“God, but you’re stuffy people,” he said.
“Oh, no, Gee-Gee!” Peaches said. “Not on our first night!”
“You’ve had too much to drink, Gee-Gee,” Charlie said.
“Like hell I have,” said Gee-Gee. He bent over and began to unlace his shoes. “I haven’t had half enough.”
“Please, Gee-Gee, please,” Peaches said.
“I have to teach them, honey,” Gee-Gee said. “They’ve got to learn.”
Then he stood up and, with the cunning and dexterity of a drunk, got out of most of his clothing before anyone could stop him.
“Get out of here,” Charlie said.
“The pleasure’s all mine, neighbor,” said Gee-Gee. He kicked over a hammered-brass umbrella stand on his way out the door.
“Oh, I’m frightfully sorry!” Peaches said, “I feel terribly about this!”
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Martha said. “He’s probably very tired, and we’ve all had too much to drink.”
“Oh, no,” Peaches said. “It always happens. Everywhere. We’ve moved eight times in the last eight years, and there’s never been anyone to say goodbye to us. Not a soul. Oh, he was a beautiful man when I first knew him! You never saw anyone so fine and strong and generous. They called him the Greek God at college. That’s why he’s called Gee-Gee. He was All-America twice, but he was never a money player?he always played straight out of his heart. Everybody loved him. Now it’s all gone, but I tell myself that I once had the love of a good man. I don’t think many women have known that kind of love. Oh, I wish he’d come back. I wish he’d be the way he was. The night before last, when we were packing up the dishes in the old house, he got drunk and I slapped him in the face, and I shouted at him, ‘Come back! Come back! Come back to me, Gee-Gee!’ But he didn’t listen. He didn’t hear me. He doesn’t hear anyone any more?not even the voices of his children. I ask myself every day what I’ve done to be punished so cruelly.”
“I’m sorry, my dear!” Martha said.
“You won’t be around to say goodbye when we go,” Peaches said. “We’ll last a year. You wait and see. Some people have tender farewell parties, but even the garbage man in the last place was glad to see us go.” With a grace and resignation that transcended the ruined evening, she began to gather up the clothing that her husband had scattered on the rug. “Each time we move, I think that the change will be good for him,” she said. “When we got here tonight, it all looked so pretty and quiet that I thought he might change. Well, you don’t have to ask us again. You know what it’s like.”
A FEW DAYS or perhaps a week later, Charlie saw Gee-Gee on the station platform in the morning and saw how completely personable his neighbor was when he was sober. B_______ was not an easy place to conquer, but Gee-Gee seemed already to have won the affectionate respect of his neighbors. Charlie could see, as he watched him standing in the sun among the other commuters, that he would be asked to join everything. Gee- Gee greeted Charlie heartily, and there was no trace of the ugliness he had shown that night. Indeed, it was impossible to believe that this charming and handsome man had been so offensive. In the morning light, and surrounded by new friends, he seemed to challenge the memory. He seemed almost able to transfer the blame onto Charlie.
Arrangements for the social initiation of the new couple were unusually rapid and elaborate, and began with a dinner party at the Watermans’. Charlie was already at the party when Gee-Gee and Peaches came in, and they came in like royalty. Arm in arm, radiant and beautiful, they seemed, at the moment of their entrance, to make the evening. It was a large party, and Charlie hardly saw them until they went in to dinner. He sat close to Peaches, but Gee-Gee was at the other end of the table. They were halfway through dessert when Gee-Gee’s flat and unpleasant drawl sounded, like a parade command, over the general conversation.
“What a Goddamned bunch of stuffed shirts!” he said. “Let’s put a little vitality into the conversation, shall we?” He sprang onto the center of the table and began to sing a dirty song and dance a jig. Women screamed. Dishes were upset and broken. Dresses were ruined. Peaches pled to her wayward husband. The effect of this outrageous performance was to empty the dining room of everyone but Gee-Gee and Charlie.
“Get down off there, Gee-Gee,” Charlie said.
“I have to teach them,” Gee-Gee said. “I’ve got to teach them.”
“You’re not teaching anybody anything but the fact that you’re rotten drunk.”
“They’ve got to learn,” Gee-Gee said. “I’ve got to teach them.” He got down off the table, breaking
