“I don’t give a god-damn!”
“Well, would you love me if I was as poor as you are?”
“You don’t have to insult me, woman! Goddamn you! I didn’t beg you!”
“Well, tell me what I must say to you, Henry. What must I do? Must I allow us to starve simply because I have the money and you don’t?”
“Us? Us? Us, shite!”
“All right, all right. Well, let’s see you get that job.” Henry disliked her so much when she said that, that had his hate for her been a degree less, so that he could speak, he would have told her something which would have found them in court, instead of in a chapel. “All right,” she said, seeing the reaction her words had. “We won’t talk anymore about it.” By this time, she was completely fed up with the subject anyhow. But Henry was not satisfied, and he said so, as if he was trying to rebuild the quarrel on her rather harmless statement.
“What do you goddamn mean by telling me we won’t talk anymore about it? What you mean by that? Because you goddamn say stop, we must stop? I must stop? I must stop talking because you goddamn say so? I must stop talking ’bout money because you say so! I must dress this way because you goddamn say so! I must get my hair cut short because you goddamn like to see my head like a goddamn bald-head man’s head! I must wear the kind of clothes you goddamn like, because you fucking-well say so! Jesus-fucking-christ, woman, I am only getting hitched-up to you, I am not selling myself to you.” And that was the end of the discussion. The end had petered out a long time ago. What he really wanted was the last word. He felt it belonged to him, because he was a man. Agatha was reduced to tears. He had said a lot that was unnecessary. She was hurt. Henry became sad about it, but he was determined to be a man. He was hurt even deeper because he knew (and she knew) that he hadn’t the means (no money in the bank, no money in his pockets — she would be paying the taxi fare to go up to Bernice’s right now — no job) to behave as a man. But he needed the respect; he needed the shell of respect for his emptiness.
Agatha was crying. And he got frightened that perhaps, should he allow her to go on crying, and do nothing about it, she might change her mind about the marriage (which after all was going to bring him some money!) and walk out, and leave him, this very afternoon, without enough money to buy a fifteen-cent draught glass of beer at the Paramount Tavern. He didn’t have his money for rent. The shoes he was wearing needed repairing to keep out the heat of the road and the dampness of the puddles. He decided he would have to eat his pride, and he went close to her, held her in his arms and ran his tongue over the saltiness of her cheeks and over that part of her lips where the tears settled, and told her, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, woman …” And she prevented any further profession of affection by smothering him in bed, and making love to him with him underneath. (“Jesus God, I hope Boysie never hear ’bout this, goddamn! A woman doing this to me? Goddamn!”) When they finished, they got dressed for the surprise party.
“Here comes the bride! Here comes the bride!” Bernice was clapping her hands and making lots of noise, and doing things that one reserved for the wedding day. (She even threw some stale confetti, from Mrs. Burrmann’s drawer, into Agatha’s face.) Dots was there, dressed as if indeed it was the day of the wedding. Boysie was in a mourning suit, so black and so old that it was turning green. But he looked martial in it, prim and more than proper, and very stiff. (“The arse-hole seat o’ this pants hurting my balls, man!” he whispered to Henry when they were in a corner. “But my ignorant wife insist that I wear it. I must look decent for my best friend, she says. Godblindyou, best friend! But I happy as arse for you, though. Let we fire one, as man!”) Brigitte was there. From the closeness and the general laughter in the room, you would not have suspected that Dots, with whom she was laughing the most, and drinking and making toasts with, was the wife of the man with whom Brigitte was tied up, amorously; and you could not know that Dots knew that Brigitte knew that Dots knew that Brigitte was having an affair with Boysie. It was a peculiarly tight circle of friends. Animosities were dismissed from school for the day. Anything could happen tomorrow — part of which might transpire tonight even; but for tonight, there was only time and the place for close
