to insist he wanted to get into the frat! Morty heard about it and wrote one of his letters from Denver: to Al Goetz, president of the chapter. “Do you want to have a real pair of perverts, right in the house?”
The president took Artie aside for a man-to-man talk. Hell, it was so bad, Artie even had to get James to come up, casually, like for a football game, but to remind Al Goetz of a thing or two. And hell, Al finally admitted everybody knew Artie was okay—why, Artie helled around in the Detroit cat houses with the rest of the boys; they knew he was regular. As James said, he’d even caught a dose at fifteen. But after James was gone, Al told Artie, Why not face the facts? The thing wasn’t only because of Morty’s tales. Judd simply was not well liked, so why make an issue of getting him in? “Oh, I know he’s your friend. You get along with him because you’re both brilliant young bastards. But let’s face it, Artie, there’d be more than one blackball. Why should he want to get his feelings hurt?”
At least—a point for the defense—Judd didn’t push it. He suddenly was against fraternities. He even made a Hebe question out of it. A principle.
The fact was, the Delts had taken him for a ride. For a couple of days he had the idea he was going to show up Alpha Beta by getting into a real gentile fraternity. Some Delt had made the mistake of inviting Judd over because of his being a genius prodigy and a millionaire too. But then they dropped him cold, and Judd suddenly made a principle out of it. He was against the idea of Jewish frats and non-Jewish frats. Being a Jew was simply an accident of birth. So now he was anti-fraternity. He would never join a Hebe frat either, on principle. Moreover, frat men were all a bunch of rubber stamps, Judd declared. They would come out a bunch of Babbitts. He would drop over to the house and spout this stuff, and some of the fellows would laugh, but a lot of them didn’t like it. They started telling Artie to keep his friend away from the place. On account of Judd, he’d almost become unpopular.
Artie walked a little faster. He thought of an idea that suddenly made him feel bubbly, even gay. He would go in through the basement and up the back stairs. He would give Dog Eyes the scare of his life.
Judd was sitting erect, unable to study. He detested being at the mercy of a physical need. It seemed never to leave him. Others didn’t have it so bad. Artie didn’t have it so bad. Those two years at Ann Arbor, near Artie, had nearly driven him crazy.
None of the coeds would put out. At least, not for him. The cat houses weren’t enough. He had to have it all the time—oversexed, he guessed.
And that was the time when the image of Artie began to get in the way. Even when he was with a girl. Inside himself he would be saying to a drunken, laughing Artie, “You goddam whore! You goddam whore!” And he would be tearing at Artie; whoever she was, he would make her into Artie, and he would be tearing in a rage at his own bondage, at having to have it, at the flesh being stronger than the intellect.
The times he had waited, in agony like tonight, always waiting for that capricious bastard—“See you at nine”—and you’d wait, getting more and more excited, imagining what you would do to him as soon as he came in.
Then, like some damn girl, Artie would behave as if the two of you had never done it at all, as if an idea like that never entered his thoughts. The bastard didn’t need it. He was like the girls who didn’t really need it the way a man did.
The house was safe now. If only Artie would show up, they could be alone to themselves in the house, in this room. For two hours, even longer, without the worry of someone walking in.
Artie was already late. You could never be sure with Artie. He could be precisely on time if it was for carrying out a plan. Or else he could stand you up. But under Judd’s fretful impatience there was an almost gratified feeling. Artie, superior, should acknowledge no convention of punctuality.
Judd touched the typewriter. He felt a dreadful reluctance to part with it, to destroy it. It was the one thing he had kept from all they had done together; it was like a token of their pact. Perhaps instead of getting rid of it, they could hide it somewhere? The brawls they had had over this machine! Artie, every time he came over, claiming by right it should have been his!
Judd had an impulse, tender and tragic, to write a farewell note on the machine, a lone confession, taking all the blame. He could mail the note and then disappear. They would recognize the typing. If one could vanish, vanish without an act of death and yet somehow cease to be, truly vanish, dissolving into nothingness as though never even born! Would Artie feel regret? Would Artie appreciate what he had done?
For, caught or not, Judd had a heavy presentiment that it was over now between Artie and himself. And parting with this machine would be like closing the circle.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
