the doorstep, in this blizzard, showing me for about the thousandth time how to pull a car out of a skid on ice. I kid you not.

From that point on everything goes rapidly downhill.

Don’t get me wrong. I got no complaints against the girls. Doreen, the cousin, wasn’t going to break no mirrors, and she sure was a lot more lively than I expected. Case in point. When I finally get to the car, fucking near frozen, what do I see? Old Doreen hauling up about a yard of her skirt, which she rolled around her waist like the spare tire on a fat guy. Then she pulled her sweater down to hide it. You bet I was staring.

“Uncle Bob wouldn’t let me wear my mini,” she says. “Got a smoke? I haven’t had one for days.”

It seems she wasn’t the only one had a bit of a problem with the dress code that night. In the back seat I could hear Nancy apologizing to Gene for the outfit her mother had made her special for the dance. Of course, I thought Nancy looked quite nice. But with her frame she couldn’t help, even though she was got up a bit peculiar. What I mean is, she had on this dress made out of the same kind of shiny material my mother wanted for drapes. But the old man said she couldn’t have it because it was too heavy. It’d pull the curtain rods off the wall.

I could tell poor old Nancy Williams sure was nervous. She just got finished apologizing for how she looked and then she started in suckholing to Gene to please excuse her because she wasn’t the world’s best dancer. As a matter of fact this was her first dance ever. Thank heavens for Doreen, who was such a good sport. She’d been teaching her to dance all week. But it takes lots and lots of practice to get the hang of it. She hoped she didn’t break his toes stepping on them. Ha ha ha. Just remember, she was still learning.

Gene said he’d be glad to teach her anything he figured she needed to know.

Nancy didn’t catch on because she doesn’t have that kind of mind. “That would be sweet of you, Gene,” she says.

The band didn’t show because of the storm. An act of God they call it. I’ll say. So I drove around this dump for about an hour while Gene tried to molest Nancy. She put up a fair-to-middling struggle from what I could hear. The stuff her dress was made of was so stiff it crackled when she moved. Sort of like tin foil. Anyway, the two of them had it snapping and crackling like a bonfire there in the back seat while they fought a pitched battle over her body. She wasn’t having none of that first time out of the chute.

“Gene!”

“Well for chrissakes, relax!”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t swear.”

“Who’s swearing?”

“Don’t snag my nylons, Gene. Gene, what in the world are you… Gene!”

“Some people don’t know when they’re having a good time,” says Doreen. I think she was a little pissed I hadn’t parked and give her some action. But Lord knows what might’ve happened to Nancy if I’d done that.

Then, all of a sudden, Nancy calls out, sounding what you’d call desperate, “Hey, everybody, who wants a Coke!”

“Nobody wants a Coke,” mumbles Gene, sort of through his teeth.