The Brass Bed

8

Quite a few empty beer cans accumulated in the passing of quite a bit of time, and at some point in the passing of the time, Jolly came over and lay down on the ground with her head in my lap. Sid lifted his arm from his eyes and looked at us and lowered his arm again and entered another period of not moving. Fran and Harvey kept talking with each other, and every once in a while Fran would rub a hand over Harvey’s whiskers for the sensation it gave her.

“I was just thinking that it’s been five years,” Jolly said.

“What’s been five years?” I said.

“Since Kirby and I were married. Would you believe it?”

“Five years is a long time, but not incredibly so.”

“Not nearly so long as forever, of course.”

“Not nearly.”

“That’s how long it’s been since you and I have not been married, I mean. Forever.”

“That’s not incredible, either. Lots of people have not been married since forever.”

“I fail absolutely to see what lots of people have to do with it. Speaking of you and me specifically, I certainly consider it incredible that forever should have passed without our being married sometime or other. Do you suppose we could have been married in some previous life or something?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t suppose anything of the kind.”

“Do you believe in previous lives?”

“I confess that I don’t. I’m not even sure that I believe in a subsequent life,” I added.

“That’s because you’re not religious. Sometimes I think you’re an absolute heathen, in fact. I regret it very much, because it prevents you from understanding me as you should. It’s quite difficult, of course, for a person who is not religious to understand another person who is.”

“I’m sorry that I’m a heathen and don’t understand you.”

Jolly’s eyebrows went up very slightly. “There is no necessity to apologize. One cannot be blamed for the way he thinks about such things.”

“Thank you. I’m glad to learn that your religion does not exclude tolerance.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I am very religious, but I am also very tolerant. In my opinion, if more people were tolerant, everything would be much simpler for everyone.”

“You certainly have something there. Take Kirby, for instance. If Kirby were more tolerant of certain things, it would be much simpler for you and me.”

“Well, perhaps that’s too much to expect. I must say that Kirby shows very few signs of being exceptionally tolerant.”

“That’s the impression I get myself, and consequently it might be a good idea if you were to take your head out of my lap.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that for the moment. As you know, Kirby is trying to catch a channel catfish, and he will consider it a great point of pride to succeed. Such things are extremely important to him, and unless he is fortunate enough to catch one quickly, he will be down there trying simply forever. Do you think he will catch one quickly?”

“I doubt it. I tried half the morning and was unable to catch one at all.”

“You see? So there is no need for the time being for me to take my head out of your lap.”

“Yes, I do see. Your point is, I believe, that it is unnecessary for him to be tolerant of things he doesn’t know anything about.”

“Well, that seems to me to go without saying. It is clearly obvious.”

“It is at that. You certainly do go straight to the crux of a problem.”

“I’m a very clear thinker. I really am.” A smile played at her lips.

“I’m convinced, however, that you were not thinking with your usual clarity when you were talking about our being married in a previous life. That seems rather foggy to me.”

She said, “I didn’t actually say we were married. I just asked if you considered it possible.”

“Nevertheless, the mere presence of the thought indicates an element of fogginess.”

Jolly pursed her lips. “Perhaps you’re right. The truth is, I don’t believe myself that we were ever married in a previous life, because if we had been married, I’m quite sure that I’d remember it. I wouldn’t be likely to forget something like that.”

“True. Now you are thinking as clearly as ever.”

“Thank you. Would you like to kiss me again?”

“In the presence of others?” I asked lamely.

“I really don’t believe they’d notice.”

“In this position, I don’t believe I could bend over for it. I’m not limber enough.”

She said, “I would be glad to come up to meet you.”

“In that case, we might accomplish it.”

We accomplished it, and apparently no one noticed, and afterward she let her head down into my lap again.

“Do you ever wonder how it happened?” she said.

“About you and me? I know perfectly well how it happened.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean about me and Kirby.”

“Oh. Well, I used to wonder, but I quit. I found it unpleasant.”

“I am willing to tell you, if you’d like to know,” Jolly said eagerly.

“Let me guess. He was handsome and gay and had a lot of money, and you were very young, and you fell desperately in love with him.”

“It was not like that at all. If I was ever in love with him, it was not desperately, and I have since gotten completely over it.”

“Perhaps it was mostly the money,” I said.

