Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,50
he had was because of Agnes. She had told him this, and he knew it was true. He had become hers, both body and soul, because he had purchased the refuge of her mother-arms.
On this mild winter Thursday, Paddy was casting about for the leaves under the hedge with a wire rake. He knew it was late in the year to rake leaves but it was something to do. The tines of the rake caught in the roots of the hedge and Paddy cursed under his breath. As he cursed, he glanced instinctively at the house even though he knew that Agnes had gone to the hairdresser's. Agnes didn't like cursing. She didn't like cursing or sleeping in church or drinking beer in the parlor, and when Paddy violated any of these rules he looked over his shoulder.
The rake jammed into a root and was caught there. Paddy said "shit." He looked behind at the house and shrugged his shoulders. Then he heard laughter from the backyard across the split-log fence. It was from either the Blake place or the one where the Earbrows used to live.
"Oh, honey," the voice said, "you don't want to let some little thing get you all in an uproar. Don't let a little thing like leaves goose you."
Paddy took his time finding the voice. Women embarrassed him, and women who talked like bartenders frightened him. He knew what Agnes said about women like that and she was right. Agnes was always right. Finally he saw the her of the voice. She was leaning against a birch tree. She was wearing a cape she'd had made from a Peruvian blanket and it didn't button in the front. It was loose and Paddy looked at her and wondered what held her breasts up that way. They lolled and swayed in the loose, low jersey she wore under the blanket jacket.
Paddy gulped and started to sweat. He looked up at the house again. Agnes would kill him. He had to do something. But he just stood there and wondered about the breasts. He was dressed in blue jeans, sneakers and an undershirt that allowed his muscles the rippling freedom they needed. It was much too cold for an undershirt and Agnes would talk to him about that, but still it felt nice, nice and cool. The breeze softly stirred the gray reddish hair on his arms, chest and shoulders but inside he was stirring as if his viscera were caught in the eye of a hurricane.
"You're Mrs. Blake," Paddy said.
"Call me Gilly," she said. She was laughing, laughing at the way he talked – it was like Red Skelton talked at a show they once did together. But Red Skelton had been kidding and Paddy Madigan was not kidding.
Gillian cut the laugh short. She had assumed that the rough, tough approach would be best with Paddy but now she was not so sure. She had mentally slotted Paddy Madigan beside Ernie Miklos, the late Ernie Miklos, in a category she thought of as, simply, Musclemen. But now, for the moment, she was not so sure.
Paddy couldn't take his eyes off her breasts. They bounced when she laughed, and when she stopped they ended up pointing up. He thought of the girl he had seen in Playboy Magazine once; she had breasts that pointed up. Agnes had found the magazine and burned it. Paddy's mind saw through the fabric and he could see molded pink flesh and sturdy nipples and he dropped his rake. He hoped he wouldn't get a hard-on.
"I've been dying to meet you," Gillian said. Her eyes turned brilliant and brindle like a feline in catnip and she planted a small lie. "I've wanted so much to meet you. You were always my hero."
Paddy stopped gulping. He understood the word "hero." There was a time – and the boys in any bar in Mineola would remember it – when he had been a hero. Paddy Madigan had been the pride of the gin mills, the man announcer Johnnie Addie always mentioned after the magic words: "And the stellar attraction." Paddy Madigan had been the white image on the Thursday night fights televised from St. Aloysius Arena; the man who fought his way to a fight with the light- heavyweight champion of the world. He was the crinkly-haired left-handed fighter who carried almost all before him – until the desperation that worked so long failed when it had to fail.