Americana

patting his own head. My mother had my elbow in her hand and then she was introducing me to Amy, pinching my elbow during the brief silences and letting up as soon as I said something. Amy and I were alone.

'Do you know Jim Gibson?' she said.

'No, I don't think so.'

'He's got a green catamaran called Belleweather?'

'What's his name again?'

'Jim Gibson.'

'I don't know him.'

'That cat really flies.'

'I'd like to get one myself. They really go.'

'Do you know Marty Hammer?' she said.

'It sounds familiar.'

'His father's got a yawl? He gave Marty carte blanche with the yawl for his sixteenth birthday? It's something like fifty-five feet?'

'No, that's not the one I'm thinking of. Does he have a brother named Frank?'

'No.'

'Then that's not the one,' I said.

'Do you know Tim Lerner?'

'Didn't he drown in Peconic Bay last summer?'

'That's the one.'

'Do you know Billy Shaw?'

'I know two Billy Shaws,' she said.

People were filling plates with sliced ham and turkey and trying to eat standing up. It was very warm in the room. The Gossages joined us. Henry rubbed my shoulder. Lucy Gossage held my hand as she talked to Amy. Mrs. Loomis came over with Tod Morgan and asked how we were doing. Lucy Gossage held my hand up near her breast and kept caressing it with her other hand. Ray Smith came over and went into the boxing routine he always used when we met. Head tucked down on his left shoulder, he threw some mock lefts and rights at my belly, snorting with each punch. Then there was a brief lull and we heard Mrs. Loomis telling Amy to smile once in a while. Then we all started talking. Jane stopped by and introduced her boyfriend to everyone. Tod Morgan handed me what he called a real drink. It was scotch and water. It made me very warm and I didn't like the taste much. But I seemed to be having a good time. They were nice people.

They had no scars or broken noses. They dressed more or less the same. They talked the same way and said the same things and I didn't know how dull they were or that they were more or less interchangeable. I was one of them, after all. I was not a stranger among them and I liked their hands on my body.

'Did anyone see those motorcycles today?' Tod Morgan said.

The Collier woman and I stood by the fireplace drinking. I assumed a clubby slouch. Then Lucy Gossage had her arm around me and her husband, Henry, was whispering a dirty joke in my ear. I had trouble picking up his words. Soon he started laughing and I knew the joke was over. We both stood there laughing. Henry looked right into my face, searching for genuine appreciation, wanting to be sure I understood the point of the story. I kept nodding and laughing. When he was satisfied he went away.

August Riddle had a teardrop of flesh on each sagging jowl. I watched him. Amy was talking to me about somebody named Bobby Springer's Austin Healey. Mr. Riddle was talking with the Stevensons. He lit his cigar and then waved out the match with a circular flourish. He dropped the match on the floor. Mae carried a platter of pineapple rings into the room. I tried to catch her eye so I could smile at her. Amy was talking into my chest. It was all settled as far as she was concerned. It was between Wellesley and Bryn Mawr. She had red hair and big green eyes. I imagined being in bed with her and her mother. Amy was drinking the champagne punch. Nobody seemed drunk yet. I asked her if she wanted to go out on the porch where it would be cooler and she said no. Just plain no. There was a terrible silence then which made me nervous and I found myself asking her if she knew by any chance how the Yankees had made out in the second game. My father came over and shook my hand for some reason. Then he was gone. Andrew Alexander was talking to Amy. You young people, he kept saying. You young people. He patted his own head. He couldn't have been trying to keep his hair in place, for it was cut short and it was thick and firm. Every time he patted, his eyeballs rolled up. He and Amy were discussing the color beige. I watched his eyeballs slide up and down. He asked if Amy and I were engaged. I excused myself then and went into the kitchen to watch Buford Long mix drinks. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. Pouring club soda with his right hand, he took a matchbook out of his breast pocket with the other hand, flipped up the cover with his thumb and, using his index finger and his thumb again, bent a match at its middle and struck it. I liked the way he did that. I had never seen anyone do that before. I also liked the fact that he was left-handed. Left-handed people seem to do things with more style. I've always envied them. Warren Spahn the stylish southpaw.

'Where do you normally work, Buford? Tend bar in some bar or something?'

'I'm a maintenance man. Mae and I, we live down Manhattan in the West Twenties. I maintain six buildings. I collect garbage from outside their doors and bring it downstairs. I fix things need fixing. I shine things up.'

'What's it like? Hard work, I bet.'

'It's not hard so much as menial. But at least it's got some intrinsics to it. It gives you clues to human nature. Garbage tells you more than living with a person.'

'You don't mind it too much then.'

'Oh, I love it,' he said.

'Is the garbage different in different buildings?'

'Sure it's different. There's clues that tell you that. You don't even have to see the garbage. Anytime you see a cracked mirror in the hallway you know the garbage isn't going to be any good.'

'I guess it's satisfying to help keep the city clean.'

'It overjoys me,' Buford said.

'They say pound for pound Sugar Ray Robinson is the best fighter ever.'

My mother was in the doorway telling me that Amy was all alone. I went out there and stood next to her. John Retley Tucker came by. I asked him if he had ever met my other sister and he said Jane had never mentioned any sister. He stood there talking to us and the index finger of his right hand was stuck between his shirt collar and the back of his neck. This meant his elbow was up around ear level. I saw Amy staring at the patch of sweat under his arm. John Retley was about six-four and two-twenty and he looked like a cop directing traffic on a Sunday afternoon and not minding it at all. The Collier woman approached again and I disengaged myself to talk to her. She was wearing beige.

'I want to tell you something,' she said. 'You're a young man now and there's no reason why you shouldn't know this. You've grown to almost your full stature. You have a man's body and a man's appetites. This is what I want to say. Women love to be loved.'

'Yes.'

'Who is that man behind you?'

'John Retley Tucker. My sister Jane's boyfriend.'

'There's something indecent about a man with thumbs that large.'

I needed some air. I told Amy I was going out for a while. She said she'd come with me. I left her there on the porch for a moment and went back inside for two drinks and brought them out. I didn't turn on the porch light.

'Do you drink a lot?' she said.

'I drink quite a bit. I drink quite a bit, yes.'

'Do you know a boy named David Bell? He drinks incredible amounts of liquor. He does it on a dare. He can really hold it.'

'I'm David Bell,' I said.

'I got confused. I meant Dick Davis.'

'Freudian slip,' I said. 'They say if you use somebody's name like that by mistake it means you like that person very much.'

'Don't get ideas, mister.'

'I was only kidding.'

'Your parents are very nice.'