“That’s true. I’m sure it was mostly the money that appealed to me. I had never had any money, you see, and it seemed very desirable. Anyhow, it was not at all with him like it is with you. What I mean is, I am now all souped up and painful inside and cannot possibly live without you. Tell me, do you think I will someday get over being in love with you?”

“I’m certain of it,” I said firmly.

“That’s very sad. It makes me want to cry.”

“However sad it is, it is certainly true, and there is no use crying about it, however much you may feel like it. It seems to me that it would be much more sensible to do as I have tried to do more times than I can remember, and that is to start getting over it right now instead of waiting for it to start later and drearily by itself.”

“Sensible?” Her voice was shrill. “Do you call that sensible? I am utterly unable to follow you, Felix. I should think it would be much more sensible to make the most of the way we now feel while we still feel this way and the making is good.”

“There you go, thinking clearly again.”

“Well, it is a good thing for us that one of us manages to think clearly, or there would be absolutely no hope for us at all. I can’t understand why you get so befuddled.”

“Possibly it’s the beer. We have drunk quite a lot, you know.”

“You are right. We have. As a matter of fact, I am feeling rather giddy. Are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“It’s pleasant, though. Truly a pleasant feeling. Don’t you think so?”

“In spite of associated befuddlement, I do.”

“In that case, in order to insure its continuance, I suggest that you get us a couple more cans.”

“I’ll be happy to,” I said. “Could you just lift your head enough for me to slip out from under?”

She raised her head, and I got up and went over to the ice chest. When she heard me open it, Fran turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder.

“Are you getting more beer, Felix?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Would you please get some for Harvey and me?”

“It will be a pleasure.”

“In my opinion, beer is quite good enough for any reasonable person. Of course, it is impossible to expect some people to be reasonable.”

She glared briefly at Sid, but he didn’t move. I plugged four cans and distributed them and sat down again under Jolly’s head. She took her can in both hands and set it on her stomach and lay looking at it.

“It will be difficult to drink in this position,” she said.

“Yes, it will,” I said.

“I’m not at all sure that I can accomplish it.”

“I doubt it myself. I’ve tried it in the past and have always found it sloppy.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Well, you might try sitting up.”

“That’s a solution, of course, but I hate to resort to it.”

“I can’t think of any other, unless you want to use a straw.”

“Do you have a straw handy?”

“I don’t have a straw at all.”

“That’s out, then. I suppose there’s nothing to do but to sit up.”

“It looks like it.”

“You will understand, won’t you, that I do it with regret?”

“I’ll try.”

“I truly love to lie with my head in your lap and would not give it up voluntarily for anything less than this good cold beer.”

“There is no disgrace in being deserted for a beer. I won’t be offended.”

“It’s only temporary, of course,” she added quickly.

“That makes it all the easier to bear.”

She lifted the can of beer off her stomach and sat up. We sat there drinking the beer, and once in a while, if I listened closely, I could hear the whine of Kirby’s line on the gravel bar. All of sudden, without speaking or looking at us, Sid got up and walked off into the trees. Fran watched him go and shook her head sadly.

“He’s still sulking,” she said. “Besides being disgusting, he’s really rather pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Sid’s all right,” I said. “You oughtn’t to ride him so hard.”

“Ride him? Me ride Sid?” Fran looked shocked. “What in the world are you talking about, Felix? It’s positively Christian the way I look after that man, and I must say that I rather resent your accusation. The truth is, I’m practically exhausted most of the time looking after him and trying to improve his manners and all things like that, but I suppose it is far too much to expect of anyone that my kindness be recognized or appreciated.”

“I confess myself in error,” I said, “and I apologize.”

“Your apology is accepted.” She took a swallow of beer and rubbed her free hand automatically over Harvey’s whiskers. “I understand that you spoke without reflecting, Felix.”

“What time is it?” Harvey said.

“Almost two o’clock,” I said.

“Really? This day has certainly flown.”

“Yes, it has. It seems only an hour ago that it was the middle of the morning.”

“It’s the company,” Fran said. “Time always goes faster in good company.”

“Why did you ask the time?” Jolly said. “I wish you hadn’t done that. It’s rather depressing to think about time passing and all that. You know what I mean. Gone forever and no regaining it and everything.”

“I was just thinking that I promised to fry up some bullheads,” Harvey said, “and somehow or other I haven’t got around to it.”

“I don’t believe anyone wants any fried bullheads at this time,” Jolly said. “I suggest that you wait until around five or six o’clock.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Harvey said.

