Читать книгу The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart - Страница 15

When I got home, Lillian and Arlene Ecstein were collapsed side by side on the couch in their slacks and both were laughing as if they’d just finished splitting a bottle of gin. Arlene, by the way, always seems permanently eclipsed by the brilliant pinwheeling light of her husband. A little short from my six-foot-four point of view, she usually looked prim and prudish with thick horn-rimmed glasses like Jake’s and undistinguished black hair tied back in a bun. Although there were unconfirmed rumours that on her otherwise slender body she owned two marvelously full breasts, the baggy sweaters, men’s shirts, loose blouses and over-sized smocks she always wore resulted in no one’s noticing her breasts until they’d known her for several months – by which time they’d forgotten all about her.

In her own sweet, simpleminded way I think she may once have given me a housewifely come-on, but being married, a dignified professional man, a loyal friend and having already forgotten all about her, I had resisted. (As I recall she spent one whole evening asking me to take pieces of lint off her smock: I spent the evening taking pieces of lint off her smock.) On the other hand, vaguely, late at night, after a hard day at the mental hospital, or when Lil and the children all had the flu or diarrhea or measles, I would feel regret at being married, a dignified professional man and a loyal friend. Twice I had daydreamed of somehow engulfing one entire Arlene breast in my mouth. It was clear that were fate ever to give me a reasonable opportunity – e.g. she were to climb naked into bed with me – I would yield; we would have one fine quick fire of first fornication and then settle into some dull routine of copulation on the q.t. But as long as the initiative were left to me I would never do anything about it. The two-thirds married professional man friend would always dominate the bored animal. And, as you, my friend, know, the combination would be miserable.

Although Lil’s laugh was loud, even raucous, Arlene’s was like a steady muffled machine-gun; she slumped lower on the couch as she laughed, while Lil stiffened her back and chortled at the ceiling.

‘Well, what have you two been doing lately?’ I asked, sliding my briefcase under the desk and hanging my raincoat neatly in a puddle on the floor just inside the kitchen.

‘We’ve just been splitting a bottle of gin,’ Lil said happily.

‘It was that or dope and we couldn’t find any dope,’ Arlene added. ‘Jake doesn’t believe in LSD and Lil couldn’t find yours.’

‘That’s strange. Lil knows I always keep it in the boy’s toy cabinet.’

‘I was wondering why Larry went off to school without a fuss this morning,’ Lil said, and, having said something amusing, she stopped laughing.

‘Well, what’s the occasion? Is one of you getting divorced or having an abortion?’ I asked, fixing myself a martini from the still two-thirds full bottle of gin.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Lil said. ‘We’d never dream of such high points. Our lives ooze. Not ooze excitement or sex appeal, just ooze.’

‘Like vaginal jelly from a tube,’ Arlene added.

They sat slumped on the couch looking grief-stricken for half a minute and then Lil perked up.

‘We might form a Psychiatrists’ Wives Invitational Club, Arlene,’ she said. ‘And not invite Luke and Jake.’

‘I would hope not,’ I said and pulled a desk chair around and, straddling it theatrically, drink in hand, faced the females with fatigue.

‘We could be charter members of PWIC,’ Lil went on, scowling. ‘I can’t quite figure out what good it will do us.’ Then she giggled. ‘Perhaps, though, our PWIC will grow bigger than yours,’ and both women, after staring at me pleasantly for a few seconds, began giggling stupidly.

‘We could have our first social project by changing husbands for a week,’ said Arlene.

‘Neither of us would notice any difference,’ Lil said.

‘That’s not true. Jake brushes his teeth in a very original way, and I bet Luke has abilities I don’t know about.’

‘Believe me,’ Lil said, ‘he doesn’t.’

‘Sssss,’ said Arlene. ‘You shouldn’t show public contempt for your husband. It will bruise his ego.’

‘Thank you, Arlene,’ I said.

‘Luke’s an in-tell-i-gent man,’ she managed to get out. ‘I’m not even a liberal arts woman, and he’s studied … he’s studied …’

‘Urine and stools,’ completed Lil, and they laughed.

Why is it that I can lead my life of quiet desperation with complete poise, dignity and grace, while most women I know insist on leading lives of quiet desperation which are noisy? I was giving the question serious thought when I noticed Lil and Arlene crawling toward me on their knees, their hands clasped in supplication.

‘Save us, O Master of the Stools, we’re bored.’

‘Give us the word!’

It was good to be back in the quiet of home and fireside after a trying day with the mentally disturbed.

‘O Master, help us, our lives are yours.’

The effect of two crawling, begging, drunken women wiggling their way toward me was that I got an erection, not professionally or maritally the most helpful response, but sincere. Somehow I felt that more was expected of a sage.

‘Rise, my children,’ I said gently and I myself now stood up before them.

‘O Master, speak!’ Arlene said, on her knees.

‘You wish to be saved? To be reborn?’

‘Oh, yes!’

‘You wish a new life?’

‘Yes, yes!’

‘Have you tried the New All with Borax?’

They collapsed forward in groans and giggles, but straightened quickly with a ‘We have, we have, but still no satori’ (from Lil), and ‘even Mr Clean’ (from Arlene).

‘You must cease caring,’ I said. ‘You must surrender everything. EVERYTHING.’

‘Oh, Master, here, in front of your wife!’ and they both giggled and fluttered like sparrows in heat.

‘EVERYthing,’ I boomed irritably. ‘Give up all hope, all illusion, all desire.’

‘We’ve tried.’

‘We’ve tried and still we desire.’

‘We still desire not to desire and hope to be without hope and have the illusion we can be without illusions.’

‘Give up, I say. Give up everything, including the desire to be saved. Become as weeds that grow and die unnoticed in the fields. Surrender to the wind.’

Lillian suddenly stood up and walked to the liquor cabinet.

‘I’ve heard it all before,’ she said, ‘and the wind turns out to be a lot of hot air.’

‘I thought you were drunk.’

‘The sight of you preaching is enough to sober anyone.’

Arlene, still on her knees, said strangely, blinking through her thick glasses, ‘But I’m still not saved. I want to be saved.’

‘You heard him, give up.’

‘That’s salvation?’

‘That’s all he offers. Can Jake do better?’

‘No, but I can get a family discount with Jake.’

And they laughed.

‘Are you two really drunk?’ I asked.

‘I am, but Lil says she wants all her faculties intact to stay one up on you. Jake’s not home so I’ve given my faculty a vacation.’

‘Luke never loses any of his faculties: they’ve all got tenure,’ Lil said. ‘That’s why they’re all senile.’ Lil smiled a first bitter and then pleased-with-herself smile and raised a fresh martini in mock toast to my senile faculties. With slow dignity I moved off to my study. There are moments even a pipe can’t dignify.