Pity Him Afterwards

He stared at her, unable for a second to say anything at all. But he had to say something, before the silence became unnatural. “It’s all right,” he muttered finally, and grimaced at the flatness of it.

She went on by, smiling, and as she passed him she gave him another of those sidelong looks from the corner of her eye. He stopped, six steps from the bottom, but could think of nothing to say.

It wasn’t his kind of cleverness. He had learned to be clever, but only in a certain way, only in the direction of silence and deception. The kind of cleverness that found things to say to women was something else entirely.

He turned and looked up after her. Her rump switched back and forth as she went up the stairs, making the skirt flare this way and that. She was wearing loafers and white socks; her legs were bare. Looking up, he saw her bare legs halfway up the thighs, in brief glimpses through the swaying skirt. Pale shadowed thighs, hidden away within the skirt.

She was the one. Not Loueen Campbell or Mary Ann McKendrick or anyone else at all. Cissie Walker was the one.

Because she had such a round body. And because she looked at him sidelong out of the corner of her eye. And because she would be eager, he was sure of it. As eager as he himself. As eager as Loueen Campbell in his daydreams.

He heard her go on up the stairs to the third floor, and after a minute he followed her.

Cleverness. Cleverness. He had to know what he was going to say before he got there. He had to be ready to say witty things, funny things, but suggestive things.

Like the people in The Merry Widow of Vichy. They were always saying witty and suggestive things to one another, and smiling.

His own face was frozen; he looked sullen and bitter and enraged, and defiantly afraid. He stopped in the second-floor hallway to try to make his face more pleasant. He stretched his lips wide in a grimace, hoping they would fall into a smile. He pressed his cheeks with the palms of his hands, and his cheeks were cold.

Was this any way? He had to appeal to her, he had to make her want him. He couldn’t be silent and frozen-faced.

But he could think of nothing witty to say to her. And he couldn’t make the muscles of his face relax. His hands clenched into fists, and he beat his fists together, furious at himself.

He had to think. He would go upstairs, up to her room. She would look up and see him. What would she say?

She would ask him what he was doing there.

He would say...

“Life is too boring downstairs.”

He whispered it aloud. “Life is too boring downstairs.” And — “I have better things to do.”

And she would say: “Oh? What things?”

He would glance meaningfully at her breasts. “All sorts of things.”

What would she say then?

He couldn’t think. He had no idea what she would say then.

But at least he had a beginning, he had something to get the conversation going. Once they were talking together, he would think of more things to say. The important part was to get started.

He went on upstairs to the third floor.

All the doors but one were closed. He went over to the open doorway and looked in. She was sitting on the bed. She was taking off her right shoe; her right leg was crossed over the left, hiking her skirt up to her hips. A band of yellow sunlight gleamed on her bare legs.

She saw him standing there, and leaped to her feet, pushing her skirt down over her legs. She was very angry. She snapped, “What the hell are you, a Peeping Tom?”

It was the wrong beginning, but he tried to keep to his part of the script. He smiled at her, a shaky and nervous smile, and said, “Life is too boring downstairs.” The words came out flat, like the memorized speech they were.

“Listen, you get away from here,” she said. “You want me to tell Bob Haldemann?”

He stepped into the room, his hands out in front of him in a pleading gesture. “I just want to be friends,” he said.

“You pick a funny way to be friends.” She flounced over to the closet, with only white socks on her feet, and got another pair of shoes, a pair of white sneakers. They reminded him of the asylum, and Doctor Chax.

He couldn’t help himself any more. He crossed the room and reached out and touched her arms, the flesh warm beneath his fingers. “Cissie—” he said.

“Now listen.”

She was backing up, more angry than frightened, and he kept moving toward her. She tried to push his hands away, and he gripped her arms, refusing to let go. “Be a good girl, Cissie,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper. “Be a good girl.”

“Get away from me. You crazy nut, you want me to scream?”

Scream. People coming. Shouts. Suspicion. Questions. Exposure. Doctor Chax.

She couldn’t be allowed to scream.

He moved his right hand back and formed it into a fist and drove it at her face.