“No, I’m not. I’m quite full of beer and not hungry at all.”

“How about you, Fran?”

“I am equally full of beer, and equally not hungry. I support Jolly’s suggestion that we wait until five or six o’clock and reconsider the bullheads at that time.”

“Speaking of bullheads,” I said, “it is long past time that we should have run the line again.”

“That’s right,” Harvey said, “I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“So had I until just now. Do you think we ought to run it?”

“It should be run, all right, but I admit I’m not in the mood.”

Jolly said, “I think it might be amusing to run the line.”

“Why don’t you and Felix go run it, then?” Fran said. “Harvey is not in the mood, and I am not interested, so I can see no objection to your amusing yourself in that way if you choose.”

“Will you permit me to run the line with you, Felix?” Jolly said.

“I don’t think Kirby would approve of it,” I said.

Her eyes were suddenly deep and dark and very quiet, and I tried to see what was in them, in the depths of them, but it was impossible.

“You are right,” she said. “Kirby would certainly disapprove and might even kick up nasty about it. However, perhaps he himself will be willing to go with me.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You’ve had quite a lot of beer. Do you think you could stay in the boat?”

“Certainly. Do you think I am drunk? I assure you that I am not. I am only a little giddy, which is not the same thing.”

“All right. I’ll go down and fish with the rod while you and Kirby are running the line.”

“That would be a satisfactory arrangement, I think. It will give Harvey a chance to kiss Fran and show her how it feels with whiskers.”

“I was thinking about that,” Fran said. “Please don’t feel impelled to hurry. Harvey is in fact exceptionally shy, which is an unusual and charming virtue but imposes difficulties.”

“I’m sure you will be able to handle the situation competently,” Jolly said. “I have absolute faith in you, and you must let me know how you come out. Come along, Felix. Now that I have decided to run the line, I am becoming quite anxious to get started.”

We went down the path to the gravel bar, and Kirby had just got a strike. The rod was bent far over and the line from the rod to the water was as taut as a fiddle string, and we stopped to see if he would land the cat or lose it. I admit that I was rather hoping that he would lose it, which was a very small way to feel, and I admit that also, but it was nevertheless the way I felt. He would pump the rod back with his biceps bulging, and then he would let it fall forward and quickly take in the slack line, and he did this very efficiently, as if he knew just how it should be done, and he slowly brought the cat in, and we kept standing there watching until it was all over. He lifted the fish out of the water and turned and held it up hanging from the end of the line for us to see, and it was truly a beauty, about twenty inches long and sleek and slim and shining.

“What do you think of this one?” he said.

“It’s a beauty,” I said. “Truly a beauty.”

“Yes,” Jolly said. “I admire the way you did that, Kirby. The way you brought him in and everything was really admirable. You are to be congratulated.”

“It’s just a matter of knowing how,” Kirby said. “Of course, there’s actually a kind of knack to it besides. Some people have it and some don’t.”

“I dare say that’s true,” Jolly said. “And now that you have succeeded in catching a catfish, perhaps you will be willing to take me in the boat to run the trot line. Felix has given us permission to do it.”

“Where is the trot line set?”

“Just downstream a way,” I said. “About half way to the bend. You can see the line where it comes out of the water.”

“Oh. Well, okay. I can’t see the fun in running a trot line, however. This is the kind of fishing that is really sport. It requires skill.”

“Sure,” I said. “A kind of knack as well as knowing how.”

He kneeled down on the gravel and started to take the shining cat off the hook, and Jolly and I went over and got the boat in the water, and I held it steady while she walked out carefully to the stern and sat down. I kept holding it until Kirby came over and sat down on the center seat between the oarlocks and pushed off with one of the oars. He didn’t do much about the rowing, using the oars mostly just to guide the boat, because the current took them along fairly fast, and pretty quickly they were quite a way downstream. It was cool on the river, and shady, and very quiet and pleasant.

I turned and went across the gravel bar to where Kirby had left the rod. I picked it up and started casting, and when I looked back downstream again, they had angled into the bank where the line was tied and had started working slowly along the line toward the opposite bank. Kirby pulled up the drop lines and checked them and had to replace the bait on several of the hooks, but this time there was no luck at all, not a single bullhead. I went back to casting and did not look at them again for quite a while, and when I looked at last, they were going on downstream in the boat and were by that time on the bend and almost out of sight. In one place the sunlight slanted down through the trees and across the water in a wide strip, and as they passed through the strip the light made a kind of pale blaze of Kirby’s yellow hair.

They moved on around the bend and out of sight, and I was afraid. I thought at first that I would go after them along the bank, but then I decided that I wouldn’t, and I went instead up the bank and back to where Fran and Harvey were still sitting on the ground near the old cabin. Harvey had a bright smear of lipstick on his mouth and was looking quite pleased about the way things had been going.

“Where are Jolly and Kirby?” he said.

“As you know,” I said, “they have gone to run the trot line.”

“Well, it seems to me that they have had more than enough time to do that. It only takes a little while to run the trot line.”

“The truth is, they have gone on around the bend of the river.”

“Really?” Fran looked suddenly interested. “Why do you suppose they’ve done that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to take a boat ride. Or maybe Kirby is a guy who always wants to look around the next bend. Some people have an insatiable curiosity about such things.”

“Frankly, I consider both possibilities extremely unlikely,” Fran said. “I consider it much more likely that Kirby has decided to push his current program of compatibility a step beyond the pal stage.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, “and it is none of my business.”

I got another can of beer and sat down. Fran looked at me with a frown, and then went back to her smooching.

Everything seemed very quiet and desolate. I felt as if I were sitting in the midst of a vast ruin, and what I kept thinking was that the water of the river was very deep around the bend, and the current very strong. I sat there thinking this for a long, long time, and I couldn’t quit thinking it, although I wanted to, and after a while my head began to ache, and I put it in my hands and held it. I didn’t look up again or take my head out of my hands until I heard someone coming up from the river, and I knew even before I looked that it was Jolly and that she was alone. Her jersey and shorts were wet and adherent in the way of wet clothes, and although there was practically nothing to them when dry, there now seemed to be even less.

“What happened to you?” Fran said. “Did your clothes fall into the water?”

Jolly said breathlessly, “Kirby fell out of the boat, and I jumped in to try to save him, but it was no use. I’m very much afraid that he has drowned.”

“Fell out of the boat!” I said harshly. “Out of a flat-bottomed boat? What the hell were you doing, wrestling?”

She looked at me directly with the deep and dark and quiet eyes in which I could see no grief or shock or any emotion whatever, and I thought her lips moved briefly in the slightest smile, but I couldn’t be sure, and at that moment Sid walked out of the trees and across the clearing.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

No one answered immediately. Harvey got up off the ground and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped the lipstick off his mouth without really being conscious of what he was doing. He returned the handkerchief to his pocket and reached down and gave Fran a hand and helped her to her feet also.

“It seems that Kirby has fallen into the river and drowned,” he said.

Jolly said, a little harshly, “I tried to save him, but he was too heavy for me, and besides he was very frightened and kept fighting me, and he got away from me in the current and was gone.”

“Well, God-damn it,” Harvey shouted, “shouldn’t we be doing something?”

“I guess we should,” I said, “but I don’t know what.”

“Listen to me,” Sid said suddenly.

We all looked at him and waited for him to continue, and there was about him the same strange and rather pathetic dignity that he had displayed the time Kirby had abused him in the quarrel over Jolly’s black eye. That’s what I felt at first, anyhow, but after a minute I could see that it was more than that with him this time. It was a kind of cockiness, an odd assurance bordering arrogance, as if he had tapped in the last few minutes a source of strength no one had suspected.

“It is imperative to notify someone,” he said, “and I am sure that the county sheriff is the one to notify. I will go in Kirby’s car to do it, and in the meantime Felix and Harvey can go have a look to see if maybe Kirby managed to get out onto the bank farther downstream.”

“He is drowned,” Jolly said. “He was very heavy, and he kept fighting, and he got away in the current and was drowned.”

“That is almost certainly so,” Sid said, “but it will be expected of us to have made sure. I’ll go for the sheriff now and will be back as quickly as possible.”

He went over to the Caddy and got in and started it and turned it and drove away down the narrow road. Fran went over to Jolly and put an arm around her and began to cry. She was not crying in grief for Kirby, but in a kind of shock. I had never seen her cry before for any reason at all, and it did something strange and disturbing to her ugly face. I didn’t look directly at Jolly again. It was impossible for me to do it. I crossed the clearing and walked into the trees along the river and could hear Harvey coming steadily behind me.